"My Dear Father:
"I am writing merely to say that I know you were right and I was wrong.
"I am in a new life, where men do big, real things which justify their own existence. I am finding myself. I am getting that perspective which lets me see just how right you were and how wrong I was.
"Since coming here I have done something real. I have captured and made mine the wildest horse that ever ran these hills. I am frankly proud of it. I may live to do things of more obvious greatness, but that will be because men have had their sense of values warped. For me, this attainment is a true triumph.
"I am now in the process of taming another beast, more savage than the one I have mastered, and possessing none of his noble qualities. It is a beast not of the sort we can grapple with, though we can see it in men. It is giving me a hard battle, but try to believe that my efforts are sincere and, though it may take my whole lifetime, I am bound to win in the end.
"This letter will be mailed in Kansas City by a friend. I am many days' travel from that point. When I am sure of the other victory I shall let you know where I am.
"Your affectionate son,"
He tossed the sheets back to the table top.
"I'm going to get it over to Ant Creek and let some of the boys take it to the river when they go with beef," he explained. "Now, how does it sound?"
"Fine, VB, fine!" Jed muttered, rubbing one cheek. "To be sure, it ain't so much what you say as th' way you say it—makin' a party feel as though you meant it from th' bottom of your feet to th' tip of th' longest hair on your head!"
"Well, Jed, I do mean it just that way. That horse out there—he—he stands for so much now. He stands for everything I haven't been, and for all that I want to be. He ran free as the birds, but it couldn't always be so. He had to succumb, had to give up that sort of liberty.
"I took his power from him, made him my own, made him my servant. Yet it didn't scathe his spirit. It has changed all that bitterness into love, all that wasted energy into doing something useful. I didn't break him, Jed; I converted him. Understand?"
"I do, VB; but we won't convert this here other beast. We'll bust him wide open, won't we? Break him, body an' spirit!"
The boy smiled wanly.
"That's what we're trying to do."
He pointed to the candle in its daubed bottle.
"Just to keep the light burning, Jed—just to keep its light fighting back the darkness. The little flame of that candle breaks the power of the black thing which would shut it in—like a heart being good and true in spite of the rotten body in which it beats. And when my body commences to want the old things—to want them, oh, so badly—I just think of this little candle here, calm and quiet and steady, sticking out of what was once a cesspool, a poison pot, and making a place in the night where men can see."
While a hundred could have been counted slowly they remained motionless, quiet, not a sound breaking the silence.
Then Jed began talking in a half-tone:
"I know, Young VB; I know. You've got time now to light it and nurse th' flame up so's it won't need watchin'—an' not miss things that go by in th' dark. Some of us puts it off too long—like a man I know—now. I didn't know him then—when it happened. He was wanderin' around in a night that never turned to day, thinkin' he knowed where he was goin', but all th' time just bein' fooled by th' dark.
"And there was a girl back in Kansas. He started after her, but it was so dark he couldn't find th' way, an' when he did—
"Some folks is fools enough to say women don't die of broken hearts. But—well, when a feller knows some things he wants to go tell 'em to men who don't know; to help 'em to understand, if he can; to give 'em a hand if they do see but can't find their way out—"
He stopped, staring at the floor. VB had no cause to search for identities.
From the corral came a shrill, prolonged neighing. VB arose and laid a hand gently on Jed's bowed shoulder.
"That's the Captain," he said solemnly; "and he calls me when he's thirsty."
While he was gone Jed remained as he had been left, staring at the floor.
Gail Thorpe rose from the piano in the big ranch house of the S Bar S, rearranged the mountain flowers that filled a vase on a tabouret, then knocked slowly, firmly, commandingly, on a door that led from the living room.
"Well, I don't want you; but I s'pose you might as well come in and get it off your mind!"
The voice from the other side spoke in feigned annoyance. It continued to grumble until a lithe figure, topped by a mass of hair like pulled sunshine, flung itself at him, twining warm arms about his neck and kissing the words from the lips of big Bob Thorpe as he sat before his desk in the room that served as the ranch office.
