CHAPTER XIXREADY GUN AND CLEAN HEART
Uncle Jepson understood the cow-punchers because he understood human nature, and because he had a strain of the wild in him that had been retained since his youth. Their simplicity, their directness, had been his own; their frankness and generosity, their warm, manly impulses—all reminded him of the days before age, with its accompanying conservatism of thought and action, had placed a governor upon them. They understood him, too, recognizing him as their kind. Blair, especially, had taken a fancy to him, and therefore it was not many days after the shooting of Kelso that Uncle Jepson got the story, with all its gruesome details, from his lips.
The tale was related in strictest confidence, and Uncle Jepson did not repeat it.
But the main fact, that Randerson had killed another man in his outfit, found its way to Ruth’s ears through the medium of a roaming puncherwho had stopped for an hour at the ranchhouse. Ruth had confirmed the news through questioning several Flying W men, and, because of their reluctance to answer her inquiries, their expressionless faces, she gathered that the shooting had not met with their approval. She did not consider that they had given her no details, that they spoke no word of blame or praise. She got nothing but the bare fact—that Randerson’s gun had again wrought havoc.
She had not seen Masten. A month had slipped by since the day of his departure, when she got a note from him, by messenger, from Lazette, saying that his business was not yet concluded, and that possibly, two weeks more would elapse before he would be able to visit the Flying W.
Had Randerson, standing near the chuck wagon on the night of the shooting of Kelso, known what effect the news would have on Ruth? “I reckon she would have wanted it different,” he had reflected, then. And he had been entirely correct, for the news had destroyed something that had been growing and flourishing in her heart. It had filled her soul with disappointment, at least; repugnance and loathing were not very far away. She had almost been persuaded, thatday when he had taught her how to use the pistol. The killing of Pickett had grown dim and distant in her mental vision; Randerson had become a compelling figure that dominated her thoughts. But this second killing! She could no longer interpret the steady, serene gleam in his eyes as mild confidence and frank directness; as she saw them now they reflected hypocrisy—the cold, designing cunning of the habitual taker of human life.
She had been very near to making a mistake; she had almost yielded to the lure of the romance that had seemed to surround him; the magnetic personality of him had attracted her. He attracted her no longer—her heart was shut to him. And, during the days of Masten’s continuing absence—in the times when she reflected on her feelings toward Randerson on the day he had taught her the use of the pistol, she bitterly reproached herself for her momentary lack of loyalty to the Easterner. She had been weak for an instant—as life is measured—and she would make it up to Masten—by ceasing to be irritated by his moods, through paying no attention to his faults, which, she now saw, were infinitely less grave than those of the man who had impressedher for an instant—and by yielding to his suggestion that she marry him before the fall round-up.
In these days, too, she seriously thought of discharging Randerson, for he had not ridden in to report the killing and to offer a defense for it, but she remembered Vickers’ words: “Randerson is square,” and she supposed that all cowboys were alike, and would shoot—to kill—if they considered their provocation to be great enough.
But these thoughts did not occupy all of her time. She found opportunities to ride and sew and talk—the latter mostly with Aunt Martha and Uncle Jepson. And she kept making her visits to Hagar Catherson.
Of late Ruth had noticed a change in the girl’s manner. She seemed to have lost the vivacity that had swept upon her with the coming of her new clothes; she had grown quiet and thoughtful, and had moods of intense abstraction. Ruth rode to the cabin one morning, to find her sitting on the edge of the porch, hugging Nig tightly and whispering to him. Her eyes were moist when Ruth rode up to the porch and looked down at her, but they filled with delight when they rested upon her visitor.
She did not get up, though, and still held Nig, despite the dog’s attempts to release himself.
“Have you been crying, Hagar?” Ruth inquired as she dismounted and sat on the edge of the porch close to the girl.
Hagar smiled wanly and rubbed her eyes vigorously with the back of her free hand, meanwhile looking sidelong at Ruth.
“Why, I reckon not,” she answered hesitatingly, “that is, not cryin’ regular. But I was just tellin’ Nig, here, that he’s the only sure enough friend I’ve got—that can be depended on not to fool anybody.”
“Why, Hagar!” Ruth was astonished and perhaps a little hurt by this pessimistic view. “What an odd idea for you to have! Who has fooled you, Hagar?”
“Nobody,” said the girl almost sullenly. She dug her bare toe into the deep sand at the edge of the porch and looked down at the miniature hill she was making, her lips set queerly. Ruth had already noticed that she was dressed almost as she had been at their first meeting—a slipover apron that Ruth had given her being the only new garment. It was the lonesomeness, of course, Ruth reflected, and perhaps a vision ofthe dreary future, prospectless, hopeless, to be filled with the monotony of the past. Her arm stole out and was placed on Hagar’s shoulder.
“I haven’t fooled you, Hagar,” she said; “have I?”
“No, ma’am.” Her lips quivered. She glanced furtively at Ruth, and a half frightened, half dreading look came into her eyes. “Nobody’s fooled me,” she added with a nervous laugh. “I was just feelin’ sorta dumpish, I reckon.”
“You mustn’t brood, you know,” consoled Ruth. “It ruins character.”
“What’s character?”
