CHAPTER IIICONVERGING TRAILS
It was the barking of a dog that brought Sheila out of a sleep—dreamless this time—into a state of semi-consciousness. It was Dakota’s dog surely, she decided sleepily. She sighed and twisted to a more comfortable position. The effort awakened her and she opened her eyes, her gaze resting immediately on Dakota. He still sat at the table, silent, immovable, as before. But now he was sitting erect, his muscles tensed, his chin thrust out aggressively, his gaze on the door—listening. He seemed to be unaware of Sheila’s presence; the sound that she had made in turning he apparently had not heard.
There was an interval of silence and then came a knocking on the door—loud, unmistakable. Some one desired admittance. After the knock came a voice:
“Hello inside!”
“Hello yourself!” Dakota’s voice came with a truculent snap. “What’s up?”
“Lookin’ for a dry place,” came the voice from without. “Mebbe you don’t know it’s wet out here!”
Sheila’s gaze was riveted on Dakota. He arose and noiselessly moved his chair back from the table and she saw a saturnine smile on his face, yet in his eyes there shone a glint of intolerance that mingled oddly with his gravity.
“You alone?” he questioned, his gaze on the door.
“Yes.”
“Who are you?”
“Campbellite preacher.”
For the first time since she had been awake Dakota turned and looked at Sheila. The expression of his face puzzled her. “A parson!” he sneered in a low voice. “I reckon we’ll have some praying now.” He took a step forward, hesitated, and looked back at Sheila. “Do you want him in here?”
Sheila’s nod brought a whimsical, shallowsmile to his face. “Of course you do—you’re lonesome in here.” There was mockery in his voice. He deliberately drew out his two guns, examined them minutely, returned one to his holster, retaining the other in his right hand. With a cold grin at Sheila he snuffed out the candle between a finger and a thumb and strode to the door—Sheila could hear him fumbling at the fastenings. He spoke to the man outside sharply.
“Come in!”
There was a movement; a square of light appeared in the wall of darkness; there came a step on the threshold. Watching, Sheila saw, framed in the open doorway, the dim outlines of a figure—a man.
“Stand right there,” came Dakota’s voice from somewhere in the impenetrable darkness of the interior, and Sheila wondered at the hospitality that greeted a stranger with total darkness and a revolver. “Light a match.”
After a short interval of silence there came the sound of a match scratching on the wall, and a light flared up, showingSheila the face of a man of sixty, bronzed, bearded, with gentle, quizzical eyes.
The light died down, the man waited. Sheila had forgotten—in her desire to see the face of the visitor—to look for Dakota, but presently she heard his voice:
“I reckon you’re a parson, all right. Close the door.”
The parson obeyed the command. “Light the candle on the table!” came the order from Dakota. “I’m not taking any chances until I get a better look at you.”
Another match flared up and the parson advanced to the table and lighted the candle. He smiled while applying the match to the wick. “Don’t pay to take no chances—on anything,” he agreed. He stood erect, a tall man, rugged and active for his sixty years, and threw off a rain-soaked tarpaulin. Some traces of dampness were visible on his clothing, but in the circumstances he had not fared so badly.
“It’s a new trail to me—I don’t know the country,” he went on. “If I hadn’t seen your light I reckon I’d have been goin’ yet. I was thinkin’ that it was mighty queer thatyou’d have a light goin’ so——” He stopped short, seeing Sheila sitting on the bunk. “Shucks, ma’am,” he apologized, “I didn’t know you were there.” His hat came off and dangled in his left hand; with the other he brushed back the hair from his forehead, smiling meanwhile at Sheila.
“Why, ma’am,” he said apologetically, “if your husband had told me you was here I’d have gone right on an’ not bothered you.”
Sheila’s gaze went from the parson’s face and sought Dakota’s, a crimson flood spreading over her face and temples. A slow, amused gleam filled Dakota’s eyes. But plainly he did not intend to set the parson right—he was enjoying Sheila’s confusion. The color fled from her face as suddenly as it had come and was succeeded by the pallor of a cold indignation.
“I’m not married,” she said instantly to the parson; “this gentleman is not my husband.”
“Not?” questioned the parson. “Then how—” He hesitated and looked quickly at Dakota, but the latter was watchingSheila with an odd smile and the parson looked puzzled.
“This is my first day in this country,” explained Sheila.
The parson did not reply to this, though he continued to watch her intently. She met his gaze steadily and he smiled. “I reckon you’ve been caught on the trail too,” he said, “by the storm.”
Sheila nodded.
“Well, it’s been right wet to-night, an’ it ain’t no night to be galivantin’ around the country. Where you goin’ to?”
“To the Double R ranch.”
“Where’s the Double R?” asked the parson.
“West,” Dakota answered for Sheila; “twenty miles.”
“Off my trail,” said the parson. “I’m travelin’ to Lazette.” He laughed, shortly. “I’m askin’ your pardon, ma’am, for takin’ you to be married; you don’t look like you belonged here—I ought to have knowed that right off.”
Sheila told him that he was forgiven and he had no comment to make on this, butlooked at her appraisingly. He drew a bench up near the fire and sat looking at the licking flames, the heat drawing the steam from his clothing as the latter dried. Dakota supplied him with soda biscuit and cold bacon, and these he munched in contentment, talking meanwhile of his travels. Several times while he sat before the fire Dakota spoke to him, and finally he pulled his chair over near the wall opposite the bunk on which Sheila sat, tilted it back, and dropped into it, stretching out comfortably.
After seating himself, Dakota’s gaze sought Sheila. It was evident to Sheila that he was thinking pleasant thoughts, for several times she looked quickly at him to catch him smiling. Once she met his gaze fairly and was certain that she saw a crafty, calculating gleam in his eyes. She was puzzled, though there was nothing of fear from Dakota now; the presence of the parson in the cabin assured her of safety.
A half hour dragged by. The parson did not appear to be sleepy. Sheila glanced at her watch and saw that it was midnight. She wondered much at the parson’s wakefulnessand her own weariness. But she could safely go to sleep now, she told herself, and she stretched noiselessly out on the bunk and with one arm bent under her head listened to the parson.
