"Fair was Colna-Dona, the daughter of kings,Her soul was a pure beam of light!"
"Fair was Colna-Dona, the daughter of kings,Her soul was a pure beam of light!"
Unconsciously he put his thought into words and the voice was very gentle. She looked at him dubiously, almost apprehensively; it was hard to differentiate between this man's cynicism and sincerity. Then she dropped her eyes in rosy confusion, her heart leaping unaccountably.
"That was a false note the Psalmist struck," he went on quietly, "when he sang of the wrath of his God. It were better he had dwelt only on the sweeter quantity of His love. I am sorry for that devotion inspired only by fear.Thisis the manifestation best calculated to insure one's keeping in the right trail." He swept his hand comprehensively toward the western glory. "Men do not love the thing they fear—nor women either." His tone was quizzical and challenging.
She looked up in sudden relief; this was more familiar ground and she laughed with sudden audacity.
"How do you know?"
"About women? Well, I'll admit that was a bluff; but I know all about men; I am one of them! The divinity that shapes our ends must kiss, not kick!"
At this unconscious confirmation of old Abigail's sage conclusions her laugh pealed out merrily. "Feed 'em well, speak 'em kind, an' give 'em theah haids on a hawd pull er in a tight place," she quoted with inimitable mimicry, and he grinned with quick understanding.
"Good old Abbie! I wonder who she loved enough to learn all that? And so you've been taking lessons, too!"
"I thought we had done with that," she said almost pleadingly. "You make it very hard for me!"
Instantly he was all contrition. "Forgive me! I shall not offend again." She took his extended hand frankly and for a time they rode in silence. The narrow cañon trail necessitated their riding very closely together and occasionally his leathern chaps brushed against her. Once, as they rounded an abrupt turn, the heavy revolver at his hip was jammed painfully against her gauntlet; she merely shut her teeth and smiled.
They were returning from Tin Cup, whither they had gone in the morning in company with Robert and his mother, who were leaving for the East. The morning after his arrival at the ranch she had bravely told her brother the whole circumstances of the preceding week, magnanimously taking upon herself all the blame—in which truth compels us to say her brother entirely agreed—and thereafter had ridden out to the camp of the ditch repairers and patched up a truce with Douglass.
"I am only a tenderfoot," she had wisely begun, "and always have had an unhappy faculty of doing the wrong thing unintentionally. You are a big, strong, generous man, and you will hold no malice against a foolish girl—!"
He capitulated instantly; but he was over-voluble in his reassurances and somehow she divined that her apology had missed fire so far as it affected his determination to leave when he had recouped her brother for the losses he had unwittingly brought about. She was not for a moment deceived by his studiously polite words but was too politic to betray it. He had affected not to see the hand she had timidly extended in amity and for that he would pay, later! There was much of old Bob Carter's inflexible determination in this frail-looking daughter of his.
To her mother she had, curiously enough, said nothing about it. She had even been unwise enough to impose secrecy upon her brother and Abigail as to the cause of the conflagration and Red's mishap, forgetting that Mrs. Carter was range bred and born, and that Nellie Vaughan was an incorrigible gossip! It would not have added to her equanimity to have known that inside of twenty-four hours her astute mother was in possession of all the facts and considerably perturbed thereover. She would, however, have appreciated the relief in her mother's eyes on her first encounter with Douglass.
"Clean, manly and good to look at," had been her shrewd verdict. "Thoroughbred stock, too. A good friend and a bad enemy! A good cowman and a valuable accession all around. I really must congratulate Robbie. But what is Grace's mysterious interest in him? She was very anxious not to have me find out the facts about this latest outrage, poor dear! Was it that she was afraid that I would be unduly exercised over a trifle like this?"
She smiled somewhat grimly as her mind went back to that day when, over her husband's unconscious form thrown at her feet by the benumbing bullets of a gang of rustlers, she had emptied the magazine of his Winchester to such effect that border men rode far out of their way to take off their hats to "Bob Carter's pard." The recollection sent the blood into the fine old cheeks and her hands were again clenched retrospectively upon that shapely bit of walnut and steel which had served her so well that day. Then the lips softened wondrously and a great sweetness flooded her eyes. She was thinking how tenderly he had kissed her powder-blackened hands and bruised shoulder, his heart throbbing with love and wonder and pride of her.
She was very gracious to Douglass that night at dinner, leading him on with skill to talk of himself, and drawing him out to a degree that would have astonished him had he realized it. Under her charming personality, quick and sympathetic intelligence and clever induction, his reserve melted gradually and soon he was talking more freely than he had ever done to human being before. When he had finally made his exit she turned thoughtfully to her children.
"We want to be very judicious in our dealings with that young man. He is of sterling quality, but super-sensitive and impulsive, and requires handling with gloves of velvet. I think he is scrupulously honest, and I should imagine inordinately brave—and vain! Do you know anything of his antecedents?"
"Only that he is American born, of Scotch descent, mother," replied Robert, "and that he was educated at Yale. He is a civil engineer by profession, I believe, but he is hardly the kind of man from whom one would attempt to force confidences. All I know is that he is the pluckiest fellow in the world, and the most generous and considerate. Why, one night at the Alcazar—?" and he proceeded to the eager relation of his pet story.
She listened attentively, nodding her full comprehension. "That is what I would have expected of him; I am seldom mistaken in my judgment of the type. And I presume his services here are in every way satisfactory? Well, let us make every consistent effort to retain him; such men are scarce even in this land of good men. I suppose that the man Matlock has left the country?"
"He has not been seen since the night of which I spoke. Ken seems to have run him out for keeps!" His voice was distinctly boastful. "And if he knows what is good for him he'll stay out!"
If Mrs. Carter, glancing casually at her daughter, noted the sudden compression of Grace's lips, she made no comment thereon. She had craftily wormed out of one of the men, the youngster detailed for chore-work, the story of the men's agreement to leave Matlock's punishment to Douglass. She understood the situation thoroughly, and, as a typical range woman she approved of Douglass's determination. The quarrel was eminently his, and upon him in person devolved its settlement. What she could not understand was the distress in her daughter's face as she said earnestly:
"I am not so sure that you have seen the last of him. Such men as he are tenacious and revengeful; he fired our stacks, you remember! Don't look so surprised, Robbie. It was very nice and thoughtful of you and Grace to try to keep me from knowing, but your mother was born in this valley and is still in full possession of all her faculties. Besides, conversational topics are scarce, and your neighbors like to talk!" Then as an after-thought, "I think Mr. Douglass is fully able to cope with the situation!"
Later, as she stood by the window of her darkened room looking abstractedly out into the beautiful night, she saw him enter the room where Red lay strumming on his guitar. Approvingly she noted his quick, springy stride, his alert, upright carriage, the whole sinewy grace of him as he bent kindly over his comrade.
"What a splendid young animal it is," she mused smilingly, "one eminently calculated to fill the eye of a romantic young girl. After all, why should I interfere? As he said to-night, 'every one has to dree his own weird!' Then again, she has known all kinds of men, and this in all likelihood is merely a transient fancy bred of the novel environment and will doubtlessly pass in due course." Her face grew serious, however, as she recalled the concern in Grace's face at her reference to Matlock's revengefulness. "Propinquity—and youth—and passion! A precarious trio, indeed. Everything considered, I think I will take her back with me," concluded this astute woman of the world.
