CHAPTER XXV
RUTH lay snuggled up on the lounge in her sewing room, one foot tucked comfortably under her, half a dozen soft pillows piled at her back. She was looking rather indolently over the two days’ old Wagon WheelSpoketo see if it gave any beef quotations. The day had been a busy one. In the morning she had ridden across to Pine Hollow to inspect a drift fence. Later she had come home covered with dust after watching the men fan oats. Getting out of her serviceable khaki, she had revelled in a hot bath and put on a loose morning gown and slippers. To-night she was content to be lazy and self-indulgent.
A leaded advertisement caught and held her eye. It was on the back page and boxed to draw more attention:
The Open A N C Ranch, together with all cattle and personal property pertaining thereto, is offered for sale by me at a figure much below its value to an immediate purchaser.I shall be at the ranch, ENTIRELY UNARMED, for a week beginning next Monday. Prospective buyers may see me there.LAWRENCE SILCOTT
The Open A N C Ranch, together with all cattle and personal property pertaining thereto, is offered for sale by me at a figure much below its value to an immediate purchaser.
I shall be at the ranch, ENTIRELY UNARMED, for a week beginning next Monday. Prospective buyers may see me there.
LAWRENCE SILCOTT
The young woman read the announcement with contemptuous interest. She had expected Silcott to leave the country. It was not to be looked for that a man weak enough to betray his friends would run the risk of living in the neighbourhood of those who had suffered from his treachery. At the two capitalized words she smiled bitterly. They were both a confession and a shield of defense. They admitted fear, and at the same time disarmed the righteous anger of his former neighbours. Ruth conceded the shrewdness of his policy, even while her pluck despised the spirit that had dictated it.
Inevitably she compared him with Rowan. Her imagination pictured McCoy as he had sat through the strain of the trial—cool, easy, undisturbed, master of whatever fate might be in store for him. She saw in contrast Silcott, no longer graceful and debonair, smiles and gaiety all wiped out, a harried, irritable wretch close to collapse. It was the first time she had ever seen two men’s souls under the acid test. One had assayed pure gold; the other a base alloy.
Why? What was the difference between them? Both had lived clean, hard lives in the open. Neither of them had spurred their nerves with alcohol or unduly depressed them with overmuch tobacco. Externally both of them were fine specimens of the genus man. But in crisis one had crumpled up, his manhood vanished; the other had quietly stood his punishment. The distinction between them was that one had character and the other lacked it.
Yet all these years Silcott had been accepted in the community as a good fellow. His showy accomplishments, his shallow good looks, and his veneer of friendliness had won a place for him. Ruth was deeply ashamed that she had let him go as far with her as he had.
Her thoughts went back to Rowan. They never wandered very long from him these days. He was the centre of her universe, though he was shut up behind bars in a dingy prison. She knew she was not responsible for the thing he had done, but she reproached herself that she had not been a greater comfort to him in the dark days and nights of trial. She had thought of herself, of her grievances, too much; not enough of him and his needs.
No, that was not true. He had been in her mind enough, but she had not been able to forget the treason to love in which he had involved himself. It had risen like a barrier between them every time she had wanted to let him know how much she suffered with him. There was something about it almost unforgiveable, something that struck at the very roots of faith and confidence and hope. It negatived everything she had believed him to be, since it proved that he could not be the man she had so tremendously admired.
Even now she would not let herself think of it if she could help. She thrust the memory back into the unused chambers of her mind and tried to forget.
What she wanted to see in Rowan, what she always did see except for this one incongruous aspect, was what others saw, too, the fineness and the strength of him.
Some sound on the porch outside attracted her attention. A loose plank creaked. It seemed to her she heard the shuffling of furtive feet. Then there was silence.
Ruth sat up. The curtains were drawn, so that she could not see out without rising.
Fingers fumbled at the latch of the French window she had had made. She was not afraid, but she felt a curious expectant thrill of excitement. Who could be there?
Slowly the casement opened. A man’s head craned forward. Eyes searched the room warily and found the young woman.
Ruth rose. “You—here!”
Larry Silcott put his finger to his lips, came in, and closed the window carefully.
“What do you want?” demanded the girl, eyes flashing.
The man looked haggard and miserable. All his gay effrontery had been wiped out.
“I want to see you—to talk with you,” he pleaded.
“What about?” Her manner was curt and uncompromising.
“I want to explain. I want to tell you how it was.”
“Is that necessary?” asked Ruth, her scornful eyes full on him.
“Yes. I don’t want you to blame me. You know how—how fond I am of you.”
She threw out a contemptuous little gesture. “Please spare me that.”