Evidently the parson was itinerant; he spoke of many places—Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Texas; of towns in New Mexico. To Sheila, her senses dulled by the drowsiness that was stealing over her, it appeared that the parson was a foe to Science. His volubility filled the cabin; he contended sonorously that the earth was not round. The Scriptures, he maintained, held otherwise. He called Dakota’s attention to the seventh chapter of Revelation, verse one:
“And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.”
Several times Sheila heard Dakota laugh, mockingly; he was skeptical, caustic even, and he took issue with the parson. Between them they managed to prevent herfalling asleep; kept her in a semidoze which was very near to complete wakefulness.
After a time, though, the argument grew monotonous; the droning of their voices seemed gradually to grow distant; Sheila lost interest in the conversation and sank deeper into her doze. How long she had been unconscious of them she did not know, but presently she was awake again and listening. Dakota’s laugh had awakened her. Out of the corners of her eyes she saw that he was still seated in the chair beside the wall and that his eyes were alight with interest as he watched the parson.
“So you’re going to Lazette, taking it on to him?”
The parson nodded, smiling. “When a man wants to get married he’ll not care much about the arrangements—how it gets done. What he wants to do is to get married.”
“That’s a queer angle,” Dakota observed. He laughed immoderately.
The parson laughed with him. Itwasan odd situation, he agreed. Never, in all his experience, had he heard of anything like it.
He had stopped for a few hours at Dry Bottom. While there a rider had passed through, carrying word that a certain man in Lazette, called “Baldy,” desired to get married. There was no minister in Lazette, not even a justice of the peace. But Baldy wanted to be married, and his bride-to-be objected to making the trip to Dry Bottom, where there were both a parson and a justice of the peace. Therefore, failing to induce the lady to go to the parson, it followed that Baldy must contrive to have the parson come to the lady. He dispatched the rider to Dry Bottom on this quest.
The rider had found that there was no regular parson in Dry Bottom and that the justice of the peace had departed the day before to some distant town for a visit. Luckily for Baldy’s matrimonial plans, the parson had been in Dry Bottom when the rider arrived, and he readily consented—as he intended to pass through Lazette anyway—to carry Baldy’s license to him and perform the ceremony.
“Odd, ain’t it?” remarked the parson, after he had concluded.
“That’s a queer angle,” repeated Dakota. “You got the license?” he inquired softly. “Mebbe you’ve lost it.”
“I reckon not.” The parson fumbled in a pocket, drawing out a folded paper. “I’ve got it, right enough.”
“You’ve got no objections to me looking at it?” came Dakota’s voice. Sheila saw him rise. There was a strange smile on his face.
“No objections. I reckon you’ll be usin’ one yourself one of these days.”
“One of these days,” echoed Dakota with a laugh as strange as his smile a moment before. “Yes—I’m thinking of using one one of these days.”
The parson spread the paper out on the table. Together he and Dakota bent their heads over it. After reading the license Dakota stood erect. He laughed, looking at the parson.
“There ain’t a name on it,” he said, “not a name.”
“They’re reckonin’ to fill in the names when they’re married,” explained the parson. “That there rider ought to haveknowed the names, but he didn’t. Only knowed that the man was called ‘Baldy.’ Didn’t know the bride’s name at all. But it don’t make any difference; they wouldn’t have had to have a license at all in this Territory. But it makes it look more regular when they’ve got one. All that’s got to be done is for Baldy to go over to Dry Bottom an’ have the names recorded. Bein’ as I can’t go, I’m to certify in the license.”
“Sure,” said Dakota slowly. “It makes things more regular to have a license—more regular to have you certify.”
Looking at Dakota, Sheila thought she saw in his face a certain preoccupation; he was evidently not thinking of what he was saying at all; the words had come involuntarily, automatically almost, it seemed, so inexpressive were they. “Sure,” he repeated, “you’re to certify, in the license.”
It was as though he were reading aloud from a printed page, his thoughts elsewhere, and seeing only the words and uttering them unconsciously. Some idea had formed in his brain, he meditated some surprising action. That she was concerned in his thoughtsSheila did not doubt, for he presently turned and looked straight at her and in his eyes she saw a new expression—a cold, designing gleam that frightened her.
Five minutes later, when the parson announced his intention to care for his horse before retiring and stood in the doorway preparatory to going out, Sheila restrained an impulse to call to him to remain. She succeeded in quieting her fears, however, by assuring herself that nothing could happen now, with the parson so near. Thus fortified, she smiled at Dakota as the parson stepped down and closed the door.
She drew a startled breath in the next instant, though, for without noticing her smile Dakota stepped to the door and barred it. Turning, he stood with his back against it, his lips in straight, hard lines, his eyes steady and gleaming brightly.
He caught Sheila’s gaze and held it; she trembled and sat erect.
“It’s odd, ain’t it?” he said, in the mocking voice that he had used when using the same words earlier in the evening.
“What is odd?” Hers was the sameanswer that she had used before, too—she could think of nothing else to say.
“Odd that he should come along just at this time.” He indicated the door through which the parson had disappeared. “You and me are here, and he comes. Who sent him?”
“Chance, I suppose,” Sheila answered, though she could feel that there was a subtle undercurrent in his speech, and she felt again the strange unrest that had affected her several times before.
“You think it was chance,” he said, drawling his words. “Well, maybe that’s just as good a name for it as any other. But we don’t all see things the same way, do we? We couldn’t, of course, because we’ve all got different things to do. We think this is a big world and that we play a big game. But it’s a little world and a little game when Fate takes a hand in it. I told you a while ago that Fate had a queer way of shuffling us around. That’s a fact. And Fate is running this game.” His mocking laugh had a note of grimness in it, which brought a chill over Sheila. “Just now, MissSheila, Fate is playing with brides and bridegrooms and marriages and parsons. That’s what is so odd. Fate has supplied the parson and the license; we’ll supply the names. Look at the bridegroom, Sheila,” he directed, tapping his breast with a finger; “this is your wedding day!”
“What do you mean?” Sheila was on her feet, trembling, her face white with fear and dread.
“That we’re to be married,” he said, smiling at her, and she noted with a qualm that there was no mirth in the smile, “you and me. The parson will tie the knot.”