“Why—why,” hesitated Ruth, “the thing that makes you yourself—apart from every other person; your reputation; the good that is in you—the good you feel.”
“I ain’t got any,” said the girl, morosely, grimly.
“Why, Hagar, you have! Everybody has—either good or bad.”
“Mine’s bad, I reckon—if I’ve got any.” She suddenly buried her face on Ruth’s shoulder and sobbed.
Perplexed, astonished, almost dismayed, Ruth held her off and tried to look at her face. Butthe girl only buried it deeper and continued to cry.
“Why, Hagar; whatever is the matter?”
There was no answer, and after holding her for a time, Ruth succeeded in getting a look at her face. It was tear-stained, but dogged in expression, and had Ruth been experienced in reading the human emotions, she could have seen the guilt in the girl’s eyes, lurking far back. She also might have seen the determination in them—a determination not to tell her secret. And a sorrow, also, was there—aroused through the thought that she had deceived Ruth, and could not tell her.
Hagar realized now that she had permitted her emotions to carry her too far, that she had aroused Ruth’s curiosity. Ruth must never know! She made an effort and sat up, laughing grimly through her tears, shaking her hair back from her eyes, brushing it away fiercely.
“Dad says there’s times when I’m half loco,” she said. “I reckon he’s right.” She recovered her composure rapidly, and in a few minutes there were no traces of tears or of mental distress. But Ruth was puzzled, and after she left the cabin she tried in vain to provide an explanation for the girl’s strange conduct.
On her next visit to the cabin, Ruth was astonished when Hagar asked her bluntly:
“Ain’t there no punishment for men who deceive girls?”
“Very little, Hagar, I fear—unless it is God’s punishment.”
“Shucks!” The girl’s eyes flashed vindictively. “There ought to be. Durn ’em, anyway!”
“Hagar, what has brought such a subject into your mind?” said Ruth wonderingly.
The girl reddened, but met Ruth’s eyes determinedly. “I’ve got a book in here, that dad got with some other traps from ol’ man Cullen’s girls, back in Red Rock—they thought we was poorly, an’ they helped us that-a-way. It’s ‘Millie’s Lovers,’ an’ it tells how a man deceived a girl, an’ run away an’ left her—the sneakin’ coyote!”
“Girls shouldn’t read such books, Hagar.”
“Yes, they ought to. But it ought to tell in ’em how to get even with the men who do things like that!” She frowned as she looked at Ruth. “What would you think of a man that done that in real life?”
“I should think that he wouldn’t be much of a man,” said Ruth.
As before, Ruth departed from this visit, puzzled and wondering.
On another morning, a few days following Ruth’s discovery of the shooting of Kelso, she found Hagar standing on the porch. The dog had apprised Hagar of the coming of her visitor. Hagar’s first words were:
“Did you hear? Rex Randerson killed Kelso.”
“I heard about it some days ago,” said Ruth. “It’s horrible!”
“What do you reckon is horrible about it?” questioned Hagar, with a queer look at her friend.
“Why,” returned Ruth, surprised; “the deed itself! The very thought of one human being taking the life of another!”
“There’s worse things than killin’ a man that’s tryin’ to make you shuffle off,” declared Hagar evenly. “Rex Randerson wouldn’t kill nobody unless they made him do it. An’ accordin’ to what dad says, Kelso pulled first. Rex ain’t lettin’ nobody perforatehim, you bet!”
“He is too ready with his pistol.”
The girl caught the repugnance in Ruth’s voice. “I thought you kind of liked Randerson,” she said.
Ruth blushed. “What made you think that?” she demanded.
“I’ve heard that you’ve gone ridin’ with him a lot. I just reckoned it.”
“You are mistaken, Hagar. I do not like Randerson at all. He is my range boss—that is all. A murderer could never be a friend to me.”
A shadow came over Hagar’s face. “Rex Randerson has got a clean heart,” she said slowly. She stood looking at Ruth, disappointment plain in her eyes. The disappointment was quickly succeeded by suspicion; she caught her breath, and the hands that were under her apron gripped each other hard.
“I reckon you’ll take up with Masten again,” she said, trying to control her voice.
Ruth looked intently at her, but she did not notice the girl’s emotion through her interest in her words.
“What do you mean by ‘again’?”
“I heard that you’d broke your engagement.”
“Who told you that?” Ruth’s voice was sharp, for she thought Randerson perhaps had been talking.
Hagar blushed crimson and resorted to a lie. “My dad told me. He said he’d heard it.”
“Well, it isn’t true,” Ruth told her firmly; “I have never broken with Mr. Masten. And we are to be married soon.”
She turned, for she was slightly indignant at this evidence that the people in the country near her had been meddling with her affairs, and she did not see the ashen pallor that quickly spread over Hagar’s face. Had Ruth been looking she must have suspected the girl’s secret. But it took her some time to mount her pony, and then looking back she waved her hand at Hagar, who was smiling, though with pale and drawn face.
Hagar stood rigid on the porch until she could no longer see Ruth. Then she sank to the edge of the porch, gathered the dog Nig into her arms, and buried her face in his unkempt shoulder. Rocking back and forth in a paroxysm of impotent passion, she spoke to the dog:
“I can’t kill him now, Nig, he’s goin’ to marryher! Oh Nig, Nig, what am I goin’ to do now?” And then she looked up scornfully, her eyes flashing. “She won’t let Rex be a friend of hers, because he’s killed two men that God had ought to have killed a long while ago! But she’ll marry Masten—who ain’t fit to be Rex’s dog. She won’t, Nig! Why—?”
She got up and started for the door. But nearing it, she sank upon the threshold, crying and moaning, while Nig, perplexed at this conduct on the part of his mistress, stood off a little and barked loudly at her.
CHAPTER XXTHE BUBBLE—DREAMS
Loping his pony through the golden haze of the afternoon, Randerson came over the plains toward the Flying W ranchhouse, tingling with anticipation. The still small voice to which he had listened in the days before Ruth’s coming had not lied to him; Fate, or whatever power ruled the destinies of lovers, had made her for him. Man’s interference might delay the time of possession, his thoughts were of Masten for a brief instant, and his lips straightened, but in the end there could be no other outcome.
But though he was as certain of her as he was that the sun would continue to rule the days, he kept his confidence from betraying his thoughts, and when at last he rode slowly down along the corral fence, past the bunkhouse and the other buildings, to the edge of the porch, sitting quietly in the saddle and looking down at Ruth, who was sitting in a rocker, sewing, his face was grave and his manner that of unconscious reverence.
Ruth had been on the porch for more than an hour. And as on the day when he had come riding in in obedience to her orders to teach her the mysteries of the six-shooter, she watched him today—with anticipation, but with anticipation of a different sort, in which was mingled a little regret, but burdened largely with an eagerness to show him, unmistakably, that he was not the sort of man that she could look upon seriously. And so when she saw him ride up to the porch and bring his pony to a halt, she laid her sewing in her lap, folded her hands over it, and watched him with outward calmness, though with a vague sorrow gripping her. For in spite of what he had done, she still felt the man’s strong personality, his virility—the compelling lure of him. She experienced a quick, involuntary tightening of the muscles when she heard his voice—for it intensified the regret in her—low, drawling, gentle:
“I have come in to report to you, ma’am.”
“Very well,” she said calmly. She leaned back in her chair, looking at him, feeling a quick pulse of pity for him, for as she sat there and waited, saying nothing further, she saw a faint red steal into his cheeks. She knew that he had expectedan invitation to join her on the porch; he was entitled to that courtesy because of her treatment of him on the occasion of his previous visit; and that when the invitation did not come he could not but feel deeply the embarrassment of the situation.
The faint glow died out of his face, and the lines of his lips grew a trifle more firm. This reception was not the one he had anticipated, but then there were moods into which people fell. She was subject to moods, too, for he remembered the night she had hurt her ankle—how she had “roasted” him. And his face grew long with an inward mirth. She would ask him to get off his horse, presently, and then he was going to tell her of his feelings on that night.
But she did not invite him to alight. On the contrary, she maintained a silence that was nearly severe. He divined that this mood was to continue and instead of getting off his pony he swung crossways in the saddle.
“We’ve got the cattle all out of the hills an’ the timber, an’ we’re workin’ down the crick toward here,” he told her. “There ain’t nothin’ unusual happened, except”—and here he paused for a brief instant—“that I had to shoot a man.It was Watt Kelso, from over Lazette way. I hired him two weeks before.”
“I heard of it,” she returned steadily, her voice expressionless.
“I hated like poison to do it. But I had no choice. He brought it on himself.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” she said flatly. She looked at him now with the first flash of emotion that she had allowed him to see. “If killing people is your trade, and you choose to persist in it, I don’t see how we are to stop you.”
He looked sharply at her, but his voice was low and even. “I don’t shoot folks for the fun of it, ma’am.”
“No?”—with scornful disbelief. “Well, I presume it doesn’t make much difference. Dead people wouldn’t appreciate the joke, anyway.”
His face was serious now, for he could see that she was deeply disturbed over the shooting.
“I reckon you wouldn’t believe me, no matter how hard I talked,” he said. “You’d have your own opinion. It sure does look bad for me—havin’ to plug two guys in one season. An’ I don’t blame you for feelin’ like you do about it. But I’ve got this to say,” he went on earnestly. “Kelso come to the outfit, lookin’ for trouble.I’d had a run-in with him a few years ago. An’ I shot him—in the arm. I thought it was all over. But along comes Kelso, with his mustache shaved off so’s I wouldn’t know him—which I did. He asked me for a job, an’ I give it to him—hopin’. But hopes—”
“If you knew him, why did you give him a job?” she interrupted. “It might have saved you shooting him.”
“If he was wantin’ to force trouble he’d have done it sooner or later, ma’am.”
“Well?” she said, interested in spite of herself.
“He waited two weeks for a chance. I didn’t give him any chance. An’ then, one night, after Red Owen had been cuttin’ up some monkey shines, he talked fresh an’ pulled his gun. He was a regular gunfighter, ma’am; he’d been hired to put me out of business.”
There was an appeal in his eyes that did not show in his voice; and it would be all the appeal that he would make. Looking fixedly at him, she became certain of that.
“Do you know who hired him?”
There was that in her tone which told him that he might now make his case strong—might evenconvince her, and thus be restored to that grace from which he, plainly, had fallen. But he was a claimant for her hand, he had told her that he would not press that claim until she broke her engagement with Masten, and if he now told her that it had been the Easterner who had hired Kelso to kill him, he would have felt that she would think he had taken advantage of the situation, selfishly. And he preferred to take his chance, slender though it seemed to be.
“He didn’t tell me.”
“Then you only suspected it?”
He was silent for an instant. Then: “A man told me he was hired.”
“Who told you?”
“I ain’t mentionin’, ma’am.” He could not tell her that Blair had told him, after he had told Blair not to mention it.
She smiled with cold incredulity, and he knew his chance had gone.
But he was not prepared for her next words. In her horror for his deed, she had ceased to respect him; she had ceased to believe him; his earnest protestations of innocence of wantonness she thought were hypocritical—an impression strengthened by his statement that Kelso had beenhired to kill him, and by his inability to show evidence to prove it. A shiver of repulsion, for him and his killings, ran over her.
“I believe you are lying, Randerson,” she said, coldly.
He started, stiffened, and then stared, at her, his face slowly whitening. She had said words that, spoken by a man, would have brought about another of those killings that horrified her. She watched him, sensing for the first time something of the terrible emotions that sometimes beset men in tense situations but entirely unconscious of the fact that she had hurt him far more than any bullet could have hurt him.
Yet, aside from the whiteness of his face, he took the fatal thrust without a sign. His dreams, that had seemed to be so real to him while riding over the plains toward the ranchhouse, had been bubbles that she had burst with a breath. He saw the wrecks of them go sailing into the dust at his feet.
He had gazed downward, and he did not look up at once. When he did, his gaze rested, as though by prearrangement, on her. Her eyes were still cold, still disbelieving, and he drew himself slowly erect.
“I reckon you’ve said enough, ma’am,” he told her quietly, though his voice was a trifle hoarse. “A man couldn’t help but understand that.” He wheeled Patches and took off his hat to her. “I’ll send Red Owen to see you, ma’am,” he added. “I can recommend Red.”
She was on her feet, ready to turn to go into the house, for his manner of receiving her insult had made her feel infinitely small and mean. But at his words she halted and looked at him.
“Why should you send Red Owen to see me? What do you mean?” she demanded.
“Why, you’ve made it pretty plain, ma’am,” he answered with a low laugh, turning his head to look back at her. “I reckon you wouldn’t expect me to go on workin’ for you, after you’ve got so you don’t trust me any more. Red will make you a good range boss.”
He urged Patches on. But she called to him, a strange regret filling her, whitening her cheeks, and Patches came again to a halt.
“I—I don’t want Red Owen for a range boss,” she declared with a gulp. “If you are determined to quit, I—I suppose I cannot prevent it. But you can stay a week or two, can’t you—until I can get somebody I like?”
He smiled gravely. “Why, I reckon I can, ma’am,” he answered respectfully. “There won’t be no awful hurry about it. I wouldn’t want to disconvenience you.”
And then he was off into the deepening haze of the coming evening, riding tall and rigid, with never a look behind to show her that he cared.
Standing in the doorway of the house, the girl watched him, both hands at her breast, her eyes wide, her lips parted, her cheeks flushed, until the somber shadows of twilight came down and swallowed him. Then, oppressed with a sudden sense of the emptiness of the world, she went into the house.
CHAPTER XXIONE TOO MANY
To no man in the outfit did Randerson whisper a word concerning the result of his visit to the ranchhouse—that he would cease to be the Flying W range boss just as soon as Ruth Harkness could find a man to replace him. He went his way, thoughtful, silent, grave, filled with somber thoughts and dark passions that sometimes flashed in his eyes, but taking no man into his confidence. And yet they knew that all was not well with him. For in other days his dry humor, his love of wholesome fun, had shortened many an hour for them, and his serenity, in ordinary difficulties, had become a byword to them. And so they knew that the thing which was troubling him now was not ordinary.
They thought they knew what was troubling him. Kelso had been hired to take his life. Kelso had lost his own in the effort. That might have seemed to end it. But it had become known that Kelso had been a mere tool in the hands of anunscrupulous plotter, and until the plotter had been sent on the way that Kelso had gone there could be no end. Already there were whispers over the country because of Randerson’s delay.
Of course, they would wait a reasonable time; they would give him his “chance.” But they did not know what was holding him back—that deep in his heart lurked a hope that one day he might still make his dreams come true, and that if he killed Masten, Ruth’s abhorrence of him and his deeds, already strong, could never be driven from her. If he lost this hope, Masten was doomed.
And during the second week following his latest talk with Ruth, the girl unconsciously killed it. He met her in the open, miles from the ranchhouse, and he rode toward her, deeply repentant, resolved to brave public scorn by allowing Masten to live.
He smiled gravely at her when he came close—she waiting for him, looking at him, unmoved. For she had determined to show him that she had meant what she had said to him.
“Have you found a new range boss, ma’am?” he said gently. He had hoped that she might answer lightly, and then he would have known that she would forgive him, in time.
But her chin went up and she looked coldly at him. “You will be able to leave the Flying W shortly, Randerson,” she said. “I am going to leave such matters for Mr. Masten to look after.”
She urged her pony away and left him, staring somberly after her.
Two hours later he was riding down the declivity toward Chavis’ shack, in the basin. He had ridden first to the outfit, and had talked with Owen. And his appearance had been such that when he left the foreman the latter sought out Blair.
“If I don’t miss my reckonin’, Masten’s goin’ to get his’n today.”
Randerson rode, straight as Patches could carry him, to the door of Chavis’ shack. No one appeared to greet him, but he had seen horses, saddled, hitched to the corral fence, and he knew that some one was about. Chavis, Kester, and Hilton were inside the shack, and when they heard him ride up, they came to the door, curious. And when they saw him they stiffened and stood rigid, with not a finger moving, for they had seen men, before, meditating violence, and they saw the signs in Randerson’s chilled and narrowed eyes, and in the grim set of his lips.
His lips moved; his teeth hardly parted to allow the words to come through them. They writhed through:
“Where’s Masten?”
Three pairs of lungs sighed audibly in process of deflation.
It was Chavis who answered; the other two looked at him when the question came, silently. Chavis would have lied, but the light in Randerson’s eyes warned him not to trifle, and the truth came from his lips:
“Masten’s gone to the Flyin’ W ranchhouse.”
“I reckon that’s all,” said Randerson shortly. “I’m thankin’ you.”
He rode away, grinning coldly back at them, still watchful, for he knew Chavis, guiding his pony toward the declivity on the other side of the basin. The three men watched him until the pony had climbed to the mesa. Then Chavis turned to the others.
“I reckon he’s goin’ to see Masten about that Kelso deal,” he said. “Somebody ought to put Masten wise.”
Kester grinned. “It’s bound to come,” he commented. “Let’s finish our game; it is your deal.”
On the mesa, Randerson urged Patches along the edge, over the trail that Ruth had taken when, months before, she had come upon Chavis and Kester at the declivity.
“Nothin’ would have happened, if it hadn’t been for Masten,” he told himself as he rode away. “Pickett wouldn’t have got fresh, an’ Kelso would have kept himself mighty shady. We’d have fought it out, square—me an’ Masten. I reckon I didn’t kill Pickett and Kelso; it was Masten that done it.”
He came, after a while, to the rock upon whick he had found Ruth lying on the night of the accident. And he sat and looked long at the grass plot where he had laid her when she had fainted.
“She looked like an angel, layin’ there,” he reminded himself, his eyes eloquent. “She’s too blamed good for that sneakin’ dude.”
He came upon the ruined boot, and memories grimmed his lips. “It’s busted—like my dreams,” he said, surveying it, ripped and rotting. “I reckon this is as good a place as any,” he added, looking around him.
And he dismounted, led Patches out of sight behind some high bushes that grew far back fromthe rocks; came back, stretched himself out on the grass plot, pulled his hat over his eyes and yielded to his gloomy thoughts. But after he had lain there a while, he spoke aloud:
“He’ll come this way, if he comes at all.”
With the memory of Randerson’s threat always before him, “if I ever lay eyes on you ag’in, I’ll go gunnin’ for you,” Masten rode slowly and watchfully. For he had felt that the words had not been idle ones, and it had been because of them that he had hired Kelso. And he went toward the ranchhouse warily, much relieved when he passed the bunkhouse, to find that Randerson was apparently absent. He intended to make this one trip, present to Ruth his excuses for staying away, and then go back to Chavis’ shack, there to remain out of Randerson’s sight, until he could devise another plan that, he hoped, would put an end to the cowpuncher who was forever tormenting him.
His excuses had been accepted by Ruth, for she was in the mood to restore him to that spot in her heart that Randerson had come very near to occupy. She listened to him calmly, and agreed, without conscious emotion, to his proposal that they ride, on the Monday following, toLazette, to marry. She had reopened the subject a little wearily, for now that Randerson was hopeless she wanted to have the marriage over with as soon as possible. She saw now, that it had been the vision of Randerson, always prominent in her mind, that had caused her to put off the date of her marriage to Masten when he had mentioned it before. That vision had vanished now, and she did not care how soon she became Masten’s wife.
On the porch of the ranchhouse they had reached the agreement, and triumphantly Masten rode away into the darkness, foreseeing the defeat of the man whom he had feared as a possible rival, seeing, too—if he could not remove him entirely—his dismissal from the Flying W and his own ascent to power.
“On Monday, then,” he said softly to Ruth, as ready to leave, he had looked down at her from his horse. “I shall come early, remember, for I have waited long.”
“Yes, Monday,” she had answered. And then, dully: “I have waited, too.”
Masten was thinking of this exchange of words as he rode past the ford where the Lazette trail crossed into the broken country beyond it.He had not liked the tone of her voice when she had answered him; she had not seemed enthusiastic enough to suit him. But he did not feel very greatly disturbed over her manner, for Monday would end it, and then he would do as he pleased.
He was passing a huge boulder, when from out of the shadow surrounding it a somber figure stepped, the star-shot sky shedding sufficient light for Masten to distinguish its face. He recognized Randerson, and he voluntarily brought his pony to a halt and stiffened in the saddle, fear, cold and paralyzing, gripping him. He did not speak; he made no sound beyond a quick gasp as his surprised lungs sought air, and he was incapable of action.
Randerson, though, did not make a hostile movement and did not present a foreboding figure. His arms were folded over his chest, and if it had not been for Masten’s recollection of those grim words, “I’ll go gunnin’ for you,” Masten would have felt reasonably secure. But he remembered the words, and his voice caught in his throat and would not come, when he essayed to bluster and ask Randerson the cause for this strange and dramatic appearance.
But there was no thought of the dramatic in Randerson’s mind as he stood there—nothing but cold hatred and determination—nothing except a bitter wish that the man on the pony would reach for his gun and thus make his task easier for him.
The hoped-for movement did not come, and Randerson spoke shortly:
“Get off your cayuse!”
Masten obeyed silently, his knees shaking under him. Was it to be another fist fight? Randerson’s voice broke in on this thought:
“I promised to kill you. You’re a thing that sneaks around at night on its belly, an’ you ought to be killed. But I’m goin’ to give you a chance—like you give me when you set Kelso on me. That’ll let you die like a man—which you ain’t!” He tapped the gun at his right hip. “I’ll use this one. We’ll stand close—where we are—to make your chance better. When I count three you draw your gun. Show your man now, if there’s any in you!”
He dropped his hands from his chest and held the right, the fingers bent like the talons of a bird of prey, about to seize a victim. He waited, his eyes gleaming in the starlight, with cold alertnessfor Masten’s expected move toward his gun. But after a long, breathless silence, during which Masten’s knees threatened to give way, he leaned forward.
“Flash it! Quick! Or you go out anyway!”
“I’m unarmed!” Masten’s voice would not come before. It burst forth now, hysterically, gaspingly, sounding more like a moan than the cry of a man pleading for his life.
But it stung the stern-faced man before him to action, rapid and tense. He sprang forward with a low, savage exclamation, drawing one of his big weapons and jamming its muzzle deep into Masten’s stomach. Then, holding it there, that the Easterner might not trick him, he ran his other hand over the frightened man’s clothing, and found no weapon. Then he stepped back with a laugh, low, scornful, and bitter. The discovery that Masten was not armed seemed to drive his cold rage from him, and when he spoke again his voice was steely and contemptuous:
“You can hit the breeze, I reckon—I ain’t murderin’ anybody. You’re safe right now. But I’m tellin’ you this: I’m lookin’ for you, an’ you don’t run no blazer in on me no more! After this, you go heeled—or you hit the breeze outof the country. One of us has got to go. This country is too crowded with both of us!”
Masten got on his pony, trembling so that he had trouble in getting his feet into the stirrups. He rode on, hundreds of yards, before he dared to turn, so great was his dread that to do so would be to bring upon him the wrath of the man who had spared him. But finally he looked around. He saw Randerson riding out into the darkness of the vast stretch of grass-land that lay to the south.
CHAPTER XXIIINTO WHICH A GIRL’S TROUBLE COMES
Uncle Jepson and Aunt Martha had not seen Masten when he had visited Ruth, for they had gone in the buckboard to Red Rock. And Masten had departed when they reached home. Nor did they see Ruth after they arrived, for she had gone to bed. But at the breakfast table Ruth told them of the visit of Masten and of her plan to advance the date of the marriage.
Uncle Jepson and Aunt Martha received the news in silence. Aunt Martha did manage to proffer a half-hearted congratulation, but Uncle Jepson wrinkled his nose, as he did always when displeased, and said nothing; and he ate lightly. Ruth did not notice that she had spoiled his appetite, nor did she note with more than casual interest that he left the table long before she or Aunt Martha. She did not see him, standing at the corral fence, scowling, and she could not hear the old-fashioned profanity that gushed from his lips.
“Aren’t you glad?” Ruth asked Aunt Martha when they were alone, for she had noted her relative’s lack of enthusiasm.
“Why, yes, honey,” Aunt Martha smiled at her, though it seemed forced. “Only—” She hesitated eloquently.
“Only what, Aunt Martha?” Ruth’s voice was a little sharp, as with all persons who act in opposition to her better judgment and who resent anyone understanding them.
“Only I was hoping it would be Randerson, my dear,” said Aunt Martha gently.
“Randerson!” Ruth’s voice was scornful. But it sounded insincere to her, and she would trust it no further.
“Honey!” Aunt Martha’s arm was around her, and Aunt Martha’s sympathetic and knowing eyes were compelling hers; and her voice was ineffably gentle. “Are you sure, honey, that you don’t wish it were Randerson? It is a great event in your life, dear, and once it is done, it can’t be undone. Don’t be hasty.”
“It can never be Randerson,” Ruth said firmly—not, however, as firmly as she had intended. “Randerson is a murderer—a reckless taker of human life!”
“Hehadto shoot, they say,” defended Aunt Martha. “I don’t believe he would harm a living thing except in defense of his own life. Defending themselves is their way out here, girl—they know no other way. And he is a man, dear. I don’t know when I have met a man who has impressed me more!”
“Please don’t talk about it any more.” Ruth’s face was pale, her brows contracted, for Aunt Martha’s reference to Randerson had brought back haunting sensations that, she thought, she had succeeded in putting out of her life. She was ready to cry, and when she thought of Randerson—how calmly he had accepted his dismissal, with what manliness he had borne her insults, a chill of sympathy ran over her. She believed she would never forget him as he had looked on the night he had ridden away after telling her that he would leave the Flying W—riding into the darkness of the plains, with his hopes blasted, bravely making no complaint.
She got her pony, after a while, and rode far and long, coming in to the ranchhouse about noon. After she had turned the pony into the corral and was coming toward the house, she saw Uncle Jepson sitting on the porch, puffing furiously athis pipe. She spoke to him in greeting, and was about to pass him to go into the house, when he called to her:
“I want to talk to you a minute, Ruth.” He spoke rapidly, his voice dry and light, and she could see his facial muscles twitching. Wonderingly, she sank into a chair near him.
“You’re sure thinkin’ of marryin’ Masten, girl?” he said.
“Yes,” she declared firmly.
“Well, then I’ve got to tell you,” said Uncle Jepson decisively. “I’ve been puttin’ it off, hopin’ that you’d get shet of that imp of Satan, an’ I wouldn’t have to say anything.”
“Uncle Jep!” she protested indignantly.
“That’s just what he is, Ruth—a durned imp of the devil. I’ve knowed it from the first day I saw him. Since he’s come out here, he’s proved it.” He swung his chair around and faced her, and forgetting his pipe in his excitement, he told her the story he had told Randerson: how he had gone into the messhouse on the day of the killing of Pickett, for a rest and a smoke, and how, while in there he had overheard Chavis and Pickett plotting against Randerson, planning Pickett’s attack on her, mentioning Masten’s connectionwith the scheme. She did not open her lips until Uncle Jepson had concluded, and then she murmured a low “Oh!” and sat rigid, gripping the arms of her chair.
“An’ that ain’t all, it ain’t half of it!” pursued Uncle Jepson vindictively. “Do you know that Masten set that Watt Kelso, the gunfighter, on Randerson?” He looked at Ruth, saw her start and draw a long breath, and he grinned triumphantly. “Course you don’t know; I cal’late Randerson would never make a peep about it. He’s all man—that feller. But it’s a fact. Blair told me. There’d been bad blood between Randerson an’ Kelso, an’ Masten took advantage of it. He paid Kelso five hundred dollars in cold cash to kill Randerson!”
“Oh, it can’t be!” moaned the girl, covering her face with her hands and shrinking into her chair.
“Shucks!” said Uncle Jepson derisively, but more gently now, for he saw that the girl was badly hurt. “The whole country is talkin’ about it, Ruth, an’ wonderin’ why Randerson don’t salivate that durned dude! An’ the country expects him to do it, girl! They’ll fun him out of here, if he don’t! Why, girl,” he went on, “youdon’t know how much of a sneak a man can be when he’s got it in him!”
She was shuddering as though he had struck her, and he was on the edge of his chair, looking at her pityingly, when Aunt Martha came to the door and saw them. She was out on the porch instantly, flushing with indignation.
“Jep Coakley, you’re up to your tricks again, ain’t you? You quit devilin’ that girl, now, an’ go on about your business!”
“I’ve got some things to say, an’ I cal’late to say them!” declared Uncle Jepson determinedly. “I’ve kept still about it long enough. I ain’t wantin’ to hurt her,” he added apologetically, as Aunt Martha slipped to her knees beside Ruth and put an arm around her, “but that durned Masten has been doin’ some things that she’s got to know about, right now. An’ then, if she’s set on marryin’ him, why, I cal’late it’s her business. It was Masten who was behind Pickett kissin’ her—he tellin’ Pickett to do it. An’ he hired Kelso to kill Randerson.”
“Oh, Ruth!” said Aunt Martha, her voice shaky, as she nestled her head close to the girl’s. But her eyes shone with satisfaction.
“There’s another thing,” went on UncleJepson to Ruth. “Did you notice Randerson’s face, the night he come to hunt you, when you hurt your ankle? Marked up, kind of, it was, wasn’t it? An’ do you know what Masten went to Las Vegas for? Business, shucks! He went there to get his face nursed up, Ruth—because Randerson had smashed it for him! They’d had a fight; I saw them, both comin’ from the same direction, that night. I reckon Randerson had pretty nigh killed him. What for?” he asked as Ruth turned wide, questioning eyes on him. “Well, I don’t rightly know. But I’ve got suspicions. I’ve seen Masten goin’ day after day through that break in the canyon over there. A hundred times, I cal’late. An’ I’ve seen him here, when you wasn’t lookin’, kissin’ that Catherson girl. I cal’late, if you was to ask her, she’d be able to tell you a heap more about Masten, Ruth.”
Ruth got up, pale and terribly calm, disengaging herself from Aunt Martha and standing before Uncle Jepson. He too got to his feet.
Ruth’s voice quavered. “You wouldn’t, oh, you couldn’t lie to me, Uncle, because you like Rex Randerson? Is it true?” She put her hands on his shoulders and shook him, excitedly.
“True? Why, Ruth, girl; it’s as true as there’s a Supreme Bein’ above us. Why——”
But she waited to hear no more, turning from him and putting out her hands to keep Aunt Martha away as she passed her. She went out to the corral, got her pony, saddled it, mounted, and rode over the plains toward the break in the canyon wall. Uncle Jepson had one quick glimpse of her eyes as she turned from him, and he knew there would be no Monday for Willard Masten.
Ruth had no feelings as she rode. The news had stunned her. She had only one thought—to see Hagar Catherson, to confirm or disprove Uncle Jepson’s story. She could not have told whether the sun was shining, or whether it was afternoon or morning. But she must see Hagar Catherson at once, no matter what the time or the difficulties. She came to the break in the canyon after an age, and rode through it, down across the bed of the river, over the narrow bridle path that led to the Catherson cabin.
The dog Nig did not greet her this time; he was stretched out on his belly, his hind legs gathered under him, his forelegs stuck out in front, his long muzzle extending along them, while he watched in apparent anxiety the face of hismaster, Abe Catherson, who was sitting on the edge of the porch, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, in an attitude of deep dejection. The dog’s concern was for Catherson’s future actions, for just a few minutes before he had witnessed a scene that had made his hair bristle, had brought ugly growls out of him, had plunged him into such a state of fury that he had, for one wild instant, meditated a leap at his master’s throat. He had seen his master leap upon his mistress and raise his hand to strike her. If the blow had been struck—Nig would have leaped, then, no matter what the consequences.
Catherson had not struck. But one great, dominating passion was in his mind at this moment—the yearning to slay! The dog had seen him, twice during the last half hour, draw out his heavy six-shooter and examine it, and each time the dog had growled his disapproval of the action. And on both occasions Catherson had muttered thickly: “I wish I knowed, for sure. A man can’t do nothin’ if he don’t know. But I reckon it was him!”
He looked up to see Ruth coming toward him. The girl had seen him twice—had spoken to him. He was a bearded giant, grizzled, unkempt,with hairy arms, massive and muscled superbly, and great hands, burned brown by the sun, that were just now clenched, forming two big fists. There had been a humorous, tolerant twinkle in his eyes on the other occasions that Ruth had seen him; it was as though he secretly sympathized with her efforts to do something for his girl, though he would not openly approve. But now she saw that his eyes were blazing with an insane frenzy, that his lips were working, and that the muscles of his neck stood out like great cords, strained to the bursting point.
He got up when he saw Ruth, and stood on the sand at the edge of the porch, swaying back and forth, and Ruth’s first thought was that he had been drinking. But his first words to her revealed her mistake. It was the light, dry voice of a violent passion that greeted her, a passion that was almost too great for words. He ran to her pony and seized it by the bridle:
“You know, ma’am. Tell me who treated my li’l gal like that?” His great hands writhed in the reins. “I’ll twist his buzzard’s head off his shoulders.”
“What do you mean?” Ruth’s own voice startled her, for the spirit of a lie had issued fromher mouth; she knew what he meant; she realized that Uncle Jepson had told the truth.
“Don’t you know, ma’am?” There was wild derision in his voice, insane mirth. “You’ve been comin’ here; she’s been goin’ to your place! An’ you don’t know! You’re blinder than me—an’ I couldn’t see at all!” He went off into a gale of frenzied laughter, at which the dog began to bark. Then Catherson’s eyes glared cunningly. “But you’ve seen who’s been comin’ here; you know the man’s name, ma’am; an’ you’re goin’ to tell me, ain’t you? So’s I c’n talk to him—eh?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Catherson.” Ruth got a firm grip on herself before she answered, and it was to save a life that she lied again, for she saw murder in Catherson’s eyes. “Where is Hagar?” she asked.
At his jerk of the head toward the cabin door Ruth got down from her pony. She was trembling all over, but at Catherson’s words all thought of self had been banished. The effect of Masten’s deed on her own life, his duplicity, his crimes—all were forgotten. Here was her friend who had been sinned against, needing the comfort of her presence. And in an instant shewas inside the cabin, leaning over the little figure that was curled up in a bunk in a corner, speaking low words of cheer and forgiveness.
Outside, Catherson paced back and forth, his lips forming soundless words, his big hands working as though the fingers were at the throat of the thief that had stolen into his home. His mind was going over certain words that Hagar had answered to his questions, just before Ruth’s coming. He dwelt upon every slight circumstance that had occurred during the past few months. There were the tracks of horse’s hoofs about the cabin, in the paths and trails leading to it. Hagar had refused to tell him. But he figured it all out for himself, as he walked. When had this thing started? At about the time that Randerson had taken Vickers’ place at the Flying W! Why had not there been trouble between him and the Flying W, as under previous range bosses? What had Randerson given him money for, many times? Ah, he knew now!
“The black-hearted hound!” he gritted.
He reeled, and held to a corner of the cabin to steady himself, for this last access of rage came near to paralyzing him. When he recovered he drew back out of sight, and leaning againstthe wall of the cabin, with a pencil and a small piece of paper taken from a note book in a pocket, he wrote. He laid the piece of paper on the edge of the porch, ran to the corral and caught his pony, mounted, and rode drunkenly down the narrow path toward the break in the canyon.