"Will you ever say it again—that you don't want me?" she demanded.
"No—but merely because I'm intimidated into promising," he answered. His big arms went tight about the slender body and he pulled his daughter up on his lap.
A silence, while she fussed with his necktie. Her blue eyes looked into his gray ones a moment as though absently, then back to the necktie. Her fingers fell idle; her head snuggled against his neck. Bob Thorpe laughed loud and long.
"Well, what is it this morning?" he asked between chuckles.
The girl sat up suddenly, pushed back the hair that defied fastenings, and tapped a stretched palm with the stiff forefinger of the other hand.
"I'm not a Western girl," she declared deliberately; and then, as the brown face before her clouded, hastened: "Oh, I'm not wanting to go away! I mean, I'm not truly a Western girl, but I want to be. I want to fit better.
"When we decided that I should graduate and come back here with my mommy and daddy for the rest of my life, I decided. There was nothing halfway about it. Some of the other girls thought it awful; but I don't see the attraction in their way of living.
"When I was a little girl I was a sort of tom-cow-boy. I could do things as well as any of the boys I ever knew could do them. But after ten years, mostly away in the East, where girls are like plants, I've lost it all. Now I want to get it back."
"Well, go to it!"
"Wait! I want to start well—high up. I want to have the best that there is to have. I—want—a—horse!"
"Horse? Bless me,bambino, there are fifty broken horses running in the back pasture now, besides what the boys have on the ride. Take your pick!"
"Oh, I know!" she said with gentle scoffing. "That sort of a horse—just cow-ponies. I love 'em, but I guess—well—"
"You've been educated away from 'em, you mean?" he chuckled.
"Well, whatever it is—I want something better. I, as a daughter of the biggest, best man in Colorado, want to ride the best animal that ever felt a cinch."
"Well?"
"And I want to have him now, so I can get used to him this fall and look forward to coming back to him in the spring."
Bob Thorpe took both her hands in one of his.
"And if a thing like that will make my bambino happy, I guess she'll have it."
The girl kissed him and held her cheek close against his for a breath.
"When I go to Denver for the stock show I'll pick the best blue ribbon—"
"Denver!" she exclaimed indignantly, sitting straight and tossing her head. "I want a real horse—a horse bred and raised in these mountains—a horse I can trust. None of your blue-blooded stock. They're like the girls I went to college with!"
Bob Thorpe let his laughter roll out.
"Well, what do you expect to find around here? Have you seen anything you like?"
She pulled her hands from his grasp and stretched his mouth out of shape with her little fingers until he squirmed.
"No, I haven't seen him; but I've heard the cowboys talking. Over at Mr. Avery's ranch they've caught a black horse—"
Bob Thorpe set her suddenly up on the arm of his chair and shook her soundly.
"Look here, young lady!" he exclaimed. "You're dreaming! I know what horse you're talking about. He's a wild devil that has run these hills for years. I heard he'd been caught. Get the notion of having him out of your head. I've never seen him but once, and then he was away off; but I've heard tales of him. Why—
"Nonsense! In the first place, he couldn't be broken to ride. Men aren't made big enough to break the spirit of a devil like that! They're bigger than humans. So we can end this discussion in peace. It's impossible!"
"All right," Gail said sweetly. "I just let you go on and get yourself into a corner. You don't know what you're talking about. He has been ridden. So there! I want him!"
He thrust her to one side, rose, and commenced to pace the room, gesticulating wildly. But it all came to the invariable end of such discussions, and twenty minutes later Gail Thorpe, her smoking, smiling dad at her side, piloted the big touring car down the road, bound for Jed Avery's ranch.
Young VB sat on a box behind the cabin working with a boot-heel that insisted on running over. He lifted the boot, held it before his face, and squinted one eye to sight the effect of his work—then started at a cry from the road.
The boot still in his hands, VB stopped squinting to listen. Undoubtedly whoever it was wanted Jed; but Jed was away with the horse buyer, looking over his young stuff. So Young VB, boot in hand, its foot clad in a service-worn sock, made his uneven way around the house to make any necessary explanations.
