The chuck wagon had gone, followed by the bed wagon and the cavet, the last made up of one hundred and forty saddle horses, stringing along the road, a solid column of horse flesh. In a day the round-up would be on. Camp was to be made first far down on Coyote Creek and the country from Cathedral Tank eastward would first be ridden.
Outwardly the departure was not so different from others of its sort. There were rifles on saddles, to be sure, but there was banter and fun. Still, a spirit prevailed which told that the men were not wholly concerned with the normal business of the range. There were other things, more grim, more serious, than gathering steers and branding calves.
H C hands were not the only ones who rode heavily armed. There were others, skulking on high ridges, watching, waiting. The whole country knew they were there. The eyes of the whole country were on the factions. The ears of the country were strained to catch what sounds of clash might rise. For the coming of that clash was sensed as an impending crash of thunder will be sensed under cloud banked skies.
"I'll be joinin' them tonight or in the morning," Beck told Jane as the cavalcade disappeared down creek. "I'm glad there are things to hold me here a few hours longer because I'll be gone a long time an' I'm jealous of the days I have to be away from you."
"You'll come to say good-bye?"
"If I have to crawl to you!"—as he gave her one of his lingering kisses. "When I come back from the ride there's something I'd like to talk over with you ... which we ain't mentioned yet."
"I'll be waiting to talk it over, dear," she whispered, for she understood.
Not long after Beck had ridden away the Reverend stumped down from the corral to the big ranch house and rapped on the door. Jane was at her desk and looked up in surprise for it was the first time the elder Beal had ever come to her alone.
"I come to ask for aid, ma'am, in what might be termed work among the heathen, though, it is in a sense the task of a home missionary."
Jane put down her pen and sat back in her chair, trying to hide her amusement.
"Yes, Reverend," in her crisp manner—"I'm interested."
He blinked and rattled pens in a side pocket of the rusty coat.
"I trust that you will bear with me, ma'am, until I have finished. I have been moved to speak to you for long but have hesitated because it is difficult to present the matter without intruding on privacies.
"An unholy love is being hidden in the solitudes of these hills, a man who is at heart a serpent seeks to corrupt the white soul of a child. You possess a knowledge of this man which may hold the only hope of salvation for the innocent."
A feeling of apprehension swept through the girl; with it was suspicion, for though her mind easily fastened on Dick Hilton as the man referred to, she could connect him with no other woman.
"I trust, ma'am, that you will be charitable in your estimate of my works. It is no more possible for Azariah Beal to go through life with his eyes closed and his powers of deduction dormant than it is for the birds to refrain from flight or the fishes from swimming. I try to do good as I go my way. I realize that it is not in the orthodox manner, that my methods are strange; but my work is among unusual people and the old ways of accomplishment will not produce results any more than the old standards of morality will fit the lives of my people.
"I observed this man, a stranger to the country, in town on my arrival. When I reached here to tarry with my brother until I am called to move I observed you, also a stranger to the frontier. I observed other things which you will not consider prying curiosity, I hope. There was a connection, a logical connection, between you two strangers: were it not for subsequent events this observation would have remained in my heart. So far it has, but now I must reveal it to you.
"You are the only individual who stands between Dick Hilton and the ruin of Bobby Cole!"
He stopped talking and rattled his pens again. The apprehension which had possessed Jane passed and she experienced a sharp abhorrence.
"You mean that he ..." she began and let the question trail off.
The Reverend nodded.
"Exactly. He has charmed her. He speaks with the cunning of a serpent and she, under his influence, is as guileless as a quail.
"He cannot be driven off by threats because he is not that sort. The girl cannot be convinced of his wicked purpose because she trusts no man but him. If the affair proceeds she will pay the price of a broken heart because, in spirit, she is pure gold.
"He might protest his sincerity to men of this country and force them into belief, but with you it is different. There is in every man, no matter how far he may have fallen, a sense of shame. He can bury it deeply from those who do not know him but to his own kind it is ever near the surface.
"I beg of you, ma'am, to join me in this holy cause and dissuade him from his black purpose, if not by an appeal to honor, then by an appeal to his shame."