She was, nevertheless, not unduly surprised at Grace's negation of that proposal when it was broached the week before her mother's departure. The young woman urged her very evident physical betterment since coming to the ranch, and her great desire to witness that most spectacular of range functions, the fall round-up. With the imposed condition that her stay would not extend over the holiday season, her mother consented, hesitatingly. But she took occasion, that very evening, to casually bring Douglass under discussion, concluding a very generous estimation of him with the significant words: "One can trust to an appeal to his honor when every other means fail!" That she directed the remark particularly to Grace, was doubtless without premeditation, and assuredly called for no reply. Yet there was a certain resentment in the girl's rather constrained answer:
"Do you think it probable that such an exigency will ever arise?"
The world-wise old woman looked thoughtfully at the flushed face, thinking how singularly beautiful it was. Then she scanned the perfectly proportioned figure beneath, its exquisite modeling revealed and accentuated by the clinging silk fabric of the thin evening gown.
"Anything is probable to a man of his temperament," she said calmly. "Strong natures like his are contemptuous of limitations and laugh at ethical restrictions. That man, if I mistake not, will go straight to his desire as a bullet to the mark, regardless of what stands between."
Robert laughed fatuously, missing entirely the drift of the undercurrent. "You have certainly got him sized up right, Mater. Ken is 'sure chain lightin',' as Williams says."
"And if it be evil to stand in the path of a thunderbolt, how inconceivably foolish to invite its stroke!"
The young man stared dubiously at her; all this seemed inconsequential to him, this talk of thunderbolts and bullets. Did these foolish women think that Ken Douglass was ass enough to expose himself recklessly to either. In some respects the master of the C Bar was as unimaginative and simple-minded as a new-born baby.
"Don't yuh worrit none about thundeh-strikes," interjected Abbie with crisp assurance, entering the room in pursuit of the too-intrusive Buffo, who every evening persisted in joining the family circle. "They ain't goin' to be no thundeh-stawms so late in thu yeah; yuh suahly know thet, Mis' Cahtah, yuh was bawn heah!"
The lady addressed smiled indulgently at her old friend. "I am hoping that there will be no storms of any sort which will cause suffering and misery to anybody, Abbie. Life is too short to be spoiled with heartaches."
"Do you know whose property this is?" she asked Grace that night, coming into her bedroom as she was preparing to retire. "One of the men found it this morning just outside the main gate and brought it to me, thinking it belonged to Robert. But the handwriting is not his, I know, and I thought you might recognize it. There is no name on the fly-leaf." She handed her a thin, long, morocco-covered notebook, which opened of itself, as she laid it in the young lady's hand, at a place where the leaves were separated by a withered flower. It was a long-dried mountain heart's-ease, and, despite her efforts, her cheeks reddened consciously. The writing on the pages was in verse and she recognized the bold, free style at a glance. She had commented frequently on his firm, legible script when auditing his accounts in company with her brother. And once he had sent her a little formal note, asking if she had any commissions for him to execute in Denver, where he had gone on some private business shortly after her overtures at reconciliation. She had eagerly grasped the olive branch so chillingly extended, and his matching of the silk floss samples she sent him in reply was entirely to her satisfaction. It is a question if she would have appreciated the grim humor of her commission had she known his real mission to the capital city. He had been informed, on more or less reliable authority, that Matlock had been seen there a few days previously! The report proved to be false, and the note was now enveloping a cluster of withered heart's-ease in her sandalwood jewel case.
Without hesitation she identified the handwriting. "I think it must belong to Mr. Douglass;" she said frankly, meeting her mother's eyes without a particle of indecision. "I am quite familiar with his writing, having helped Bobbie in auditing his accounts. And this flower, I think, is one I gave him some months ago."
Mrs. Carter's eyes snapped with a fierce pride. She put her arm tenderly about the velvety neck.
"Kiss me, dearie! You are very like your father, and he was the bravest man God ever made!" At the threshold she turned; "I think it entirely permissible—indeed, I much desire that you read that verse."
For the first time since her coming to the ranch, Grace Carter turned the key in the door lock; then she laid the notebook on her dressing table and completed her preparations for rest. Finally, she sat down on the edge of the bed and opened the book. Carefully she removed the flower and laid it on a silk handkerchief, folded for its reception. For a time she sat looking at it reminiscently; then with a visible effort she turned to the clearly-written pages.
She read with great deliberation, a second and then a third time, a hymn to love, boyishly crude, but charged to the full with youth and longing; no better and no worse, perhaps, than the average effusion of twenty-six in love, not with woman but with love; authentic, and for that reason sacred; overwrought, as became the heedless passion which inspired it; self-revealing, but of sex and temper rather than of mind. A few years back it would have shocked her; now, it made her think.
She replaced the flower, closed the book and thrust it under her pillow. Far into the night she sat there, her arms clasped about her knees, her eyes luminous but unseeing. Finally the night chill aroused her and she slipped into bed.
But that was a week ago and now she was riding homeward with him in the moonlight. She had the notebook in the inside pocket of her riding jacket, having decided to return it to him in person, and this had been her first opportunity, he having been away for the whole of the previous week on some range matter requiring his personal attention.
He had evidently dropped the book from his shirt pocket during his struggle with the refractory gate, and on his return had interrogated everyone on the ranch about it except the actual finder, that worthy being absent at the time of his return on some errand for Miss Carter. He was very anxious for its recovery for more reasons than one. It contained some valuable memoranda about his range work; and then, again, he had private reasons why none of the men should chance to fall afoul of his metrical effusion. He was familiar with the coarse badinage of the camp, a humor that respects no personage, however high his official position, and the possibilities worried him.
He felt a great chagrin that he had as yet not been able to locate Matlock. In his supersensitiveness he was obsessed with an entirely unfounded impression that he was losing prestige among his men because of the unavoidable delay. If they were to learn that he had been farther guilty of the inexcusable weakness of writing verse of that sentimental character, his cup of bitterness would be running over!
Imagine his unbounded relief when she handed it to him with the simple remark: "I have something here belonging to you, I think." But almost instantly he was filled with consternation. Had she by any miserable chance read that verse! Intuitively she felt what was passing in his mind and demurely fibbed for his reassurance: "Mamma recovered it—I think she said it was found at the gate—and brought it to me. I knew it was yours from the memoranda on the first page, but forgot to return it before. I sincerely hope I have not caused you any inconvenience?"
He was almost vehement in his eagerness to assure her that it was altogether a matter of no moment, but her eyes twinkled mischievously as she noted the care with which he bestowed it in a safe place. "After all, men are only boys grown up," she thought, and her regard for him was ludicrously maternal. She felt an almost irresistible desire to lecture him on the folly of his ways and the dangerous possibilities attendant on the writing of erotic verse; she actually began a homily on the uncertainty of life and one's logical duty of the enjoyment of things actually in possession rather than the pitiable craving for the unattainable. She had cleverly led up to it by enthusiastically admiring the beauty of the perfect night and the understandable attraction that these glorious surroundings had for everyone who came into intimate contact with them.
Once, in the emphasizing of some vital point in issue, she impulsively laid her gloved hand on his arm; the man started as if he had been stung and she recoiled from the hunger in his eyes. The mothering of a lion cub has its disadvantages, and thereafter her milk of human kindness overflowed no more.
