The train pulled out again presently, and the water-tank and the cut were rapidly left in the rear. Taylor returned to the smoking-room and resumed his seat, and while the girl looked out of the window, some men of the train-crew removed the body of the train-robber and obliterated all traces of the fight. And Carrington and Parsons, noting the girl’s abstractedness, again left her to herself.
It had been the girl’s first glimpse of a man in cowboy raiment, and, as she reflected, she knew she might have known Taylor was an unusual man. However, she knew it now.
Cursory glances at drawings she had seen made her familiar with the type, but the cowboys of those drawings had been magnificently arrayed in leatherchaparajos, usually fringed with spangles; and with long-roweled spurs; magnificent wide brims—also bespangled, and various other articles of personal adornment, bewildering and awe inspiring.
But this man, though undoubtedly a cow-puncher, was minus the magnificent raiment of the drawings. And,paradoxical as it may seem, the absence of any magnificent trappings madehimseem magnificent.
But she was not so sure that it was the lack of those things that gave her that impression. He did notbulgein his cowboy clothing; it fitted him perfectly. She was sure it was he who gave magnificence to the clothing. Anyway, she was certain he was magnificent, and her eyes glowed. She knew, now that she had seen him in clothing to which he was accustomed, and which he knew how to wear, that she would have been more interested in him yesterday had he appeared before her arrayed as he was at this moment.
He had shown himself capable, self-reliant, confident. She would have given him her entire admiration had it not been for the knowledge that she had caught him eavesdropping. That action had almost damned him in her estimation—it would have completely and irrevocably condemned him had it not been for her recollection of the stern, almost savage interest she had seen in his eyes while he had been listening to Carrington and Parsons.
She knew because of that expression that Carrington and Parsons had been discussing something in which he took a personal interest. She had not said so much to Carrington, but her instinct told her, warned her, gave her a presentiment of impending trouble. That was what she had meant when she had told Carrington she had seenfightingin Taylor’s eyes.
Taylor confined himself to the smoking-compartment. The negro porter, with pleasing memories of generous tips and a grimmer memory to exact his worship, hung around him, eager to serve him, and to engage him in conversation; once he grinningly mentioned the incident of the cast-off clothing of the night before.
“I ain’t mentionin’ it, boss—not at all! I ain’t givin’ you them duds till you ast for them. You done took me by s’prise, boss—you shuah did. I might’ near caved when you shoved that gun under ma nose—I shuah did, boss. I don’t want to have nothin’ to do with your gun, boss—I shuah don’t. She’d go ‘pop,’ an’ I wouldn’t be heah no more!
“I didn’t reco’nize you in them heathen clo’s you had on yesterday, boss; but I minds you with them duds on. I knows you; you’re ‘Squint’ Taylor, of Dawes. I’ve seen you on that big black hoss of yourn, a prancin’ an’ a prancin’ through town—more’n once I’ve seen you. But I didn’t know you in them heathen clo’s yesterday, boss—’deed I didn’t!”
Later the porter slipped into the compartment. For a minute or two he fussed around the room, setting things to order, meanwhile chuckling to himself. Occasionally he would cease his activities long enough to slap a knee with the palm of a hand, with which movement he would seem to be convulsed with merriment, and then he would resume work, chuckling audibly.
For a time Taylor took no notice of his antics, but they assailed his consciousness presently, and finally he asked:
“What’s eating you, George?”
The query was evidently just what “George” had been waiting for. For now he turned and looked at Taylor, his face solemn, but a white gleam of mirth in his eyes belying the solemnity.
“Tips is comin’ easy for George this mornin’,” he said; “they shuah is. No trouble at all. If a man wants to get tips all he has to be is a dictionary—he, he, he!”
“So you’re a dictionary, eh? Well, explain the meaning of this.” And he tossed a silver dollar to the other.
The dollar in hand, George tilted his head sidewise at Taylor.
“How on earth you know I got somethin’ to tell you?”
“How do I know I’ve got two hands?”
“By lookin’ at them, boss.”
“Well, that’s how I know you’ve got something to tell me—by looking at you.”
The porter chuckled. “I reckon it’s worth a dollar to have a young lady interested in you,” he told himself in a confidential voice, without looking at Taylor; “yassir, it’s sure worth a dollar.” He slapped his knee delightedly. “That young lady a heap interested in you, ’pears like. While ago she pens me in a corner of the platform. ‘Porter, who’s that man in the smoking-compartment—that cowboy? What’s his name, an’ wheredoes he live?’ I hesitates, ’cause I didn’t want to betray no secrets—an’ scratch my haid. Then she pop half a dollar in my hand, an’ I tole her you are Squint Taylor, an’ that you own the Arrow ranch, not far from Dawes. An’ she thank me an’ go away, grinnin’.”
“And the young lady, George; do you know her name?”
“Them men she’s travelin’ with calls her Marion, boss.”
He peered intently at Taylor for signs of interest. He saw no such signs, and after a while, noting that Taylor seemed preoccupied, and was evidently no longer aware of his presence, he slipped out noiselessly.
At nine thirty, Taylor, looking out of the car window, noted that the country was growing familiar. Fifteen minutes later the porter stuck his head in between the curtains, saw that Taylor was still absorbed, and withdrew. At nine fifty-five the porter entered the compartment.
“We’ll be in Dawes in five minutes, boss,” he said. “I’ve toted your baggage to the door.”
The porter withdrew, and a little later Taylor got up and went out into the aisle. At the far end of the car, near the door, he saw Marion Harlan, Parsons, and Carrington.
He did not want to meet them again after what had occurred in the diner, and he cast a glance toward the door behind him, hoping that the porter had carried hisbaggage to that end of the car. But the platform was empty—his suitcase was at the other end.
He slipped into a seat on the side of the train that would presently disclose to him a view of Dawes’s depot, and of Dawes itself, leaned an elbow on the window-sill, and waited. Apparently the three persons at the other end of the car paid no attention to him, but glancing sidelong once he saw the girl throw an interested glance at him.
And then the air-brakes hissed; he felt the train slowing down, and he got up and walked slowly toward the girl and her companions. At about the same instant she and the others began to move toward the door; so that when the train came to a stop they were on the car platform by the time Taylor reached the door. And by the time he stepped out upon the car platform the girl and her friends were on the station platform, their baggage piled at their feet.