“This is a joke, I suppose?” she said scornfully, attempting a lightness that she did not feel; “a crude one, to be sure, for you certainly cannot be serious.”
“I was never more serious in my life,” he said slowly. “We are to be married when the parson comes in.”
“How do you purpose to accomplish this?” she jeered. “The parson certainly will not perform a marriage ceremony without the consent of—without my consent.”
“I think,” he said coldly, “that you willconsent. I am not in a trifling mood. Just now it pleases me to imagine that I am an instrument of Fate. Maybe that sounds mysterious to you, but some day you will be able to see just how logical it all seems to me now, that Fate has sent me a pawn—a subject, if you please—to sacrifice, that the game which I have been playing may be carried to its conclusion.”
Outside they heard the dog bark, heard the parson speak to it.
“The parson is coming,” said Sheila, her joy over the impending interruption showing in her eyes.
“Yes, he is coming.” Still with his back to the door, Dakota deliberately drew out one of his heavy pistols and examined it minutely, paying no attention to Sheila. Her eyes widened with fear as the hand holding the weapon dropped to his side and he looked at her again.
“What are you doing to do?” she demanded, watching these forbidding preparations with dilated eyes.
“That depends,” he returned with a chilling laugh. “Have you ever seen aman die? No?” he continued as she shuddered. “Well, if you don’t consent to marry me you will see the parson die. I have decided to give you the choice, ma’am,” he went on in a quiet, determined voice, entirely free from emotion. “Sacrifice yourself and the parson lives; refuse and I shoot the parson down the instant he steps inside the door.”
“Oh!” she cried in horror, taking a step toward him and looking into his eyes for evidence of insincerity—for the slightest sign that would tell her that he was merely trying to scare her. “Oh! you—you coward!” she cried, for she saw nothing in his eyes but cold resolution.
He smiled with straight lips. “You see,” he mocked, “how odd it is? Fate is shuffling us three in this game. You have your choice. Do you care to be responsible for the death of a fellow being?”
For a tense instant she looked at him, and seeing the hard, inexorable glitter in his eyes she cringed away from him and sank to the edge of the bunk, covering her face with her hands.
During the silence that followed she could hear the parson outside—his voice, and the yelping of the dog—evidently they had formed a friendship. The sounds came nearer; Sheila heard the parson try the door. She became aware that Dakota was standing over her and she looked up, shivering, to see his face, still hard and unyielding.
“I am going to open the door,” he said. “Is it you or the parson?”
At that word she was on her feet, standing before him, rigid with anger, her eyes flaming with scorn and hatred.
“You wouldn’t dare to do it!” she said hoarsely; “you—you——” She snatched suddenly for the butt of the weapon that swung at his left hip, but with a quick motion he evaded the hand and stepped back a pace, smiling coldly.
“I reckon it’s the parson,” he said in a low voice, which carried an air of finality. He started for the door, hesitated, and came back to the bunk, standing in front of Sheila, looking down into her eyes.
“I am giving you one last chance,” he told her. “I am going to open the door.If you want the parson to die, don’t look at me when he steps in. If you want him to live, turn your back to him and walk to the fireplace.”
He walked to the door, unlocked it, and stepped back, his gaze on Sheila. Then the door opened slowly and the parson stood on the threshold, smiling.
“It’s sure some wet outside,” he said.
Dakota was fingering the cylinder of his revolver, his gaze now riveted on the parson.
“Why,” said the latter, in surprise, seeing the attitudes of Dakota and his guest, “what in the name of——”
There came a movement, and Sheila stood in front of Dakota, between him and the parson. For an instant she stood, looking at Dakota with a scornful, loathing gaze. Then with a dry sob, which caught in her throat, she moved past him and went to the fireplace, where she stood looking down at the flames.
CHAPTER IVTHIS PICTURE AND THAT
Itwas a scene of wild, virgin beauty upon which Sheila Langford looked as she sat on the edge of a grassy butte overlooking the Ute River, with Duncan, the Double R manager stretched out, full length beside her, a gigantic picture on Nature’s canvas, glowing with colors which the gods had spread with a generous touch.
A hundred feet below Sheila and Duncan the waters of the river swept around the base of the butte, racing over a rocky bed toward a deep, narrow canyon farther down. Directly opposite the butte rose a short slope, forming the other bank of the river. From the crest of the slope began a plain that stretched for many miles, merging at the horizon into some pine-clad foothills. Behind the foothills were the mountains, their snow peaks shimmering in a whitesky—remote, mysterious, seeming like guardians of another world. The chill of the mountains contrasted sharply with the slumberous luxuriance and color of the plains.
Miles of grass, its green but slightly dulled with a thin covering of alkali dust, spread over the plain; here and there a grove of trees rose, it seemed, to break the monotony of space. To the right the river doubled sharply, the farther bank fringed with alder and aspen, their tall stalks nodding above the nondescript river weeds; the near bank a continuing wall of painted buttes—red, picturesque, ragged, thrusting upward and outward over the waters of the river. On the left was a stretch of broken country. Mammoth boulders were strewn here; weird rocks arose in inconceivably grotesque formations; lava beds, dull and gray, circled the bald knobs of some low hills. Above it all swam the sun, filling the world with a clear, white light. It made a picture whose beauty might have impressed the most unresponsive. Yet, though Sheila was looking upon the picture, her thoughts were dwelling upon another.
This other picture was not so beautiful, and a vague unrest gripped Sheila’s heart as she reviewed it, carefully going over each gloomy detail. It was framed in the rain and the darkness of a yesterday. There was a small clearing there—a clearing in a dense wood beside a river—the same river which she could have seen below her now, had she looked. In the foreground was a cabin. She entered the cabin and stood beside a table upon which burned a candle. A man stood beside the table also—a reckless-eyed man, holding a heavy revolver. Another man stood there, too—a man of God. While Sheila watched the man’s lips opened; she could hear the words that came through them—she would never forget them:
“To have and to hold from this day forth ... till death do you part....”
It was not a dream, it was the picture of an actual occurrence. She saw every detail of it. She could hear her own protests, her threats, her pleadings; she lived over again her terror as she had crouched in the bunk until the dawn.
