There was talk of that ride in the bunkhouse when the men came in. Jimmy Oliver had seen from a distance and asked Beck for the story. He related the incident rather lightly and ended:
"Tried to keep her off him, but only got orders to take orders. If she breaks her neck tryin' some such tricks, I wouldn't be surprised."
"She appears to have sand, though," Oliver commented, as though he were making a concession.
Others had opinions to pass, briefly, to the point. Those men were not given to accepting readily a stranger and this stranger, being a woman, came to them under an added handicap. Where a man, inept and showing the same courage, might have found himself quietly accepted, Jane's attempt at riding was not received with noticeable warmth. The performance was in her favor, and that was about all that could be said.
A close observer might have noticed that Tom Beck gave attention whenever another spoke of their new boss, as though deeply interested in what the men had to say. Yet when he spoke of her, his manner was rather disparaging.
Mail had come in that afternoon and, a happening without precedent, there were two letters for Two-Bits. The man, who could not write and whose reading was limited to brands, never received mail and before he arrived there was speculation as to the writer of the one letter. Of the other there was no mystery because each man of the outfit had received a similar envelope containing a circular letter from a boot manufacturer.
Two-Bits arrived late, riding slowly toward the corral with his eyes on the ranch house for a possible look at his fair employer.
"Mail for you, Two-Bits," Curtis remarked casually as he entered.
The others concealed their interest while Beck handed the letters to Two-Bits, who stood eyeing them gravely, striving to cover his surprise. This could not be done, though, for his agitated Adam's apple gave him away as he stood with a letter in each hand, looking from one to the other.
"I'll bet two-bits somebody's dead," he said with concern, then walked to the window under a growing sense of importance at his deluge of correspondence.
He opened the letter which they knew contained the solicitation of the maker of boots and all watched him as he stood scowling at it for minutes. He folded the sheet with a sigh and stuffed it, with the other letter, into hischappocket and walked thoughtfully to his bunk, sitting down heavily, elbows on his knees. He shook his head sorrowfully and made a depreciatory clicking with his tongue.
"Boys, I always knowed that girl'd turn out a bad one! It's awful.... An' her mother a lady!"
For a moment their restraint held and then their laughter cut loose with a roar. Curtis fell face down on his bunk and laughed until his entire length shook. Jimmy Oliver gasped for breath, hands across his stomach, and the others reeled about the floor or leaned against the walls, weak with mirth.
"It ain't nothin' to laugh at!" Two-Bits protested, but when he failed to convince them of the gravity he shammed, he rose and permitted an abashed grin to distort his freckled face, muttered something about feeding his horse and walked out.
It was Saturday evening in a season of light work and the social diversions of Ute Crossing had called HC riders. Hepburn departed early and after their horses had eaten Beck and Two-Bits rode out of the ranch townward bound. Out of sight of the building Two-Bits said:
"Tom, my eyes ain't very good. I'd like to get you to read this here other letter for me."
Beck knew that such confidence was high compliment for Two-Bits was sensitive over his educational shortcomings, so he took the letter and, after glancing down the single page, said:
"This is from the Reverend Azariah Beal."
"Oh, my gosh! That's my brother! What's the matter with him, Tom?"
The other read as follows:
My dear Brother:—God willing, I shall visit you. I have often been impelled to renew our fraternal relationships but my various charges have demanded my sole attention. Now, however, I am on a brief sojourn in the marts of trade and my interests call me in your direction. I expect to arrive shortly after you receive this. May the Almighty guard and bless thee and keep thee safe until our hands meet in the clasp of brotherly love.
"Oh, my gosh!" cried Two-Bits again, Adam's apple leaping and his gray eyes, usually so mild, alight with enthusiasm. "He's comin' to visit me. Gosh, Tom, but he's a smart man! Ain't that elegant language? Say, he's the smartest man in our family an' he's comin' clean from Texas to see me."
"How long since you've seen him?"
"Oh, quite a while. Since I was three years old."
"And how long ago was that?"
"You got me. I heard about him. He's a preacher. My, oh my, butshe'll like him. He's smart, like she is."
His manner was high elation and he spoke breathlessly, and while they trotted on he chattered in his high voice, eulogizing the virtues of this brother he had not seen since infancy, regaling the other with long and vague tales of his accomplishments. Pressed for details he could not offer them because his knowledge of the relative had come to him verbally through the devious channels of the cattle country, but this did not shake his conviction that the Reverend Beal was peerless.
Tom's mind was not on the extravagant talk of Two-Bits. Curiously, it persisted in thinking of Jane Hunter.