Dawes’s depot was merely a roofless platform; and there was no shelter from the glaring white sun that flooded it. The change from the subdued light of the coach to the shimmering, blinding glare of the sun on the wooden planks of the platform affected Taylor’s eyes, and he was forced to look downward as he alighted. And then, not looking up, he went to the baggage-car and pulled his two prisoners out.
Looking up as he walked down the platform with the two men, he saw a transformed Dawes.
The little, frame station building had been a red, dingy blot beside the glistening rails that paralleled the town. It was now gaily draped with bunting—red, white, and blue—which he recognized as having been used on the occasion of the town’s anniversary celebration.
A big American flag topped the ridge of the station; other flags projected from various angles of the frame.
Most of the town’s other buildings were replicas of the station in the matter of decorations—festoons of bunting ran here and there from building to building; broad bands of it were stretched across the fronts of other buildings; gay loops of it crossed the street, suspended to form triumphal arches; flags, wreaths of laurel, Japanese lanterns, and other paraphernalia of the decorator’s art were everywhere.
Down the street near the Castle Hotel, Taylor saw transparencies, but he could not make out the words on them.
He grinned, for certainly the victor of yesterday’s election was outdoing himself.
He looked into the face of a man who stood near him on the platform—who answered his grin.
“Our new mayor is celebrating in style, eh?” he said.
“Right!” declared the man.
He was about to ask the man which candidate had been victorious—though he was certain it was Neil Norton—whenhe saw Marion Harlan, standing a little distance from him, smiling at him.
It was a broad, impersonal smile, such as one citizen of a town might exchange with another when both are confronted with the visible evidences of political victory; and Taylor responded to it with one equally impersonal. Whereat the girl’s smile faded, and her gaze, still upon Taylor, became speculative. Its quality told Taylor that he should not presume upon the smile.
Taylor had no intention of presuming anything. Not even the porter’s story of the girl’s interest in him had affected him to the extent of fatuous imaginings. A woman’s curiosity, he supposed, had led her to inquire about him. He expected she rarely saw men arrayed as he was—and as he had been arrayed the day before.
The girl’s gaze went from Taylor to the street in the immediate vicinity of the station, and for the first time since alighting on the platform Taylor saw a mass of people near him.
Looking sharply at them, he saw many faces in the mass that he knew. They all seemed to be looking at him and, with the suddenness of a stroke came to him the consciousness that there was no sound—that silence, deep and unusual, reigned in Dawes. The train, usually merely stopping at the station and then resuming its trip, was still standing motionless behind him. With a sidelong glance he saw the train-crew standing near the steps ofthe cars, looking at him. The porter and the waiter with whose faces he was familiar, were grinning at him.
Taylor felt that his own grin, as he gazed around at the faces that were all turned toward him, was vacuous and foolish. Hefeltfoolish. For he knew something had attracted the attention of all these people to him, and he had not the slightest idea what it was. For an instant he feared that through some mental lapse he had forgotten to remove his “dude” clothing; and he looked down at his trousers and felt of his shirt, to reassure himself. And he gravely and intently looked at his prisoners, wondering if by any chance some practical joker of the town had arranged the train robbery for his special benefit. If that were the explanation it had been grim hoax—for two men had been killed in the fight.
Looking up again, he saw that the grins on the faces of the people around him had grown broader—and several loud guffaws of laughter reached his ears. He looked at Marion Harlan, and saw a puzzled expression on her face. Carrington, too, was looking at him, and Parsons, whose smile was a smirk of perplexity.
Taylor reddened with embarrassment. A resentment that grew swiftly to an angry intolerance, seized him. He straightened, squared his shoulders, thrust out his chin, and shoving his prisoners before him, took several long strides across the station platform.
This movement brought him close to Marion Harlanand her friends, and his further progress was barred by a man who placed a hand against his chest.
This man, too, was grinning. He seized Taylor’s shoulders with both hands and looked into his face, the grin on his own broad and expanding.
“Welcome home—you old son-of-a-gun!” said the man.
His grin was infectious and Taylor answered it, dropping his suitcase and looking the other straight in the eyes.
“Norton,” he said, “what in hell is the cause of all this staring at me? Can’t a man leave town for a few days and come back without everybody looking at him as though he were a curiosity?”
Norton—a tall, slender, sinewy man with broad shoulders—laughed aloud and deliberately winked at several interested citizens who had followed Taylor’s progress across the platform, and who now stood near him, grinning.
“You are a curiosity, man. You’re the first mayor of this man’s town! Lordy,” he said to the surrounding faces, “he hasn’t tumbled to it yet!”
The color left Taylor’s face; he stared hard at Norton; he gazed in bewilderment at the faces near him.
“Mayor?” he said. “Why, good Lord, man, I wasn’t here yesterday!”
“But your friends were!” yelped the delighted Norton.He raised his voice, so that it reached far into the crowd on the street:
“He’s sort of fussed up, boys; this honor being conferred on him so sudden; but give him time and he’ll talk your heads off!” He leaned over to Taylor and whispered in his ear.
“Grin, man, for God’s sake! Don’t stand there like a wooden man; they’ll think you don’t appreciate it! It’s the first time I ever saw you lose your nerve. Buck up, man; why, they simply swamped Danforth; wiped him clean off the map!”
Norton was whispering more into Taylor’s ear, but Taylor could not follow the sequence of it, nor get a coherent meaning out of it. He even doubted that he heard Norton. He straightened, and looked around at the crowd that now was pressing in on him, and for the first time in his life he knew the mental panic and the physical sickness that overtakes the man who for the first time faces an audience whose eyes are focused on him.
For a bag of gold as big as the mountains that loomed over the distant southern horizon he could not have said a word to the crowd. But he did succeed in grinning at the faces around him, and at that the crowd yelled.
And just before the crowd closed in on him and he began to shake hands with his delighted supporters, he glanced at Marion Harlan. She was looking at him witha certain sober interest, though he was sure that back in her eyes was a sort of humorous malice—which had, however, a softening quality of admiration and, perhaps, gratitude.
His gaze went from her to Carrington. The big man was watching him with a veiled sneer which, when he met Taylor’s eyes, grew open and unmistakable.
Taylor grinned broadly at him, for now it occurred to him that he would be able to thwart Carrington’s designs of “getting hold of the reins.” His grin at Carrington was a silent challenge, and so the other interpreted it, for his sneer grew positively venomous.
The girl caught the exchange of glances between them, for Taylor heard her say to Parsons, just before the noise of the crowd drowned her voice:
“Now Iknowhe overheard you!”