The man had not molested her, had noteven spoken to her after the ceremony; had ignored her entirely. When the dawn came she had heard him talking to the parson, but could not catch their words. Later she had mounted her pony and had ridden away through the sunshine of the morning. She had been married—it was her wedding day.
When she had reached the crest of a long rise after her departure from the cabin she had halted her pony to look back, hoping that it all might have been a dream. But it had not been a dream. There was the dense wood, the clearing, and the cabin. Beside them was the river. And there, riding slowly away over the narrow trail which she had traveled the night before, was the parson—she could see his gray beard in the white sunlight. Dry eyed, she had turned from the scene. A little later, turning again, she saw the parson fade into the horizon. That, she knew, was the last she would ever see of him. He had gone out of her life forever—the desert had swallowed him up.
But the picture was still vivid; she had seen it during every waking moment of themonth that she had been at the Double R ranch; it was before her every night in her dreams. It would not fade.
She knew that the other picture was beautiful—the picture of this world into which she had ridden so confidently, yet she was afraid to dwell upon it for fear that its beauty would seem to mock her. For had not nature conspired against her? Yet she knew that she alone was to blame—she, obstinate, willful, heedless. Had not her father warned her? “Wait,” he had said, and the words flamed before her eyes—“wait until I go. Wait a month. The West is a new country; anything, everything, can happen to you out there—alone.”
“Nothing can happen,” had been her reply. “I will go straight from Lazette to the Double R. See that you telegraph instructions to Duncan to meet me. It will be a change; I am tired of the East and impatient to be away from it.”
Well, she had found a change. What would her father say when he heard of it—of her marriage to a cowboy, an unprincipled scoundrel? What could he say? The marriagecould be annulled, of course! it was not legal, could not be legal. No law could be drawn which would recognize a marriage of that character, and she knew that she had only to tell her father to have the machinery of the law set in motion. Could she tell him? Could she bear his reproaches, his pity, after her heedlessness?
What would her friends say when they heard of it—as they must hear if she went to the law for redress? Her friends in the East whose good wishes, whose respect, she desired? Mockers there would be among them, she was certain; there were mockers everywhere, and she feared their taunts, the shafts of sarcasm that would be launched at her—aye, that would strike her—when they heard that she had passed a night in a lone cabin with a strange cowboy—had been married to him!
A month had passed since the afternoon on which she had ridden up to the porch of the Double R ranchhouse to be greeted by Duncan with the information that he had that morning received a telegram from her father announcing her coming. It had beenbrought from Lazette by a puncher who had gone there for the mail, and Duncan was at that moment preparing to drive to Lazette to meet her, under the impression that she would arrive that day. There had been a mistake, of course, but what did it matter now? The damage had been wrought and she closed her lips. A month had passed and she had not told—she would never tell.
Conversations she had had with Duncan; he seemed a gentleman, living at the Double R ranchhouse with his sister, but in no conversation with anyone had Sheila even mentioned Dakota’s name, fearing that something in her manner might betray her secret. To everyone but herself the picture of her adventure that night on the trail must remain invisible.
She looked furtively at Duncan, stretched out beside her on the grass. What would he say if he knew? He would not be pleased, she was certain, for during the month that she had been at the Double R—riding out almost daily with him—he had forced her to see that he had taken a liking to her—more, she herself had observed the telltalesigns of something deeper than mere liking.
She had not encouraged this, of course, for she was not certain that she liked Duncan, though he had treated her well—almost too well, in fact, for she had at times felt a certain reluctance in accepting his little attentions—such personal service as kept him almost constantly at her side. His manner, too, was ingratiating; he smiled too much to suit her; his presumption of proprietorship over her irritated her not a little.
As she sat beside him on the grass she found herself studying him, as she had done many times when he had not been conscious of her gaze.
He was thirty-two,—he had told her so himself in a burst of confidence—though she believed him to be much older. The sprinkling of gray hair at his temples had caused her to place his age at thirty-seven or eight. Besides, there were the lines of his face—the set lines of character—indicating established habits of thought which would not show so deeply in a younger face. His mouth, she thought, was a trifle weak, yet not exactly weak either, but full-lipped andsensual, with little curves at the corners which, she was sure, indicated either vindictiveness or cruelty, perhaps both.
Taken altogether his was not a face to trust fully; its owner might be too easily guided by selfish considerations. Duncan liked to talk about himself; he had been talking about himself all the time that Sheila had sat beside him reviewing the mental picture. But apparently he had about exhausted that subject now, and presently he looked up at her, his eyes narrowing quizzically.
“You have been here a month now,” he said. “How do you like the country?”
“I like it,” she returned.
She was looking now at the other picture, watching the shimmer of the sun on the distant mountain peaks.
“It improves,” he said, “on acquaintance—like the people.” He flashed a smile at her, showing his teeth.
“I haven’t seen very many people,” she returned, not looking at him, but determined to ignore the personal allusion, to which, plainly, he had meant to guide her.
“But those that you have seen?” he persisted.
“I have formed no opinions.”
Shehadformed an opinion, though, a conclusive one—concerning Dakota. But she had no idea of communicating it to Duncan. Until now, strangely enough, she had had no curiosity concerning him. Bitter hatred and resentment had been so active in her brain that the latter had held no place for curiosity. Or at least, if it had been there, it had been a subconscious emotion, entirely overshadowed by bitterness. Of late, though her resentment toward Dakota had not abated, she had been able to review the incident of her marriage to him with more composure, and therefore a growing curiosity toward the man seemed perfectly justifiable. Curiosity moved her now as she smiled deliberately at Duncan.
“I have seen no one except your sister, a few cowboys, and yourself. I haven’t paid much attention to the cowboys, I like your sister, and I am not in the habit of telling people to their faces what I think of them. The country does not appear to be denselypopulated. Are there no other ranches around here—no other cattlemen?”