Two days before he had thought this girl from the east was a rattle-brained piece of inconsequence with her selection of a foreman by the drawing of straws. Now he was not so sure that she did not possess at least several admirable qualities. He had offended her, gently bullied her, only last evening; he had sensed the waning of her own feeling of superiority, had understood that, behind her pique, she took to heart the things he had said, things which he had said not because he thought she should know them but because he wanted to see how she would react to blunt truths.
She wanted something very badly. Not money; that had been a means. Perhaps it was that vague thing, Herself, of which he had spoken. He did not understand, but he liked her determination.... And what was this other stranger, this man, to her?
He put his horse into a lope with a queer misgiving. He was taking this woman seriously! He was saying slighting things about her and yet hoping that other men would speak about her highly! He had never taken many things—particularly women—seriously before and his experience with women had not been meager. It frightened him....
They dismounted before the saloon which adjoined the hotel, eased their cinches and approached the doorway.
In the shadow of the next building two men were talking and Beck eyed the figures closely. One, he knew, was Hepburn, and the other, from the intonation of his cautiously lowered voice, he took to be Pat Webb, the rancher of whom he had spoken to Jane Hunter, telling her that his presence in the country was not an asset for her.
He went inside, rather absorbed. Sam McKee was there, one of Webb's riders, the one on whom Beck had inflicted terrible punishment for cruelty to a horse. McKee looked away, a nasty light playing across his gray eyes, but Beck did not even give him a glance. What was Hepburn doing in close talk with Webb? he asked himself. For years Webb had been under suspicion as a thief and a friend of the lawless. Colonel Hunter had never trusted him, and now the foreman of the HC was talking with him, secretly....
A moment later Hepburn entered and lounged up to the bar and shortly afterwards Webb came in. He was a small man with sharp features and bright, button-like eyes which roved restlessly. His skin was mottled, his lips hard and cruel; his body seemed to be all nerves for he was in constant motion.
Webb ordered a drink and glanced about, eyeing Beck and Two-Bits with a suggestive smile. He drank with a swagger and wiped his lips with a sharp smack, still smiling as though some unpleasant thought amused him.
A man at the far end of the bar moved closer to Hepburn.
"How's the new boss?" he said with a grin, and Hepburn said, in his benevolent manner, that he believed she would do very well.
Others, interested, came closer and more questions followed. Then Webb broke in:
"I shouldn't think that you HC waddies 'uld be in town nights any more,"—his glittering eyes on them rather jubilantly.
The talk stopped, for Webb, unsavory as to reputation, was still a figure in the country and his manner as he spoke was laden with significance.
"How's that, Webb?" Hepburn asked.
"How's that!" the other mocked. "I've seen her, ain't that enough? There's only two reasons why men want to come to this hole nights; one's booze, an' th' other's women. You can carry your booze out home an'—"
He went on with his blackguard inference and when he had ended a laugh went up, a ribald, obscene, barroom laugh. It had reached its height when Tom Beck, whose eyes had been on Hepburn as Webb gave voice to his insult, elbowed the foreman from his way and faced the one who had occasioned that laugh.
There was in his manner a quality which caught attention like nippers.
He stood, forcing Webb to look into his threatening face a quiet instant. Then he spoke:
"That's a lie!"
The bantering smile swept from the other's face and his mouth drew down in a slanting snarl.
"What's a lie?"
"What you said is a lie, Webb, an' you're a liar—"
The smaller man's hand whipped to his holster and Beck, breaking short, closed on him, fingers like steel gripping the ready wrist.
"Don't try that with me, you rat!"
With a steady pull he lifted the resisting hand which gripped the gun away from the man's side while Webb struggled, cursing as he found himself unable to resist that strength.
"Give me that gun!"
Beck wrenched the weapon free. The group had drawn back and behind him Sam McKee made a quick movement. Two-Bits, beside him, dropped his hand to his hip and muttered:
"Keep out of this!"
McKee, hate flickering in his face, subsided, without protest, as a craven will.
Tom broke the gun and the cartridges scattered on the floor. He closed it with a snap and sent it spinning down the bar, clear to the far end. His eyes had not left Webb's face.
"You're a liar," he said again quietly. "You're a liar and you're going to tell all the boys here that you're a liar."
"Don't tell me I lie!"—retreating a step as Beck's body swayed toward him.
"You lied," Tom said quietly, though his voice was not just steady. His hands were clenched and he held them slightly before his body as though yearning for opportunity to seize upon and injure the other.