"That must be he!"
The light, high voice of the girl gave the cry just as VB turned the corner and came in sight, and her hand, half extended to point toward the corral, pointed directly into the face of the young man.
He did not hear what she had said, did not venture a greeting. He merely stood and stared at her, utterly without poise. In a crimson flash he realized that this was Gail Thorpe, that she was pretty, and that his bootless foot was covered by a sock that had given way before the stress of walking in high heels, allowing his great toe, with two of its lesser conspirators, to protrude. To his confusion, those toes seemed to be swelling and for the life of him he could make them do nothing but stand stiffly in the air almost at right angles with the foot.
His breeding cried out for a retreat, for a leap into shelter; but his wits had lost all grace. He lifted the half-naked foot and carefully brushed the dirt from the sock. Then, leaning a shoulder against the corner of the cabin, he drew the boot on. Stamping it to the ground to settle his foot into place, he said, "Good morning," weakly and devoid of heartiness.
Bob Thorpe had not noticed this confusion, for his eyes were on the corral. But Gail, a peculiar twinkle in her eyes, had seen it all—and with quick intuition knew that it was something more than the embarrassment of a cow-puncher—and struggled to suppress her smiles.
"Good afternoon," Thorpe corrected. "Jed here?"
"No; he's riding," VB answered.
The cattleman moved a pace to the left and tilted his head to see better the Captain, who stormed around and around the corral, raising a great dust.
"We came over to look at a horse I heard was here—this one, I guess. Isn't he the wild stallion?"
"Used to be wild."
"He looks it yet. Watch him plunge!" Thorpe cried.
"He's never seen an automobile before," VB explained, as the three moved nearer the corral.
The horse was frightened. He quivered when he stood in one place, and the quivering always grew more violent until it ended in a plunge. He rose to his hind legs, head always toward the car, and pawed the air; then settled back and ran to the far side of the inclosure, with eyes for nothing but that machine.
They halted by the bars, Thorpe and his daughter standing close together, Young VB nearer the gate. The boy said something to the horse and laughed softly.
"Why, look, daddy," the girl cried, "he's beginning to calm down!"
The Captain stopped his antics and, still trembling, moved gingerly to the bars. Twice he threw up his head, looked at the machine, and breathed loudly, and once a quick tremor ran through his fine limbs, but the terror was no longer on him.
Bob Thorpe turned a slow gaze on VB. The girl stood with lips parted. A flush came under her fine skin and she clasped her hands at her breast.
"Oh, daddy, what a horse!" she breathed.
And Bob Thorpe echoed: "Lord, what a horse! Anybody tried to ride him?" he asked a moment later.
"He gets work every day," VB answered.
"Work?Don't tell me you work that animal!"
The young chap nodded. "Yes; he works right along."
The Captain snorted loudly and tore away in a proud circle of the corral, as though to flaunt his graces.
"Oh, daddy, it took amanto break that animal!" the girl breathed.
The bronze of VB's face darkened, then paled. He turned a steady look on the sunny-haired woman, and the full thanks that swelled in his throat almost found words. He wanted to cry out to her, to tell her what such things meant; for she was of his sort, highly bred, capable of understanding. And he found himself thinking: "You are! You are! You're as I thought you must be!"
Then he felt Thorpe's gaze and turned to meet it, a trifle guiltily.
"Yours?" the man asked.
"Mine."
Thorpe turned back to the Captain. Gail drew a quick breath and turned away from him—to the man.
"I thought so when he commenced to quiet," muttered Thorpe.
He looked then at his daughter and found her standing still, hands clasped, lips the least trifle parted, gazing at Young VB.
Something in him urged a quick step forward. It was an alarm, something primal in the fathers of women. But Bob Thorpe put the notion aside as foolishness—or tenderness—and walked closer to the corral, chewing his cigar speculatively. The stallion wrinkled his nose and dropped the ears flat, the orange glimmer coming into his eyes.
"Don't like strangers, I see."
"Not crazy about them," VB answered.