“Don’t be hard on me, Ruth. Listen. They had the goods on us. We were going to hang—every one of us. They kept at me day and night. They pestered me—woke me out of my sleep to argue and explain. If it hadn’t been me it would have been one of the others that gave evidence for the State.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true. Both Haight and Matson told me so. The only question was who would come through first.”
“If that was the only question for you, then it shows just what you are. Did you never hear of such things as honour and decency and fair play? If anybody was entitled to the benefit of State’s evidence it should have been the married men, poor Sam Yerby or Mr. Rogers. They have children dependent on them. Anybody with the least generosity could see that. But you’re selfish to the core. You never think of anybody but yourself.”
“How can you say that when you know that I love you, Ruth?”
Her eyes blazed. “Don’t say that. Don’t dare say it,” she cried.
“It’s true.”
“Nothing of what you say is true. You don’t know the truth when you see it. They picked you, Haight and Matson did, because they knew you had no strength or courage. Do you suppose that the others didn’t get a chance to betray their friends, too? All of them did. Every one of them. But they weremen. That was the difference. So the prosecution focused on you. And you weakened.”
“Why not? I didn’t kill Tait or Gilroy. Why should I be hanged for it? I wasn’t guilty.”
“You are as guilty as Rowan was.”
“I dunno about that. He shot Gilroy, if Falkner didn’t,” Silcott said sulkily.
“Never! Never in the world!” she cried. “Don’t tell me so, you cowardly Judas!”
“You can talk. That’s easy. But you’ve never had a rope round your neck. You’ve never awakened in the night from a dream where they were taking you out to hang you. You’ve never been hounded till your nerves were ragged and you wanted to scream out.”
“I don’t care to discuss all that. You had no business to come here. You made your choice to save yourself. That was your privilege, just as it is mine to prefer never to see you again.”
His voice rose. “Why do you say that? I’m not a leper. I’m still Larry Silcott, your friend. Say I did wrong. Don’t you suppose I’ve paid? Don’t you suppose I’ve lived in hell ever since? Have I got to spend all the rest of my life an outcast?”
She would not let herself sympathize with his wretchedness. He had betrayed the man she loved, had struck at his life. The harsh judgment of youth condemned him.
“You should have thought of that before you sold out the men who trusted you,” she told him coldly.
“I didn’t sell them out. I didn’t get a penny for it. I told the truth. That’s all,” he cried wildly.
“You had forfeited the right to tell the truth. And you did sell them out. You wouldn’t be here to-night if you hadn’t.”
Silcott shifted his defense. “I’m sick and tired of things to-night, Ruth. Let’s not quarrel,” he begged.
“I’m not quarrelling. I don’t quarrel with any one except my friends, and I’m trying to make it clear that Mr. Lawrence Silcott is not one of them. You are not welcome here, sir. I ask you to leave.”
“Do you chuck your friends overboard when they make one mistake? Don’t you ever give them a second chance?” he appealed. “Can’t you make any allowance for circumstances? I was sick all the time I was in jail. They took advantage of me. I never would have done it if I’d beenwell. You’ve got to believe me, Ruth.”
“Maybe it’s true. I hope so.” In spite of herself she was touched by his misery.
“You’ve got to forgive me, Ruth. I—oh, you don’t know what I’ve been through!” He broke down and brushed his hand across his eyes. “I haven’t slept for a week. It’s been hell every hour.”
“You’d better go away somewhere,” she suggested. “Leave your affairs with an agent. You ought not to stay here.”
“No. My nerves are all jumpy. I’ve got to get away.” He took a long breath and plunged on: “I’m going to begin all over again in Los Angeles or San Francisco. I’ve had my lesson. I’ll run straight from now on. I’m going to work hard and get ahead. If you’d only stand by me, Ruth. If you’d——”
“I can’t be a friend of the man who betrayed my husband, if that’s what you mean.”
“You’d have to choose between him and me. That’s true. Well, Rowan is in the penitentiary for life. You’re young. You can’t wait for ever. It wouldn’t be right you should. Besides, you and Rowan never did get along well. I’m not saying a word against him, but——”
“You’d better not!” she flamed, the lace on her bosom rising and falling fast with her passionate anger. “You say he is in the penitentiary. Who put him there?”
“That isn’t the point, Ruth. Hear me out. You can get free from him without any trouble. The law says that a convict’s wife can get a divorce any time——”
“I don’t want a divorce. I’d rather be his wife, if he stays in prison for ever, than be married to any other man on earth. I—I never heard such insolence in my life. I’ve a good mind to call the men to throw you off the place. Every moment you stay here is an insult to me.”