There was an evident suspicion evinced in the keen attention he was paying to her words as she trenched on the delicate topic of logical content with one's militant blessings, and she ingeniously proceeded to disarm it.
"Why is it that among the thousands of susceptible and impressionable souls that have reveled in these delights, not one has had the moral courage to depict them in print? The labor would surely be one of love and the inspiration never lacks."
"Possibly," he suggested, "it is a matter of sheer mental and literary inability. But few have been endowed with the gift of Genius. And then, again, authorship is necessarily an affair of leisure, and life is apt to be strenuous in these hills." He turned in his saddle and laughingly asked her: "How much time could your cowpunchers afford to devote to the Muses, Miss Grace?"
"Genius knows no paltry restrictions of time and place," she said, with some acerbity, "and I know of at least one of the men you mention who has the ability if not the courage."
He winced a little at that and the cloud of suspicion grew denser. But it was partly dissipated at her earnest inquiry: "Why do not you, a man of keen discernment and liberal education, essay the task? I am certain that you would achieve a great success."
"I have other work to do," he said, gruffly. "And I am not sure that I find your suggestion at all complimentary. Am I to infer that in your estimation I am blessed with an inordinate amount of leisure time?"
She shrugged her shoulders with wrathful impatience; he was a bigger baby than she had thought. "That was gratuitous," she said, with a fine show of indignation; "and you are not at all nice when you are insolent." To her disgust he chuckled audibly, leaning over his pommel in simulated humility.
"Lesson number three. I'm getting that 'liberal education' fast," he murmured; "by and by I'll know enough to put into a book."
For the life of her she could not resist the temptation. "If you do, don't write it in verse."
Instantly she regretted her temerity. "There are so few people who write verse acceptably," she explained hurriedly, "and there are too many ambitious things that die 'abornin',' as Abbie would say, from that very reason. Prose has much more potentiality and is more acceptable to the masses. Of course"—the tone was that of innocence personified—"if you can do verse, that would be another matter. The essential thing is that you do write the book. Will you? Please."
The voice was almost tenderly imploring; his brow cleared. He was almost ashamed of his momentary distrust of her. In polite society people do not read private documents; evidently this young woman had come dangerously close to his rash misjudgment and he was properly penitent.
Still he was tormented by an insistent doubt. Why had she particularized that first page of memoranda? With a fatuous attempt at diplomacy he put his foot into it.
"Why should you assume so flatteringly that I have any literary ability?" He thought the question almost Machiavelian in its adroitness.
She had her cue, now. "Well, your aptness at quotation from obscure sources presupposes a wide range of reading, a retentive memory, and a love for literature. Then, again, you have rare constructiveness and—and—" her simulation of modest distress would have deceived even a wiser man—"a horribly clever knack of impromptu rhyme, as I have regretful reasons for knowing."
Poor Machiavelli! He was at her feet figuratively in an instant. "That Buffo business! It was abominable of me! Don't judge me by a thing like that. I can do better things. Will you let bygones be bygones, if I plead guilty to the gentle impeachment and promise to let you criticise my future efforts?"
She took his extended hand frankly. "Everything begins right here." She gave thanks for a timely cloud's momentary obscuration of the moon as he laid his lips on the tiny gauntlet. Then she impulsively urged her horse into a gallop, and before the moon had emerged from behind the cloud, they had crossed the ridge and the ranch lights twinkled in view though still a good five miles away.
Up on the hillside above, behind a bowlder which commanded in easy range the point where their compact had been sealed, a man lay fumbling a rifle and fluently cursing the cloud which had so inopportunely spoiled his aim. His vicious face was distorted with rage and fury, his mouth foaming with passion.
"Damn you," he raved, shaking his clenched fist at the offending white billow; "I'd got him if you had waited a second longer or crossed a second sooner. Everything goes against me, and he's got all the luck. I'll get him yet." And with hideous blasphemies trickling from his thick lips, he again shook his fist impotently at the derisively smiling face of the moon and slunk away to the horse tied in the shadows behind him.
In blissful ignorance of that narrowly averted calamity, the pair on the other side of the ridge rode silently along in the restored moonlight. The woman was very happy and loth to break the spell; the man whirling in the maelstrom of a jumbled introspection. The victim of strongly opposed currents, he drifted aimlessly in the sea of troubled thought, seeing no shore and seeking none. Content to leave much to Chance and more to Opportunity, he had hitherto let his destiny shape itself, satisfied with merely aiding fate to the best of his physical ability as the occasion offered; but now he was conscious of a growing incitement to dictate his own future. The temptation to try and dominate things was very strong. He had compelled the smaller ones to come his way when he had so chosen, why not the greater ones. He glanced covertly at the woman riding by his side; in the soft moonlight she was very fair.
It was she who first broke the silence, her words unconsciously pandering to his suddenly-formed resolution.
"How splendidly you ride, Mr. Douglass!" Her admiration was frank and sincere. "You have that horse under perfect control, and yet, if I am not mistaken, he is the worst of the three 'outlaws' which all the other boys have declared unridable. Abbie told me this morning that everybody is afraid of them."
"Abbie tells you a great many funny things, I reckon," he said, with an evasive grin, and she laughed reminiscently. "Well, old Highball here isn't just what you might call love-inspiring, and the boys have kind o' passed him up; they have too many other good gentle horses in their strings to justify my letting them take any chances. But as to their being 'afraid' of him, why that's all bosh. Cowpunchers who are afraid of any horse don't hold their jobs long, Miss Carter."
"Yet you, yourself, take the very chances that you shield your men from." The tone was severe and distinctly reproachful, albeit her heart beat with an understanding pride. He shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly.
"Well, the brutes have got to earn their keep, and hay is high this year."
"Yes, about two inches, on that part of the public domain where this particular brute ranges," she said scornfully. "He has not been in the corrals for over two years, as I happen to know. I believe you overheard what Abbie said, and are riding him out of sheer perversity. You don't like to be thought afraid, do you?"
"No, ma'am," he said, so humbly that she laughed despite her resolve. Then, with a sudden burst of confidence, "You see, he threw me last week and kind o' upset my conceit, and it's been on my conscience ever since. We just had to come to some definite conclusion as to who is bossing this job. He's going to be a good horse now."
"Now, as to hating being thought afraid," he went on after a short silence, "I guess every man thinks that way. And yet there is something that every man fears, that he is more or less afraid of, if he is only honest enough to admit it."
"And what are you afraid of?" There was much of incredulity and more of curiosity in her audacious question.
"Myself." He answered quietly; she was very sorry she had asked.
Just as they reached the main gate they were joined by Red McVey; who rode up from the opposite direction. He was riding another of the "outlaws" and Douglass noted that fact with a certain displeasure; his orders had been explicit about those horses. Red nonchalantly drawled an explanation:
"We didn't expect yuh back to-night; Miss Willi'ms said yuh would stay oveh in Tin Cup. Bud Vaughan was oveh to-day and said as how Miss Nellie was sick, so Miss Willi'ms allows she'd go oveh an' sit with her to-night. I'll tell yuh about the hoss lateh," he concluded in an undertone to Douglass, whose look of keen inquiry changed to one of concern at Grace's irrepressible exclamation.