Jane rose.
"You mean that he has been making ... making love to this girl? And that you think I can save her?"
"It's the only way. She will not listen to men, she will not listen to you because she considers you her enemy. He may be so far sunk in sin that he will not heed the advice of one he has known and respected and, excuse me, loved ... after his manner of loving." Jane flushed but he gave no notice. "But unless I attempt to bring your influence to bear upon him I will feel that I have not answered the call to duty."
He blinked again and looked at her with an appeal that wiped out any impression of charlatanry, of preposterousness that she might have had; he was wholly sincere.
"Why ... I don't know what I could say ... what I could do."
"Nor I. But you know Hilton; you know the girl; I have made you familiar with the situation. I rely on your resourcefulness. May I bring him to you?"
"Why, he wouldn't come here!"
The Reverend rattled his pens and said:
"I think I might persuade him. Have I, as your employee, your permission, I might say, yourorder, to bring him here?"
"Of course. If there is anything I can do.... Ugh!" She shuddered and pressed a wrist against her eyes. "It's beastly! Beastly!"
The Reverend departed and throughout the day Jane Hunter could think of little other than the situation which he had outlined to her. Her wrath was roused, replacing the disgust she had felt at first, and her heart went out to Bobby Cole with a tenderness that only woman can know for woman.
She tried to think ahead, to consider what she could say or do, to speculate on what the results of this next meeting with Dick Hilton might be.
Evening was well into dusk with the first stars pricking through the failing daylight when two riders came through the HC gate. Dick Hilton rode first and behind him, one hand in a deep pocket of his frock coat, rode the Reverend.
"You can get down and open the gate," the Reverend said and Hilton, sulkily obeying, led his horse through.
"Now what?" he asked in surly submission.
"Now I'll finish my errand by escorting you to the owner of this establishment."
Hilton led his horse across to the dooryard. The Reverend dismounted and the two walked down the cottonwoods to the big veranda, the Easterner still in the lead, the other with his hand in his side pocket.
Jane saw them; she was at the door.
"Good evening!" said Hilton with bitterness.
"In accordance with your orders, ma'am, I persuaded this gentleman to call," said Beal, almost humbly. "I'll feed his horse and return later."
He turned and hurried up the path.
Hilton pulled down his coat sleeves irritably and looked at Jane with a bitter smile.
"To what do I owe the ... the honor of such a summons?"
"Come in, Dick. I want to talk to you,"—keeping her voice and expression steady. She held the door open to him and he entered, his mouth drawn down in a sardonic grimace. A single shaded lamp was lighted and as she turned to him she could see his eyes glittering balefully in the semi-darkness.
"Rather different from our last meeting," he said testily. "Then you were concerned with my going; now you seem determined to have me here."
"Let's not discuss the past, Dick. I called you here for a definite purpose. Can you guess what it is?"
He eyed her in hostile speculation.
"I don't see where anything that concerns me could concern you now. That is, unless you've changed your mind."
She gave him a wry smile and a shake of her head.
"I shall never change, Dick. It was no interest in you that made me send for you. It was interest in the well-being of another woman."
"Oh, another woman! And who, pray, may she be?"—frigidly, face darkening.
"Can't you guess? Have there been so many out here?"
"You know there's only one woman for me," he said bitterly, "and she drove me off like a thief and has called me back as though I were a thief!"
"Perhaps you are."
"What do you mean by that?"
There was that about him which made her think of a man cornered.
"I have called you here because I have reason to believe that you are trying to steal the heart of a young girl—of Bobby Cole."
He laughed unpleasantly, but there was in the laugh a queer relief, as though he had anticipated other things.
"Now who's been tattling to you?"
"My men have seen you come and go, they have seen you with the girl. One of them came to me and begged that I send for you and try to talk you out of this. They know, Dick. These men understand men ... like you."
"Because they see me with her and because I'm not considered fit by you to stay beneath your roof, even when it is night and storming, they think I'm damned beyond hope, do they? They think I'm menacing her happiness, do they?"