He moistened his parched lips with the tip of his tongue. “There is no use getting excited, Ruth. I came here because I love you. If you’d only be reasonable. Listen. I’m going to California. If you change your mind and want to come out there——”
Ruth marched past him and flung the door open. She turned on him eyes that blazed. “If you’re not gone in five seconds, I’ll turn the men loose on you. They’ve been aching for a chance.”
His vanity withered before her wrath. For the moment he saw himself as she saw him, a snake in the grass, hateful to all decent human beings. It was a moral certainty that she would keep her word and call the Circle Diamond riders. What they would do to him he could guess.
He went without another word.
Presently she heard him galloping down the road and out of her life.
The anger died out of Ruth almost instantly. She was filled with a sense of desolating degradation. There had been a time in her life when she had put this weakling before Rowan, when her laughter and her friendliness had been for him instead of for the man to whom she was married. He had never of course been anything vital to her life, never one hundredth part as important to her as Rowan. Indeed, she had used him as an instrument with which to punish her husband. But the fact remained that she had offered him her friendship, had in resentment flirted with him and skirted the edge of sex emotion.
The feeling that flooded her now was almost a physical nausea.
CHAPTER XXVI
AS Tim Flanders had predicted, the establishment of government forest reserves changed the equation that faced the cattleman. The open range was doomed, but federal supervision brought with it compensations. One of these was that the man who ran cattle on the reserve need not fear overstocking nor the competition of “Mary’s Little Lamb.” The market was in a better condition than it had been for years. The price of beef was high, and was still on the rise. Nor was there any prospect of a slump, since the supply in the country was not equal to the demand.
Ruth had every reason to feel satisfied. Her shipment of beef steers had brought a top price at the Denver stockyards. The opportune sale of a house from her aunt’s estate made it possible for her to pay the debts that had accumulated from Rowan’s trial and to reduce a little the mortgage on the Circle Diamond. The hay-cutting in the meadow had run to a fair average, and already she had in one hundred acres of winter wheat.
She had worked hard and steadily, so that when one afternoon Jennings brought back from the post office a letter from Rowan his young mistress decided to ride up into the hills and read it where she could be alone among the pines. An earned holiday is a double delight. As the pinto—one that Rowan himself had gentled for his bride—picked his way into the cañon mouth through blue-spiked larkspur and rabbit bush in golden splashes the girl in the saddle was nearer happy than she had been for many a day. Her lover’s letter lay warm against her breast, all the joy of reading it still before her. The sky was blue as babies’ eyes except where a shoal of mackerel clouds floated lazily westward. A meadow-lark throbbed out its full-throated bliss. Robins and bluebirds exulted in the sunshine. Already the quivering leaves of a grove of young, quaking asps that marched up from the trail to the rock wall were golden with the touch of autumn.
In a pine grove on a sunny slope Ruth read his letter, the tessellated light all about her in warm, irregular patterns. To read what he had written was to see the face of love. It filled her with deep joy, brought with it a peace that was infinitely comforting. She wept a little over it thankfully, though every word carried good cheer.
He was allowed to write only once a week, and everything he sent out was censored. But each letter told her a little more than she had known before of the man she had married. When she had vowed to cleave to him through good and ill fortune he had been a stranger to her. In some ways he still was, just as no doubt she was to him. For underneath the tricks of manner that had charmed him and captured his imagination, what had he discerned of the real woman sleeping in her? As for Ruth, she had married Rowan because of her keenness for the great adventure, Life, of which she supposed love to be a large part.
It had been a little cross to her that he was uneducated in the schools, that he could not parrot the literary patter to which she was accustomed. He spoke and he wrote fairly correctly. Once he had surprised her by a reference which showed her he knew his Scott intimately. But the moderns were closed books to him.
In the last paragraphs of his letter was a reference that showed her his mind went straight to the relation that lies between literature and life. His letter concluded:
You must not worry about me, dear. Whatever happens, it is all right. From the night that we rode on the raid until I said good-bye to you, I was tied hand and foot in a web of lies. That is all past. I can’t explain it, but somehow all the kinks have straightened out. I would give anything to be back home, so as to look after you. But except for that, I am at peace.From the prison library I got some poems by a man called Browning. It’s queer, mixed-up stuff. I couldn’t make head or tail of some of it, but every once in a while he whangs out a verse that grades ’way up. Take this:“The best is yet to be,The last of life, for which the first was made;Our times are in His handWho said: ‘A whole I planned,Youth shows but half; trust God; see all, nor be afraid.’ ”Ever since I came here I had been thinking that myself, but I didn’t know how to say it like he does. Most poets spill a heap of language, looks like to me, but this fellow throws a straight rope. Our times are in His Hands! I’m banking a heap on that, honey. No need to fear—just trust and wait. Some day our waiting will be over.