Thorpe walked off to the left, then came back. He removed his cigar and looked at Gail. She fussed with her rebellious hair and her face was flushed; she no longer looked at the horse—or at VB. He felt a curiosity about that flush.
"Well, want to get rid of him?"
Thorpe hooked his thumbs in his vest armholes and confronted VB.
No answer.
"What do you want for him?"
The young fellow started.
"What?" he said in surprise. "I was thinking. I didn't catch your question."
The fact was, he had heard, but had distrusted the sense. The idea of men offering money for the Captain had never occurred to him.
"What do you want for him?"
VB smiled.
"What do I want for him?" he repeated. "I want—feed and water for the rest of his life; shelter when he needs it; the will to treat him as he should be treated. And I guess that's about all."
The other again removed his cigar, and his jaw dropped. A cow-puncher talking so! He could not believe it; and the idea so confused him that he blundered right on with the bargaining. "Five hundred? Seven-fifty? No? Well, how much?"
VB smiled again, just an indulgent smile prompted by the knowledge that he possessed a thing beyond the power of even this man's wealth.
"The Captain is not for sale," he said. "Not to-day—or ever. That's final."
There was more talk, but all the kindly bluffness, all the desire instinctive in Bob Thorpe to give the other man an even break in the bargain, fell flat. This stranger, this thirty-five-dollar-a-month ranch hand, shed his offers as a tin roof sheds rain and with a self-possession characterized by unmistakable assurance.
"Tell Jed I was over," the big man said as they gave up their errand and turned to go. "And"—as he set a foot on the running board of his car—"any time you're our way drop in."
"Yes, do!" added the girl, and her father could not check the impulse which made him turn halfway as though to shut her off.
Jed returned that evening, worn by a hard day's riding. He was silent. VB, too, was quiet and they spoke little until the housework was finished and Jed had drawn off his boots preparatory to turning in.
Then VB said: "Bob Thorpe was over to-day."
"So?"
"Uh-huh; wanted to buy the Captain."
After a pause Jed commented: "That's natural."
"Wanted me to give you the good word."
The old man walked through the doorway into the little bunk room and VB heard him flop into the crude bed.
A short interval of silence.
"Jed," called VB, "ever hear where his daughter went to school?"
A long yawn. Then:
"Yep—don't remember."
Another pause.
"She was over, too."
"Oh-ho-o-o!"
The boy felt himself flushing, and then sat bolt upright, wondering soberly and seriously why it should be so—without reason.
Young VB slept restlessly that night. He tossed and dreamed, waking frequently under a sense of nervous tension, then falling back to half-slumber once more. Thorpe came, and his daughter, offering fabulous sums for the Captain, which were stubbornly refused.
Then, shouting at the top of her voice, the girl cried:
"But I will give you kisses for him! Surely that is enough!"
And VB came back to himself, sitting up in bed and wadding the blankets in his hands. He blinked in the darkness and herded his scattered senses with difficulty. Then the hands left off twisting the covers and went slowly to his throat. For the thirst was on him and in the morning he rose in the grip of the same stifling desire, and his quavering hands spilled things as he ate.
Jed noticed, but made no comment. When the meal was finished he said:
"S'pose I could get you to crawl up on the Captain an' take a shoot up Curley Gulch with an eye out for that black mare an' her yearlin'?"
VB was glad to be alone with his horse, and as he walked to the corral, his bridle over his arm, he felt as though, much as Jed could help him, he could never bring the inspiration which the black beast offered.
He opened the gate and let it swing wide. The Captain came across to him with soft nickerings, deserting the alfalfa he was munching. He thrust his muzzle into the crook of VB's elbow, and the arm tightened on it desperately, while the other hand went up to twine fingers in the luxurious mane.
"Oh, Captain!" he muttered, putting his face close to the animal's cheek. "You know what it is to fight for yourself! You know—but where you found love and help when you lost that fight, I'd find—just blackness—without even a candle—"
The stallion moved closer, shoving with his head until he forced VB out of the corral. Then with his teasing lips he sought the bridle.
"You seem to understand!" the man cried, his tired eyes lighting. "You seem to know what I need!"