"But aren't you?" she countered. "I know her. I have talked to her and watched her. Dick, she is a lonely, pathetic little creature with the world against her. There have been just two things left in her life: her own splendid self respect and her devotion to her father. Why, she hasn't even had the respect of the people about her!
"And now she is facing loss of the biggest thing she possesses: the loss of her belief in herself, for you will destroy that just as surely as you force her to listen to your ... to what I suppose you still call your love-making."
He eyed her a moment before saying:
"You used, at least, to be fair, Jane; you used to go slowly in judging people and their motives and usually you were more or less right. Have you put all that behind you? Does the fact that a man is charged with some irregularity convince you of his guilt now?"
"Why no. But knowing you and knowing her..."
"Don't you think it possible for a man, even, for the sake of the argument, a blackguard like me,"—bowing slightly—"to change a trifle?"
He put the question with so much confidence, with so much of his old certainty that it checked Jane.
"Why, we all may change," she said slowly.
"I am glad you will grant that much,"—ironically. "Think back, just a few weeks, and you may recall one somewhat theatrical statement you made to me about finding yourself among these people. I thought it preposterous then but I have lived and learned; I know now that you could mean what you said then.... Jane, I, too, have found my people ... at least my woman."
She stared hard at him.
"Do you mean that, Dick Hilton?"—very lowly.
"As much as I have ever meant anything in my life!"
"Sit down," she said, more to give her time to think than in consideration of his comfort. Then, after a moment: "It isn't much of a boast, to mean this as much as you have ever meant anything."
"Then need we talk further? You ask questions; I answer; you do not believe. Why continue?"
She sat down in a chair before him.
"This is the reason: That I think you have lied to me again. I don't believe you are sincere. No, no, you must listen to me, now!"—as he started forward with an enraged exclamation. "I brought you here to make what is left of the Dick Hilton I once liked see this thing as I see it."
And try she did. She talked rapidly, almost hurriedly, carried along by her own conviction, made dominant by it, sweeping aside his early protests, forcing him to listen to her. She put her best into that effort for as he sat there with his cruel, cynical smile on her she realized that this was a task worthy of her best mettle.
She sketched Bobby Cole's life as she knew it, she argued in detail to show him how the girl had never had a chance to taste the things which are sweetest to girlhood. She touched on the incident in town where, in desperation, Bobby had tried to force the respect of men and she told him of the defiance with which her own advances of friendship had been met.
Jane was eloquent. For the better part of an hour she talked steadily, occasionally interrupted by a skeptical laugh or a sneering retort, but she persisted. Hilton listened and watched, eyes hard, mouth drawn into forbidding lines, a manner of suspicious caution about him, as though there were much that he wanted to conceal.
Finally her sincerity had an effect and she could see his cold assurance melting. His gaze left hers and a flush crept into his cheeks. She moved quickly to sit beside him.
"Dick! Dick! For the sake of what you once were, for the sake of what you still can be, go away! If you won't go for the sake of the girl, go for your own salvation!"
"It's not what you think," he protested feebly, without looking at her. "I'm not philandering. I—"
"No, Dick, not philandering, because that is too gentle a word. It is something worse, something darker, which will bring more shame to you and to all who once knew and trusted you.
"Don't you see that you're playing with something as delicate as a mountain flower? Don't you see you will crush it? Because this girl is strong of body and thoroughly able to contend for her own position with muscles and weapons, don't think that her heart can be treated roughly. It would wither if she gave it to you and found that you held it of little value."
"I tell you I'm on the level with her."
"Would you marry her?"—leaning closer to him as his manner told of the effect her pleas were having.
"Of course."
"You'd take her east, to your friends?"
"Why, why not?"—shifting uneasily.
"Dick, look at me!" Tears in her eyes, she put her hands on his shoulders and forced him to turn his face. "You can't mean that? I can see you don't. Dick, oh, Dick! For the sake of all that is good and fine in life, for the sake of the manhood you can regain, don't do this thing!