You must not worry about me, dear. Whatever happens, it is all right. From the night that we rode on the raid until I said good-bye to you, I was tied hand and foot in a web of lies. That is all past. I can’t explain it, but somehow all the kinks have straightened out. I would give anything to be back home, so as to look after you. But except for that, I am at peace.
From the prison library I got some poems by a man called Browning. It’s queer, mixed-up stuff. I couldn’t make head or tail of some of it, but every once in a while he whangs out a verse that grades ’way up. Take this:
“The best is yet to be,The last of life, for which the first was made;Our times are in His handWho said: ‘A whole I planned,Youth shows but half; trust God; see all, nor be afraid.’ ”
“The best is yet to be,The last of life, for which the first was made;Our times are in His handWho said: ‘A whole I planned,Youth shows but half; trust God; see all, nor be afraid.’ ”
“The best is yet to be,The last of life, for which the first was made;Our times are in His handWho said: ‘A whole I planned,Youth shows but half; trust God; see all, nor be afraid.’ ”
“The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made;
Our times are in His hand
Who said: ‘A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God; see all, nor be afraid.’ ”
Ever since I came here I had been thinking that myself, but I didn’t know how to say it like he does. Most poets spill a heap of language, looks like to me, but this fellow throws a straight rope. Our times are in His Hands! I’m banking a heap on that, honey. No need to fear—just trust and wait. Some day our waiting will be over.
Dusk had fallen before Ruth rode down the trail to the ranch, her spirit still with Rowan up in the pines.
Mrs. Stovall was on the porch speeding a parting guest, a dark-eyed, trim young woman of unobtrusive manners.
“Mrs. McCoy, I want you should meet an old friend of mine—Mrs. Tait,” said the housekeeper by way of introduction.
It was like a blow in the face to Ruth. She drew herself up straight and stiff. A flush of indignation swept into her face. With the slightest of bows she acknowledged the presentation, then marched into the house and to her bedroom.
All the sweet gladness of the day was blotted out for her. Just as she and Rowan were coming together again the woman who had separated them must intrude herself as a hateful reminder of the past. She had forgiven her husband—yes; but her forgiveness did not extend to the woman who had led him into temptation. And even if she had pardoned him, she had not forgotten. It would be impossible ever quite to forget the sting of that memory with its sense of outrage at a wrong so flagrant.
She did not deny that she was jealous. All of Rowan she could hold fast would not be too much to carry her through their years of separation. Except for this one deadening memory, she had nothing to recall but good of him. Why must this come up now to torment her?
A knock sounded on the door. “Supper’s ready,” announced Mrs. Stovall tartly.
“I don’t want any to-night.”
After a moment’s silence Ruth heard retreating footsteps. A few minutes later there came a second knock.
“I’ve brought you supper.”
The housekeeper did not wait for an invitation, but opened the door and walked in. Never before had she done this.
Ruth jumped to her feet from the chair where she was sitting in the dusk. “I told you I didn’t want any supper,” she said, annoyed.
Mrs. Stovall had promised Rowan to look after Ruth while he was away. In her tight-lipped, sardonic fashion she had come to be very fond of this girl who was the victim of the frontier tragedy that had so stirred Shoshone County. Silently she had watched the flirtation with Larry Silcott and the division between husband and wife. It was her firm opinion that Ruth needed a lesson to save her from her own foolishness. But what had occurred on the porch a half hour since had given her a new slant on the situation. Martha Stovall prided herself on her plain speaking. She had a reputation for it far and wide. She proposed to do some of it now.
“Why don’t you want any supper?”
The housekeeper set the tray down on a little table and faced her mistress. Every angular inch of her declared that she intended to settle this matter on the spot.
Ruth was too astonished for words. Mrs. Stovall did not miss the opportunity.
“What ails you at the supper? Are you sick?” The thin lips of the woman were pressed together in a straight line of determination.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Fiddlededee! It’s Norma Tait that’s spoiled your appetite. What call have you to be so highty-tighty? Isn’t she good enough for you?”
“I would rather not discuss Mrs. Tait,” answered Ruth stiffly. “I don’t quite see why you should come into my room and talk to me like this, Mrs. Stovall.”
“Don’t you? Well, maybe I’m not very polite, but what I’ve got to say is for your good—and I’m going to say it, even if you order me off the place when I get through.”
The answer of Ruth was rather disconcerting. She said nothing.
“When I introduced you to Norma Tait you ’most insulted her. I’d like to know why,” demanded the housekeeper.
“I think I won’t talk about that,” replied the young woman with icy gentleness.