"What is it?" His words were sharp and imperative. She was pale, but perfectly composed. Then, for the first time in her life she deliberately lied: "The horse crushed my hand against the gate; a mere trifle, but it startled me."
"What are we going to do for something to eat?" she said in pretended dismay. "I'm as hungry as a—a—"
"Tom-tit?" suggested Red drolly; she had, much to his abashment, once caught him feeding one with crumbs of cake, embellishing his service with profanely quaint ejaculations of delight.
"As a wolf," she averred decidedly, "and I haven't tried to cook since I was a little girl."
"Oh, that'll be all right," said Douglass cheerfully. "Red, here, is a wonder at making angel cake, and I can boil water without burning it, at a pinch. If you can stand camp chuck for once we'll make out to take the wire edge off your appetite, anyway."
"Oh, I've et," said Red hurriedly, the reference to that angel cake filling him with apprehension. "Had supper oveh to Vaughan's. You two go to wras'lin' yuh grub an' I'll take keer o' yuah hosses."
"Doan't yuh let him scoach thet wateh, Miss Cahteh," he volleyed as he retreated in good order, much relieved at his narrow escape. "He's a powahful wahm baby."
While she was changing her dress, Douglass got a fire going in the big Charter Oak stove and filled the kettle with fresh water from the spring. He brought over from the meat dive a generously big and tender steak and fossicked about in the pantry until he found the egg basket. There were a couple of tempting broilers lying on a platter, but he concluded that Abbie had prepared these with a view to Miss Carter's breakfast. He was grinding the coffee when she came in and she sniffed the grateful aroma rapturously.
She was very simply attired in a loose-fitting white dress with short sleeves, and about her slender waist was tied one of Abbie's huge gingham aprons. Her riding Hessians had been replaced with a pair of diminutive sandals which made a clicking little patter as she walked. He had unconsciously rolled up his sleeves, camp-cook fashion, the better to mix and mold the biscuit he contemplated making; the sight of her bare arms reminded him of his own and he hurriedly lowered the sleeves and began fumbling at the buttons. She came forward quickly and checked him with a pretty gesture.
"Put them up again! Men always work better with their sleeves rolled up, I have noticed, and all good cooks have them so. That's why I am wearing this waist; I am going to help." She looked complacently at her round, dimpled arms, then at the corded brawn of his. An irresistible impulse sent her close to his side. "Why," she said, with a fine assumption of wonder at the portentous discovery, "my arms are tanned as brown as yours." And she coquettishly held hers so close to his in comparison that they momentarily touched.
Through his veins there leaped a sudden fire as though his blood had turned to molten lava; he trembled. Stricken with a sudden terror she shrank away slightly, but her eyes never left his. The man was trying for self-control, and she wisely waited. The best time to play with fire is not when the coals are hottest.
"You, too, hate to be thought afraid." It was hardly more than a whisper. "And your arms are very beautiful." Holding her wrists very carefully, yet with a grip of steel, he bent forward and deliberately kissed each arm in the dimpling hollows. Then he gently released them, and turned once more to his coffee grinding.
So wise a man as Solomon declared, centuries ago, that the way of a man with a maid was beyond even his great understanding; but the composite intelligence of all the wise men that ever were or ever will be created cannot elucidate the greater mystery of the ways of a maid with a man. By all accepted rules and conventions, Miss Carter should have ostentatiously wiped her arms with a lace handkerchief, extravagantly casting it aside later with an air of loathing and disgust, and stalked out of the room with superior dignity without deigning him even a contemptuous glance. She did nothing of the kind. She merely laughed, a silvery, tinkling, infectious little ripple whose contagion was irresistible, and at his responsive grin the atmosphere cleared instantly.
Her eyes fell upon the basket of eggs and she had a sudden inspiration: "I am going to make waffles. Now if we could only achieve the regulation fried chicken to go with it we should dine ideally."
"There are two in the pantry, ready to your hand," he replied eagerly. She ran out excitedly, as if to verify the good news; but once in the seclusion of the pantry her interest in the broilers moderated unaccountably. She seemed more concerned with the hollows of her arms and in her rapt inspection of them held them singularly close to her face. Her cheeks were engagingly flushed and her lips moist when she bore the fowls into the kitchen.
Douglass was inclined to be patronizing as she sat about her waffle-building; what could this pampered society pet possibly know about the plebeian craft of cookery? But his indulgence quickly changed to surprised admiration as he watched her deft manipulations.
"How long has it been since you were a little girl?" She smiled her quick delight at the implied compliment. "Oh, waffles are easy; Dad always insisted on my making them for him and I had considerable experience, and one does not exactly forget little things like that. How long has it been since you were a little boy?"
"I am one to-night," he averred, dextrously filching the first golden-brown disc as she laid it on the plate; as he danced about trying to bolt the hot dainty she rapped him on the head reprovingly with the huge spoon and they laughed with all the light-heartedness of the foolish children they really were.
It was a memorable meal that they finally sat down to, and neither of them ever forgot it. Sitting opposite to her in that comfortable old kitchen—he had begged the privilege of eating there instead of in the more formal dining-room—the man's heart was filling with a subtle consciousness that it would be very pleasant to have her sit so always throughout the days to come. It came to him with a certain shock, nevertheless; in all his former associations with women, his emotions had been of a distinctly different nature, and somehow the recollection of them was not pleasing. He even felt a certain angry resentment of the insidious charm of the comforting domesticity of his surroundings. What right had an indigent pauper of a cowpuncher to aspire to a heaven like this? It was only to her natural gentleness, her inherent graciousness, possibly only to a passing indulgent whim, that he was indebted for the favor she was showing. What had he, who would be penniless in another month—for he still stubbornly adhered to his determination to recoup his employer—to offer the mistress of the C Bar with its broad acres and "cattle on a thousand hills"? All incredible as it may seem he actually forgot for the moment that he had, unreproved, kissed her arms a short half-hour before. It simply strengthened his resolution to get away from an environment provocative of such disturbing reflections.
The woman was thinking how big and brave and strong he was, and how integral a part of—how entirely he belonged in the plan of her cogitations. She could imagine him always sitting there, a bulwark between her and the evils of life, and she was very happy. She realized how it would take time and diplomacy to leash this untamed tiger, to bring into leading-strings this unbound Sampson who foolishly deemed that the sum of Life was Delilah; but she was the daughter of "the bravest man God ever made," and this was her Man. She knew it now beyond the peradventure of a doubt, and looking at him as he sat there in all his manly beauty, she thanked God for it.
His hand, outstretched toward the waffles, encountered hers, and he paled.
It was very still and quiet in the room; even the little alarm clock on the mantelpiece, unwound for once, lacking Abbie's careful hand, was silent. He arose with cruel deliberation and walked around the table toward her; she met him half way, all composure now, her hand extended. The antelope kid, with a comical yawn, came and stood between them.
"I am so grateful for your many kindnesses to me to-day," she said steadily, her eyes calm and unwavering. "I am more fatigued than I thought. Good night—and pleasant dreams."
The kid butted him playfully as though to recall him to earth again; he had stood such an unconscionable time holding her hand. The woman smiled on him kindly again, and instantly he relinquished it.