"I'm asking it of you. Perhaps I have little right to make any requests of you but in the name of the love you say you once bore for me try to look into my, a woman's heart, and see what this thing means. I'm not trying to make it difficult for you; I'm not trying to interfere and be mean. I'm begging you, Dick, to give her up and if nothing else will appeal to you, do it for my sake!"
She shook him gently as he turned his head from her, humiliated, shamed, beaten. He was convinced: she knew that his sham was broken down, that his purpose was clear to her and the conscience that remained in his soul tortured him.
Jane held so a long moment, fingers gripping his shoulders, appeal in every tense line of her body.
And close outside the window another figure held tense, watching, holding breath in futile attempt to catch the low words they spoke. It was a slender figure and had ridden up on a soft-stepping horse, dismounted, slipped over the fence, ran stealthily along the creek, halted in the shadow of the cottonwoods and then crept slowly forward until it stood close to the shaft of yellow light which streamed from the window. There it stood spying....
"You have said that you loved me, Dick. Do this for me in the name of that love! I am asking it with a sincerity that was never in any other request I have made of you."
She shook him again and slowly he turned his face to hers, showing an expression of weakness, of helplessness, as one who turns to ask humbly, almost desperately for aid.
The figure out there started forward as though it would leap through the window, making a sharp sound of breath hissing through teeth, in fright or in hatred. The movement was checked, for the gate creaked open, the scuffling boots of a man were heard on the path. The figure skulked swiftly along the house, ducking along the cottonwoods, out toward the road where a horse stood waiting.
It was the Reverend coming and he whistled "Yield not to Temptation," as he neared the house, as if to give warning of his approach. Hilton heard and looked up sharply and a glitter of rage appeared in his eyes. He shook Jane Hunter off savagely and rose.
"I'd let you make an ass of me!" he cried savagely. "You won't believe when I tell you the truth....
"But what the devil should I care?" he broke off shortly. "Whatever I do and where and why is my own affair; none of yours, though you try to make it yours, try to judge me as you judge your own, new friends, probably.
"You talk of the man I once was. Well, if I've changed in your eyes, it is not my fault; it's yours, Jane Hunter, yours! You'd drive me on, lead me on, and when finally cornered you'd be perfectly frank to tell me that you'd only toyed with me, that you tolerated me because you thought you might have to use the things I owned!"
"Not that, Dick! You're putting it all wrong...."
"Listen to me!" he shouted, quivering with rage. "If I've changed it is you who have changed me! If life means nothing to me, it is you who have made it so!" He was towering in his anger and, seeking to shift responsibility for his own rottenness to the shoulders of the woman before him, he aroused a sense of injury and genuine indignation. "You played me as your last straw as long as you dared and now, by God, when I go my way, the only way open to me, when I try to redeem a little happiness, you hound me, try to shame me with your sham morals!"
"Dick, that's not true."
"It is true. Why, you haven't a leg to stand on, you—"
His storming was interrupted by a rap on the door and he turned to see the Reverend standing there, battered derby in his hands.
"Excuse me," he said mildly, "but the gentleman's horse is fed."
It was his way of letting Jane Hunter—and Dick Hilton—know that she was not alone; but if the Reverend had intended to stop the tirade which he had heard from outside he did not succeed for the Easterner was further enraged at sight of him.
"I suppose this is part of your plan!" he snapped. "You found out that it's no use to wheedle me, so you've had your gun-man come to drive me off as he brought me!"
"Dick, don't be silly! You're absurd. A gun. The idea!"
Hilton laughed tauntingly and said:
"He's standing there now, covering me with a gun! Look at him." He pointed to the Reverend's pocket. A hand was in it and the garment bulged sharply as though a revolver, concealed there, was ready for instant use. "That's how you treat me; that's how you got me here. God knows I wouldn't have come otherwise if your existence depended on it.
"This man met me on the trail. He said you wanted to see me. I consigned him to the Hell from which he tries to have sinners and he covered me from his pocket just as he has me covered now and said it would be wise for me to answer your summons.
"How else do you think he brought me?" he demanded, wheeling to face Jane again.
The girl looked quickly to Beal, lips parted in surprise.
"I sent Mr. Beal for you, yes, but I said nothing about using force to bring you. I wouldn't do that. I'm sure there is some mistake."