“Then I’ll do the talking. You’ve heard that fool story about Norma and Mac. I’ll bet a cooky that’s what is the matter with you.” The shrewd little eyes of Martha Stovall gimleted the girl. “It’s all a pack of lies. I ought to know, for it was me that asked Mac to drive Norma down to Wagon Wheel in his car.”
“You!” The astonishment of the girl leaped from her in the word.
The housekeeper nodded. “Want I should tell you all about it?” The acidity in her voice was less pronounced.
“Please.”
“You know that Mac used to be engaged to her and that after a quarrel Norma ran away with Tait and married him?”
“Yes.”
“Joe Tait was a brute. He bullied Norma and abused her. When she couldn’t stand it any longer she ran away and ’phoned me to get a rig to have her taken to Wagon Wheel, so’s she could go to Laramie, where her sister lives.”
It was as though a weight were lifting from Ruth’s heart. She waited, her big eyes fixed on those of Mrs. Stovall.
“But folks didn’t want to mad Joe Tait,” went on the housekeeper. “He was always raising a rookus with someone. Folks knew he’d beat the head off’n any man that helped Norma get away from him. So they all had excuses. When I was at my wit’s end Mac came along in his car, headed for Wagon Wheel. I asked him to take Norma along with him. Well, you know Mac. He said, ‘Where is she?’ And I told him. And he took her.”
Ruth nodded urgently, impatiently. She could not hear the rest too soon.
“Mac stands up on his own hind legs. He didn’t need to ask Joe Tait’s permission to help a woman when she was in trouble,” explained Mrs. Stovall. “So he took Norma down and fixed it with Moody so’s he lent her the money for her ticket. Mac had ’phoned down to the depot agent and got the last vacant berth to Cheyenne. He gave it up to Norma and went into the day coach. That’s exactly what he did. There’s been a lot of stuff told by them that ought to ’a’ known Mac and Norma better, and o’ course Tait spread a heap of scandal, but Bart Mason, the Pullman conductor, told me this his own self. Mac never even sat down beside Norma. He talked with her a minute, and then walked right through to the chair car.”
Not for an instant did Ruth doubt that this was the true version of the story she had heard. It was like Rowan to do just that, quietly and without any fuss. How lacking in faith she had been ever to doubt him!
Her heart sang. She caught Mrs. Stovall in her arms and kissed the wrinkled face.
“I’ve been such a little fool,” she confided. “And I’ve been so dreadfully unhappy—and it’s all been my own fault. I got to hating Rowan, and I was awfully mean to him. Before he went away we made it all up, but I wasn’t any help to him at all during the trial. I’m so glad you told me this.” She laughed a little hysterically. “I’m the happiest girl that ever had a lover shut up in prison for life. And it’s all because of you. Oh, I’ve acted hatefully, but I’ll never do it again.”
Mrs. Stovall, comforting the young wife after the fashion of her sex, forgot that she was the cynic of the settlement, and mingled her glad tears with those of Ruth.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE long white fingers of winter reached down through the mountain gulches to the Circle Diamond. Ruth looked out of her windows upon a land grown chill and drear. She saw her line riders returning to the bunk house crusted with snow and sleet. The cattle huddled in the shelter of haystacks, and those on the range grew rough and thin and shaggy.
The short days were too long for the mistress of the ranch. She began to mope, and her loneliness was accented by the bitter wind and the deep drifts that shut her from the great world outside. A dozen times she was on the point of going to Denver for the winter, but her pride—and something finer than pride, a loyalty that held her back from pleasures Rowan could not share and tied her to interests which knit her life to his—would not let her give up the task she had set herself.
Through Louise McDowell, the wife of the governor, she ordered a package of new books sent in from Cheyenne. With an energy almost fierce she attacked her music again, and spent hours practising at the piano. When the winds died down she made Jennings show her how to travel on snowshoes, and after that there was seldom a day during which she could not be outdoors about the place for at least a little while.
Her fragility had always been more apparent than real. Back of her slenderness was a good deal of wiry strength. As the months passed she took on flesh, and by spring was almost plump. The open life she cultivated did not help her pink-and-white complexion, but brought solidity to her frame and power to her muscles.
The boy was born in early April. Norma Tait and Mrs. Stovall nursed her back to health, and in a few weeks she was driving over the ranch in consultation with Jennings.
She had a new venture in her mind, one of which he did not approve at all. She intended to raise head lettuce for the market.
Her foreman did his best to dissuade her from such a radical undertaking.