Five minutes later he was rushing through the early morning air up the gulch, the Captain bearing him along with that free, firm, faultless stride that had swept him over those mountains for so many long, unmolested years.
Throughout the forenoon they rode hard. VB looked for the mare and colt, but the search did not command much of his attention.
"Why can't I turn all this longing into something useful?" he asked the horse. "Your lust for freedom has come to this end; why can't my impulses to be a wild beast be driven into another path?"
And the Captain made answer by bending his superb head and lipping VB's chap-clad knee.
The quest was fruitless, and an hour before noon VB turned back toward the ranch, making a short cut across the hills. In one of the gulches the Captain nickered softly and increased his trotting. VB let him go, unconscious of his brisker movement, for the calling in his throat had risen to a clamor. The horse stopped and lowered his head, drinking from a hole into which crystal water seeped.
The man dropped off and flopped on his stomach, thrusting his face into the pool close to the nose of the greedily drinking stallion. He took the water in great gulps. It was cold, as cold as spring water can be, yet it was as nothing against the fire within him.
The Captain, raising his head quickly, caught his breath with a grunt, dragging the air deep into his great lungs and exhaling slowly, loudly, as he gazed off down the gulch; then he chewed briskly on the bit and thrust his nose again into the spring.
VB's arm stole up and dropped over the horse's head.
"Oh, boy, you know what one kind of thirst is," he said in a whisper. "But there's another kind that this stuff won't quench! The thirst that comes from being in blackness—"
They went on, dropped off a point, and made for the flat little buildings of the ranch. As he approached, VB saw three saddled horses standing before the house, none of which was Jed's property. Nothing strange in that, however, for one man's home is another's shelter in that country, whether the owner be on the ground or not, and to VB the thought of visitors brought relief. Contact with others might joggle him from his mood.
He left the Captain, saddled, at the corral gate, bridle reins down, and he knew that the horse would not budge so much as a step until told to do so. Then he swung over toward the house, heels scuffing the hard dirt, spurs jingling. At the threshold he walked squarely into the man Rhues.
The recognition was a distinct shock. He stepped backward a pace—recoiled rather, for the movement was as from a thing he detested. Into his mind crowded every detail of his former encounters with this fellow; in the Anchor bunk house and across the road from the saloon in Ranger. They came back vividly—the expression of faces, lights and shadows, even odors, and the calling in him for the help that throttles became agonizing.
Rhues misconstrued his emotion. His judgment was warped by the spirit of the bully, and he thought this man feared him. He remembered that defiant interchange of questions, and the laugh that went to VB on their first meeting. He nursed the rankling memory. He had told it about that Avery's tenderfoot was afraid to take a drink—speaking greater truth than he was aware—but his motive had been to discredit VB in the eyes of the countrymen, for he belonged to that ilk who see in debauchery the mark of manhood.
Coming now upon the man he had chosen to persecute, and reading fear in VB's eyes, Rhues was made crudely happy.
"You don't appear to be overglad to see us," he drawled.
VB glanced into the room. A Mexican sat on the table, smoking and swinging his legs; a white man he remembered having seen in Ranger stood behind Rhues. Jed was nowhere about. He looked back at the snaky leer in those half-opened green eyes, and a rage went boiling into his brain. The unmistakable challenge which came from this bully was of the sort that strips from men civilization's veneer.
"You've guessed it," he said calmly. "I don't know why I should be glad to see you. These others"—he motioned—"are strangers to me."
Then he stepped past Rhues into the room.
The man grinned at him as he tossed his hat to a chair and unbuckled the leather cuffs.
"But that makes no difference," he went on. "Jed isn't here. It's meal time, and if you men want to eat I'll build a big enough dinner."
Rhues laughed, and the mockery in his tone was of the kind that makes the biggest of men forget they can be above insult.
"We didn't come here to eat," he said. "We come up to see a horse we heerd about—th' Captain. We heerd Jed caught him."