"Yes, ma'am, I'm sure there is," said the Reverend, blinking and withdrawing his hand slowly. "I'm a man of peace. I'm not a man of force."
He lifted his hand clear, the ominous bulge in his pocket giving way, and held up one of his pens.
"One dollar," he said rather weakly ... as though frightened, or vastly amused.
Standing there, looking rather blankly about, holding that pen in his hand he was in ludicrous contrast to the furious Hilton. It made the other man seem absurd, his raging like the burlesque of some clowning actor.
With a helpless, choking oath Hilton turned, livid with rage, and strode for the doorway.
"For the last time I've been made a fool of!" he cried, and hastened up the path.
They heard him mount his horse and ride away.
Jane was too busied with more somber thoughts to appreciate the humor of the situation; she did later. Even had she been able to give attention to the contrast between Hilton's rage and the chagrin which followed so closely, the change in the Reverend would have diverted her attention. He stood looking at her with grief in his eyes and when he spoke his voice shook.
"I feel that I have done my duty, ma'am, but that is all Azariah Beal has to say for himself. There has been no result. I may have been too late in my attempt. Surely, there is nothing more to be done....
"Nothing more, unless you may succeed in ridding yourself of your enemies."
"Do you think that would have an effect on Bobby Cole?"
He nodded gravely.
"You and she have something in common: an enemy."
"He has been here tonight? You mean that Hilton is my enemy in the sense that he may imperil the future of the H C?"
"The same, ma'am."
"Reverend, it is likely that you are right. I am beginning to see a connection between factors which have seemed to be unrelated."
He started to speak but a shout checked him. They listened to a confusion of voices.
"Something's wrong," Beal said and stepped to the veranda. "Why ... somebody's hurt!"
Jane ran to the doorway but he had already started up the path. She followed as she saw a close huddle of men about the lighted doorway of the bunk house move slowly in, carrying a burden gently and as she neared the building a rather tragic quiet marked the group.
Nigger, Two-Bits' horse, was standing saddled in the path of light. Inside a man was lying face down on the floor. The Reverend knelt beside him, leaning forward, and others stood close, silent and grave.
The prostrate man was Two-Bits and his shoulders dripped blood. As Jane became a part of the group he stirred and struggled to raise his head.
"What is it, brother?" Azariah asked gently, turning Two-Bits over and supporting his head. "Tell us. You're not done for. It's ripped your back open, but that's all. Who was it?"
The other looked about slowly with bewildered eyes.
"From behind," he said weakly. "They got me from behind...." His gaze wavered from face to face and finally rested on Jane's. He moved feebly.
"A big bunch of your cattle must be in th' Hole, ma'am," he said. "There ain't ... any water there.... I was keepin' 'em ... out ... an' somebody got me from behind.... They must of waited ... to get me ... from behind.... And the only water's ... in fence....
"It looks like ... a lot of trouble, ma'am...."
He stopped talking, exhausted.
It looked like trouble and there was trouble.
Beck, with the Reverend, Curtis and two of the ranch hands preceded Jane to the Hole at dawn and when she rode down the trail she saw them on their horses, forming a little group well away from the nester's cabin.
Her cattle were there and the fenced area was fringed with them as they moved back and forth, sniffing at the water they wanted, which they needed and which, though just on the other side of the wire strands, might as well have been days away. Inside the fence grazed Cole's herd with plenty to eat and drink.
Tom's face was troubled as he rode to meet the girl.
"It's serious," he said. "There's enough of your stock down here to ruin you, ma'am, unless we get 'em out to water."
"Let's take them out, then!"
He shook his head skeptically.
"They're in bad shape. They're crazy wild and we haven't got enough men here to shove 'em up the trail. It's an awful job with quiet cattle because they have to go in single file and there's no drivin' 'em. I don't dare risk taking these through the Gap and around to water the other way. Why, Jane, that's forty miles!
"It'll be another day before we can get the boys back to help get 'em out and it looks like a heavy loss at best unless we get water. There's only one way to get it and that's to persuade Cole or his daughter that we'd ought to have it."
"They must have water!" she cried. "It's inhuman not to give it to them!" She watched a big steer going past at a rapid walk, eyes bright and protruding as in fright; he bawled hoarsely for drink. "Why, Tom, people can't refuse water to beasts that need it."
"See! There's Cole and Bobby now,"—pointing toward the cabin. "Come. I'll buy water if necessary."
She spurred her horse and Beck followed at a gallop. When he came abreast he looked curiously at her face. Her jaw was tight and her eyes dark with determination. This was her fight and she was thoroughly aroused to it. She asked no advice, she showed no hesitation; she went forward with all confidence, certain that in this cause which involved not only the loss of property but the suffering of dumb creatures she could have her way.
A hundred yards from the cabin a steer thrust his head through the wire strands and shoved, heedless of barbs, tantalized by the smell of water. Cole shouted with his weak voice and picked up a stick and ran toward the animal, brandishing his cudgel.
Bobby stood watching the riders approach.
"I've come to see you again," Jane said in brief preface. "This time it is an urgent matter." She dismounted and faced the other girl. "My cattle are here and they need drink very badly. You have all the water. Will you let them through your fence? As soon as they can be moved we will take them out and they will bother you no more."
Bobby eyed her with loathing but it was not as she had been on their previous encounter, for about her manner was something more concrete, as though she cherished a definite grudge this time.
"Is your memory so bad that you don't recollect what I told you before?" she asked slowly. "I told you once to keep away from us; I tell you that again. This is our range now; your stock ain't got any rights here."
"I'll grant you that I have no right to ask. I did what I could to keep my cattle out of here. The man I set to guard the Gap was shot down; that is why they are here this morning; that is why I must have your water, because it is the only water available.
"I am willing to pay. This means very much to me. Won't you name a price, give me water? I am asking it as a favor and will be willing to pay for that favor."
"Favor!"
The girl shot the word out harshly.
"Favor! You're a sweet one to come askin'mefor a favor!"
A fever of rage rose in her face and her brows gathered threateningly.
"Nothin' we've got is for sale to you! I wouldn't help you if I could save your outfit by liftin' my hand ... an' if I was starvin' for that you'd give me in pay!"
Jane was nonplussed. Bobby's breast rose and fell quickly and her white teeth gleamed behind drawn lips. She was the catamount, ready to fight!
"But think of these cattle! They're suffering—"
"Cattle! You ask me to think of cattle because they're suffering and you'd make human beings suffer from worse things than thirst!"
"I don't understand you. What have I done that would make people suffer?"
"I s'pose you don't know?"—jeeringly. "I s'pose you don'twantto know in front of him,"—with a flirt of her quirt to indicate Beck. "I wouldn't either if I was in your place, you—sneak!"
"Sneak?" Jane repeated, stung to open resentment. "Sneak?"
"Yes, sneak. You'd run us out of this country if you could, but you can't. You'd take my man if you could ... but you can't!"—through shut teeth.
"Your man?"—looking at the girl and then at Beck in bewilderment. "Your—"
"Yes, my man! Oh, don't think I don't know. I saw it all. I saw one of your hands take him to your home last night. I followed him, I watched through your window. I seen you beg with him and plead with him. I know what you want....
"Why, he's told me everything, from th' first! You got him to follow you out here, you got mad at him and threw him out of your house once. Now you want him back. You want him back. I suppose while he,"—tilting her head toward Tom—"is away on round-up! You want him back when you've got everything you want and he's all I got, all I ever had!"
Tears sprang into her eyes and her voice came trembling through trembling lips. Jane, swept by confusion, sought words and found none. It was preposterous! And yet the very accusation degraded her. Drawn into a quarrel over a man, and such a man!
"You'd take this claim, if you could, when you've got more land than anybody around here. You'd take my man when you've got lots of others yourself. Youmusthave lots like you got lots of other things. Maybe you think that by takin' him you can drive me out and get the claim that way. Maybe that's your reason, you ... you...." She seemed to search in vain for an expletive that would convey her contempt.
"But you misunderstand! You're all wrong."
"Wrong, am I? Wrong, when you put your arms around his neck and put your face close to his an' make him look at you an' beg him to do things for your sake. I watched through your window last night. I heard those words, 'For my sake.' You said 'em. I suppose that's wrong, is it? I—"
"But it wasn't that! It wasn't what you think it—"
"I s'pose you thought he wouldn't tell me, but he did. He won't come back to you. You couldn't get him away from me!"—in triumph.
Her manner was so assured, she was so convinced of the truth of Hilton's version of last night's encounter that Jane Hunter was at a loss for argument. Impulsively she turned to look at Beck, as for suggestion, and what she saw there stripped her of ability to fight back. His face was as devoid of expression as a countenance can be, but his eyes challenged, accused, bore down upon her, demanding that she explain!
Hedemandedthat she explain!
He suspected her! He gave credence to Bobby's accusation. He could do that!
A word, even a gesture, would have cleared the situation but his look struck her inarticulate, immobile. She had been so confident of herself, of his trust; and now he had grasped upon this monstrous charge and held her to answer.
"You with your fine notions, your money, your city ways!" the other taunted. "You, with all you've got, would take the only thing I've got, the only thing I've ever had!
"An' now you come, askin' favors. Favors from me! Why, all I'll do for you is to run you out of this country. I've heard what they call me here: the catamount. I'll show you how the catamount can scratch and bite!"
It swept over Jane that she must reply, that she must say some word in her defense, that she must say it now ...now... that in this second of time her fate swung in balance, that bitter though explanation might be she must make it, for Beck was listening, Beck was watching, Beck was doubting!
And, as she would have spoken, lamely, but with enough clarity to absolve her from suspicion, Bobby stepped closer.
"You take your men an' light out!" she snapped. "You keep your men out of here an' your cattle away from this fence. Th' first steer that breaks through 'll get shot down, th' first man that tries to help 'em through will find that he needs help himself. I hate you!" she cried. "I hate you worse 'n I hate a snake an' I'll treat you like a snake from now on.
"You carry that idea home with you an' you carry this ... as first payment, to bind the bargain!"
With a quick, sharp swing of her arm, she whipped her quirt through the air and it wrapped about Jane's soft throat with a vicious snap.
She stepped back with a choking cry, hiding her face. She heard Beck's short, "That'll do!" in a strange, unnatural voice, as though his throat were dry. She heard the Catamount's contemptuous sniff and her hard, "Clear out!"
She found herself in her saddle again, riding beside Beck as they moved toward the other HC riders, who, dismounted and seated on the ground, had not witnessed the dramatic parley and its humiliating climax. She was confronted by a situation which clearly spelled disaster for her ranch unless solved and solved quickly but that did not matter now.
She had been whipped, as the man who had insulted Bobby Cole had been whipped. Had been drawn into a brawl! And, far worse, she had found that the man toward whom she had toiled from the Jane Hunter that had been to the Jane Hunter she had one day dreamed she might be, had doubted her!
He was talking haltingly, something about bringing more men to shove the cattle up into the Coyote Creek country, but even through her confusion she realized that his thoughts were not finding words, that he was forcing himself to talk of those things. Her heart wanted to cry out, to tell him that he had misunderstood, that her encounter with Hilton was not occasioned by the motive Bobby Cole had suspected. The old Jane Hunter would have done so, but with her new strength had come another thing, until that hour hidden: it was pride, a pride which was as noble as her love, which would permit no cavail, which would not stoop to conquer!
She fought it down, striving for clarified thought, feeling for the word, the brief sentence which would explain away Beck's suspicion and leave that pride uninjured, for there must be such a way. And while she fought, blinded by tears and confused by humiliation, the moment of opportunity passed. Beck left her.
They were with the others, who grouped about her foreman, and he said:
"I was going to send one of you men to bring a dozen of the boys from the wagon to help save this stuff, if we can, but I've changed my mind,"—with a bitter significance which they did not catch. "I'm goin' myself. Curtis, you're in charge. Keep your head. Keep the cattle from breakin' his fence because they'll shoot 'em down an' if they start shooting cattle there'll be a lot of us get shot."
He started away at a gallop without so much as a look at Jane. Impulsively she called his name and spurred her sorrel after him. He set his horse on his haunches, wheeled and waited for her, face white, those eyes so dark, so accusing. That look checked the words that were on her lips as effectively as a blow on the mouth and he spoke first as she halted beside him:
"You did send for him, I take it? You didn't deny that."
He was hard, cruel, brows gathered, and the storm within him stung that pride of hers further, roused it to newer life.
"Yes, I sent for him," she managed to say, "but Tom, won't—"
"That's all that's necessary then," he said, and was gone.
She sat on her horse watching him ride across the flat for the steep trail that led out of the Hole and she felt that all the sweetness, all the worth-while quality of her life was riding hard behind that straight figure. A bitterness rose in her heart, a rebellion. He would not listen to her and she had tried to speak!
Jane did not consider that this was but one evidence of the greatness of the love of such a man, of the sacredness with which he treasured it; all she saw was the distrust, unbelief, and after a time she rode slowly on, watching him become a fleck on the face of the mountain, seeing him finally disappear over the rim, out of her life, it seemed.
With leaden heart she entered her house and sat heavily in the chair before the desk. An envelope was there, addressed to her in Beck's coarse hand. She tore it open with unsteady fingers.
The little gold locket which had been warmed first by her heart, then by Beck's, which had been her talisman for months, slipped into her palm. With tear-dimmed eyes she looked at it and then turned to the letter, reading:
"It is likely that you need your luck worse than I do so I am returning your gift. I would go away from your outfit now but if I did they would say that they drove me out as they have said they would do. My reputation is all I have left now and I would like to keep that because a man must have something.
"I did not want to love you in the first place as you may recall but I guess I was pretty weak for a man. I told you once that there were things I did not understand about you and I guess the way you think about men is one of them. I wanted to drive him out of the country and you would not let me. I waited a long time today for you to deny what the Cole girl said and you did not do it. I was pretty mad when I left you but I realize now it is all my fault. I took a chance which is not the way to do and now I am paying for it. Well, I am able to pay.
"I hope you will not answer this and will not try to talk to me again unless on business. I do not blame you. I blame myself but I do not want to talk about it. I will take good care of your cattle and your men because that is my job. I will run these men out of this country and then if I am able to resign I will.
"Respectfully,"TOM BECK."
She put down the letter, feeling queerly numb. She experienced no particular resentment because she could well see how her failure to speak at the proper moment had condemned her in Beck's eyes; her sensation was of one who has failed in a crisis. Bobby Cole had dominated her, had swept her off her feet, had given her that depressing feeling of inferiority again and before her lover's eyes; it had shaken her assurance, made her question the strength of which she had been so certain in the last weeks! It was that which hurt her far more than the stinging welt about her throat where the lash had bitten her flesh.
She inquired for Two-Bits, learning that the doctor had left him with the assurance that his recovery would not be unduly delayed. She ate her dinner abstractedly. In all she did she moved as one who is only partly alive; a portion of her body, even, seemed insensate, while her mind was dead. A dull ache pervaded her, an emptiness, for something vastly important was gone and she was without resource to call it back.
The Reverend came and went, taking beds on pack horses and when Jane saw him departing she laughed rather weakly to herself.
It was so simple! There was the agency which could bridge this chasm and while so doing could save the pride which was creating the conflict within her.
The Reverend knew her motive in sending for Hilton. He could and would make Beck aware of what had transpired. She even thought of writing Tom a note, something as follows:
"I am terribly hurt but in a way it is of my own doing. I have just one thing to request: Ask the Reverend how Dick Hilton came to be here."
But she had no one to send with it and Beck would be back on the morrow with the men to move the thirst tortured cattle. Besides, there must be another way than the despatch of such a message. That was too cold and formal. It would bring him humbly to her but she knew how he would suffer when his pride was hurt; and such a thing would do no less than hurt his pride. She would make it as easy as possible.
A let-down came and she cried and when she slept that night her dreams were not distressing.