“This here is a cattle country, ma’am. Tha’s what the Lord made it for. O’ course it’s proper to put in some wheat an’ some alfalfa where we can irrigate from the creek. I got nothing to say against that, because with the price of stock good an’ the quality improved we can’t hardly afford to have ’em rough through the way they used to do. We got to feed. Tha’s reasonable. But why lettuce? Why not cabbages or persimmons or sweet peas, ma’am, if you come to that.”
Jennings softened his derision with a friendly smile.
“Because there is money in this head lettuce. I’ve been reading about it and corresponding with a farmer in Colorado who raises it. He has made a lot of money.”
“Prob’ly he ships to Denver. But Denver ain’t such a big city that it can’t be overstocked with a commodity. It ain’t any New York.”
“But he ships to New York and all over the country. It’s like this. By midsummer the lettuce crop of most of the country is exhausted. The weather is too hot for it. But up in the mountains it can be raised. It develops into a fine solid head, the crispest in the world. Mr. Galloway, the ranchman I told you about, writes that there is no limit to the market and that this is going to be a permanent and a stable crop for the Rocky Mountain country. He is very enthusiastic about it.”
“Tha’s all right too. I don’t claim he ain’t right. But we’re cattlemen. The Circle Diamond is a cattle ranch. It ain’t any Dago truck farm. Me, I’d never make a vegetable-garden farmer, not onless my farmin’ could be done from the saddle. We know cattle; we don’ know lettuce.”
“If there’s money in it we can learn to know it.”
“How do we know there’s money in it here? This ain’t Colorado, come to that. Maybe it takes a particular kind of soil and temperature. Maybe this guy Galloway just happens to be in a lucky spot.”
“Not from what I read. Anyhow, we can put out a few acres and see how it does.”
“Why, yes, we could,” admitted Jennings. “If we knew how to fix the land for it an’ how to look after it. But we don’t. Why, we don’t even know what kind of seed to buy or what kind of ground to put it in. Honest, ma’am, it looks plumb ridiculous to me.”
“Not to me,” she dissented. “What’s the use of saying that this is a cattle country and not good for anything else when we haven’t tried other things? People have to be progressive to make money. As for your objection about us not knowing the kind of seed to get or the sort of land to use or how to prepare the land, why you’re wrong in all three of your guesses. You buy seed called New York or else the Wonderful, and you plant it in nice rich soil prepared the way you do a garden. I thought we’d use that twenty back of the pasture.”
“H’mp!” he grunted. “You got yore mind made up, I see.”
“Yes,” she admitted, and added diplomatically, “if you approve.”
“Whether I approve or not,” he grinned. “A lot you care about me approvin’. You’re some bull-haided when you get started, if you ask me.”
“If you can show me that I am wrong, of course——”
He threw up his hands. “I can’t. I wouldn’t ever try to show a lady she was wrong. All I can do is get ready to say, ‘I done told you so’ when you waken from yore dream about makin’ two haids of lettuce grow where there ain’t any growin’ now.”
“You think I won’t make it grow, and I’ll lose money?” she asked.
“Why, yes, ma’am. I hate to say so, but that’s sure how it looks to me.”
She gave him her vivid smile. “You’re going to live to take off your hat and apologize humbly, Mr. Jennings,” she prophesied.
“I sure hope so.”
Ruth made her preparations to go ahead and assumed that the foreman was as enthusiastic as she was. She did not have to assume that he was loyal and would support her project with a whole heart when it once got under way.
Though she had a healthy interest in making the most of the ranch, Ruth’s real absorption was in the baby. He was a continuous joy and delight.
Rowan, junior, was king of the Circle Diamond from his birth. He ruled imperiously over the hearts of the three women. It was natural that Ruth should love him from the moment that they put him in her arms and his little heel kicked her in the side. He was the symbol of the love of Rowan that glowed so steadfastly in her soul. So she worshipped him for his own sake and for the sake of the man she had married. The small body that breathed so close to her, so helpless and so soft, filled her with everlasting wonder and delight.
His daily bath was a function. Ruth presided over it herself, but Norma, and often Mrs. Stovall, too, made excuses to be present. His plump legs wrinkled into such kissable creases as he lay on his back and waved them in the air, his smiling little mouth was such an adorable Cupid’s bow that the young mother vowed in her heart there never had been such a boy since time began.
But she did not coddle him. His mother had read the latest books on the care of babies, and she intended to bring him up scientifically. He spent a large part of his time sleeping on a screened porch, and, as he grew older, Ruth took him with her when she drove over the place on business.