VB started. The thought of Rhues inspecting the stallion, commenting on him, admiring him, was as repulsive to Young VB as would be the thought to a lover of a vile human commenting vulgarly on the sacred body of the woman of women.
The Mexican strolled out of the house as VB, turning to the stove, tried to ignore the explanation of their presence. He walked on toward the ponies. A dozen steps from the house he stopped, and called:
"Por Dios, hombre!"
Rhues and the other followed him, and VB saw them stand together, staring in amazement at the Captain. Then they moved toward the great horse, talking to one another and laughing.
VB followed, with a feeling of indignation. The trio advanced, quickening their pace.
"Hold on!" he cried in sudden alarm. "Don't go too near; he's dangerous!"
Already the Captain had flattened his ears, and as VB ran out he could see the nose wrinkling, the lips drawing back.
"What's got into you?" demanded Rhues, turning, while the Mexican laughed jeeringly. "I guess if you can ride him amancan git up clost without gittin' chawed up! Remember, young kid, we've been workin' with hosses sence you was suckin' yer thumb."
The others laughed again, but VB gave no heed. He was seeing red again; reason had gone—either reason or the coating of conventions.
"Well, if you won't stand away from him because of danger, you'll do it because I say so!" he muttered.
"O-ho, an' that's it!" laughed Rhues, walking on.
VB passed him and approached the Captain and took his bridle.
"Be still, boy," he murmured. "Stand where you are."
He stroked the nose, and the wrinkles left it.
Rhues laughed again harshly.
"Well, that's a fine kind o' buggy horse!" he jeered. "Let a tenderfoot come up an' steal all th' man-eatin' fire outen him!"
He laughed again and the others joined. The Mexican said something in Spanish.
"Yah," assented Rhues. "I thought we was comin' to see ahoss—th' kind o' nag this feller pertended to be. But now—look at him! He's just a low-down ——"
VB sprang toward him.
"You—" he breathed, "you—you hound! Why, you aren't fit to come into sight of this horse. You—you apologize to that horse!" he demanded, and even through his molten rage the words sounded unutterably silly.
Yet he went on, fists clenched, carried beyond reason or balance by the instinctive hate for this man and love for the black animal behind him.
Rhues laughed again.
"Who says so, besides you, you ——. Why, you ain't no more man'n that hoss is hoss!"
He saw then that he had reckoned poorly. The greenhorn, the boy who cowered at the thought of a man's dissipation, had disappeared, and in his stead stood a quivering young animal, poising for a pounce.
Being a bully, Rhues was a coward. So when VB sprang, and he knew conflict was unavoidable, his right hand whipped back. The fingers closed on the handle of his automatic as VB made the first step. They made their hold secure as the Easterner's arm drew back. They yanked at the gun as that fist shot out.
It was a good blow, a clean blow, a full blow right on the point of the chin, and, quickly as it had been delivered, the right was back in an instinctive guard and the left had rapped out hard on the snarling mouth. Rhues went backward and down, unbalanced by the first shock, crushed by the second; and the third, a repeated jab of the left, caught him behind the ear and stretched him helpless in the dust.
His fingers relaxed their hold on the gun that he had not been quick enough to use, so lightning-like was the attack from this individual he had dubbed a "kid." VB stepped over the prostrate form, put his toe under the revolver, and flipped it a dozen yards away.
Then Jed Avery pulled up his horse in a shower of dust, and VB, his rage choking down words, turned to lead the Captain into the corral. The animal nosed him fiercely and pulled back to look at Rhues, who, under the crude ministrations of his two companions, had taken on a semblance of life.
A moment later VB returned from the inclosure, bearing his riding equipment. He said to Jed: "This man insulted the Captain. I had to whip him." Then he walked to the wagon shed, dropped his saddle in its shelter, and came back.
Rhues sat up and, as VB approached, got to his feet. He lurched forward as if to rush his enemy, but the Mexican caught him and held him back.
VB stood, hands on hips, and glared at him. He said: "No, I wouldn't come again if I were you. I don't want to have to smash you again. I'd enjoy it in a way, but when a man is knocked out he's whipped—in my country—judged by the standards we set there.
"You're a coward, Rhues—a dirty, sneaking, low-down coward! Every gun-man is a coward. It's no way to settle disputes—gun fighting."
He glared at the fellow before him, who swore under his breath but who could not summon the courage to strike.
"You're a coward, and I hope I've impressed that on you," VB went on, "and you'll take a coward's advantage. Hereafter I'm going to carry a gun. You won't fight in my way because you're not a man, so I'll have to be prepared for you in your way. I just want to let you know that I understand your breed! That's all.
"Don't start anything, because I'll fight in two ways hereafter—in my way and in yours. And that goes for you other two. If you run with this—thisthing, it marks you. I know what would have happened if Jed hadn't come up. You'd have killed me! That's the sort you are. Remember—all three of you—I'm not afraid, but it's a case of fighting fire with fire. I'll be ready."
Rhues stood, as though waiting for more.
When VB did not go on he said, just above a whisper: "I'll get you—yet!"
And VB answered, "Then I guess we all understand one another."
When the three had ridden away Jed shoved his Colt tight into its holster again and looked at the young chap with foreboding.
"There'll be trouble, VB; they're bad," he said. "He's a coward. The story'll go round an' he'll try to get you harder 'n ever. If he don't, those others will—will try, I mean. Matson and Julio are every bit as bad as Rhues, but they ain't quite got his fool nerve.
"They're a thievin' bunch, though it ain't never been proved. Nobody trusts 'em; most men let 'em alone an' wait fer 'em to show their hand. They've been cute; they've been suspected, but they ain't never got out on a limb. They've got a lot to cover up, no doubt. But they've got a grudge now. An' when cowards carry grudges—look out!"
"If a man like Rhues were all I had to fear, I should never worry," VB muttered, weak again after the excitement. "He's bad—but there are worse things—that you can't have the satisfaction of knocking down."
And his conspiring nostrils smelled whisky in that untainted air.
Young VB held a twofold interest for the men of Clear River. First, the story of his fight with the Captain spread over the land, percolating to the farthest camps. Men laughed at first. The absurdity of it! Then, their surprise giving way to their appreciation of his attainment, their commendation for the young Easterner soared to superlatively profane heights.
When he met those who had been strangers before it was to be scrutinized and questioned and frankly, honestly admired.
Now came another reason for discussing him about bunk-house stoves. He had thrashed Rhues! Great as had been the credit accorded VB for the capture of the stallion, just so great was men's delight caused by the outcome of that other encounter.
They remembered, then, how Rhues had told of the greenhorn who was afraid to take a drink; how he had made it a purpose to spread stories of ridicule, doing his best to pervert the community's natural desire to let the affairs of others alone. And this recollection of Rhues's bullying was an added reason for their saying: "Good! I'm glad to hear it. Too bad th' kid didn't beat him to death!"
Though his meetings with other men were few and scattered, VB was coming to be liked. It mattered little to others why he was in the country, from where he came, or who he had been. He had accomplished two worthy things among them, and respect was accorded him across vast distances. Dozens of these men had seen him only once, and scores never, yet they reckoned him of their number—a man to be taken seriously, worthy of their kindly attention, of their interest, and of their respect.
Bob Thorpe helped to establish VB in the mountains. He thought much about his interview with the young chap, and told to a half-dozen men the story which, coming from him, had weight.
His daughter did not abandon her idea of owning the Captain. Bob told her repeatedly that it was useless to argue with a man who spoke as did Jed's rider; but the girl chose to disagree with him.
"I think that if you'd flatter him enough—if we both would—that he would listen. Don't you?" she asked.
Bob Thorpe shook his head.
"No," he answered. "You can't convince me of that. You don't know men, and I do. I've seen one or two like him before—who love a thing of that sort above money; and, I've found you can't do a thing with 'em—ding 'em!"
The girl cried: "Why, don't feel that way about it! I think it's perfectly fine—to love an animal so much that money won't buy him!"
"Sure it is," answered her father. "That's what makes me out of patience with them. They're—they're better men than most of us, and—well, they make a fellow feel rather small at times."