"Good night," he said dully, his face the color of copper. He went to the sofa where he had left his hat and holster and fumbled a while uncertainly. He took up the Stetson, leaving the weapon untouched. At the door he turned mechanically.
"Good night," he mumbled; "good night. And may you have no dreams at all."
The antelope butted him again, scornfully, as he passed out.
Grace Carter stood for a moment in silent meditation. Then she went to the sofa and drew the Colt from its sheath. With the weapon in her hand she extinguished the light and went into her bedroom, locking the door behind her.
When she had finished disrobing she laid the weapon on her reading stand within reach of her hand when abed. For a while she lay very quiet, open-eyed; then she arose, unlocked her door and replaced the revolver in its sheath, leaving both lying where he had tossed them.
Over at the bunkhouse Douglass stood glaring at the imperturbable Red. "I thought," said he ominously, "that my orders were that nobody should ride those outlaws."
McVey, having finished the cigarette he was rolling, gave it a final lick with his tongue, twisted the ends adroitly, struck a match, and between tentative puffs, remarked:
"When they's nothing left in thu corral but one hoss I reckon it's ride thet er go afoot. When I got back from Vaughan's this evenin' I found thu pastur' bars down an' everything stompeded but thet buckskin outlaw. Reckon he were too or'nary to trail with thu bunch an' cut hisself out; ketched him in thu cow paddock."
Douglass carefully selected a cigarette paper and reached for the tobacco pouch. The hand that held the lighting match was very steady.
"How do you size it up, Red?"
"Matlock," said the other, tersely. "Thu bars were not only down, but dragged away more'n a rod. It were one man thet done it—his hoss shod all around 'ceptin' left hind foot. 'Twere too dark to track after I lost him in thu timber, but the whole cavvy is scattered to hell an' gone. Say, Ken, I'm goin' to rue back on that promise; an' I don't see as it's eggsactly fair on the other boys, either. S'posen sum of us was to meet up with that skunk accidental: are we to let him slip jest because yuh don't happen to be cavortin' around conteegious? I, fer one,won't, an' right here I gives yuh notice."
"Besides," he drawled softly, "I've got a privut grutch agin him of my own, an' I'm goin' to beat yuh to it if I kin."
The other shook his head deprecatingly. "Don't do anything rash, Red. I preëmpted that right first. And my claim's been bearing interest ever since."
The temporary loss of the horses was a twofold source of irritation to Douglass. They had been gathered with much labor for the forthcoming round-up and that work would all have to be done over again at quite an expenditure of time, patience and money; for this he deemed himself also responsible, and it added materially to the already large pecuniary obligation which he had assumed.
Then, he also regarded the malicious scattering of his horses as a stigma on his care and watchfulness of his employer's interests, as well as a personal affront and challenge to himself. It would be a sorry reflection on his professional ability, as well as on his courage, and he writhed in the shock to his really abnormal vanity. By established code he should have "got" Matlock long ago; and now he would have to defer the wiping out of that blot on his escutcheon until after the season's work was over. In the cold fury of his bitter self-revilement, he actually forgot the woman who had stirred his blood almost as strongly a short half-hour ago.
The mischief had been made possible only by the fact that the day after the horse round-up was ended he had indulgently granted a four days' leave of absence to his entire force, excepting only McVey, who had professed a lack of interest, to enable them to participate in a roping and riding tournament over in South Park. His own and Red's temporary absence to-day had given the perpetrator, of whose identity he had not even a momentary doubt, the chance to do the contemptible trick, the undoing of which would take a whole week's furious work with the entailed strain on both men and horses. His provocation was very great.
The next day, working over the ground, he found the freshly-cast shoe of the marauder's mount; it was a peculiarly constructed "blind-bar" affair, and Matlock's horse, his own private property, taken with him when he left the ranch, had a bad frog on his left hind hoof. His conviction was made a certainty later when the blacksmith at Gunnison identified the shoe as one that he had made for and attached to the left hind foot of the deposed foreman's horse. The chain of evidence was complete and conclusive.
By a rare bit of good fortune he discovered quite a large band of his best horses quietly feeding in a little valley some three miles from the house, and he quickly returned to the ranch, where he discussed with Red the likelihood of their being able to corral it; it was a big contract for two men, this particular band being a notoriously wild one and hard to handle, and now the animals would especially resent a return to durance vile after their previous week's confinement. But it meant an indispensable factor to the ultimate recovery of the other horses, without which, the outfit would be practically afoot. Red was logically pessimistic.
"Three might do it, but two ain't got any more chanct than a snowball in hell," was his opinion, and Douglass knew that he was right. It had taken four of his best riders to turn the trick a week before. But the other men were absolutely unavailable and long before their earliest possible return this band of horses would be off to their favorite range twenty miles or more away.
He determined to take a chance, saying hopefully, "Well, we might be able to corral a part of them, anyway, and that would give us a few to work with."
Miss Carter, coming to summon them to breakfast, was made acquainted with the dilemma. "Can I be of any help?" she asked instantly. "I can ride fairly well, and under your instructions may really be of some assistance."
Douglass looked at Red doubtfully, but that worthy was for some inscrutable reason, enthusiastically sanguine. "Why, shore yuh kin! Yuah hosses wa'nt done up any to speak of by yuah pasear yiste'day, an' the buckskin is fresh. That bunch is ourn."
"Oh, I am so glad," she cried eagerly. "I'll be ready before you get saddled up."
She was flushed with excitement as they slowly cantered out, but paid careful attention to Douglass's minutely detailed instructions as he outlined his plan of campaign. Red looking admiringly at her skillful handling of the rangy roan gelding, the kindling eyes and firmly compressed lips, decided that she would "make good." He remarked as much to Douglass, who nodded his conviction and said a word or two of caution in an undertone:
"If they break back at the corral, see that she isn't in the way of the big blue; you know his trick. If there should be any danger, shoot quick and straight."
To Grace he said with frank admonition: "The leader of this bunch is a big blue stallion which has a nasty habit of whirling about just as he touches the corral gate; he will run over anything that opposes him when he breaks back, and if he tries it to-day, ride to one side as fast as you can. Don't try to stop him in any event. You understand?"
She merely nodded, her lips closing a bit more tightly. Then she smiled a protest: "Please don't try to 'buffalo' me—I think that is the proper word?—at the outset. This is my first round-up, you know. I'll 'make good,' as Mr. McVey said a while ago."
Both men laughed heartily. "Red's whisper is a little stertorous," admitted Douglass, "but you remember what I say: fight shy of the blue if he breaks." Down in his heart he knew that this woman would surely "make good" in anything she attempted, but nevertheless, he saw to it that the revolver slid easily and without a hitch in the holster, and loosened up a few cartridges in his belt. Red had already taken that precaution.
They circled the bunch without alarming it and with comparative ease started it corralwards, the leader proving unusually tractable for the nonce. Her roan was no novice at the business and covered his assigned arc as gracefully as a swallow, to the great delight of the young woman who was reveling in the pleasure of a new sensation. She wisely gave the horse his head, and the intelligent beast repaid her good judgment by cleverly heading off every straggler who essayed to dodge back to liberty. She was really proving of decided assistance and Red waved her a cordial encouragement from the left flank.