In every letter she wrote Rowan the baby held first place, but she was careful to show him that the boy washisson as well as hers, a bond between them from the past and a promise for the future. In one letter she wrote:
I took Boy up into the pine copse back of the house this afternoon. We were there, you and I and he, and we had such a lovely time.Isn’t it strange, dear, that the things we care about become so infinitely a part of all life that touches us? There is no beautiful thing of sound or vision or colour—no poignancy of thought or feeling—that does not become a sign, somehow, for the special gladness—as though, at bottom, all beauty and dearness rested on the same foundation. To-day the wind has blown swift and gray and strong, so that the hills are purple with it, and the marching pines are touched to a low, tremendous murmur. It is magnificent, as though something too vast and solemn for sight passed by and one could hear only the sweeping of its wings. And the thrill of it is one and the same with the gladness of your letter of yesterday. There is in the heart of them both something finer and bigger than I once could have conceived.While I was putting Rowan, junior, to bed I showed him your picture—the one the DenverTimesphotographer took just after you won the championship last year—and he reached out his dimpled fingers for it and spluttered, “Da-da-da-da-da.” I believe he knows you belong to him. Before I put his nightie on I kissed his dear little pink body for you.Do you know that we are about to entertain distinguished visitors at the Circle Diamond? Louise McDowell and the governor are going to stay with us a day on their way to Yellowstone Park. I can’t help feeling that it is a good omen. Last year when I went to Cheyenne he would not give me any hope—said he could not possibly do anything for me. But there has been a great change of sentiment here. Tim Flanders talked with the governor not long since, and urged a parole for you. I feel sure the governor would not visit me unless he was at least in doubt.So I’m eager to try again, with Rowan, junior, to plead for me. He’s going to make love to the governor, innocently and shamelessly, in a hundred darling little ways he has. Oh, you don’t know how hard I’m going to try to win the governor this time, dear.
I took Boy up into the pine copse back of the house this afternoon. We were there, you and I and he, and we had such a lovely time.
Isn’t it strange, dear, that the things we care about become so infinitely a part of all life that touches us? There is no beautiful thing of sound or vision or colour—no poignancy of thought or feeling—that does not become a sign, somehow, for the special gladness—as though, at bottom, all beauty and dearness rested on the same foundation. To-day the wind has blown swift and gray and strong, so that the hills are purple with it, and the marching pines are touched to a low, tremendous murmur. It is magnificent, as though something too vast and solemn for sight passed by and one could hear only the sweeping of its wings. And the thrill of it is one and the same with the gladness of your letter of yesterday. There is in the heart of them both something finer and bigger than I once could have conceived.
While I was putting Rowan, junior, to bed I showed him your picture—the one the DenverTimesphotographer took just after you won the championship last year—and he reached out his dimpled fingers for it and spluttered, “Da-da-da-da-da.” I believe he knows you belong to him. Before I put his nightie on I kissed his dear little pink body for you.
Do you know that we are about to entertain distinguished visitors at the Circle Diamond? Louise McDowell and the governor are going to stay with us a day on their way to Yellowstone Park. I can’t help feeling that it is a good omen. Last year when I went to Cheyenne he would not give me any hope—said he could not possibly do anything for me. But there has been a great change of sentiment here. Tim Flanders talked with the governor not long since, and urged a parole for you. I feel sure the governor would not visit me unless he was at least in doubt.
So I’m eager to try again, with Rowan, junior, to plead for me. He’s going to make love to the governor, innocently and shamelessly, in a hundred darling little ways he has. Oh, you don’t know how hard I’m going to try to win the governor this time, dear.
CHAPTER XXVIII
GOVERNOR McDOWELL was a cattleman himself. His sympathies were much engaged in behalf of the Bald Knob raiders. All the evidence at the trial tended to show that Tait had forced the trouble and had refused all compromise. From his talk with the prisoners the governor had learned that the tragedy had flared out unexpectedly. Personally he liked Rowan McCoy very much. But he could not get away from the fact that murder had been done. As a private citizen, McDowell would have worked hard to get his friend a parole; as governor of the State of Wyoming he could not move in the matter without a legitimate excuse.
It was his hope of finding such an excuse that led him to diverge from the direct road to Yellowstone for a stop at the Circle Diamond Ranch. On the way he called at the ranches of several old-timers whom he had long known.
“It’s like this, Phil,” one of them told the governor. “The Government has stepped in and settled this whole sheep and cattle war. We don’t aim to go night raiding any more—none of us. Sheep are here, and they’re going to stay whether we like it or not. So we got to make the best of it—and we do. What’s the use of keeping Mac and Brad and the other boys locked up for an example when we don’t need one any more? Everybody would be satisfied to see ’em paroled; even the sheepmen would. You couldn’t do a more popular thing than to free the whole passell of ’em.”
The governor made no promises, but he kept his ears open to learn the drift of public opinion. Even before he reached Circle Diamond he knew that there would be no strong protest against a parole from the western part of the State.