“The Double R ranch covers an area of one hundred and sixty square miles,” said Duncan. “The ranchhouse is right near the center of it. For about twenty miles in every direction you won’t find anybody but Double R men. There are line-camps, of course—dugouts where the men hang out over night sometimes—but that’s all. To my knowledge there are only two men with shacks around here, and they’re mostly of no account. One of them is Doubler—Ben Doubler—who hangs out near Two Forks, and the other is a fellow who calls himself Dakota, who’s got a shack about twenty miles down the Ute, a little off the Lazette trail.”
“They are ranchers, I suppose?”
Sheila’s face was averted so that Duncan might not see the interest in her eyes, or the red which had suddenly come into her cheeks.
“Ranchers?” There was a sneer in Duncan’s laugh. “Well, you might call them that. But they’re only nesters. They’ve got a few head of cattle and a brand. It’slikely they’ve put their brands on quite a few of the Double R cattle.”
“You mean——” began Sheila in a low voice.
“I mean that I think they’re rustlers—cattle thieves!” said Duncan venomously.
The flush had gone from Sheila’s cheeks; she turned a pale face to the Double R manager.
“How long have these men lived in the vicinity of the Double R?”
“Doubler has been hanging around here for seven or eight years. He was here when I came and mebbe he’s been here longer. Dakota’s been here about five years. He bought his brand—the Star—from another nester—Texas Blanca.”
“They’ve been stealing the Double R cattle, you say?” questioned Sheila.
“That’s what I think.”
“Why don’t you have them arrested?”
Duncan laughed mockingly. “Arrested! That’s good. You’ve been living where there’s law. But there’s no law out here; no law to cover cattle stealing, except our own. And then we’ve got to have the goods. The sheriff won’t do anything when cattleare stolen, but he acts mighty sudden when a man’s hung for stealing cattle, if the man ain’t caught with the goods.”
“Caught with the goods?”
“Caught in the act of stealing. If we catch a man with the goods and hang him there ain’t usually anything said.”
“And you haven’t been able to catch these men, Dakota and Doubler, in the act of stealing.”
“They’re too foxy.”
“If I were manager of this ranch and suspected anyone of stealing any of its cattle, I would catch them!” There was a note of angry impatience in Sheila’s voice which caused Duncan to look sharply at her. He reddened, suspecting disparagement of his managerial ability in the speech.
“Mebbe,” he said, with an attempt at lightness. “But as a general thing nosing out a rustler is a pretty ticklish proposition. Nobody goes about that work with a whole lot of enthusiasm.”
“Why?” There was scorn in Sheila’s voice, scorn in her uplifted chin. But she did not look at Duncan.
“Why?” he repeated. “Well, because it’s perfectly natural for a man to want to live as long as he can. I don’t like them nesters—Dakota especially—and I’d like mighty well to get something on them. But I ain’t taking any chances on Dakota.”
“Why?” Again the monosyllable was pregnant with scorn.
“I forgot that you ain’t acquainted out here,” laughed the manager. “No one is taking any chances with Dakota—not even the sheriff. There’s something about the cuss which seems to discourage a man when he’s close to him—close enough to do any shooting. I’ve seen Dakota throw down on a man so quick that it would make you dizzy.”
“Throw down?”
“Shoot at a man. There was a gambler over in Lazette thought to euchre Dakota. A gunman he was, from Texas, and—well, they carried the gambler out. It was done so sudden that nobody saw it.”
“Killed him?” There was repressed horror in Sheila’s voice.
“No, he wasn’t entirely put out of business.Dakota only made him feel cheap. Creased him.”
“Creased him?”
“Grazed his head with the bullet. Done it intentionally, they say. Told folks he didn’t have any desire to send the gambler over the divide; just wanted to show him that when he was playin’ with fire he ought to be careful. There ain’t no telling what Dakota’d do if he got riled, though.”
Sheila’s gaze was on Duncan fairly, her eyes alight with contempt. “So you are all afraid of him?” she said, with a bitterness that surprised the manager.
“Well, I reckon it would amount to about that, if you come right down to the truth,” he confessed, reddening a little.
“You are afraid of him, too I suppose?”
“I reckon it ain’t just that,” he parried, “but I ain’t taking any foolish risks.”
Sheila rose and walked to her pony, which was browsing the tops of some mesquite near by. She reached the animal, mounted, and then turned and looked at Duncan scornfully.
“A while ago you asked for my opinionof the people of this country,” she said. “I am going to express that opinion now. It is that, in spite of his unsavory reputation, Dakota appears to be the onlymanhere!”
She took up the reins and urged her pony away from the butte and toward the level that stretched away to the Double R buildings in the distance. For an instant Duncan stood looking after her, his face red with embarrassment, and then with a puzzled frown he mounted and followed her.
Later he came up with her at the Double R corral gate and resumed the conversation.
“Then I reckon you ain’t got no use for rustlers?” he said.
“Meaning Dakota?” she questioned, a smoldering fire in her eyes.
“I reckon.”
“I wish,” she said, facing Duncan, her eyes flashing, “that you would kill him!”
“Why——” said Duncan, changing color.
But Sheila had dismounted and was walking rapidly toward the ranchhouse, leaving Duncan alone with his unfinished speech and his wonder.
CHAPTER VDAKOTA EVENS A SCORE
With the thermometer at one hundred and five it was not to be expected that there would be much movement in Lazette. As a matter of fact, there was little movement anywhere. On the plains, which began at the edge of town, there was no movement, no life except when a lizard, seeking a retreat from the blistering sun, removed itself to a deeper shade under the leaves of the sage-brush, or a prairie-dog, popping its head above the surface of the sand, took a lightning survey of its surroundings, and apparently dissatisfied with the outlook whisked back into the bowels of the earth.
There was no wind, no motion; the little whirlwinds of dust that arose settled quickly down, the desultory breezes which had caused them departing as mysteriously asthey had come. In the blighting heat the country lay, dead, spreading to the infinite horizons; in the sky no speck floated against the dome of blue. More desolate than a derelict on the calm surface of the trackless ocean Lazette lay, its huddled buildings dingy with the dust of a continuing dry season, squatting in their dismal lonesomeness in the shimmering, blinding sun.