"What is it to you, anyhow, if—"
"It's this to me, Webb: It makes me want to strangle the foul breath in your throat! That's what it is to me an' before these boys I will if you don't swallow your own dirty words just to get their taste.
"I don't want to be a killer, even over such as you are, but you've got me mad. We don't know an' nobody else knows how this girl's goin' to make it in this country, but, by God, Webb, she's goin' to have a fair chance. There ain't going to be any rotten talk that ain't called for an' it ain't called for ... yet.
"I expect I'd get into trouble if I killed you for this. There's just one chance for me to keep out of trouble, and that's for you to say you lied!"
He moved closer as Webb retreated slowly, his spurs ringing ever so slightly, yet their sound was audible in the stillness.
"Say it!" he insisted. "Say it, you whelp!"
Webb's face had gone from red to the color of suet and the blotches stood sharply out against the pallor. His dirty assurance was beaten down and before this man he was frightened ... and enraged at his own fright.
"Mebby I spoke too quick—"
"You lied! Nothin' short of that! Say you lied and say it now.... Quick!"
He half lurched forward, lifting his eager, vengeful hands, when Webb relaxed and gave a short, half laugh and said:
"Have it your own way. I lied, I guess. I didn't mean—"
"That'll do, Webb. You've said all that's necessary."
He stood back and dropped his hands limply to his side, eyeing the other with dying wrath. His gaze then went to Hepburn and clung there a moment, eloquent of contempt and he might as well have said: "You're her foreman. Why didn'tyoutake this up?"
Then he moved to the bar and asked for a drink. Constrained talk arose. Webb sulkily recovered his gun and stood close to Sam McKee, drinking. From the doorway which led into the hotel office Dick Hilton turned back, whistling lowly to himself, a speculative whistle.
Tom Beck rode home alone, hours before he had intended to leave town. Why had he done that? Always he had disliked Webb but why had this thing roused in him such tremendous rage? he asked as he unsaddled.
He laughed softly to himself as though he had done something ridiculous; then he strolled down toward the creek and stood under the cottonwoods a long interval, watching a lighted chamber window.
"You're a queer little yellow-head," he said aloud to that window. "You're the kind that gets men into trouble, but maybe you're ... worth it, a lot of it."
He stood for some time, until his wrath had wholly gone and the mood which sent merriment dancing in his eyes had returned. It had been a day of understanding: he had broken down the barrier of deceit which Hepburn had attempted to build, he had come to understand that there was something strange in the pursuit of Jane Hunter by Dick Hilton, he had understood that in his employer was at least a physical courage which was promising, he had humiliated Webb and given the whole country to understand that there should be no doubting of the new girl's reputation.
Of those incidents the only one now giving him concern was the attitude of the foreman. His suspicion was strong, his evidence wholly inadequate.
Tom stood beside his bunk for a time. He had thrown down his gauntlet; he had taken a chance. He might, from now on, face danger or humiliation but he experienced a relief at knowledge that so far as he was concerned there was no longer anything under cover. He did not fear Hepburn or Webb so far as his own safety went. But there were other things, he told himself.
Whatwasup? Just what game would Hepburn play ... if any? And who was that man from the East? To what was Jane's confusion due that afternoon? Was it only embarrassment? Only?
He dozed off and woke with a start. Again he felt the weight of her body on his arm, again the warmth of her breath on his cheek. He lay there with his heart hammering, then, with a growl, rolled over and went to sleep.
Well he could that night! But other nights were coming when he would ponder the significance of Hilton, when the cloud which he then saw vaguely over Jane Hunter's future would be real and appalling, when he would actually feel her body in his arms, when her warm breath would mingle with her warm tears on his cheek, when he would hope that death might come to him as a tribute to her. Oh, yes, Tom Beck could put it all aside and sleep this night, but there were others coming ... other nights....
Jane Hunter was in work up to her trim elbows. She had little time for anything else. Twice again Dick Hilton came to see her, riding a horse in the second visit, but his stays were not lengthy ... and not satisfactory, because the girl had little thought for anything but ranch affairs.
For long hours she sat at the desk which she had placed in a bay window that commanded a superb view of far ridges and pored over records she had found. She discovered a detailed diary of events for the past ten years, a voluminous chronicle kept more for the sake of giving self-expression to the old colonel than for an efficient record, but it served her well as a key to the fortunes of the property.
From time to time she sent for one of her men and quizzed him rigidly on some phase of the work with which he was particularly familiar, never satisfied until she had learned all that he could teach her. Every evening Hepburn sat with her and discussed ranch affairs at length, Jane forcing him into argument to defend his statements.
While with the girl Dad maintained his paternal, patronizing attitude, yet he was not content, as was evident from the moroseness which he displayed before the men. He had been stripped of initiative until his authority was reduced to executing orders; this, despite the fact that Jane depended on him for most of her information.
Beck watched the foreman's attitude carefully. Hepburn was chagrined, yet dogged, as though staying on and accepting the situation for definite purpose. It had been decided after Jane had argued away Hepburn's objections that Beck was to have a free hand with the horses, gathering the saddle stock and getting it in shape for the summer's work, breaking young horses, watching the mares and colts. This made it unnecessary for Beck to look to the older man for detailed orders and delayed the clashes which were bound to come between them.
Jane's approach to her responsibilities was considered admirable by the men, but it occasioned little comment. Their judgment of her was still suspended; that is, with the exception of Two-Bits. Her first look had won him without reservation.
"She's smart!" he declared at frequent intervals. "She's the smartest girl I've ever seen ... an' the loveliest!" The last with a drop in the voice which provoked laughter.
Once he said to Beck:
"My gosh, Tommy, how'd you like to have wife like her?"
The other smiled cryptically.
"Now you're gettin' into a profound subject," he said. "It ain't wise to pick out a wife like you'd pick out a horse. There ain't much can fool a man who knows horses when he looks one over careful-like, but there's a lot about women that you can't know by lookin' 'em over and watching 'em step."
He was watching Jane "step" and though he still was the first to listen when others spoke of her qualities his manner toward her was the least flattering of any.
After she had ridden the sorrel twice, each time accompanied by Beck or Hepburn she sent Two-Bits to saddle him.
"What you doing with that horse?" Beck asked, looking up from the hoof of a colt which he pared gently to reveal some hidden infection.
"She wants him to ride," the cowboy explained.
"Goin' alone?"
"Guess so."
"Then take that saddle off and put it on the little pinto."
"But she said to—"
"Makes no difference. You take it off or I'll make you look like two bits, Mex!"
On finding her order miscarried Jane demanded explanation.
"Tommy, he told me," Two-Bits said, uneasily.
"But I ordered the sorrel—"
"And I told Two-Bits to give you this paint, ma'am," Beck said, the foot of the colt still between his knees.
"And why?"—with a show of spirit.
"Because you ain't up to him yet and he ain't down to you. If somebody was with you, it'd be different. You can't ride him alone, ma'am."
She gave her head an indignant toss and was about to demand the execution of her plan but he turned back to his work, talking gently to the animal. Then with a grudgingly resigned sigh she walked toward the pinto, for there was something about Beck that precluded argument.
Again she told him of a contemplated visit to the ranches further down the creek.
"Why, ma'am?" he asked.
"There are many things to talk over, plans for the summer's work and the like. Besides, I want to become acquainted."
He smiled and said:
"That last is fine, but I guess you'd better wait for the rest."
"Wait? What for?"
"Until you know, ma'am. You see, you've only been here a little while; you've learned a lot, but you don't know enough to talk business with anybody yet. It won't be good for you to go talking about something you don't understand."
"I think I am capable of judging that," she said bruskly. "I will go."
But she did not. She had intended to go the next day but as she lay awake that morning she told herself that he had been right, she did not know enough about her affairs to discuss her relationships with neighbors intelligently. She still smarted from his frankness, but the hurt was leavened by a feeling that behind his presumption had been thought of her own welfare.
She tired quickly in the first days that she rode and once, remarking on it, she drew this advice from Beck:
"You'd do a lot better without corsets."
Simply, bluntly, impersonally and with so much assurance that she could not even reply. His observation had smacked of no disagreeable intimacy. She had told him that she tired; he had given her his idea of the cause.
She took off her corsets.
A day of cold rain came on; at noon the downpour abated for a time and Jane asked Hepburn to ride down the creek with her to look over land that was to be cleared and irrigated.
"Have you got a slicker, ma'am?" Beck asked when she requested that a horse be saddled.
She had none.
"There ain't an extra one on the place," he said, "so I guess you'd better not go."
"But the rain is over. Anyhow, what hurt will a wetting do?"
"I don't guess the rain's all over," he said. "And to get wet and cold ain't a good thing for anybody; it'd be a mighty bad thing for you. You're a city woman; you can't do these things yet."
An exasperating sense of inferiority came over her, bringing a helpless sort of rage. This man was not even her foreman and yet he brought her up short, time after time. She started to tell him so, but changed her mind. Also, she changed her plans for the day.
He was not rough, not obtrusive in any of this. Just frank and simple, and when she bridled under it all she saw that twinkle creep into his eye, as though she were a child and her spirit amused him!
But she did more than amuse. She could not see, she could not know; nights he roused from sleep and lay awake trying to fathom the sensations he experienced; days he rode without sufficient thought for the work that was before him. At times he was impelled to be irritable toward her and this because his stronger impulse was to be gentle!
He did not want to care for this woman and he found himself caring in spite of himself! He rode to town and spent an evening with a waitress from the hotel, taking her to a picture show, paying her broad compliments, seeing her pride rise because of his attentions, and he rode home before daylight, disgusted with himself. His life was being reshaped, his tastes, his desires. His caution against taking chances was being beaten down.
She commenced to ride with him regularly and these rides grew longer as she found her body becoming toughened and her endurance greater until they were together many hours each day, until, in fact, escorting her had become Beck's job. The ostensible purpose of this was to learn the country and the manner of range work but though she did learn rapidly their talk was largely personal. Beck was not responsive and the more reserved he became the greater Jane's efforts to force him to talk of himself.
These efforts netted her little and after a time she gave up, tentatively, and adopted other means of winning his confidence.
Once she helped him gather a bunch of horses that had not been corraled for seasons. The way led down a steep point and Jane was ahead, holding up the bunch while Beck crowded them from behind. She took the descent with a degree of hesitation for the going—so steep that she was forced to clamp a hand behind her cantle to retain a seat—chilled her with fear. On the level she fanned the sorrel and kept ahead of the horses until she could lead them safely into a corral.
The gate closed, Jane looked at Beck with sparkling eyes, expecting a word of reward, but he only said:
"You've got to keep goin' with horses. The country's all got to look level to you. You slowed up bustin' off that point."
The rebuke hurt her ... and stimulated her ambition.
He taught her to use a rifle and she brought down her first deer, a yearling buck, at long range.
"I told you to hold just behind his shoulder; see where you hit," he said, indicating the wound, a hand's breadth too far back.
She shot with his revolver and he told her that she would never learn to use the weapon. She bade him teach her the rudiments of roping and he decried the woman movements of arms and body.
In all this he was quick to criticise, niggardly of praise; ready to teach, reluctant to grant progress.
She was resentful but her resentment was no match for her determination. Now and then his rebukes whipped flushes to her cheeks and more than once she left him with tears standing in her eyes, only to tell herself aloud that shewouldmake him acknowledge her accomplishments....
Once, riding on alone after Jane had turned back toward the ranch Beck encountered Sam McKee. The man had dismounted and was recinching when Tom passed him. He looked up with that baleful expression, as though he was impelled to do the HC rider great harm and held back only by his cowardice. When Tom had passed McKee mounted and before he started on his way he turned to shout over his shoulder:
"Chaperone!"
In it he put all that contempt which small, timid boys put into their shouted taunts.
Beck was not angered but that gave him something to think about.
Another time as, on his roan, he led the sorrel toward the gate to the houseyard he saw Hepburn smiling at him with scornful humour and when the foreman saw that Beck had seen he said:
"A regular chaperone, ain't you?"
Tom did not reply though it roiled him. He thought about the remark at length but the thing which interested him was that Hepburn had used the same word that McKee had used.... Was that, he asked himself, mere chance?
They had ridden far to the eastward one afternoon and returning long after dark Jane made a meal herself and they ate together at her table. Beck was noticeably restrained and when finished hastened to leave.
"Can't you sit and talk with me a while?" she asked.
"I could, ma'am, but is it necessary?"
"Not necessary to the business, perhaps, but it might mean a pleasant evening for me."
He gave her steady gaze for steady gaze and then said:
"Anybody would think you were courtin' me, ma'am."
She laughed easily, yet her gaze wavered. She asked:
"And what if I should be?"
This disconcerted him but he replied:
"It's likely I'd quit."
"I'm ... wholly distasteful to you, then?"
"If I was to say yes, it'd hurt your feelings, needless. So I won't. I don't mind tellin' you, though, that the country is calling me your chaperone."
"And does what people say worry you?"
"Not when they talk about something that I'm responsible for. I didn't hire out as a ... a companion, ma'am."
She stepped closer, hands behind her and said:
"The first time you talked to me at any length you had a great deal to say about respect. No one had ever talked to me as you did. I took it because it was true ... and I respected you.
"Since that time I have been trying to be worthy of the respect of you men; of yours particularly because you are the only one with whom I have talked so frankly about myself. But at every turn you repulse me, drive me back. Nothing that I do seems to be pleasing to you. You pick on me, Tom Beck! Why do you do it?"
He eyed her calculatingly.
"What would you think if I told you that it was because I don't like you?"
"I would think it was not the truth."
He flushed and this time his eyes fell from hers.
"I would think just that, but I might be wrong." She breathed rapidly, one hand on a gold locket that was at her throat. "I might think that you fear that becoming my friend would be taking a chance ... but I might not want to think that.
"You were the first man who ever dared tell me just how little I have amounted to. You are the first individual that ever made me feel ashamed of myself. You did those things; you opened my eyes, you showed me what real achievement is.
"Now I'm fighting for a place. I have won one thing: my self respect. Now I'm going to win another: the respect of other people and if I can win their respect I can win their friendship.
"I may be overconfident. Time will prove that. But there is one thing I want, Tom Beck, and that is your friendship. Before I get through, and if I succeed, you are going to be glad to be my ... friend!"
There was challenge in her tone, which, withal its assurance, was sweet and gentle, almost appealing; and that combination of qualities indicated that her words did not express her whole thought. It steeled him and with that mocking twinkle again he said:
"You seem quite sure, ma'am."
"As sure as I have ever been of anything in my life!"
But her assurance did not compare with her desire, for when he had gone she was seized with the fear that she had said too much, had gone too far. And that which she had boasted would be hers was to Jane Hunter a precious possession.
At sunset a girl rider descended from the uplands into the shadows of Devil's Hole. The big brown which carried her picked his way slowly down the treacherous trail, nose low, ears forward, selecting his footing with care.
The girl sat braced back in her saddle. Her face was dark, eyes filled with a brooding, but the mouth though sternly set showed a rueful droop at the corners.
Her mind was not on her progress. She was lost in a very definite consideration, something which stirred resentment, it was evident from her face. Finally she drew a sharp deep breath of impatience.
"Oh, get along, you dromedary!" she muttered and rowelled her horse sharply.
The big beast sprang forward with a grunt and went down the trail in long, shaking bounds, even more intent on his footing than before and when they reached the level he crashed through the brush at a high lope, leaping little washes with great lunges and bearing his light rider swiftly toward the cabin from which a whisp of smoke curled.
The discouraged looking man stood before the doorway watching her come and as the girl swung down, before the horse was well halted, she flashed a quick smile at him.
"I heerd you comin', daughter, away back thar. I shore thought the devil himself might 've been after you!"
He smiled wanly.
"I seen her again," the girl said as she dragged her saddle off.
The man pulled languidly at his mustache.
"She see you?"
"No. I set under a juniper and watched 'em ... her an' that Beck man."
"Mebby if you was to talk to her an' get friendly—"
"I don't want to be no friends with her! I hate her already!"
She spat out the words and her face was a storm of dislike.
"What I meant ... mebby 't would be easier for us if you played like you was friends. Then she mightn't suspect."
She rolled her saddle to its side and spread the blanket over it.
"No. I can't do things that-a way, Alf,"—with a slow shake of her head. "Mebby 't would get us more ... but there's somethin' in me, in here,"—a palm to her breast—"that won't let me. I can steal her blind an' only be glad about it, but I couldn't make up like I was her friend while I done it."
"Mebby ... mebby you would sure enough like her," he persisted. "You ain't never had no friends—"
"I'd never like her, not while we're this way,"—with a gesture to include the litter about the cabin. "She's got all that I want. She's had all the things I've never had. She's got clothes, lots of pretty clothes; she's lived in towns an's always had things easy. She's got friends and folks to respect her. You can tell that by lookin' at her....
"What makes me that way, Alf? What makes me hate folks that have got the things I want?"
He pulled on his mustache again and scanned the scarlet sky which rose above the purple heights to the westward. He shook his head rather helplessly and then looked at the girl who stood before him, the eagerness of her query showing in her eyes with an intensity that was almost desperate.
"Mebby you get it from me. I've had it ... always. That's all I have had ... that an' hard luck."
"But I don't like it!" she said and in the tone was something of the spirit of a bewildered little girl. "I'd like to be like other girls. I'd like to have friends ... girl friends, but the more I want 'em, the more I hate those that have 'em!
"What's the matter with me, Alf?"
"The same thing that's the matter with me, daughter: hard luck. I've wanted things so bad that not hevin' 'em has soured me. I've watched other outfits grow big an' rich an' nothin' like that has ever come my way. The bigger the rest got, the harder 't was for me to get along ... an' the worse I hated 'em!"
There was no iron in his voice; just the whine of a weakling, dispirited to a point where his resentment at ill fortune, even, was a passive thing.
"Why, she's got a fine house to live in, an' I'll bet she always had. She's never knowed what it was to set out a norther in a wagon. She's never lived on buckskin an' frozen spuds all winter. She's never been chased from one place to another....
"Folks respect her for what she's got. Why don't folks get respected for just what they are?"
There was pathos in that query.
The man answered:
"It ain't what you are that matters, daughter. It's what you own."
"You've always said that, ever since I can remember. Mebby if you hadn't said it so much, Alf, I wouldn't feel like I do."
He shifted his footing uneasily and looked again at the flaring sky.
"Well, it's so," he whined. "You'd have found it out yourself. I've brung you up the best I knowed how."
"Oh, Alf! I didn't mean I was finding fault! Damned if youain'tbrought me up good! Why, you're the only friend I got Alf! What'd I do without you? You're the only one I've ever knowed ... real well. You're the only one who's ever been good to me!" She put her hands on his shoulders and looked into his face with a smile of genuine affection. "Good old Alf! We've been pals, ain't we?"
He nodded, and said:
"An' if you stick to me a little mite longer, you'll have enough.
"You're brighter'n I be, daughter. You got a longer head. Now's your chanct to use it!" He looked about, somewhat nervously, as if they might be overheard. "Sometimes I get afeerd. Lately, since we've come here, I've been afeerd. It's the only time I ever let anybody else know what my plans was an' it makes me feel creepy to think somebody elseknows!"
"'Fraid of what, Alf?" she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Gettin' caught again, an'—"
"Oh, but you won't! You can't. Alf, you can't get caught an' sent to jail an' leave me alone again!"
She spoke in a whisper and gripped her fist for emphasis.
"I shore don't want to leave you, daughter. I shore don't want to get catched. That's where you come in ... helpin' me scheme! I ain't afeerd of havin' 'em come up on me an' git me red-handed so much as I am of havin' somebody else know what's goin' on."
"But he sent for us. He told us the outfit was goin' to be owned by a tenderfoot. He's as much in danger as we, ain't he?"
Her father nodded slowly.
"You're right ... in a way, but if it ever come to a show-down, I'd be the one to hold th' bag, wouldn't I? That's what we got to watch out for. 'Course, it's easy pickin', with this gal tryin' to run things herself, an' what with her brand workin' over into ourn so easy, there ain't many chances.... Except havin' somebody else to know."
"If anybody ever was to double cross you, Alf, I'd get 'em if it was the last thing I done!"
That threat carried conviction and her father looked at her with a rare brand of admiration in his eyes.
"Lord, daughter, sometimes I think you was meant to be a man ... an' a hard man! Sometimes you almost scare me, th' way you say things!"
She made no reply and he said:
"All we got to do is go slow. A brandin' iron has built many a fortune, an' nobody ever had it any easier 'n us."
"Do you think we'll ever get rich enough, Alf, to have a regular house? An' be respected by folks?"
"Luck's bound to change sometime," he muttered. "Ours has been bad a long time ... a long, long time."
He gathered an arm load of wood and entered the cabin. The girl stood alone a long time, watching the brilliant flowering of the sky sink slowly into the west, drawing steely night to cover its garden. A sharp star bored its way through the failing light and stood half way between earth and heaven. A vagrant breeze slid down the creek, bringing with it the breath of sage, and afar off somewhere a cow bawled plaintively.
"She has 'em," she muttered to herself. "Friends ... an' respect ... an' everything I want....
"I wonder what makes me hate folks so...."
Three weeks after her arrival Jane made her first trip to town and Beck drove the pair of strong bays which swirled their buckboard over the road at a spanking trot.
Events had arisen to prevent their being together in the days immediately following the frank discussion of their attitudes toward one another and Jane thought that she detected a feeling of curiosity in him, as though he wondered just how she would go about forcing him to like her. Shrewdly, she avoided personalities and talked much of the ranch.
When they broke over the divide and began the long drop into town, he said:
"Since you asked advice from me, I keep thinkin' up more, ma'am."
"That's nice. I need it. What now?"
"I s'pose Dad mentioned that water in Devil's Hole?"
"Why, I don't recall it. We've talked so much and about so many things that perhaps it's slipped my mind."
"Maybe. He said he had."
She questioned him further but he said it might be well for her to mention it to Hepburn. "He's foreman, you know."
They swung into the one street of Ute Crossing and stopped before the bank. As Beck stepped down to tie the team a girl came out of a store across the way and vaulted into the saddle on a big brown horse with graceful ease. It was the nester's daughter.
Two men came from the saloon just as she reined her horse about. They eyed her insolently with that stare of a type of loafer which is eloquent of all that is despicable and one of them, a short, stodgy man, smiled brazenly.
The girl gave them one stare, hostility in her brown eyes, and then looked away, her lips moving in an unheard word, surely of contempt.
Then the man spoke. It is not well to repeat. His words were few, but they were ugly. The girl had touched her horse with a spur and he leaped forward. Just that one bound. As he made it the man spoke and with a wrench she set the brown back on his haunches and whirled him about. Her face was suddenly white, her lips in a tight, red line, and her eyes blazed.
She rode back to the men, who had continued on their way, holding her horse to a mincing trot, for he seemed to have caught the tensity of her mood.
"Did I hear you right?" she said to the man who had spoken.
He stood still and looked up with the rude leer.
"That depends on your ears, likely. All I said was that you—"
She did not give him time to repeat. Her right arm flashed up and the quirt, slung to its wrist, hissed angrily as it cut back and with a stinging crack wound its thong about the man's face.
"Take that!" she cried. "And that ... and that!"
At the first blow the man ducked and turned, throwing up his hands to guard, and as other slashes, relentless, rapid, of scourging vigor, fell upon his head and face and neck, he doubled over and ran for the shelter of a store. But the girl's wrath was not satisfied. She sent the big horse from street to sidewalk where his hoofs thundered on the planks, crowded in between her quarry and the building fronts, cutting off his flight, striking faster, harder, teeth showing now between her drawn lips.
The man fled into the street again, but she followed, guiding her horse without conscious thought, surely, for no woman roused as her face showed she was roused could have had thought for other than the thrashing she administered. Endangered by the excited hoofs which were all about him as he ducked and dodged in vain to escape, the man ran with hands and arms close about his head, moving them with each blow that fell in futile attempts to save other parts from the cut and smart of that rawhide.
The girl uttered no word. All the rancor, all the rage he had roused by his insult, found vent in the whipping. Her whole lithe torso moved with each stroke as she put into the downward swing all the strength she could command, and across the man's cheek rose broad red welts, contrasting with his pallor of fright, until his face looked like a fancy berry pie.
Scuttling, dodging, doubling, the man worked across the street, turned back time and again but persisting until, with a cry of pain and desperation, he threw out one hand, caught the bridle and in the instant's respite the move gave him stumbled to the other sidewalk, across it and sprawled through the swinging doors of the saloon he had left moments before.
The horse came to a halt with a slam against the flimsy front of the building. The girl drew back her quirt as for a final blow, but the man, regaining his feet, fled through the bar room and disappeared. She dropped her hand to the top of the door, pushed it open and held it so, peering darkly into the room.
People had come into the street to watch. There had been excited shouts and a scream or two, but as the girl sat looking into the place a quick silence shut down and when she spoke her voice, trembling with emotion but scarcely raised above its normal pitch, was easily heard.
"I've took a lot from men," she said, "ever since I was a kid. When I come into this country I thought maybe I'd get a little respect ... for bein' just a girl. I didn't get it ... I've got to take it.
"If that man's a sample of the kind you've got here, you're a nest of skunks. And you talk easy hereafter, every one of you, because so long as I've got a quirt and an arm, I'll hide you till you're raw if you make any breaks like he did. Keep that in mind!"
She released her hold on the door; it swung outward smartly and as it struck the horse he sprang sideways, wheeled, and clearing the shallow gutter with a lunge, swung down the street at a gallop.
When she passed Jane Hunter, who stood amazed in her buckboard, tears showed in the girl's eyes, but her back was as erect, her shoulders as trimly set as though no great emotion was surging in her heart.
"She's quite a catamount, I'll guess," said Tom Beck as he gave the knot in the tie rope a securing tug and turned to face Jane.
His eyes were fired with admiration.
"But a girl—"
"She was magnificent!"
It was Dick Hilton who had interrupted with the words. Beck looked at him and the enthusiasm which had been in his face faded. He eyed the Easterner briefly and turned to adjust a buckle on the harness.
"And only a girl!" exclaimed Jane under her breath. "Dick, did you see it all?"
"A typical Western girl, I should say," he replied. "Your.... Your neighbor and associate? Your companion, Jane?" he asked. "The sort you want to cast your lot with?"
"And a moment ago you thought her magnificent!" she taunted as she stepped down and offered him her hand.
"I'll meet you in, say, two hours, ma'am," Beck said.
"Very well; right here," she replied, and he left her as she turned to meet Hilton's unpleasant smile.