The horses were bunched closely together as they neared the corral gate, the leader trotting easily and with apparently no concern, directly towards the entrance. He was seemingly resigned to the inevitable and the riders closed in sharply to urge them through. Grace was much elated over her successful debut and gave a little exultant shout as the massive head and shoulders of the blue stallion were momentarily framed in the opening. She was inclined to be contemptuous of the ease with which it had been accomplished, and in the relief of the thought dropped her rein loosely on the roan's neck. At that exact moment the cunning beast In the gateway whirled like a flash, lowered his head like a snake, and darted back through the plunging throng which opened before him as a dry pine butt splits to a stoutly driven wedge.
Owing to the dense smother of dust about the gateway, and the further fact that the bunch, not missing their leader in its enveloping clouds, were crowding through the opening into the corral, neither of the men noted the maneuver of the stallion until he broke out of the press, heading obliquely to one side, between Douglass and Miss Carter.
Then was she conscious of a hoarse cry that rang like the roar of an anguished lion above the din of trampling feet:
"To the left! Get out of his way, for Christ's sake! To the left!"
Out of the dust blur, an animated lead-blue bullet, shot the great stallion, his head held low, his body extended until his stomach brushed the sagebrush beneath. The roan, taking the bit between his teeth, turned as on a pivot, almost unseating his rider, and raced undirected towards the exact point where the escaping animal could be best intercepted, intent only on the well-understood work which was logically his duty. It was his business to head off and turn back the fugitive, and, unchecked by his helpless rider, who clung fearfully to her saddle-horn in her extremity, he ran the race of his life, putting his whole heart into the work, her light weight hampering him almost negligibly.
The point of intersection was at least five hundred yards away, the horses racing along the converging sides of an obtuse angle, the roan some hundred yards in the lead; the point of convergence was just below the brow of a little hill, and the roan, running in open ground, had the advantage of the blue who was impeded by the thick sagebrush; he gained rapidly, changing the locus of intersection thereby, and finally swung at right angles across the stallion's course.
Grace had been vaguely conscious of a crackle of pistol shots and a confused roar of profanely phrased implorations, but all her energies were concentrated to the end of keeping her seat on that plunging roan thunderbolt, whose speed was accelerated by the lashing reins which, dropping from her nerveless hand, were now flapping against his sides. Swinging in a beautiful arc of exactly the correct radius, the roan headed the blue in triumph, his legs stiffening as he crossed the latter's course, his hoofs tearing up the thin turf in a fifty-foot furrow as he essayed a turn in order to forestall any side divergence of the stallion. But the blue streak swerved not one iota.
With ears flattened against his head, eyes green with malignity and pain, lips curled back and teeth bared to the gums, he charged directly at the unbalanced roan, squealing fiendishly as he came. The gallant gelding floundered ineffectually for a footing, fell directly in the path of the infuriated beast, and threw his rider over his head.
Though dazed by her violent contact with the hard ground, Grace instinctively struggled to her knees, raising one hand as if to ward off that impending horror; twenty yards away the thudding hoofs beat on her ear drums like a funeral knell, her lips parted in a soundless gasp, then faintly as from a far distance she heard a dull concussion, felt a crashing blow, and lost consciousness.
When her eyes opened again they were in close juxtaposition to a rough tan-colored shirt whose coarse fiber rasped her cheek; the whole universe seemed rocking with a gentle up and down motion as soothing as the swing of her beloved hammock, but there was a curious numbness across her chest and lower limbs like that induced by the pressure of closely-encircling iron bands. Gradually it dawned upon her that she was in the arms of a man who, carrying her weight with perceptibly no effort, was running swiftly towards the house. One little shy upward glance completed her inventory; she deliberately closed her eyes and cuddled closer, so close that she could distinctly hear and count the strong heart-beats against her temple. Nor did she open them again until he had lain her on a sofa in the living room and bent solicitously over her.
"Thank God!" The relief in his voice was somehow very sweet to her. "I was afraid—tell me, are you hurt?"
"Only frightened, I think." The tone was effectively languid and hesitating; she was loth to dissipate the tender concern in his eyes. "But oh, the horror of it. I can scarcely realize that I am alive. Death seemed so close." She hid her face, shudderingly. "Was the horse killed?"
"The blue was," for some reason avoiding her glance, "but the roan is all right. You had a very close call. Why did you try to head him?"
"Don't scold me, please!" she pleaded. "I could not help it; he bolted when the other horse broke away and I lost my reins. I had no control over him, whatever. How did I get here?" The question was a marvel of innocent nescience. And how could he know that her heart was beating even more furiously than his as he had held her close for those five blissful minutes.
"I carried you," he said, simply. "There was no other way. Are you quite sure that you are not injured? That brute's head was lying on your shoulder when I picked you up. He must have struck you as he fell."
"I do feel sorely bruised," tentatively rubbing her side, "but I am certain that is all." She arose and walked lamely across the room in confirmation, then came back and sat down on the sofa. "How silly of me to faint! And how kind of you to take such care of me! Was Iveryheavy?"
"I've carried heavier women," he said, unthinkingly, and could have bitten his tongue off in instant chagrin at his unfortunate slip. "You see," he said with forced attempt at humor, "I make a business of rescuing young damsels in distress and carrying them off to places of safety."
"Really! How romantic!" hiding her sudden bitter anger under the mask of persiflage. "I assume they all came through their difficulties as happily as I?"
"I can't remember any of them dying," he said caustically; then with deliberate malice: "None of them even pretended to faint."
The evil bolt, although all unwittingly shot, came close home and she could have struck him in her shame and fury. How much did he know? And how dared he couple her with those nameless creatures! Taken at a disadvantage, the retort courteous failed her for once, and she was devoutly glad for the timely intervention of Red, who thrust his carroty shock into the door at that moment.
"Miss Cahtah," he said with solemn gravity. "I'm almighty glad yuh ain't daid!" At her reassuring laugh of relief he added admiringly: "Yuh suttinly are quick on yuh feets, ma'am! Thet hoss was goin' some when yuh was standin' on yuah haid!" He had been quick to appreciate the strain she was laboring under and Red's panacea for any suffering was to make fun of it. She laughed again, a bit hysterically.
"Did I look particularly ridiculous?"
Red's protest was suspiciously grave: "Ridic'lous! suttinly not, ma'am. Yuh looked just like a angel, floppin hes wings—upside down."
They all shouted at that, their hilarity exciting the antelope kid into a rear charge upon Red, who used the incident to cover his retreat. He turned at the door to impart some good news.
"We've got the whole bunch corralled. Reckon thu shootin' an' yellin' you done, Ken, scared 'em in. I got thu bars up befoh I missed thu blue; fact is I didn't see him break, thu dust were so thick."
A minute later he returned with the additional good; tidings that Abbie was in sight; ten minutes more and he strode into the room, bearing in his arms a struggling, scratching, scolding burden which he deposited with much aplomb on the sofa besides Miss Carter.
"Reckon I'm some pumpkins on thu carry, mahself!" he said with much unction, grinning at the scandalized Abbie, who was quaintly anathematizing him. "No use yuh yowlin', Miss Abbie. The fashion's been sot an' yuh cloth is cut. But yuh shore got to gentle up a heap or Ken, yeah, will hev to do thu totin'."