In a strip of shade under the eaves of the station sat the station agent, gazing drowsily from under the wide brim of his hat at the two glistening lines of steel that stretched into the interminable distance. Some cowponies, hitched to rails in front of the saloons and the stores, stood with drooping heads, tormented by myriad flies; a wagon or two, minus horses, occupied a space in front of a blacksmith shop.
In the Red Dog saloon some punchers on a holiday played cards at various tables, quietly drinking. Behind the rough bar Pete Moulin, the proprietor stood, talking to his bartender, Blacky.
“So that jasper’s back again,” commented the proprietor.
“Which?” The bartender followed the proprietor’s gaze, which was on a man seated at a card table, his profile toward them, playing cards with several other men. The bartender’s face showed perplexity.
Moulin laughed. “I forgot you ain’t been here that long,” he said. “That was before your time. That fellow settin’ sideways to us is Texas Blanca.”
“What’s he callin’ himself ‘Texas’ for?” queried the bartender. “He looks more like a greaser.”
“Breed, I reckon,” offered the proprietor. “Claims to have punched cows in Texas before he come here.”
“What’s he allowin’ to be now?”
“Nobody knows. Used to own the Star—Dakota’s brand. Sold out to Dakota five years ago. Country got too hot for him an’ he had to pull his freight.”
“Rustler?”
“You’ve said something. He’s been suspected of it. But nobody’s talkin’ very loud about it.”
“Not safe?”
“Not safe. He’s lightning with a six.Got his nerve to come back here, though.”
“How’s that?”
“Ain’t you heard about it? I thought everybody’d heard about that deal. Blanca sold Dakota the Star. Then he pulled his freight immediate. A week or so later Duncan, of the Double R, rides up to Dakota’s shack with a bunch of Double R boys an’ accuses Dakota of rustlin’ Double R cattle. Duncan had found twenty Double R calves runnin’ with the Star cattle which had been marked secret. Blanca had run his iron on them an’ sold them to Dakota for Star stock. Dakota showed Duncan his bill of sale, all regular, an’ of course Duncan couldn’t blame him. But there was some hard words passed between Duncan an’ Dakota, an’ Dakota ain’t allowin’ they’re particular friends since.
“Dakota had to give up the calves, sure enough, an’ he did. But sore! Dakota was sure some disturbed in his mind. He didn’t show it much, bein’ one of them quiet kind, but he says to me one day not long after Duncan had got the calves back: ‘I’ve been stung, Pete,’ he says, soft an’ even like;‘I’ve been stung proper, by that damned oiler. Not that I’m carin’ for the money end of it; Duncan findin’ them calves with my stock has damaged my reputation.’ Then he laffed—one of them little short laffs which he gets off sometimes when things don’t just suit him—the way he’s laffed a couple of times when someone’s tried to run a cold lead proposition in on him. He fair freezes my blood when he gets it off.
“Well, he says to me: ‘Mebbe I’ll be runnin’ in with Blanca one of these days.’ An’ that’s all he ever says about it. Likely he expected Blanca to come back. An’ sure enough he has. Reckon he thinks that mebbe Dakota didn’t get wise to the calf deal.”
“In his place,” said Blacky, eyeing Blanca furtively, “I’d be makin’ some inquiries. Dakota ain’t no man to trifle with.”
“Trifle!” Moulin’s voice was pregnant with awed admiration. “I reckon there ain’t no one who knows Dakota’s goin’ to trifle with him—he’s discouraged that longago. Square, too, square as they make ’em.”
“The Lord knows the country needs square men,” observed Blacky.
He caught a sign from a man seated at a table and went over to him with a bottle and a glass. While Blacky was engaged in this task the door opened and Dakota came in.
Moulin’s admiration and friendship for Dakota might have impelled him to warn Dakota of the presence of Blanca, and he did hold up a covert finger, but Dakota at that moment was looking in another direction and did not observe the signal.
He continued to approach the bar and Blacky, having a leisure moment, came forward and stood ready to serve him. A short nod of greeting passed between the three, and Blacky placed a bottle on the bar and reached for a glass. Dakota made a negative sign with his head—short and resolute.
“I’m in for supplies,” he laughed, “but not that.”
“Not drinkin’?” queried Moulin.
“I’m pure as the driven snow,” drawled Dakota.
“How long has that been goin’ on?” Moulin’s grin was skeptical.
“A month.”
Moulin looked searchingly at Dakota, saw that he was in earnest, and suddenly reached a hand over the bar.
“Shake!” he said. “I hate to knock my own business, an’ you’ve been a pretty good customer, but if you mean it, it’s the most sensible thing you ever done. Of course you didn’t hit it regular, but there’s been times when I’ve thought that if I could have three or four customers like you I’d retire in a year an’ spend the rest of my life countin’ my dust!” He was suddenly serious, catching Dakota’s gaze and winking expressively.
“Friend of yourn here,” he said.
Dakota took a flashing glance at the men at the card tables and Moulin saw his lips straighten and harden. But in the next instant he was smiling gravely at the proprietor.
“Thanks, Pete,” he said quietly. “But you’re some reckless with the English language when you’re calling him my friend.Maybe he’ll be proving that he didn’t mean to skin me on that deal.”
He smiled again and then left the bar and strode toward Blanca. The latter continued his card playing, apparently unaware of Dakota’s approach, but at the sound of his former victim’s voice he turned and looked up slowly, his face wearing a bland smile.
It was plain to Moulin that Blanca had known all along of Dakota’s presence in the saloon—perhaps he had seen him enter. The other card players ceased playing and leaned back in their chairs, watching, for some of them knew something of the calf deal, and there was that in Dakota’s greeting to Blanca which warned them of impending trouble.
“Blanca,” said Dakota quietly, “you can pay for those calves now.”
It pleased Blanca to dissemble. But it was plain to Moulin—as it must have been plain to everybody who watched Blanca—that a shadow crossed his face at Dakota’s words. Evidently he had entertained a hope that his duplicity had not been discovered.
“Calves?” he said. “What calves, my frien’?” He dropped his cards to the table and turned his chair around, leaning far back in it and hooking his right thumb in his cartridge belt, just above the holster of his pistol. “I theenk it mus’ be mistak’.”