Ruth did not make the mistake of letting the governor see her in the rough-and-ready ranch costume to which she was accustomed. She dressed her hair with care and wore a simple gown that set off the slender fullness of her figure. When she came lightly and swiftly to meet them as the car drew up at the Circle Diamond, her guests were impressed anew with the note of fineness, of personal distinction. There was, too, something gallant and spirited in the poise of the small head set so fastidiously upon the rounded throat.
Mrs. McDowell always admired tremendously her school companion. She was more proud of her than ever now, and as she dressed for dinner she attacked her husband.
“You’ve got to do something for her, Phil. That’s all there’s to it. I can’t look that brave girl in the face if you don’t let her husband out of prison.”
He was wrestling with a collar and a reluctant button. “H’mp!” he grunted.
“And that baby—did you ever see such a darling? It’s a crime to keep his father away from him.”
“It’s a crime to keep a lot of men in prison, but we do it.”
“I’m not worrying about the rest of them. But Ruth’s husband—you’ve just got to let him out.” She came in and perched herself down on a couch beside him and cuddled him in a cajoling fashion she had.
“You can’t bribe me, young lady,” he blustered. “Don’t you see that I can’t let McCoy out unless I parole his accomplices, too? This isn’t a matter to be decided by personal friendship. I’ve got to do what’s right—what seems right to the average sense of the community.”
“Do you think it’s right to keep Ruth’s husband shut up from her and the baby?” she demanded indignantly.
“I don’t know. I wish I did.”
“You told me yourself that he’s a fine man,” Louise reminded him triumphantly.
“I talk too much,” he groaned humorously. “But say he is. The penitentiaries are full of fine men. I can’t free them all. He and his friends killed two men. That’s the point. I can’t turn them all loose in a year. Folks would say it was because I’m a cattleman and that Rowan and Brad Rogers are my friends. What’s more, they would have a right to say it.”
Ruth and Tim Flanders showed the guests over the ranch, and afterward in the absence of the mistress, who was in the kitchen consulting with Mrs. Stovall about the dinner, the owner of the Dude Ranch sang her praises with enthusiasm:
“I never saw her beat, Phil. That slim little girl you could break in two over your knee has got more git-up-and-dust than any man I know. Mac wanted her to sell the ranch and live off the proceeds. Did she do it? Not so you could notice it. She grabbed hold with both hands, cleared off the debts of the trial, wiped off the mortgage, got a permit to run a big bunch of cattle on the reserve, and has made money hand over fist. Now she’s in lettuce an’ I’m blamed if I don’t think she’s liable to make some money out of it. Two or three others are aimin’ to put some out next year.”
McDowell smiled dryly. “She’s doing so well it would be a pity to let Mac come home and gum the works up.”
But in his heart the governor was full of admiration for this vital young woman who had thrown herself with such pluck and intelligence into the task of saving the ranch for her imprisoned husband. The situation troubled him. He wanted to do for her the most that he legitimately could, but he came up always against the same barrier. Rowan McCoy had been convicted of first-degree murder. He had no right to pardon him within fifteen months without any new, extenuating evidence.
The governor was a warm-souled Scotch Irishman. Until the past year he had been a bachelor. He was very fond of children. Rowan, junior, walked right into his heart. Children have an infallible instinct that tells them when they are liked. The young boss of the Circle Diamond opened up his mouth in a toothless grin and stretched his dimpled fingers to the governor. He rubbed noses with him, goo-gooed at him, clung mightily with his little doubled fist to his excellency’s forefinger. Whenever Rowan was in the room he claimed the big man immediately and definitely. As for the governor, he surrendered without capitulation. He was a willing slave.
None the less, he was glad when the time came for him to go. It made the big, simple cattleman uncomfortable not to be able to relieve the sorrow of this girl whom his wife loved.
Ruth made her chance to see him alone and let him know at once what was in her heart. She stood before him white and tremulous.
“What about Rowan, Governor?”
He shook his head. “I wish I could do what you want. In a couple of years I can, but not yet.”
She bit her lip. The big tears came into her eyes and splashed over.
“Now don’t you—don’t you,” he pleaded, stroking her hand in his big ones. “I’d do it if I could—if I were free to follow my own wishes. But I’m not.”
Softly she wept.
“Get me some new evidence—something to prove that Mac didn’t shoot Gilroy himself—and I’ll see what I can do. You see how it is, Ruth. Someone shot him while he was unarmed. All five of them pleaded guilty. If Mac’s lawyers can find the man that did the killing I’ll parole the others. That’s the best I can do for you.”
With that promise Ruth had to be content.