Quick as a flash the old woman's arms went around Grace and the fair head was pillowed upon her bosom.
"What is it, honey?" she cooed, gently stroking the silken hair and entirely ignoring the men. The tensely strung nerves gave way and in the reaction the tears were softly welling. The two cowpunchers sneaked out sheepishly and once out of hearing, Red swore wonderingly.
"Well, I'm damned! Never peeped till it was all over with, and then clapped on the water-works. Wouldn't that bust yuah cinche!"
Douglass smiled but said nothing. Actuated by a common impulse, both men mounted their horses and rode over to where the blue stallion lay doubled up in a thickening pool of scarlet. Dismounting, they gave the dead beast a critical examination.
"Good shootin'!" said Red, touching approvingly six blue-black blots on the muscular hip that could be covered with the open palm; "but the range were too far—over two hundred, I reckon—and they had lost their force. Stern on all thu time, wa'nt he?"
Douglass nodded. "I tried to break his hip but the bullets were spent at that distance. This is what got him, Red." He touched an oozing puncture just forward of the shapely shoulder. "Looks like a small caliber high pressure to me; let's have it out."
Some minutes later both men were bending over a bit of metal lying in Red's palm. They were very thoughtful and a curious expression was playing over their faces. "It's a seven millimeter Mauser," said Douglass, quietly, "and there's only one such gun on this range. It's a pretty big payment on account, Red!"
McVey's lips hardened but he evaded the other's eye. "Let's get the direction," he said, "and maybe we can work it out."
In an incredibly short time these experienced frontiersmen had not only located the spot from which had been fired the shot that undoubtedly saved Miss Carter's life, but Douglass had as well found the discharged cartridge shell. It was a seven millimeter Mauser case, and Matlock was the possessor of the only weapon of the kind on this range! Furthermore, they found the depressions in the loose soil where he had knelt when firing the shot. It was a good three hundred yards from where the horse lay and Red once more said, "Damn good shoot in,' Ken! It's worth remembering when the time comes. A six-shooter ain't deuce high against that Dutch joker at long range."
Tracking the shooter's footprints back to the gully oil the other slope of the hill, they were found to lead to where a horse had been tied. The horse tracks showed that the beast had cast his left hind shoe!
Back-tracking still farther, they ascertained that the tracks had proceeded to this spot from an eminence at the head of a wooded coulie which commanded the valley where the horses had been found. To these men it was as plain as a printed page that Matlock had followed their movements unseen, finally establishing his position on the crest of the little hill where the empty shell was found, a position that commanded the corral and all the country likely to be traversed by the blue in his attempt to escape!
"He figgered the blue would break back, and that you would try to turn him," said Red. "Yuh have had a close call, son!"
"Yet he saved her," said Douglass, steadily. "That's a big payment, Red, a big payment!"
"Yep!" answered McVey, noncommittally, "but only part payment."
The round-up was over, the marketable beef cut out and shipped, and life at the C Bar had resumed the normality of quiet routine. From now until spring the ranch labor would be nominal; a few weaklings to be fed and nurtured through the rigors of winter, a few likely colts to be broken and "gentled" against the next season's requirements, a few necessary repairs to equipment and fences, much wood hauling for the long night's consumption, and an engaging season of rest and recuperation for man and beast.
All throughout the range there is a general reduction of working forces at this period, the superfluous men seeking the larger towns for the commendable purpose of putting into active circulation their season's hoardings; that they are almost always obsessed with a weird delusion that somewhere in the gilded halls of Chance the fickle dame Fortune awaits their coming with a whole cornucopia of royal favors, aces by preference, only insures the economy of time to that end. For whether she smile or not, there be always dames and favors of price to reward the ambitious; and to be lucky in love is even more expensive than to be unlucky at cards. The process may be conditionally prolonged, but the final result is always the same. By the time the grass greens again they have been divested of everything, even of their cares, and are ready to take up the broken threads of the endless chain that links them indissolubly to the old traditions.
The C Bar outfit had narrowed down to four men besides Douglass. Red, Woolly, Punk and a saturnine-faced Texan whose addiction to unique expletives of an unconventional nature had secured for him the sobriquet of "Holy Joe." The two latter were detailed to "riding fences" while Red and Woolly did desultory choring and hauled wood.
Robert Carter had returned for the rodeo and he and Douglass had enjoyed several hunting trips in company afterward; that is to say, the former did, Douglass evincing a certain restlessness which he, however, successfully strove to conceal from the younger man. He was all impatience for the departure of Carter and his sister, for reasons that he did not care to share with either, and he felt a positive relief when the day of their leaving was definitely announced.
Carter had been vainly endeavoring to persuade him to accompany them, and one night enlisted his sister s influence to that end; her gentle insistence precipitated Douglass's proffer of repayment of the losses incurred through Matlock's emity.
"I haven't either the time or means at my disposal for such a junket," he said with decision. "I alone am responsible for all the losses occurring on this ranch of late, and there's just about enough due me on salary account to square it up. I've got it all figured out here," producing a memorandum sheet, "and I think my estimate of the damage is a fair one; I'd like your approval of it. It leaves a trifle over a hundred left coming to me and I've got other and more urgent uses for it. Besides, I've got work to do that can't be postponed."
Carter heard him in open-mouthed amazement, his astonishment changing first to amusement, then to indignation as he gathered the drift of Douglass's intent. Grace, suddenly comprehending many things previously only hinted at, looked genuinely distressed and tapped nervously on the carpet with her sandaled foot.
"Why, man, you're crazy!" shouted Carter. "Do you think for a moment that I will permit you to even contemplate such an absurdity?"
"Pardon me," said Douglass, suavely; "the question of your permit does not enter into the matter at all; and I've done all the thinking necessary. I have had it under contemplation for a long time. This business is going to be settled right here and now!" There was no mistaking his determination and Carter was dumb-foundered.
"But—" he stammered, protestingly, "the thing is utterly inconceivable! I could not even momentarily entertain such a preposterous proposal. Why, supposing for argument's sake, that Matlock's private animosity to you in person had brought this about, how does that inculpate you? And if it did, do you think I would stand for your only taking a paltry hundred dollars for a whole season's hard work, the best work ever done on this range? Nonsense, old fellow; you've got another think coming!"
"Well, I'm thinking that a hundred odd is just what's coming to me, and just what I'm going to get!" said Douglass, obstinately. "It'll be plenty for what I am going to do with it."
Carter sprang up, stormily: "Don't be any more of an ass than God intended you to be. Quixotism went out centuries ago. You're going to get what's actually due you!"
"And that is a hundred odd, I believe you make it, Mr. Douglass?" interrupted Grace, evenly, with a look of imperious warning at her brother. "Can't you see, dear, that he is right! Now no more petty bickering between you two foolish boys. Don't look so desolated, Bobbie; Mr. Douglass does not intend this as a preamble to his resignation; he is not going to leave us. There are no quitters on the C Bar."
"Let me write the check," she continued, in hasty trepidation, not daring to look at the man she had so audaciously preëmpted to their service. "Not a word, leave it to me!" she whispered tensely to her brother, whose lips were again opening in protest. "For heaven's sake, don't spoil it all!"
As she dipped the pen in the ink she hesitated: "Your given name, Mr. Douglass? I have never learned it in full."