“Yes,” returned Dakota, a slow, grimly humorous smile reaching his face, “it was a mistake. You made it, Blanca. Duncan found it out. Duncan took the calves—they belonged to him. You’re going to pay for them.”
“I pay for heem?” The bland smile on Blanca’s face had slowly faded with the realization that his victim was not to be further misled by him. In place of the smile his face now wore an expression of sneering contempt, and his black eyes had taken on a watchful glitter. He spoke slowly: “I pay for no calves, my frien’.”
“You’ll pay,” said Dakota, an ominously quiet drawl in his voice, “or——”
“Or what?” Blanca showed his white teeth in a tigerish smirk.
“This town ain’t big enough for both ofus,” said Dakota, his eyes cold and alert as they watched Blanca’s hand at his cartridge belt. “One of us will leave it by sundown. I reckon that’s all.”
He deliberately turned his back on Blanca and walked to the door, stepping down into the street. Blanca looked after him, sneering. An instant later Blanca turned and smiled at his companions at the table.
“It ain’t my funeral,” said one of the card players, “but if I was in your place I’d begin to think that me stayin’ here was crowdin’ the population of this town by one.”
Blanca’s teeth gleamed. “My frien’,” he said insinuatingly, “it’s your deal.” His smile grew. “Thees is a nize country,” he continued. “I like it ver’ much. I come back here to stay. Dakota—hees got the Star too cheap.” He tapped his gun holster significantly. “To-night Dakota hees go somewhere else. To-morrow who takes the Star? You?” He pointed to each of the card players in turn. “You?” he questioned. “You take it?” He smiled at theirnegative signs. “Well, then, Blanca take it. Peste! Dakota give himself till sundown!”
The six-o’clock was an hour and thirty minutes late. For two hours Sheila Langford had been on the station platform awaiting its coming. For a full half hour she had stood at one corner of the platform straining her eyes to watch a thin skein of smoke that trailed off down the horizon, but which told her that the train was coming. It crawled slowly—like a huge serpent—over the wilderness of space, growing always larger, steaming its way through the golden sunshine of the afternoon, and after a time, with a grinding of brakes and the shrill hiss of escaping air, it drew alongside the station platform.
A brakeman descended, the conductor strode stiffly to the telegrapher’s window, two trunks came out of the baggage car, and a tall man of fifty alighted and was folded into Sheila’s welcoming arms. For a moment the two stood thus, while the passengers smiled sympathetically. Then theman held Sheila off at arm’s length and looked searchingly at her.
“Crying?” he said. “What a welcome!”
“Oh, daddy!” said Sheila. In this moment she was very near to telling him what had happened to her on the day of her arrival at Lazette, but she felt that it was impossible with him looking at her; she could not at a blow cast a shadow over the joy of his first day in the country where, henceforth, he was to make his home. And so she stood sobbing softly on his shoulder while he, aware of his inability to cope with anything so mysterious as a woman’s tears, caressed her gently and waited patiently for her to regain her composure.
“Then nothing happened to you after all,” he laughed, patting her cheeks. “Nothing, in spite of my croaking.”
“Nothing,” she answered. The opportunity was gone now; she was committed irrevocably to her secret.
“You like it here? Duncan has made himself agreeable?”
“It is a beautiful country, though a little lonesome after—after Albany. I miss myfriends, of course. But Duncan’s sister has done her best, and I have been able to get along.”
The engine bell clanged and they stood side by side as the train pulled slowly away from the platform. Langford solemnly waved a farewell to it.
“This is the moment for which I have been looking for months,” he said, with what, it seemed to Sheila, was almost a sigh of relief. He turned to her with a smile. “I will look after the baggage,” he said, and leaving her he approached the station agent and together they examined the trunks which had come out of the baggage car.
Sheila watched him while he engaged in this task. His face seemed a trifle drawn; he had aged much during the month that she had been separated from him. The lines of his face had grown deeper; he seemed, now that she saw him at a distance, to be care-worn—tired. She had heard people call him a hard man; she knew that business associates had complained of what they were pleased to call his “sharp methods”; it hadeven been hinted that his “methods” were irregular.
It made no difference to her, however, what people thought of him, or what they said of him, he had been a kind and indulgent parent to her and she supposed that in business it was everybody’s business to look sharply after their own interests. For there were jealous people everywhere; envy stalks rampant through the world; failure cavils at mediocrity, mediocrity sneers at genius. And Sheila had always considered her father a genius, and the carping of those over whom her father had ridden roughshod had always sounded in her ears like tributes.
As quite unconsciously we are prone to place the interests of self above considerations for the comfort and the convenience of others, so Sheila had grown to judge her father through the medium of his treatment of her. Her own father—who had died during her infancy—could not have treated her better than had Langford. Since her mother’s death some years before, Langford had been both father and mother to her, andher affection for him had flourished in the sunshine of his. No matter what other people thought, she was satisfied with him.
As a matter of fact David Dowd Langford allowed no one—not even Sheila—to look into his soul. What emotions slumbered beneath the mask of his habitual imperturbability no one save Langford himself knew. During all his days he had successfully fought against betraying his emotions and now, at the age of fifty, there was nothing of his character revealed in his face except sternness. If addicted to sharp practice in business no one would be likely to suspect it, not even his victim. Could one have looked steadily into his eyes one might find there a certain gleam to warn one of trickery, only one would not be able to look steadily into them, for the reason that they would not allow you. They were shifty, crafty eyes that took one’s measure when one least expected them to do so.
Over the motive which had moved her father to retire from business while still in his prime Sheila did not speculate. Nor had she speculated when he had bought theDouble R ranch and announced his intention to spend the remainder of his days on it. She supposed that he had grown tired of the unceasing bustle and activity of city life, as had she, and longed for something different, and she had been quite as eager as he to take up her residence here. This had been the limit of her conjecturing.
He had told her when she left Albany that he would follow her in a month. And therefore, in a month to the day, knowing his habit of punctuality, Sheila had come to Lazette for him, having been driven over from the Double R by one of the cowboys.
She saw the station agent now, beckoning to the driver of the wagon, and she went over to the edge of the station platform and watched while the trunks were tumbled into the wagon.
The driver was grumbling good naturedly to Langford.
“That darned six-o’clock train is always late,” he was saying. “It’s a quarter to eight now an’ the sun is goin’ down. If that train had been on time we could have made part of the trip in the daylight.”
The day had indeed gone. Sheila looked toward the mountains and saw that great long shadows were lengthening from their bases; the lower half of the sun had sunk behind a distant peak; the quiet colors of the sunset were streaking the sky and glowing over the plains.
The trunks were in; the station agent held the horses by the bridles, quieting them; the driver took up the reins; Sheila was helped to the seat by her father, he jumped in himself, and they were off down the street, toward a dim trail that led up a slope that began at the edge of town and melted into space.
The town seemed deserted. Sheila saw a man standing near the front door of a saloon, his hands on his hips. He did not appear interested in either the wagon or its occupants; his gaze roved up and down the street and he nervously fingered his cartridge belt. He was a brown-skinned man, almost olive, Sheila thought as her gaze rested on him, attired after the manner of the country, with leathern chaps, felt hat, boots, spurs, neckerchief.
“Why, it is sundown already!” Sheila heard her father say. “What a sudden change! A moment ago the light was perfect!”
A subconscious sense only permitted Sheila to hear her father’s voice, for her thoughts and eyes were just then riveted on another man who had come out of the door of another saloon a little way down the street. She recognized the man as Dakota and exclaimed sharply.
She felt her father turn; heard the driver declare, “It’s comin’ off,” though she had not the slightest idea of his meaning. Then she realized that he had halted the horses; saw that he had turned in his seat and was watching something to the rear of them intently.
“We’re out of range,” she heard him say, speaking to her father.
“What’s wrong?” This was her father’s voice.
“Dakota an’ Blanca are havin’ a run-in,” announced the driver. “Dakota’s give Blanca till sundown to get out of town. It’s sundown now an’ Blanca ain’t pulled hisfreight, an’ it’s likely that hell will be a-poppin’ sorta sudden.”
Sheila cowered in her seat, half afraid to look at Dakota—who was walking slowly toward the man who still stood in front of the saloon—though in spite of her fears and misgivings the fascination of the scene held her gaze steadily on the chief actors.
Out of the corners of her eyes she could see that far down the street men were congregated; they stood in doorways, at convenient corners, their eyes directed toward Dakota and the other man. In the sepulchral calm which had fallen there came to Sheila’s ears sounds that in another time she would not have noticed. Somewhere a door slammed; there came to her ears the barking of a dog, the neigh of a horse—sharply the sounds smote the quiet atmosphere, they seemed odd to the point of unreality.
However, the sounds did not long distract her attention from the chief actors in the scene which was being worked out in front of her; the noises died away and she gave her entire attention to the men. She sawDakota reach a point about thirty feet from the man in front of the saloon—Blanca. As Dakota continued to approach, Sheila observed an evil smile flash suddenly to Blanca’s face; saw a glint of metal in the faint light; heard the crash of his revolver; shuddered at the flame spurt. She expected to see Dakota fall—hoped that he might. Instead, she saw him smile—in much the fashion in which he had smiled that night in the cabin when he had threatened to shoot the parson if she did not consent to marry him. And then his hand dropped swiftly to the butt of the pistol at his right hip.
Sheila’s eyes closed; she swayed and felt her father’s arm come out and grasp her to keep her from falling. But she was not going to fall; she had merely closed her eyes to blot out the scene which she could not turn from. She held her breath in an agony of suspense, and it seemed an age until she heard a crashing report—and then another. Then silence.
Unable longer to resist looking, Sheila opened her eyes. She saw Dakota walk forward and stand over Blanca, lookingdown at him, his pistol still in hand. Blanca was face down in the dust of the street, and as Dakota stood over him Sheila saw the half-breed’s body move convulsively and then become still. Dakota sheathed his weapon and, without looking toward the wagon in which Sheila sat, turned and strode unconcernedly down the street. A man came out of the door of the saloon in front of which Blanca’s body lay, looking down at it curiously. Other men were running toward the spot; there were shouts, oaths.
For the first time in her life Sheila had seen a man killed—murdered—and there came to her a recollection of Dakota’s words that night in the cabin: “Have you ever seen a man die?” She had surmised from his manner that night that he would not hesitate to kill the parson, and now she knew that her sacrifice had not been made in vain. A sob shook her, the world reeled, blurred, and she covered her face with her hands.
“Oh!” she said in a strained, hoarse voice. “Oh! The brute!”
“Hey!” From a great distance thedriver’s voice seemed to come. “Hey! What’s that? Well, mebbe. But I reckon Blanca won’t rustle any more cattle.” “God!” he added in an awed voice; “both of them hit him!”
Blanca was dead then, there could be no doubt of that. Sheila felt herself swaying and tried to grasp the end of the seat to steady herself. She heard her father’s voice raised in alarm, felt his arm come out again and grasp her, and then darkness settled around her.
When she recovered consciousness her father’s arms were still around her and the buckboard was in motion. Dusk had come; above her countless stars flickered in the deep blue of the sky.
“I reckon she’s plum shocked,” she heard the driver say.
“I don’t wonder,” returned Langford, and Sheila felt a shiver run over him. “Great guns!” Sheila wondered at the tone he used. “That man is a marvel with a pistol! Did you notice how cool he took it?”
“Cool!” The driver laughed. “If youget acquainted with Dakota you’ll find out that he’s cool. He’s an iceberg, that’s what he is!”
“They’ll arrest him, I suppose?” queried Langford.
“Arrest him! What for? Didn’t he give Blanca his chance? That’s why I’m tellin’ you he’s cool!”
It was past two o’clock when the buckboard pulled up at the Double R corral gates and Langford helped Sheila down. She was still pale and trembling and did not remain downstairs to witness her father’s introduction to Duncan’s sister, but went immediately to her room. Sleep was far from her, however, for she kept dwelling over and over on the odd fortune which had killed Blanca and allowed Dakota to live, when the latter’s death would have brought to an end the distasteful relationship which his freakish impulse had forced upon her.
She remembered Dakota’s words in the cabin. Was Fate indeed running this game—if game it might be called?