Meanwhile, the two prisoners were standing near Taylor. Taylor had almost forgotten them. He was reminded of their presence when he saw Keats, the sheriff, standing near him. At just the instant Taylor looked at Keats, the latter was critically watching the prisoners.
Keats and Taylor had had many differences of opinion, for the sheriff’s official actions had not merited nor received Taylor’s approval. Taylor’s attitude toward the man had always been that of good-natured banter, despite the disgust he felt for the man. And now, pursuing his customary attitude, Taylor called to him:
“Specimens, eh! Picked them up at Toban’s this morning. They yearned to hold up the train. There were four, all together, but we had to put two out of business. I came pretty near forgetting them. If I hadn’t seen you just now, maybe I would have walked right off and left them here. Take them to jail, Keats.”
Keats advanced. He met Taylor’s eyes and his lips curved with a sneer:
“Pullin’ off a little grand-stand play, eh! Well, it’s a mighty clever idea. First you get elected mayor, an’ then you come in here, draggin’ along a couple of mean-lookin’ hombres, an’ say they’ve tried to hold up the train at Toban’s. It sounds mighty fishy to me!”
Taylor laughed. He heard a chuckle behind him, and he turned, to see Carrington grinning significantly at Keats. Taylor’s eyes chilled as his gaze went from one man to the other, for the exchange of glances told him that between the men there was a common interest, which would link them together against him. And in the dead silence that followed Keats’s words, Taylor drawled, grinning coldly:
“Meaning that I’m a liar, Keats?”
His voice was gentle, and his shoulders seemed to droop a little as though in his mind was a desire to placate Keats. But there were men in Dawes who had seen Taylor work his guns, and these held their breath and began to shove backward. That slow, drooping ofTaylor’s shoulders was a danger signal, a silent warning that Taylor was ready for action, swift and violent.
And faces around Taylor whitened as the man stood there facing Keats, his shoulders drooping still lower, the smile on his face becoming one of cold, grim mockery.
The discomfiture of Keats was apparent. Indecision and fear were in the set of his head—bowed a little; and a dread reluctance was in his shifting eyes and the pasty-white color of his face. It was plain that Keats had overplayed; he had not intended to arouse the latent tiger in Taylor; he had meant merely to embarrass him.
“Meaning that I’m a liar, Keats?”
Again Taylor’s voice was gentle, though this time it carried a subtle taunt.
Desperately harried, Keats licked his hot lips and cast a sullen glance around at the crowd. Then his gaze went to Taylor’s face, and he drew a slow breath.
“I reckon I wasn’t meanin’ just that,” he said.
“Of course,” smiled Taylor; “that’s no way for a sheriff to act. Take them in, Keats,” he added, waving a hand at the prisoners; “it’s been so long since the sheriff of this county arrested a man that the jail’s gettin’ tired, yawning for somebody to get into it.”
He turned his back on Keats and looked straight at Carrington:
“Have you got any ideas along the sheriff’s line?” he asked.
Carrington flushed and his lips went into a sullen pout. He did not speak, merely shaking his head, negatively.
Keats’s glance at Taylor was malignant with hate; and Carrington’s sullen, venomous look was not unnoticed by the crowd. Keats stepped forward and seized the two prisoners, hustling them away, muttering profanely.
And then Taylor was led away by Norton and a committee of citizens, leaving Carrington, the girl and Parsons alone on the platform.
“Looks like we’re going to have trouble lining things up,” remarked Parsons. “Danforth——”
“You shut up!” snapped Carrington. “Danforth’s an ass and so are you!”
Within an hour after his arrival in Dawes, Carrington was sitting in the big front room of his suite in the Castle Hotel, inspecting the town.
A bay window projected over the sidewalk, and from a big leather chair placed almost in the center of the bay between two windows and facing a third, at the front, Carrington had a remarkably good view of the town.
Dawes was a thriving center of activity, with reasons for its prosperity. Walking toward the Castle from the railroad station, Carrington had caught a glimpse of the big dam blocking the constricted neck of a wide basin west of the town—and farther westward stretched a vast agricultural section, level as a floor, with a carpet of green slumbering in the white sunlight, and dotted with young trees that seemed almost ready to bear.
There were many small buildings on the big level, some tenthouses, and straight through the level was a wide, sparkling stream of water, with other and smaller streams intersecting it. These streams were irrigation ditches, and the moisture in them was giving life to a vast section of country that had previously been arid and dead.
But Carrington’s interest had not been so much for the land as for the method of irrigation. To be sure, he had not stopped long to look, but he had comprehended the system at a glance. There were locks and flumes and water-gates, and plenty of water. But the irrigation company had not completed its system. Carrington intended to complete it.
Dawes was two years old, and it had the appearance of having been hastily constructed. Its buildings were mostly of frame—even the Castle, large and pretentious, and the town’s aristocrat of hostelries, was of frame. Carrington smiled, for later, when he had got himself established, he intended to introduce an innovation in building material.
The courthouse was a frame structure. It was directly across the street from the Castle, and Carrington could look into its windows and see some men at work inside at desks. He had no interest in the post office, for that was of the national government—and yet, perhaps, after a while he might take some interest in that.
For Carrington’s vision, though selfish, was broad. A multitude of men of the Carrington type have taken bold positions in the eternal battle for progress, and all have contributed something toward the ultimate ideal. And not all have been scoundrels.
Carrington’s vision, however, was blurred by the mote of greed. Dawes was flourishing; he intended to modernizeit, but in the process of modernization he intended to be the chief recipient of the material profits.
Carrington had washed, shaved himself, and changed his clothes; and as he sat in the big leather chair in the bay, overlooking the street, he looked smooth, sleek, and capable.
He had seemed massive in the Pullman, wearing a traveling suit of some light material, and his corpulent waist-line had been somewhat accentuated.
The blue serge suit he wore now made a startling change in his appearance. It made his shoulders seem broader; it made the wide, swelling arch of his chest more pronounced, and in inverse ratio it contracted the corpulent waist-line—almost eliminating it.
Carrington looked to be what he was—a big, virile, magnetic giant of a man in perfect health.
He had not been sitting in the leather chair for more than fifteen minutes when there came a knock on a door behind him.
“Come!” he commanded.
A tall man entered, closed the door behind him and with hat in hand stood looking at Carrington with a half-smile which might have been slightly diffident, or impudent or defiant—it was puzzling.
Carrington had twisted in his chair to get a glimpse of his visitor; he now grunted, resumed his former position and said, gruffly:
“Hello, Danforth!”
Danforth stepped over to the bay, and without invitation drew up a chair and seated himself near Carrington.
Danforth was slender, big-framed, and sinewy. His shoulders were broad and his waist slim. There was a stubborn thrust to his chin; his nose was a trifle too long to perfectly fit his face; his mouth a little too big, and the lips too thin. The nose had a slight droop that made one think of selfishness and greed, and the thin lips, with a downward swerve at the corners, suggested cruelty.
These defects, however, were not prominent, for they were offset by a really distinguished head with a mass of short, curly hair that ruffled attractively under the brim of the felt hat he wore.
The hat was in his right hand, now, but it had left its impress on his hair, and as he sat down he ran his free hand through it. Danforth knew where his attractions were.
He grinned shallowly at Carrington when the latter turned and looked at him.
He cleared his throat. “I suppose you’ve heard about it?”
“I couldn’t help hearing.” Carrington scowled at the other. “What in hell was wrong? We send you out here, give you more than a year’s time and all the money you want—which has been plenty—and then you lose. What in the devil was the matter?”
“Too much Taylor,” smirked the other.
“But what else?”
“Nothing else—just Taylor.”
Carrington exclaimed profanely.
“Why, the man didn’t even know he was a candidate! He was on the train I came in on!”
“It was Neil Norton’s scheme,” explained Danforth. “I hadhimbeaten to a frazzle. I suppose he knew it. Two days before election he suddenly withdrew his name and substituted Taylor’s. You know what happened. He licked me two to one. He was too popular for me—damn him!
“Norton owns a newspaper here—the only one in the county—theEagle.”
“Why didn’t you buy him?”
Danforth grinned sarcastically: “I didn’t feel that reckless.”
“Honest, eh?”
Carrington rested his chin in the palm of his right hand and scowled into the street. He was convinced that Danforth had done everything he could to win the election, and he was bitterly chagrined over the result. But that result was not the dominating thought in his mind. He kept seeing Taylor as the latter had stood on the station platform, stunned with surprise over the knowledge that he had been so signally honored by the people of Dawes.
And Carrington had seen Marion Harlan’s glances at the man; he had been aware of the admiring smile she had given Taylor; and bitter passion gripped Carrington at the recollection of the smile.
More—he had seen Taylor’s face when the girl had smiled. The smile had thrilled Taylor—it had held promise for him, and Carrington knew it.
Carrington continued to stare out into the street. Danforth watched him furtively, in silence.
At last, not opening his lips, Carrington spoke:
“Tell me about this man, Taylor.”
“Taylor owns the Arrow ranch, in the basin south of here. His ranch covers about twenty thousand acres. He has a clear title.
“According to report, he employs about thirty men. They are holy terrors—that is, they are what is called ‘hard cases,’ though they are not outlaws by any means. Just a devil-may-care bunch that raises hell when it strikes town. They swear by Taylor.”
So far as Carrington could see, everybody in Dawes swore by Taylor. Carrington grimaced.
“That isn’t what I want to know,” he flared. “How long has he been here; what kind of a fellow is he?”
“Taylor owned the Arrow before Dawes was founded. When the railroad came through it brought with it some land-sharks that tried to frame up on the ranch-owners in the vicinity. It was a slick scheme, they tell me. Theyhad clouded every title, and figured to grab the whole county, it seems.
“Taylor went after them. People I’ve talked with here say it was a dandy shindy while it lasted. The land-grabbers brought the courts in, and a crooked judge. Taylor fought them, crooked judge and all, to a bite-the-dust finish. Toward the end it was a free-for-all—and the land-grabbers were chased out of the county.
“Naturally, the folks around here think a lot of Taylor for the part he played in the deal. Besides that, he’s a man that makes friends quickly—and holds them.”
“Has Taylor any interests besides his ranch?”
“A share in the water company, I believe. He owns some land in town; and he is usually on all the public committees here.”
“About thirty, isn’t he?”
“Twenty-eight.”
Carrington looked at the other with a sidelong, sneering grin:
“Have any ladies come into his young life?”
Danforth snickered. “You’ve got me—I hadn’t inquired. He doesn’t seem to be much of a ladies’ man, though, I take it. Doesn’t seem to have time to monkey with them.”
“H-m!” Carrington’s lips went into a pout as he stared straight ahead of him.
Danforth at last broke a long silence with:
“Well, we got licked, all right. What’s going to happen now? Are you going to quit?”
“Quit?” Carrington snapped the word at the other, his eyes flaming with rage. Then he laughed, mirthlessly, resuming: “This defeat was unexpected; I wasn’t set for it. But it won’t alter things—very much. I’ll have to shake a leg, that’s all. What time does the next train leave here for the capital?”
“At two o’clock this afternoon.” Danforth’s eyes widened as he looked at Carrington. The curiosity in his glance caused Carrington to laugh shortly.
“You don’t mean that the governor is in this thing?” said Danforth.
“Why not?” demanded Carrington. “Bah! Do you think I came in with my eyes closed!”
There was a new light in Danforth’s eyes—the flame of renewed hope.
“Then we’ve still got a chance,” he declared.
Carrington laughed. “A too-popular mayor is not a good thing for a town,” he said significantly.
Marion Harlan and her uncle, Elam Parsons, did not accompany Carrington to the Castle Hotel. By telegraph, through Danforth, Carrington had bought a house near Dawes, and shortly after Quinton Taylor left the station platform accompanied by his friends and admirers, Marion and her uncle were in a buckboard riding toward the place that, henceforth, was to be their home.
For that question had been settled before the party left Westwood. Parsons had declared his future activities were to be centered in Dawes, that he had no further interests to keep him in Westwood, and that he intended to make his home in Dawes.
Certainly Marion had few interests in the town that had been the scene of the domestic tragedy that had left her parentless. She was glad to get away. For though she had not been to blame for what had happened, she was painfully conscious of the stares that followed her everywhere, and aware of the morbid curiosity with which her neighbors regarded her. Also—through the medium of certain of her “friends,” she had becomecognizant of speculative whisperings, such as: “To think of being brought up like that? Do you think she will be like her mother?” Or—“What’s bred in the bone,et cetera.”
Perhaps these good people did not mean to be unkind; certainly the crimson stains that colored the girl’s cheeks when she passed them should have won their charity and their silence.
There was nothing in Westwood for her; and so she was glad to get away. And the trip westward toward Dawes opened a new vista of life to her. She was leaving the old and the tragic and adventuring into the new and promising, where she could face life without the onus of a shame that had not been hers.
Before she was half way to Dawes she had forgotten Westwood and its wagging tongues. She alone, of all the passengers in the Pullman, had not been aware of the heat and the discomfort. She had loved every foot of the great prairie land that, green and beautiful, had flashed past the car window; she had gazed with eager, interested eyes into the far reaches of the desert through which she had passed, filling her soul with the mystic beauty of this new world, reveling in its vastness and in the atmosphere of calm that seemed to engulf it.
Dawes had not disappointed her; on the contrary, she loved it at first sight. For though Dawes was new and crude, it looked rugged and honest—and rather toobusy to hesitate for the purpose of indulging in gossip—idle or otherwise. Dawes, she was certain, was occupying itself with progress—a thing that, long since, Westwood had forgotten.
Five minutes after she had entered the buckboard, the spirit of this new world had seized upon the girl and she was athrob and atingle with the joy of it. It filled her veins; it made her cheeks flame and her eyes dance. And the strange aroma—the pungent breath of the sage, borne to her on the slight breeze—she drew into her lungs with great long breaths that seemed to intoxicate her.
“Oh,” she exclaimed delightedly, “isn’t it great! Oh, I love it!”
Elam Parsons grinned at her—the habitual smirk with which he recognized all emotion not his own.
“Itdoeslook like a good field for business,” he conceded.
The girl looked at him quickly, divined the sordidness of his thoughts, and puckered her brows in a frown. And thereafter she enjoyed the esthetic beauties of her world without seeking confirmation from her uncle.
Her delight grew as the journey to the new home progressed. She saw the fertile farming country stretching far in the big section of country beyond the water-filled basin; her eyes glowed as the irrigation ditches, with their locks and gates, came under her observation; andshe sat silent, awed by the mightiness of it all—the tall, majestic mountains looming somberly many miles distant behind a glowing mist—like a rose veil or a gauze curtain lowered to partly conceal the mystic beauty of them.
Intervening were hills and flats and draws and valleys, and miles and miles of level grass land, green and peaceful in the shimmering sunlight that came from somewhere near the center of the big, pale-blue inverted bowl of sky; she caught the silvery glitter of a river that wound its way through the country like a monstrous serpent; she saw dark blotches, miles long, which she knew were forests, for she could see the spires of trees thrusting upward. But from where she rode the trees seemed to be no larger than bushes.
Looking backward, she could see Dawes. Already the buckboard had traveled two or three miles, but the town seemed near, and she had quite a shock when she looked back at it and saw the buildings, mere huddled shanties, spoiling the beauty of her picture.
A mile or so farther—four miles altogether, Parsons told her—and they came in sight of a house. She had difficulty restraining her delight when they climbed out of the buckboard and Parsons told her the place was to be their permanent home. For it was such a house as she had longed to live in all the days of her life.
The first impression it gave her was that of spaciousness.For though only one story in height, the house contained many rooms. Those, however, she saw later.
The exterior was what intrigued her interest at first glance. So far as she knew, it was the only brick building in the country. She had seen none such in Dawes.
There was a big porch across the front; the windows were large; there were vines and plants thriving in the shade from some big cottonwood trees near by—in fact, the house seemed to have been built in a grove of the giant trees; there were several outhouses, one of which had chickens in an enclosure near it; there was a garden, well-kept; and the girl saw that back of the house ran a little stream which flowed sharply downward, later to tumble into the big basin far below the irrigation dam.
While Parsons was superintending the unloading of the buckboard, Marion explored the house. It was completely furnished, and her eyes glowed with pleasure as she inspected it. And when Parsons and the driver were carrying the baggage in she was outside the house, standing at the edge of a butte whose precipitous walls descended sharply to the floor of the irrigation basin, two or three hundred feet below. She could no longer see the cultivated level, with its irrigation ditches, but she could see the big dam, a mile or so up the valley toward Dawes, with the water creeping over it, and the big valley itself, slumbering in the pure, white light of the morning.
She went inside, slightly awed, and Parsons, noting her excitement, smirked at her. She left him and went to her room. Emerging later she discovered that Parsons was not in the house. She saw him, however, at a distance, looking out into the valley.
And then, in the kitchen, Marion came upon the housekeeper, a negro woman of uncertain age. Parsons had not told her there was to be a housekeeper.
The negro woman grinned broadly at her astonishment.
“Lawsey, ma’am; you jes’ got to have a housekeeper, I reckon! How you ever git along without a housekeeper? You’re too fine an’ dainty to keep house you’self!”
The woman’s name, the latter told her, was Martha, and there was honest delight—and, it seemed to Marion, downright relief in her eyes when she looked at the new mistress.
“You ain’t got no ‘past,’ that’s certain, honey,” she declared, with a delighted smile. “The woman that lived here befo’ had a past, honey. A man named Huggins lived in this house, an’ she said she’s his wife. Wife! Lawsey! No man has a wife like that! She had a past, that woman, an’ mebbe a present, too—he, he, he!
“He was the man what put the railroad through here, honey. I done hear the woman say—her name was Blanche, honey—that Huggins was one of them ultra rich. But whatever it was that ailed him, honey, didn’t help his looks none. Pig-eye, I used to call him, whenI’se mad at him—which was mostly all the time—he, he, he!”
The girl’s face whitened. Was she never to escape the atmosphere she loathed? She shuddered and Martha patted her sympathetically on the shoulder.
“There, there, honey; you ain’t ’sponsible for other folks’ affairs. Jes’ you hold you’ head up an’ go about you’ business. Nobody say anything to you because you’ livin’ here.”
But Martha’s words neither comforted nor consoled the girl. She went again to her room and sat for a long time, looking out of a window. For now all the cheer had gone out of the house; the rooms looked dull and dreary—and empty, as of something gone out of them.
Marion Harlan had responded eagerly to Carrington’s fabrication regarding the rumor of Lawrence Harlan’s presence in Dawes. Carrington’s reference to her father’s sojourn in the town had been vague—he merely told her that a rumor had reached him—a man’s word, without details—and she had accepted it at its face value. She was impatient to run the rumor down, to personally satisfy herself, and she believed Carrington.
But she spent a fruitless week interrogating people in Dawes. She had gone to the courthouse, there to pass long hours searching the records—and had found nothing. Then, systematically, she had gone from store to store—making small purchases and quizzing everyone she came in contact with. None had known a man named Harlan; it seemed that not one person in Dawes had ever heard of him.
Parsons had returned to town in the buckboard shortly after noon on the day of their arrival at the new house, and she had not seen him again until the following morning. Then he had told her that Carrington had goneaway—he did not know where. Carrington would not return for a week or two, he inferred.
Parsons had bought some horses. A little bay, short-coupled but wiry, belonged to her, Parsons said—it was a present from Carrington.
She hesitated to accept the horse; but the little animal won her regard by his affectionate mannerisms, and at the end of a day of doubt and indecision she accepted him.
She had ridden horses in Westwood—bareback when no one had been looking, and with a side-saddle at other times—but she discovered no side-saddle in Dawes. However, she did encounter no difficulty in unearthing a riding-habit with a divided skirt, and though she got into that with a pulse of trepidation and embarrassment, she soon discovered it to be most comfortable and convenient.
And Dawes did not stare at her because she rode “straddle.” At first she was fearful, and watched Dawes’s citizens furtively; but when she saw that she attracted no attention other than would be attracted by any good-looking young woman in more conventional attire, she felt more at ease. But she could not help thinking about the sanctimonious inhabitants of Westwood. Would they not have declared their kindly predictions vindicated had they been permitted to see her? She could almost hear the chorus of “I-told-you-so’s”—they rang in her ears over a distance of many hundreds of miles!
But the spirit of the young, unfettered country had got into her soul, and she went her way unmindful of Westwood’s opinions.
For three days she continued her search for tidings of her father, eager and hopeful; and then for the remainder of the week she did her searching mechanically, doggedly, with a presentiment of failure to harass her.
And then one morning, when she was standing beside her horse near the stable door, ready to mount and fully determined to pursue the Carrington rumor to the end, the word she sought was brought to her.
She saw a horseman coming toward her from the direction of Dawes. He was not Parsons—for the rider was short and broad; and besides, Parsons was spending most of his time in Dawes.
The girl watched the rider, assured, as he came nearer, that he was a stranger; and when he turned his horse toward her, and she saw hewasa stranger, she leaned close and whispered to her own animal:
“Oh, Billy; what if itshouldbe!”
An instant later she was watching the stranger dismount within a few feet of where she was standing.
He was short and stocky, and undeniably Irish. He was far past middle age, as his gray hair and seamed wrinkles of his face indicated; but there was the light of a youthful spirit and good-nature in his eyes that squinted at the girl with a quizzical interest.
With the bridle-rein in the crook of his elbow and his hat in his hand, he bowed elaborately to the girl.
“Would ye be Miss Harlan, ma’am?” he asked.
“Yes,” she breathed, her face alight with eagerness, for now since the man had spoken her name the presentiment of news grew stronger.
The man’s face flashed into a wide, delighted grin and he reached out a hand, into which she placed one of hers, hardly knowing that she did it.
“Me name’s Ben Mullarky, ma’am. I’ve got a little shack down on the Rabbit-Ear—which is a crick, for all the name some locoed ignoramus give it. You c’ud see the shack from here, ma’am—if ye’d look sharp.”
He pointed out a spot to her—a wooded section far out in the big level country southward, beside the river—and she saw the roof of a building near the edge of the timber.
“That’s me shack,” offered Mullarky. “Me ol’ woman an’ meself owns her—an’ a quarter-section—all proved. We call it seven miles from the shack to Dawes. That’d make it about three from here.”
“Yes, yes,” said the girl eagerly.
He grinned at her. “Comin’ in to town this mornin’ for some knickknacks for me ol’ woman, I hear from Coleman—who keeps a store—that there’s a fine-lookin’ girl named Harlan searchin’ the country for news of her father, Larry Harlan. I knowed him, ma’am.”
“You did? Oh, how wonderful!” She stood erect, breathing fast, her eyes glowing with mingled joy and impatience. She had not caught the significance of Mullarky’s picturesque past tense, “knowed;” but when he repeated it, with just a slight emphasis:
“Iknowedhim, ma’am,” she drew a quick, full breath and her face whitened.
“You knew him,” she said slowly. “Does that mean——”
Mullarky scratched his head and looked downward, not meeting her eyes.
“Squint Taylor would tell you the story, ma’am,” he said. “You see, ma’am, he worked for Squint, an’ Squint was with him when it happened.”
“He’s dead, then?” She stood rigid, tense, searching Mullarky’s face with wide, dreading eyes, and when she saw his gaze shift under hers she drew a deep sigh and leaned against Billy, covering her face with her hands.
Mullarky did not attempt to disturb her; he stood, looking glumly at her, reproaching himself for his awkwardness in breaking the news to her.
It was some minutes before she faced him again, and then she was pale and composed, except for the haunting sadness that had come into her eyes.
“Thank you,” she said. “Can you tell me where I can find Mr. Taylor—‘Squint,’ you called him? Is that the Taylor who was elected mayor—last week?”
“The same, ma’am.” He turned and pointed southward, into the big, level country that she admired so much.
“Do you see that big timber grove ’way off there—where the crick doubles to the north—with that big green patch beyond?” She nodded. “That’s Taylor’s ranch—the Arrow. You’ll find him there. He’s a mighty fine man, ma’am. Larry Harlan would tell you that if he was here. Taylor was the best friend that Larry Harlan ever had—out here.” He looked at her pityingly. “I’m sorry, ma’am, to be the bearer of ill news; but when I heard you was in town, lookin’ for your father, I couldn’t help comin’ to see you.”
She asked some questions about her father—which Mullarky answered; though he could tell her nothing that would acquaint her with the details of her father’s life between the time he had left Westwood and the day of his appearance in this section of the world.
“Mebbe Taylor will know, ma’am,” he repeated again and again. And then, when she thanked him once more and mounted her horse, he said:
“You’ll be goin’ to see Squint right away, ma’am, I suppose. You can ease your horse right down the slope, here, an’ strike the level. You’ll find a trail right down there. You’ll follow it along the crick, an’ it’ll take you into the Arrow ranchhouse. It’ll take you past me own shack, too; an’ if you’ll stop in an’ tell the ol’ woman whoyou are, she’ll be tickled to give you a snack an’ a cup of tea. She liked Larry herself.”
The girl watched Mullarky ride away. He turned in the saddle, at intervals, to grin at her.
Then, when Mullarky had gone she leaned against Billy and stood for a long time, her shoulders quivering.
At last, though, she mounted the little animal and sent him down the slope.
She found the trail about which Mullarky had spoken, and rode it steadily; though she saw little of the wild, virgin country through which she passed, because her brimming eyes blurred it all.
She came at last to Mullarky’s shack, and a stout, motherly woman, with an ample bosom and a kindly face, welcomed her.
“So you’re Larry Harlan’s daughter,” said Mrs. Mullarky, when her insistence had brought the girl inside the cabin; “you poor darlin’. An’ Ben told you—the blunderin’ idiot. He’ll have a piece of my mind when he comes back! An’ you’re stoppin’ at the old Huggins house, eh?” She looked sharply at the girl, and the latter’s face reddened. Whereat Mrs. Mullarky patted her shoulder and murmured:
“It ain’t your fault that there’s indacint women in the world; an’ no taint of them will ever reach you. But the fools in this world is always waggin’ their tongues, associatin’ what’s happened with what they think willhappen. An’ mebbe they’ll wonder about you. It’s your uncle that’s there with you, you say? Well, then, don’t you worry. You run right along to see Squint Taylor, now, an’ find out what he knows about your father. Taylor’s a mighty fine man, darlin’.”
And so Marion went on her way again, grateful for Mrs. Mullarky’s kindness, but depressed over the knowledge that the atmosphere of suspicion, which had enveloped her in Westwood, had followed her into this new country which, she had hoped, would have been more friendly.
She came in sight of the Arrow ranchhouse presently, and gazed at it admiringly. It was a big building, of adobe brick, with a wide porch—or gallery—entirely surrounding it. It was in the center of a big space, with timber flanking it on three sides, and at the north was a green stretch of level that reached to the sloping banks of a river.
There were several smaller buildings; a big, fenced enclosure—the corrals, she supposed; a pasture, and a garden. Everything was in perfect order, and had it not been for the aroma of the sage that assailed her nostrils, the awe-inspiring bigness of it all, the sight of thousands of cattle—which she could see through the trees beyond the clearing, she could have likened the place to a big eastern farmhouse of the better class, isolated and prosperous.
She dismounted from her horse at a corner of the house, near a door that opened upon the wide porch, and stood, pale and hesitant, looking at the door, which was closed.
And as she stared at the door, it swung inward and Quinton Taylor appeared in the opening.
Taylor was arrayed as Marion had mentally pictured him that day when, in the Pullman, she had associated him with ranches and ranges. Evidently he was ready to ride, for leather chaps incased his legs. The chaps were plain, not even adorned with the spangles of the drawings she had seen; and they were well-worn and shiny in spots. A pair of big, Mexican spurs were on the heels of his boots; the inevitable cartridge-belt about his middle, sagging with the heavy pistol; a quirt dangled from his left hand. Assuredly he belonged in this environment—he even seemed to dominate it.
She had wondered how he would greet her; but his greeting was not at all what she had feared it would be. For he did not presume upon their meeting on the train; he gave no sign that he had ever seen her before; there was not even a glint in his eyes to tell her that he remembered the scornful look she had given him when she discovered him listening to the conversation carried on between her uncle and Carrington. His manner indicated that ifshedid not care to mention the matterhewouldnot. His face was grave as he stepped across the porch and stood before her. And he said merely:
“Are you looking for someone, ma’am?”
“I came to see you, Mr. Taylor,” she said. (And then he knew that the negro porter on the train had not lied when he said the girl had paid him for certain information.)
But Taylor’s face was still grave, for he thought he knew what she had come for. He had overheard a great deal of the conversation between Parsons and Carrington in the dining-car, and he remembered such phrases as: “That fairy tale about her father having been seen in this locality; To get her out here, where there isn’t a hell of a lot of law, and a man’s will is the only thing that governs him;” and, “Then you lied about Lawrence Harlan having been seen in this country.” Also, he remembered distinctly another phrase, uttered by Carrington: “That you framed up on her mother, to get her to leave Larry.”
All of that conversation was vivid in Taylor’s mind, and mingled with the recollection of it now was a grim pity for the girl, for the hypocritical character of her supposed friends.
To be sure, the girl did not know that Parsons had lied about her father having been seen in the vicinity of Dawes; but that did not alter the fact that Larry Harlan had really been here; and Taylor surmised that she hadmade inquiries, thus discovering that there was truth in Carrington’s statement.
He got a chair for her and seated himself on the porch railing.
“You came to see me?” he said, encouragingly.
“I am Marion Harlan, the daughter of Lawrence Harlan,” began the girl. And then she paused to note the effect of her words on Taylor.
So far as she could see, there was no sign of emotion on Taylor’s face. He nodded, looking steadily at her.
“And you are seeking news of your father,” he said. “Who told you to come to me?”
“A man named Ben Mullarky. He said my father had worked for you—that you had been his best friend.”
She saw his lips come together in straight lines.
“Poor Larry. You knew he died, Miss Harlan?”
“Mullarky told me.” The girl’s eyes moistened. “And I should like to know something about him—how he lived after—after he left home; whether he was happy—all about him. You see, Mr. Taylor, I loved him!”
“And Larry Harlan loved his daughter,” said Taylor softly.
He began to tell her of her father; how several years before Harlan had come to him, seeking employment; how Larry and himself had formed a friendship; how they had gone together in search of the gold that Larry claimed to have discovered in the Sangre de ChristoMountains; of the injury Larry had suffered, and how the man had died while he himself had been taking him toward civilization and assistance.
During the recital, however, one thought dominated him, reddening his face with visible evidence of the sense of guilt that had seized him. He must deliberately lie to the daughter of the man who had been his friend.
In his pocket at this instant was Larry’s note to him, in which the man had expressed his fear of fortune-hunters. Taylor remembered the exact words:
Marion will have considerable money and I don’t want no sneak to get hold of it—like the sneak that got hold of the money my wife had, that I saved. There’s a lot of them around. If Marion is going to fall in with one of that kind, I’d rather she wouldn’t get what I leave; the man would get it away from her. Use your own judgment and I’ll be satisfied.
And Taylor’s judgment was that Carrington and Parsons were fortune-hunters; that if they discovered the girl to be entitled to a share of the money that had been received from the sale of the mine, they would endeavor to convert it to their own use. And Taylor was determined they should not have it.
The conversation he had overheard in the dining-car had convinced him of their utter hypocrisy and selfishness; it had aroused in him a feeling of savage resentment and disgust that would not permit him to transfera cent of the money to the girl as long as they held the slightest influence over her.
Again he mentally quoted from Larry’s note to him:
The others were too selfish and sneaking. (That meant Parsons—and one other.) Squint, I want you to take care of her.... Sell—the mine—take my share and for it give Marion a half-interest in your ranch, the Arrow. If there is any left, put it in land in Dawes—that town is going to boom. Guard it for her, and marry her, Squint; she’ll make you a good wife.
Since the first meeting with the girl on the train Taylor had felt an entire sympathy with Larry Harlan in his expressed desire to have Taylor marry the girl; in fact, she was the first girl that Taylor had ever wanted to marry, and the passion in his heart for her had already passed the wistful stage—he was determined to have her. But that passion did not lessen his sense of obligation to Larry Harlan. Nor would it—if he could not have the girl himself—prevent him doing what he could to keep her from forming any sort of an alliance with the sort of man Larry had wished to save her from, as expressed in this passage of the note: “If Marion is going to fall in with one of that kind, I’d rather she wouldn’t get what I leave.”
Therefore, since Taylor distrusted Carrington and Parsons, he had decided he would not tell the girl of the money her father had left—the share of the proceeds ofthe mine. He would hold it for her, as a sacred trust, until the time came—if it ever came—when she would have discovered their faithlessness—or until she needed the money. More, he was determined to expose the men.
He knew, thanks to his eavesdropping on the train, at least something regarding the motives that had brought them to Dawes; Carrington’s words, “When we get hold of the reins,” had convinced him that they and the interests behind them were to endeavor to rob the people of Dawes. That was indicated by their attempt to have David Danforth elected mayor of the town.
Taylor had already decided that he could not permit Marion to see the note her father had left, for he did not want her to feel that she was under any obligation—parental or otherwise—to marry him. If he won her at all, he wanted to win her on his merits.
As a matter of fact, since he had decided to lie about the money, he was determined to say nothing about the note at all. He would keep silent, making whatever explanations that seemed to be necessary, trusting to time and the logical sequence of events for the desired outcome.
He was forced to begin to lie at once. When he had finished the story of Larry’s untimely death, the girl looked straight at him.
“Then you were with him when he died. Did—did he mention anyone—my mother—or me?”
“He said: ‘Squint, there is a daughter’”—Taylorwas quoting from the note—“‘she was fifteen when I saw her last. She looked just like me—thank God for that!’” Taylor blushed when he saw the girl’s face redden, for he knew what her thoughts were. He should not have quoted that sentence. He resolved to be more careful; and went on: “He told me I was to take care of you, to offer you a home at the Arrow—after I found you. I was to go to Westwood, Illinois, to find you. I suppose he wanted me to bring you here.”
The speech was entirely unworthy, and Taylor knew it, and he eased his conscience by adding: “He thought, I suppose, that you would like to be where he had been. I’ve not touched the room he had. All his effects are there—everything he owned, just as he left them. I had given him a room in the house because I liked him (that was the truth), and I wanted him where I could talk to him.”
“I cannot thank you enough for that!” she said earnestly. And then Taylor was forced to lie again, for she immediately asked: “And the mine? It proved to be worthless, I suppose. For,” she added, “that would be just father’s luck.”
“The mine wasn’t what we thought it would be,” said Taylor. He was looking at his boots when he spoke, and he wondered if his face was as red as it felt.
“I am not surprised.” There was no disappointment in her voice, and therefore Taylor knew she was notavaricious—though he knew he had not expected her to be. “Then he left nothing but his personal belongings?” she added.
Taylor nodded.
The girl sat for a long time, looking out over the river into the vast level that stretched away from it.
“He has ridden there, I suppose,” she said wistfully. “He was here for nearly three years, you said. Then he must have been everywhere around here.” And she got up, gazing about her, as though she would firmly fix the locality for future reminiscent dreams. Then suddenly she said:
“I should like to see his room—may I?”
“You sure can!”
She followed him into the house, and he stood in the open doorway, watching her as she went from place to place, looking at Larry’s effects.
Taylor did not remain long at the door; he went out upon the porch again, leaving her in the room, and after a long time she joined him, her eyes moist, but a smile on her lips.
“You’ll leave his things there—a little longer, won’t you? I should like to have them, and I shall come for them, some day.”
“Sure,” he said. “But, look here, Miss Harlan. Why should you take his things? Leave them here—and come yourself. That room is yours, if you say the word.And a half-interest in the ranch. I was going to offer your father an interest in it—if he had lived——”
He realized his mistake when he saw her eyes widen incredulously. And there was a change in her voice—it was full of doubt, of distrust almost.
“What had father done to deserve an interest in your ranch?” she demanded.
“Why,” he answered hesitatingly, “it’s rather hard to say. But he helped me much; he suggested improvements that made the place more valuable; he was a good man, and he took a great deal of the work off my mind—and I liked him,” he finished lamely.
“And do you think I could do his share of the work?” she interrogated, looking at him with an odd smile, the meaning of which Taylor could not fathom.
“I couldn’t expect that, of course,” he said boldly; “but I owe Harlan something for what he did for me, and I thought——”
“You thought you would be charitable to the daughter,” she finished for him, with a smile in which there was gratitude and understanding.
“I am sure I can’t thank you enough for feeling that way toward my father and myself. But I can’t accept, you know.”
Taylor did know, of course. A desperate desire to make amends for his lying, to force upon her gratuitously what he had illegally robbed her of, had been the motiveunderlying his offer. And he would have been disappointed had she accepted, for that would have revealed a lack of spirit which he had hoped she possessed.
And yet Taylor felt decidedly uncomfortable over the refusal. He wanted her to have what belonged to her, for he divined from the note her father had left that she would have need of it.
He discovered by judicious questioning, by inference, and through crafty suggestion, that she was entirely dependent upon her uncle; that her uncle had bought the Huggins house, and that Carrington had made her a present of the horse she rode.
This last bit of information, volunteered by Marion, provoked Taylor to a rage that made him grit his teeth.
A little while longer they talked, and when the girl mounted her horse to ride away, they had entered into an agreement under which on Tuesdays and Fridays—the first Tuesday falling on the following day—Taylor was to be absent from the ranch. And during his absence the girl was to come and stay at the ranchhouse, there to occupy her father’s room and, if she desired, to enter the other rooms at will.
As a concession to propriety, she was to bring Martha, the Huggins housekeeper, with her.
But Taylor, after the girl had left, stood for an hour on the porch, watching the dust-cloud that followed the girl’s progress through the big basin, his face red, hissoul filled with loathing for the part his judgment was forcing him to play. But arrayed against the loathing was a complacent satisfaction aroused over the thought that Carrington would never get the money that Larry Harlan had left to the girl.