"Kenneth—Kenneth Malcolm," he said shortly. She bit her lip as she wrote hurriedly; he was so deliciously pompous!
"And the exact amount?" He handed her the memorandum. "One hundred and six dollars. Please approve this, Bobbie." She extended the paper to her brother, pinching him viciously under the table as he hesitated. "Quick!" she breathed, almost hissingly, and he scrawled the necessary endorsement. Then she wrote the amount in the body of the check. Carter signed it wrathfully, and she tendered it to Douglass with a smile.
"There! Now you are square with the world," she said, facetiously, but her lips were tremulous with anxiety; he had been so distressingly noncommittal as to that resignation!
"Not exactly with the whole world!" he said, grimly. "I've got a few other trifling obligations to discharge before I can subscribe to that flattering assumption."
"Don't think me ungrateful for your kindness," he continued, earnestly. "I appreciate your invitation more than you know; but you see, this would not go very far in luxurious old New York. It wouldn't more than hardly pay my fare there, and really my presence here is imperative for some indefinite time. I had no intention of resigning, but I am going to ask the favor of a month's leave of absence. McVey is perfectly competent to handle the outfit until my return."
"Take two months if you like," said Carter, cordially. "And while I am not at all easy in mind about that money business, I respect your wishes in the matter and we will consider that over and done with. But I insist on your being our guest at the old home next year. I have your promise?"
Douglass hesitated. "A great deal can happen in a year," he said, quietly; "but if I am alive and other conditions serve I shall be delighted."
Bobbie's manner was not quite so genial and complaisant to his sister when they were again alone: "See here, sis, what the devil—!"
"For shame, Bobbie!" she said, with laughing remonstrance, stopping further utterance with her soft palm. "Swearing isn't at all becoming to small boys. You are contracting very bad local habits." But she vouchsafed him no explanation whatever, merely rumpling his hair over his eyes and kissing him on the tip of his nose.
The day of their departure Douglass accompanied them as far as Tin Cup, where they would take the stage for Alpine. He was all cordiality to Carter and deference to Grace, showing at his best all throughout the pleasant ride. As she laid her hand in his at parting her eyes were full of wistful entreaty:
"Be good to Buffo and my roan, and very, very good to yourself! I am coming back in the spring and so will sayauf wiedersehen, not good-by. You will write me occasionally? It will be manna to me until I can get back to 'God's country' again!"
His face brightened approvingly; "I like that! It is 'God's country,' surely, even though abandoned for a space by its brightest angel. Come back to us soon!"
"That was very sweet of you, and I am going to take it at full face value," she said, steadily. "That is the first compliment you have ever paid me and I am commensurably proud. But do you know"—her lips were very close to his ear—"it seems funny somehow! I had rather—oh, dear! I really can't help it!—but couldn't you manage to swear at me a little, Ken!" Her face was a vivid scarlet and she laughed a little hysterically. Before he had recovered from his astonishment she was in the arms of Abbie, who, attended by Red, had just driven up in the buckboard with the luggage.
She persistently avoided his eyes as she shook hands with Red. "Mr. McVey," she said, laughingly, "we have so over-burdened Mr. Douglass with responsibility for innumerable things that he won't have time to take care of himself; will you kindly look after him for us?"
Red's jaws closed spasmodically at the appeal underlying her forced levity; his grasp tightened ever so little but of other sign he was guiltless. Then he turned and looked at Douglass with preternatural gravity:
"I'm shore honahed, Miss Grace, with yuah commission! Yuh leave it to me! I'll see he gits he's milk regulah an' goes to hes leetle baid at seven every night. On yuah return I'll hand him oveh to you all wropped up in cotton bats, tied with pink ribbon like thet about yuah naick, thet is, purvidin' I kin rustle thu ribbon."
His meaning was unmistakable, and though blushing at his audacity, Grace took up the gage. Deliberately unclasping the tiny golden heart, which held the narrow band in place, she made a dainty little roll of the silk, fastened the end with the jewel and laid it in Red's bronze paw. Douglass, watching the little by-play with a curious interest, wondered at the quiver in that iron fist which could hold the weight of a heavy Colt's .45 with never a tremor.
Among the mail handed him later by old Hank was an official-looking document dated Denver. It was from the office of the State Registrar of brands and was almost laconic in its brevity:
"The brand O-O (left side); earmarks, square crop right, underbit left; is registered in the name of Bartholomew Coogan. He claims residence at Gunnison, and range in Gunnison County from Texas Creek to Quartz Creek. Date of record May 1st, 1898."
He reread the letter three times with exceeding care, his eyes narrowing to mere slits, then thrust it into an inner pocket. He was very thoughtful on the homeward ride, his preoccupied air at the supper table emboldening Punk to irreverent levity:
"These yeah partin's are shore deespiritin' things!" he observed, lugubriously, to nobody in particular. "I don't wonder none thet gloom has settled in one great gob oveh thu achin' souls of this yeah outfit. Why, I'm so sad, mahself, thet I kin hawdly eat pie!" Nevertheless he cast avaricious glances at Douglass's portion of that comestible and later took advantage of his abstraction to filch the savory morsel.
"Yuh'll be sum sadder if yuh don't keep yuah hooks on yuah side of the table!" warned Red, sinisterly, as he successfully repelled a similar assault on his own reserves. "Yuh moon-faced pie-eater, what yuh got to be sad about 'ceptin' thet yuh are alive?"
"Why," said Woolly, with well-feigned sympathy, "don't yuh know thet Punk's hed a great sorrer? He's been yirrigatin' the hull dum ranch with hes tears ontil yuh-ve gotter wear gum butes to git around in! Why, he's weeped so hawd thet hes years has got washed clean for oncet!"
Holy chortled in blasphemous delight as Woolly went on: "Punk's been lef stranded on thu shoals o' woe. He's stah o' happiness is sot 'an' thu mune o' he's desiah won't rise no moah! Thu light has gone outen he's young life an' he's tooken to writin' potery an' herdin' by hisself. He was tooken thet way early this mawnin' an' hes mizzery hes been suthin' scand'lous. He's made up a leetle pome all outen hes own haid thet would make a Ute cry. Speak it for us, Punk, won't yuh!"
Punk sighed dolorously and rested his head on his bowed arms. Then he raised it again and with a comical imitation of Douglass's abstraction looked into vacancy. Holy was gurgling ecstatically, his delight finding vent in a yell of irrepressible joy as Punk fumbled twistingly with his bare upper lip in emulation of Douglass's impatient twirls of his mustache.
His wandering thoughts recalled by that raucous guffaw, Douglass glared with cold disfavor at the twain, somehow realizing that he was more or less concerned in their horse-play. "What's the matter with you damn fools?" he asked, incautiously.
Punk looked at him in anguished protestation, shook his head in hopeless despondency and wailed:
"Oh! Gawd—haowkinI stand it? Haow kin I?"
Woolly looked at Douglass reproachfully. "To be sworn at in thet heartless way, an' him so young and gentle!" He put his arm sympathetically about Punk's shoulders; Red's eyes were twinkling in anticipation.
"Thar! thar! ole man! Don't yuh take it so hawd."
Punk laid his head wearily on Woolly's breast. Then as Holy and Red almost cried in their hilarity, he clasped his hands and crooned with heart-rending pathos: