In the days that followed you might have seen approaching from a distance a rider for the HC. Watching, you would have noticed that he stopped his horse, rode on, stopped again, rode on and stopped the third time. Had you not halted and repeated the performance he would not have come toward you and, on coming within eyesight, you might have seen him sitting with a hand on his holster, or rifle scabbard—for the deadlier weapons appeared—carelessly enough, outwardly, but latent with disaster. For war had been declared. Jane Hunter's men were ready for trouble, waiting for trouble, but it did not come at once for though Hepburn and Webb and their following hated Tom Beck for the man he was they respected him and gave heed to his warning to stay away from HC property ... or at least not to be seen thereabouts.
The war went on, but it was a silent, covert struggle, and though Beck suspected happenings, he could not know all that transpired.
For instance:
It was Webb who finally dropped the pliers and declared the job finished, standing back to survey the stout cedars which had been bound together with wire to form a gate for one of the numerous little blind draws that stabbed back into the parapet which surrounded Devil's Hole. In the recesses of that draw was the smallest amount of seeping water, enough, say, to keep young calves alive. From a distance of a hundred yards this barricade of tough boughs and steel strands would not be detected.
Again:
They came up from the mouth of the Hole after dusk had fallen, Bobby Cole and her father, the old horses drawing the wagon along the indistinct track which wound through the sage. They were tired and silent and finally the girl's head dropped to Cole's shoulder and she slept, with his arm about her, holding her close, his lids and mustache and shoulders drooping.
The wagon halted, hours later, before the blocked draw and, straddled upon their bodies, the girl liberated first one calf, then another, until six had been shoved from the tail gate into the hidden pen. Then they drove back toward their cabin.
"Why don't I think it's wrong to steal?" the girl asked soberly.
Alf shook his head. "It ain't ... for us...."
"But I've read that it is," she protested, scowling into the darkness. "I read it in a book, about a man that stole; that book said it was wrong. Why don't I think it's wrong?"
She turned her face to him and he looked down to see, under the starlight, her mouth pathetically drooping, her lips trembling, and the big brown eyes filled with perplexed tears.
"Why'm I so different from other folks? Maybe that's why I never had no friends...."
"It ain't wrong for you to steal from her," he said defensively.
The girl looked ahead again.
"No, it can't be. I hate her.... I like to steal from her. But why ain't it wrong for me if it's wrong for anybody else?"
"I've allus told you it was the thing to do. Ain't that enough?" he asked wearily....
"Did you see him this mornin'?"—as if to change the subject.
Bobby nodded her head.
"He was down. He hurt his hand; got it shut under Webb's window. He.... He stayed a long time."
Her voice was quite changed; rather soft and reverent. "I'm glad he did. When he's there I feel like I ain't so different ... not so awful different from other folks...."
Alf did not reply. The wagon chucked heavily on, the brush scratched the wagon bed, the horses plodded listlessly. Dawn came....
Another thing:
Far out to the north and west of the Gap in Devil's Hole was a natural reservoir, Cathedral Tank. Winter floods were stored there and long after surrounding miles of quickly growing grasses had become useless as range because of the lack of drink, this tank afforded water for the HC cattle. Late in the Spring, of course, it became scum covered and fetid but until the caked silt commenced to show on the boulder basin the cattle would cling there, saving higher range for later use. Then, in other years, they would drift up toward the Hole, graze through the Gap and water in the creek until the round-up caught and carried them into still higher country.
This spring the desert tank was of far greater importance than ever before. The Hole was closed to the HC unless rain fell, and the days were uniformly clear, so it was wisdom to delay the round-up until the tank was emptied, then shove the cattle straight past the mouth of the Hole and start them up country from the lower waters of Coyote Creek. Beck rode to the tank himself and arranged his plans in accordance with the water he found.
But after Beck had been there another horseman made the ride, leaving the timber at dusk, shacking along across the waste country in a straight line for the tank. Cattle, bedded for the night about the water hole, stirred themselves as he approached and dismounted, then stood nearby and watched a strange proceeding. The man found a crevice in the rock basin, scraped deeply into it with a clasp knife. Then he wedged in five sticks of dynamite with stones and, finally, rolled boulders over them.
He led his horse far back after the fuse had been spit, but even where he stood, outside the circle of steers, rock fell. After the explosion had died into the night he pulled at his mustache and regained his saddle rather deliberately, chuckling to himself.
The fact that a steer with a broken leg was bawling loudly and that another, its life torn out of its side, moaned softly in helplessness, did not impress him. He rode back as he had come.
There was little time for love making in the life of the HC foreman. More riders were necessary for the round-up and he was particular about the men he hired. The country had taken sides; rather, it was either openly behind Beck in his handicapped fight, though skeptical of his chances for winning or openly forecasting failure for him and Jane Hunter; and of the latter Tom had his doubts. Many of them were not neutral, he knew.
But he was with Jane when he could be although, since he had declared himself to Webb and Hepburn, he did not permit her to ride far from the ranch, even when with escort. He wanted her witness to no tragedy, and tragedy impended.
Of the motives of Webb, Hepburn, Cole and their following he had no doubts but there was one whose reasons were a mystery to him. He studied this long hours, when at work, when lying sleepless on his bunk and even when with Jane Hunter. Hilton was at Webb's and that was enough to brand him ... but how deeply? He hesitated to enlist her aid in the solution but when he had spent days puzzling to no result he said to her:
"Nothing about what you have been matters with me, but there's one thing I want to ask you."
"And that?"
He eyed her a speculative moment as they sat beside her desk, the yellow light on her yellow hair.
"What was this Hilton to you?"
She colored and dropped her gaze from his, picking at a book in her lap.
"That belongs to the past," she said, "and you've just said that the past doesn't matter. I had hoped you never would want to know because it touches a spot that isn't healed yet....
"There was a time," lifting her eyes to his, "when I had made up my mind to marry Dick Hilton."
He sat very quietly and his expression did not change.
"That would have been too bad, Jane," he said after a moment.
She nodded slowly in affirmation.
"I'd rather he wasn't in the country just now," he went on. "You wouldn't mind, would you, if I drove him out?"
She said quickly:
"You trust me, don't you?"
He smiled gently and looked at her with a light in his eyes that was almost humble.
"I've trusted you with my love. I want to do things for you. I'd like to drive this man out of your way."
He was reluctant to give his real reason because, by doing so, he would necessarily make her aware of the strength of the menace of which Hilton, he felt but could not prove, was a part. He still wanted to shield her from full realization of the force aligned against her.
She leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands folded.
"I wish he would go away, but I wouldn't want to see him driven. You see, there are things about me which you will never understand. Dick Hilton, for a man, was not far different from what I used to be, as a woman. Our impulses were quite similar. Since I feel that I have established my right to exist by trying to do something, to be somebody to ... walk alone, I've come to an appreciation of the thing that I used to be, and I pity the old Jane Hunter and all her kind. In spite of all that he has been, I pity Dick Hilton, Tom, and in that very fact I see an indication of strength of which I'm proud....
"You see, I like to think about myself now; that didn't used to be true.
"Last year I would have been deeply resentful toward Dick for what he has done, but now, after my natural anger has gone, I can only be sorry for him. That, I feel, is true strength.
"I am not bitter. I don't wish him harm. His environment is to blame for what he is and perhaps this country, the people he comes in contact with here, will do for him what they have done for me." Beck thought that this was an unconscious absurdity! "I begrudge him nothing. I only wish that he might come to see life as I have come to see it.
"If he could only see himself as he is! Why, he is intelligent, he has a good mind, he has been generous and kindly, and if he could only get set straight in his outlook I feel that I could call him my friend.
"Do you understand that?"
He shook his head, driving back the perplexity he felt.
"No, I don't understand that.... There's lots of things I'll never quite understand about you, I expect. That's one thing that made me love you; you interest me.
"I just thought maybe you'd like him out of the country."
"I can never be a dog in the manger," she replied. "What is good about this life I would share with my worst enemy, and gladly, because at one time I was my own worst enemy."
"You ... you don't think you'd ever want to see him again, Jane?" With that evidence of natural jealousy was a gentle reproach, a woe-begone expression which, being so groundless in fact, set Jane Hunter laughing.
"Silly!" she cried, throwing her arms about him.
"Look at me and read the answer!"
Beck laughed at himself then.
"Who wouldn't wantyouall to himself!" he whispered. "And who wouldn't believe in you!"
Beck stood a long time under the stars that night, the feel of her lips still on his, but an uncomfortable doubt in his heart. He was tolerant, as mountain men are tolerant, but he had been bred in a hard school; he had learned to weigh men and to discard those who were found wanting. He was not vindictive, but he took no chances. Placing his trust in those who had showed repeatedly that they were unworthy of trust was taking a chance and though Jane Hunter had done her best to make her reasoning carry, he could not comprehend.
Finally he said: "This ain't any compliment to her, wonderin' like this. It's her way and she sure's got a right to it!"
But he went to sleep unsatisfied.
Out at Cathedral Tank that night the cattle stood snuffing rather wonderingly. Two days before there had been water which reached their knees at the deepest place; today there was none. It had trickled through the scars the blast had torn in the basin. The bellies of some were a bit shrunken from lack of it and bodies of the steers that had been killed were bloated. One, even, had already furnished food to a coyote and a pair of vultures.
Three or four licked the last of the damp silt and then turned eastward and began the slow trek back toward Devil's Hole, where at this season they had gone since they had been calves.
The Reverend saw this scattered stringing of cattle and reported it to Beck. Tom looked up from the wheel of the chuck wagon which he was repairing and considered.
"They're early," he muttered. "I hadn't figured they'd leave before the end of the week.... That's bad...."
The next morning he and Two-Bits, the latter riding his beloved Nigger, with an extra horse carrying the tee-pee, bed and grub, clattered down the trail into the Hole and made through the brush for the Gap. They skirted the Cole ranch, eyeing the Mexicans who were at work clearing sage brush, and a mile further on halted their horses ... rode forward, halted again, rode forward ... stopped.
"It's McKee," Two-Bits said. "That's Webb's gray horse."
The other rider came on and they rode forward again, Beck's holster hitched a bit forward, thumb locked in his belt.
Two-Bits had been right and when McKee recognized them he averted his face as though he would ride past without speaking. But this was not to be for Beck stopped directly in his way and said:
"Sam, if it was anybody else I'd been shootin' long ago. I ain't got the heart to kill you. You recollect, don't you, what I told you and your crowd about driftin' into our territory?"
"This ain't your range," McKee grumbled. "This is Cole's."
His gray eyes met Beck's just once and fell off, showing helpless hate in their depths, the hate of the man who would give battle but who dares not, who is outraged by forces from without and by his own weakness.
"No need to argue," Beck replied, tolerance replaced by a snap in his tone. "You drag it for your own range, McKee, and don't you stop to look back."
Two-Bits was delighted at the hot flush which swept into the other's face. He loathed McKee and to see him under the dominion of a strong man like Beck appealed to him as immensely funny.
"An' if my brother was here he'd tell you about a woman that looked back an' turned to salt," he said. "But if you turn an' look back I'll bet two-bits you turn to somethin' worse!"
The other flashed one look at him, a look of long-standing hate, devoid of a measure of the fear which he evidenced for Beck. He rode on without a word and Two-Bits laughed aloud. McKee did not even look back.
At the Gap there was water, just enough for a man and his horses for a few days. The seep had stopped and the water was not fresh.
"I guess it'll do, though," Beck said. "It's mighty important we keep this stock out of the Hole, Two-Bits. That's why I brought a trustworthy man.
"Lord, they're stringin' up fast,"—staring out on the desert where the steers slowly ate their way to the mouth of the Hole. "Funny they're out of water so soon. If they get up in here,"—gesturing back through the Gap,—"there may be hell to pay."
He helped Two-Bits pitch his tee-pee and rode away.
Throughout that day the homely cow-boy met the drifting steers and turned them eastward, past the Hole toward the lower waters of Coyote Creek. They were reluctant to go for they knew that beyond the Gap lay water but Two-Bits slapped his chaps with rein ends and whooped and chased them until the van of the procession moved on in the desired direction.
He was up late at night and awoke early in the morning, riding up the Gap to turn back those that had stolen past in the night, then stationing himself in the shade of the parapet to await the others that came in increasing numbers.
Two-Bits did not see the gray horse picking its way along the heights above him. The gray's rider saw to it that he was not exposed. Nor could he know that the animal was picketed and that a man crawled over the rocks on his belly, shoving a rifle before him until, from a point that screened him well, he could look down into the Gap.
Steers strolled up and eyed the sentinel, lifting their noses to snuff, flinging heads about now and then to dislodge flies that their flicking tails could not reach. He would ride out toward them, shoving them down around the shoulder of the point toward the east, then return to head off others that took advantage of his absence to make a steal for the Gap.
As he worked, he sang:
"Ho, I'm a jollycowboy, from Texas now Ihail!Give me my quirt andpo-o-ony, I'm ready for thetrail;I love the rollingprairies, they're free from care an'strife!Behind a herd oflonghorns I'll journey all mylife!"
His voice was unmusical, unlovely, but he sang with fervor, sang as conscientiously as he worked.
As he came and went the man above watched him, his gray eyes squinting in the glare of light, following now and then the barrel of the rifle, bringing the ivory sight to bear on the man's back, caressing the trigger with his finger. A dozen times he stiffened and held his breath and the finger twitched; and each time his body relaxed quickly and he cursed softly, rolling over on his side, impatient at his indecision.
A continued flush was on his cheeks and the light in his eyes was baleful, resolved, yet the lines of his mouth were weak and indecisive. Once, when Two-Bits' raucous voice reached him, he muttered aloud and stiffened again and squeezed the stock with his trigger hand ... then went limp.
Noon came and shadows commenced to spill into the gap from the westward. The steers that drifted up from the far reaches of wash-ribbed desert came faster, were more intent, more reluctant to be driven back. Two-Bits changed to his Nigger horse and drank from the water hole and rode yipping toward a big roan steer that advanced determinedly. The animal doubled and dodged but, shoulder against its rump, nipping viciously at the critter's back, Nigger aided his rider to success; then swung back.
Two-Bits' voice floated up as he stroked his horse's neck:
"Oh, I'm a Texascowboy, lighthearted, brave an'free,To roam the wideprairie is always joy tome.My trusty littlepo-o-ony is my companiontrueO'er creeks an' hills an'rivers he's sure to pull methrough!"
From above a dull spat. In Two-Bits' ears an abrupt crunching as he was knocked forward and down and a dull, rending pain spread across his shoulders. He struck the ground with his face first and instinctively his hand started back toward his holster. The first movement was a whip, then became jerky, faltering, and when the fingers found the handle of his revolver they fumbled and could not close. He half raised himself on the other elbow, dragging his knees beneath his body slowly.
His mouth was filled with sand. His eyes were.... He did not know what ailed them, but he could not see. He felt dizzy and sick. He hitched himself upward another degree, striving to close those fingers on his revolver butt. It was a Herculean task, but the only necessary action that his groggy mind could recall. He gritted the sand between his teeth in the effort. He would draw! He would fight back! He wasn't gone ... yet ... wasn't ...
And then he collapsed, limp and flat on the ground, as an inert body will lie.
The fingers twitched convulsively; then were still. A stain seeped through his vest, dark in the sun. The breath slipped through his teeth slowly. The horse stood looking at him, nose low; then stepped closer and snuffed gently; looked rather resentfully at a steer trailing through the Gap unheeded, then snuffed again....
Up above a man was crawling back across the hot rocks to where a gray horse waited in the sun....
"I got him," he muttered feverishly as he covered the last distance at a run. "Now, by God, I'll get— ..."
Nigger stood there, switching at the flies which alighted on him. From time to time he snuffed and stamped; occasionally he peered far up the Hole or out onto the desert almost hopefully, watching distant objects with erect ears; then the ears would droop quickly and he would chew his bit and look back at his master with helpless eyes.
Cattle strayed back from the east where Two-Bits had sent them and entered the Hole, those which had once been driven away passing the prone figure and the watching horse on a trot, others with their noses in the air smelling water, heedless of else.
The shadows crept closer and deeper about Two-Bits. Overhead a buzzard wheeled, banking sharply, coming down lazily, then flapped upward and on. It was not yet his time!
The horse dozed fitfully, one hip slumped, waking now and then with a jerk, pricking his ears at the quiet figure as though he detected movement; then letting them droop again rather forlornly. Once he walked completely about his master, slowly, reins trailing and then stopped to nose the body gently as if to say:
"What is this, my friend? I'm only a horse and I don't understand; if I knew how to help you I would. Won't you tell me what to do? I'm waiting here just for that; to help you. But I'm only a horse..."
He plucked grass aimlessly and returned to stand above the man's body chewing abstractedly, stopping and holding his breath while he gazed down at the inanimate lump; then chewing again. Once he sighed deeply and the saddle creaked from the strain his inhalation put on the cinch.
For hours there had been no movement. Night stole down from the east, shrouding the desert in purple, softening the harsh distances, making them seem gentle and easy. Then from the still man came a sound, like a sigh that was choked off, and the hand which, hours before had groped haltingly for the revolver, stirred ever so slightly.
Nigger's ears went forward. He stepped gingerly about the body, keeping his fore feet close to it, swinging his hind parts in a big circle. He nickered softly, almost entreatingly, as if begging his master to speak, to make more movement; he nuzzled the body rather roughly, then stamped in impatience ... sighed again and slumped a hip, chewing on his bit....
Two-Bits was wet with dew when daylight came, but he had not stirred. The sun peered into the Gap and the drops of moisture, blinking back a brief interval, seemed to draw into his clothing and skin; the rays licked up the damp that had gathered in the hoof prints about the figure.
Nigger lifted his head high and whinnered shrilly at nothing at all. This was another day; there might be hope!
The flies came and lighted on the crusted stain on the vest and crawled down inside the shirt ... and after an aeon a sharp, white wire of consciousness commenced to glow in Two-Bits' blank mind. The one hand—the gun hand—twitched again and the fingers, puffed from their cramped position, stretched stiffly, resuming their struggle for the gun where it had left off yesterday.
One foot moved a trifle and a muffled cough sent a small spurt of dust from beneath the face pressed into it. Slowly the gun hand gave up its search and was still, gathering strength. The arm drew up along the man's side, the hand reached his face. Elbows pressed into the ground and with a moan Two-Bits tried to lift his body ... tried and failed and sank back, with his face turned away from the dirt.
Nigger blew loudly and shook his whole body and stared. The other horse came up and stared, too; then moved toward the water hole, the precious water, and drank deeply. Nigger watched him as though he, too, would drink. But he did not go; remained there, with the reins dangling among the flies. Now and then his nostrils twitched and fluttered; his ears quirked in constant query.
Noon, and another effort to rise. A muttered word this time and a squinting of the eyes that was not wholly witless.
Two-Bits shifted his position. He could see his tee-pee, his black kettle on the ashes, his water bucket ... his bucket ... water bucket ... water.... He worked his lips heavily. They were burned and cracked and his mouth was an insensate orifice....
After a time he commenced to crawl, moving an inch at a time, settling back, moaning. The crusted stain on his vest took on fresh life and the flies buzzed angrily when disturbed. His arms were of little use and he progressed by slow undulations of his limbs. Once he found a crack between two rocks with a toe and shoved himself forward a foot.
"Damn..." he muttered in feeble triumph.
A fevered glow came into his eyes. His breath quickened under the effort. He moaned more; rested less.
And behind, beside or before him went the excited Nigger. He muttered softly, as in encouragement, doing his best to put his hope into sounds. His heavy mane and forelock fell about his eyes, giving him a disheveled appearance, but he seemed to be trying to say:
"You're alive; you're alive! Youcanmove after all; youcanmove! Let me help! Oh, pardner, let me help you!"
The horse pawed the earth desperately, sending stones and dirt scattering, dust drifting.
"Keep on!" he seemed to say. "Keep it up! I'm here; we'll get there somehow!"
Two-Bits gained shadows. The water was less than a hundred feet away. He moved his head from side to side in an agony of effort and threw one hand clumsily before him. It touched sage brush and after moments of struggle he clamped his fingers about the stalk and dragged himself on, gritting his teeth against the pain. He reached a little wash and tried to rise to his feet. He could not. He floundered in effort and rolled into it, crying lowly as his torso doubled limply and he sprawled on his back.
Nigger stood at the edge, snuffing, peering down. He kicked at a fly irritably and stepped down into the wash himself, nickering in tender query.
It took a long time for Two-Bits to roll over. He cried hoarsely from the hurt of the effort and the fevered light in his eyes mounted. His mouth was no longer without sensation. It and his throat stung and smarted. Their hurt was worse than the weight of suffering on his shoulders.... He wanted water as only a man whose life is in the balance can want water!
Somehow he crawled out of the wash. It was fifty feet to the hole now.... He cut it to twenty and lay gasping, trembling, burning, Nigger close beside him, first on one side, then the other, sometimes at his feet. Never, though, standing motionless in his path....
It was ten feet.... Then five. Lifting eye lids was a world of effort in itself. His mouth was open, breath sucking in the dust, but he could not close it. He made a hand's breadth and stopped. His limbs twitched spasmodically and drew up. He made a straining, strangling sound, gathering all the life that remained in his body. He rose on his elbows and on one knee. He swayed forward, he scrambled drunkenly. He pitched down and as he went he made one last, awkward attempt to push his own weight along. Then fell ... short.
The right hand half propped his body up. It slid slowly forward, impelled by the weight upon it alone, shoving light sand in its way.... Then went limp and extended.
The tip of his second finger just dented the surface of the water in the pool!
The horse switched his tail slowly, as if disconsolate at a waning hope.
"Hang it all," he might have thought. "Here I thought you were going to make it and you can't! IwishI knew how to help!"
He sighed again, this time as if in despair. He waited a long time before drinking himself as if hoping that his master would move. But the body was motionless ... utterly. The shallow, quick come and go of breath was not in evidence. Two-Bits had done all that he could do for himself....
Nigger moved to the lip of rock which held the water against the cliff. He snuffed, as if to tantalize himself and then plunged his nose into the place, guzzling greedily. Great gulps ran down his long throat, little shoots of water left his lips beside the bit and fell back. He breathed and drank and made great sounds in satisfying his thirst. He lifted his head and caught his breath and let it slip out in a sigh of satisfaction ... drank again.
Finally he was through and stepped back, holding his lips close, as horses will whose mouth contains one more swallow. Then he stared at Two-Bits and moved close to him and chewed instinctively on the bit, letting the water that he did not need spill from his mouth....
It fell squarely on the back of the man's neck, spattering on his hair, running down under his shirt, driving out the flies....
Two-Bits swam back again. A strength, a pleasing chill ran through him. He moved the one arm and the fingers slid on into the water. With a choking cry he wriggled forward and thrust his face into the pool.... After a long time he drew back and let his fevered forehead soak, breathing more easily through his mouth.
It was nearly sunset when he rolled over, slowly, painfully, weakly, but not as a man on the edge of death. He looked up at Nigger standing beside him, nose fluttering encouragement. Just above him a stirrup swung to and fro in a short arc.
"After a while ... a week or so, I can ... get hold of that ... mebby," the man said huskily.
The love that grew in the hearts of Tom Beck and Jane Hunter was not the only suit which approached a climax in the hills. Another existed, quite different, unknown to them, unsuspected, even, but it was not a secret to one who rode from the HC ranch.
This was the Reverend Azariah Beal. He stayed on, though assuring Beck that the call might come any hour which would send him on his way. He was sent on many errands of importance, because Beck had come to believe that he could trust the clergyman as he could trust no other man and it was this riding which gave Beal his knowledge of that other love making.
Day after day he saw Dick Hilton in Devil's Hole. He saw him joined by another rider, by Bobby Cole, and knew that the Easterner spent many days at the ranch house down there in the deep valley.
Hilton treated the girl as she never had been treated before. He told her tales of cities and men and women that held her breathless and he wooed her with an artfulness which kept her unaware of love making. When with him, as when with her father, that ready defiance, her expectation of trouble, became reduced to a wistfulness, an eager inquiry which left her, not the self-sufficient bundle of passionate strength, but a simple mountain child.
He would ride beside her or sit at night by the fire in her father's cabin and talk for hours, giving of his experience well, for he was a glib talker. He asked nothing in return ... openly, but while he talked his eyes were on her eyes, prodding their depths, on her red mouth, hungering, on her wonderful throat, fired by desire. He bided his time, for his was a choice prize.
Now and then she talked to him of Jane Hunter and though her allusions were scornful and her face assumed that hostility, he knew that this only resulted from her envy, the curiosity which she would not let come into being. He played upon this, dropping hints of the reason for his coming west, lying insinuations of his relationships with the mistress of the big ranch, each hint a fertile seed planted in the rich soil of her imagination.
One afternoon they dismounted in a clump of willows where early in the season and in wet summers a spring bubbled under a rim rock. Now it was dry, almost dust-dry in places, and the girl sat on the grass while Hilton stretched at her feet, smoking idly.
He talked to her for long and when he paused she said, looking far away:
"I'd like to see somethin' else besides this. I'd like to have some of the chances other gals have. I'd give anything for a chance to be somebody!"
He threw away his cigarette.
"I'd give anything to give you a chance, Bobby," he said.
"Yes, but you can't!" she laughed hopelessly. "You're a gentleman and I.... Why, I'm just the daughter of a nester."
"And maybe that very combination of circumstances gives me my chance to give you yours.
"I should like very much to take you east, Bobby."
"Yes, but there's Alf. I couldn't leave him,"—shaking her head, still innocent of his intent.
Hilton was not unprepared.
"But if he had a comfortable ranch, with good buildings and plenty of stock, and could come to visit you at times?"
"But he ain't got any of them an' besides—
"You don't mean for me tostay!" she said suddenly, eyes incredulous.
"To stay, Bobby. To stay with me, forever and ever."
She started to laugh but checked herself and leaned suddenly toward him, her lips parted. He lifted himself to an elbow and reached out for her hand.
"Don't you understand, dear girl? Don't you see that I love you?"
She withdrew her hand from his clasp and looked away, brows drawn toward one another a trifle. He watched her craftily, timing his urging to her realization.
"Don't you see that I came west, guided by something bigger than my own reason, directed by something that regulates the loves of men to bring them to a good end?"
She looked back at him and shook her head slowly.
"I never thought I'd be loved. I never thought you cared for me that-a way."
"Bless you! That night when I went walking into your cabin and you met me with a rifle ready I knew I would love you and that you would love me. It's one of the things neither of us can explain, but I was sure of it, sure of it. Didn't you guess? Didn't you feel it deep down in your heart?"
"No, never. Nothin' good had ever happened to me. I didn't calculate anything good ever would happen. The only bein' I ever thought I'd love was Alf and I'd go through fire for him....
"But this ... it's different. It ain't like that. This is somethin' ... I don't know...."
She rose and pressed her hands to her breast as though some bursting emotion hurt her. Hilton stood before her, his breath a trifle quick, lips parted greedily. His particular hour, he felt, had struck!
"One of the reasons that has made me love you has been your devotion to your father. Another was your distrust. You never did trust me at first. I felt that you were keeping me off, holding yourself away from me, Bobby. I wanted to tell you all this long ago,"—which was the truth—"but I wanted you to be sure of yourself; I wanted you to recognize love and know that this thing between us is the lasting sort"—which was a lie.
"The lasting kind?" she queried. "You love me? For good? Honest?"
"Honest!" he promised, taking both her hands. "I love you with all the love a man can give a woman! I love you enough to devote my whole life to making you happy. I have money. We can go where we please, do what we please. You will have friends and respect. You can see cities and the ocean. You can live in grand hotels and eat wonderful food that someone else has cooked; you can hear music and go to theaters; you will have flowers and automobiles; you'll see California and Florida and Europe...."
"And because you love?" she demanded as he put his arms about her. "It's because you love me, ain't it? If I thought ... if I thought it was for anything else I'd kill you." Her tone was even enough, her voice the soft, full voice of a woman touched by love, but beneath its velvet was a matter-of-fact certainty that caused the faintest tremor to run through his limbs.
They looked into one another's eyes, felt each other's breath upon their cheeks, the one consumed by passion, the other swept upward into a new world, a new, incredible life, as a beautiful hope touched her heart. They did not see their horses standing with intent ears and, as they were up wind they did not hear the slight sounds of another approaching.
"Because I love you, Bobby! Will you come?"
"And I'll be your wife and you won't be ashamed of me ... ever?"
"Never!"—in a tone that was too firm for conviction.
"An' Alf'll come to see us whenever he wants to?"
"Whenever he wants to. Don't you believe me? Why question?"—hurriedly. "Say you love me, now, today, this hour,"—straining her to him. "Say it to me, Bobby; say that you love me as I love you!"
His eyes burned into hers and he closed his lips to press them on hers, to touch the woman of her into being, to accomplish the end he sought.
"Oh, Mister Hilton, I—"
Her voice had the quality of a sob and he waited for her to go on before he sealed his tricky pact with a kiss, but as she choked a crashing of the brush shocked him into a realization of the outside world and a resounding voice cried:
"One moment! Just one moment!"
The Reverend Azariah Beal advanced toward them through the willows.
Bobby whirled to face him and Hilton, with an oath, released her.
For a moment, portentous silence. The Reverend halted, plainly confused. Before Hilton's glare and the girl's breathless fury his eyes wavered. He opened his lips to speak and closed them helplessly. Then a queer glimmer crossed his face, half hope, half smile.
He reached into his pocket, brought forth a fountain pen, held it up and said:
"One moment of your time to bring to your attention this article, known from coast to coast, indispensable to any man, woman or child, which we are introducing for the purposes of further advertising at a trifling price, which—"
"Who the devil sent you here?" demanded Hilton, advancing.
The Reverend lowered his hand and blinked through his spectacles.
"I do not recall that I came from that black deity," he replied mildly. "My feet are directed from Above,"—gesturing. "I have been called upon—"
"Now you're called upon to get out. Understand? Get out!"
"Brother, is it possible that you are not interested in this article? Made of pure India rubber—"
"You heard me! Get out!" cried Hilton.
For a moment the Reverend stood, as though undecided.
"I am sorry," he said, "that I can not interest you. If not today, then another time, perhaps? A splendid gift for a lady, my friend, a—"
"Nobody here wants to listen to you. Be on your way!"
Sorrowfully the Reverend replaced the pen in his pocket, rattling it against the remainder of his stock. As he turned away he drew them all out and stood for some time beside his horse, counting them carefully, muttering to himself. He looked about his feet, retraced his steps to where he had stood in his attempt to make a sale, scanning the ground.
"Can it be," he asked absently, "that I have miscounted?"
He gave no heed to the two who watched him but it was a matter of ten minutes before he was finally satisfied that there had been no loss—or that nothing else would be lost that day—and rode away.
By that time Hilton's ill temper was implacable and in Bobby's face was a half frightened, bewildered look. She turned to the Easterner with a questioning little gesture but he did not respond.
"He spoiled it for a while, Bobby," he said. "Let's ride back."
Webb was building biscuits and Hepburn was slicing a steak from the hind quarter of a carcass that a few days before had been an HC steer. McKee entered with an armful of wood. He dropped it into the box beside the stove with a clatter and went out again. He was whistling a doleful little tune, as a preoccupied man will whistle. His gray eyes were peculiarly grim and when he stopped whistling, his mouth set into determined lines.
"What's got into him?" Webb asked.
The other shrugged his shoulders.
"He's changed in the last day or two. Wouldn't think he was the same man," Webb went on. "Do you think there's a chance...."
It was unnecessary to finish the question for there was only one subject that these men discussed which called for the cautious tone which Webb had adopted. Hepburn chuckled scornfully.
"Hell, no!" he said. "Sam's the last one to double-cross us, 'specially when Beck's on th' other side.
"Somethin's got into him all right, but it ain't anything to hurt us. He's changed."
"You know how he used to be, Dad, kind of a bully, always lookin' for trouble. Well, it wasn't that he was quarrelsome like most mean men are. It was because he was afraid to be any other way. That was what made him abuse his horse that time; the pony had put a crimp in Sam an' th' only way Sam could work up his nerve to get aboard was to work him over unmerciful.
"That give Beck his chance, an' he sure did comb poor Sam! It took all th' starch out of him, but that wasn't th' worst. It give everybody that didn't like him a chance to rub it in, an' they sure done it! Sam's been a standin' joke ever since. They seem to look for chances to ride him. Two-Bits ain't let him alone a minute when they was near together.
"Sam used to swear he'd get both Two-Bits an' Beck, but he won't. He ain't that kind, I guess. Beck knocked what little sand he had left all out of him.
"Somethin's changed him again, though ..."
"You've rubbed it into him pretty strong yourself, Webb," Hepburn reminded.
"Different reason." Webb waxed philosophical. "When a man's enemies bother him it only drives him down; that is, a man like Sam. But when his friends ride him it's likely to put a little color in his liver. That's why I keep after him. I never did figure he'd try to get Beck in an open fight, but I used to think he might do it some other way. That's what I'd like to see him do!"—darkly.
"Maybe he will. Somethin's changed him again, Webb. I tell you he's been goin' around today like a man whose done somethin' big! It's a sort of ... of confidence, you'd call it."
"Mebby Hilton's got under his skin. He don't like Sam but he talks a lot to him about Beck, quiet-like, as if it wasn't of much importance. Still, he keeps dingin' away at it."
"Like he does to us about things, eh? Always sort of suggestin' until you go do somethin' that seems like a good play an' then, after a while, wake up to realize that he was the one who started you on your way!"
Hilton came in and the four—the other riders were on the range—ate their meal and talked lowly of the war they waged. That is, Hepburn and Webb talked. McKee listened; neither of the others bothered to address him or even consciously include him as an auditor.... And Hilton listened and watched McKee, his eyes speculative.
"With th' tank gone that cuts down just so much on their range," Webb said, "an' it's plain they don't figure on usin' the Hole or they'd let their stuff drift in there as they've always done."
"You don't want to be too sure that their stuff won't get into the Hole," put in McKee with a nodding of his head.
"I s'pose they put a man in the Gap to go to sleep, did they?" Webb returned. "It was a good move on Beck's part. I wish to hell they would get by and perish of thirst. We'd keep 'em out of Cole's water, you bet! Beck's too wise to give us a chance, though."
"Mebby he ain't so wise as he thinks," McKee insisted in that queer, lofty manner. "He put a man there all right, all right, but everybody ain't been asleep."
Hepburn started to say something to Webb but was arrested by this.
"What you got in your head, Sam?" he asked, with more intent than he had used in questioning McKee in months.
Sam felt himself assuming a sudden importance at this; his manner of mystery and confidence had caught their interest and it was the first time he had so succeeded for long, the first time he had really been an insider in the game they played. It was gratifying to know facts which they did not know; he cherished this superiority, so he said:
"Never you mind what's in Sam's head. You've been figurin' I'm a helpless sort of waddie for a long time but I guess you'll think different when you find out some things I know!"
Hepburn urged again but McKee was no more responsive so the older man put McKee's secretiveness down as pique, concealing nothing of value, and went on with the talk.
Later in the evening Webb said:
"Sure you didn't leave anything by the tank that'd give us away?"
"Think I'm simple minded?" Hepburn countered.
"It's a damn good thing not to be. That's th' first place they'll ride when th' round-up starts an' as soon as Beck hears the Tank's gone he'll go over that place himself with a fine tooth comb. If he could hang that on us it'd be all he'd need."
"He can go over it with a microscope but he'll find nothin'!"
"You sure he will?" McKee asked, rather breathlessly, his eyes lighted with a peculiar glow.
"Will what?"
"Go there to look it over?"
Hepburn snorted.
"That's one thing you can be sure about Beck: he watches details an' don't let nothin' get away from him. He's always pryin' into things himself; he ain't satisfied to get his information second hand. A thing like this, which has meant a lot to them ... why, he'll investigate it until he's found somethin' or hell freezes!"
McKee sat back, staring at the floor, his hands limp in his lap. Still that strange light showed in his eyes and occasionally his lips moved as though he rehearsed a declaration to himself.... And Hilton, stretched on his bed, watched McKee.
After a time Sam roused and rolled a cigarette with fingers that were not just steady and sat smoking as he planned, already triumphing in anticipation. His eyes changed, and the lines of his face were remoulded ... and Hilton watched.
Late that evening McKee went out into the dooryard to be alone with the memory of the one stroke he had made and to continue his plans for the master blow he was to make. But he was not alone. Hilton followed and spoke quietly over his shoulder, saying:
"Yes, Sam, the chances are that he'll go to the tank alone."
Whereupon the other started and whispered savagely:
"How'd you know I was thinkin'that?"
Hilton laughed lowly and put an arm across Sam's shoulders and they walked at length in the darkness, talking, talking.... The Easterner looked close into McKee's face and flattered and suggested and encouraged....