Then he went away, and Gail puzzled over his concluding remark.
A week to a day after her first visit she drove again to Jed's ranch.
"I came over to see the Captain," she told the old man gayly.
"Well, th' Captain ain't here now," he answered, beaming on her; "but VB'll be back with him before noon."
She looked for what seemed to be an unnecessarily long time at her watch, and then asked:
"Is that his name?"
"What—th' Captain?"
"No—VB."
Jed laughed silently at her.
"Yep—to be sure an' that's his name—all th' name he's got."
"Well, I wish Mr. VB would hurry back with the Captain," she said.
But that easy flush was again in her cheeks, and the turn she gave the conversation was, as they say in certain circles, poor footwork.
Within an hour the Captain bore his rider home. Gail stayed for dinner and ate with the two men.
It was a strange meal for VB. Not in months had he eaten at the same table with a woman; not in years had he broken bread with a woman such as this, and realization of the fact carried him back beyond those darkest days. He remembered suddenly and quite irrelevantly that he once had wondered if this daughter of Bob Thorpe's was to be a connecting link with the old life. That had been when he first learned that the big cattleman had a daughter, and that she was living in his East. Now as he sat before neglected food and watched and listened, feasting his starved spirit on her, noting her genuine vivacity, her enthusiasm, the quick come and go of color in her fine skin, he knew that she was a link, but not with the past that he had feared. She took him back beyond that, into his earlier boyhood, that period of adolescence when, to a clean-minded boy, all things are good and unstained. She was attractive in all the ways that women can be attractive, and at the same time she was more than a desirable individual; she seemed to stand for classes, for modes of living and thinking, that Young VB had put behind him—put behind first by his wasting, now by distance. But as the meal progressed a fresh wonder crept up in his mind. Was all that really so very far away? Was not the distance just that between them and the big ranch house under the cotton woods beyond the hills? And was the result of his wasting quite irreparable? Was he not rebuilding what he had torn down?
He felt himself thrilling and longing suddenly for fresher, newer experiences as the talk ran on between the others. The conversation was wholly of the country, and VB was surprised to discover that this girl could talk intelligently and argue effectively with Jed over local stock conditions when she looked for all the world like any of the hundreds he could pick out on Fifth Avenue at five o'clock of any fine afternoon. He corrected himself hastily. She wasnotlike those others, either. She possessed all their physical endowments, all and more, for her eye was clearer, her carriage better, she was possessed of a color that was no sham; and a finer body. Put her beside them in their own environment, and they would seem stale by comparison; bring those others here, and their bald artificiality would be pathetic. The boy wanted her to know those things, yet thought of telling her never came to his consciousness. Subjectively he was humble before her.
The interest between the two young people was not centered completely in VB. Each time he lowered his gaze to his plate he was conscious of those frank, intelligent blue eyes on him, studying, prying, wondering, a laugh ever deep within them. Now and then the girl addressed a remark to him, but for the most part she spoke directly to Jed; however, she was studying the boy every instant, quietly, carefully, missing no detail, and by the time the meal neared its end the laughter had left her eyes and they betrayed a frank curiosity.
When the meal was finished the girl asked VB to take her to the corral. She made the request lightly, but it smote something in the man a terrific blow, stirring old memories, fresh desires, and he was strangely glad that he could do something for her. As they walked from the cabin to the inclosure he was flushed, embarrassed, awkward. He could not talk to her, could scarcely keep his body from swinging from side to side with schoolboy shyness.
The stallion did not fidget at sight of the girl as he had done on the approach of other strangers. He snorted and backed away, keeping his eyes on her and his ears up with curiosity, coming to a halt against the far side of the corral and switching his fine tail down over the shapely hocks as though to make these people understand that in spite of his seeming harmlessness he might yet show the viciousness that lurked down in his big heart.
"I think he'll come to like you," said VB, looking from his horse to the girl. "I don't see how he could help it—to like women, understand," he added hastily when she turned a wide-eyed gaze on him. "He doesn't like strange men, but see—he's interested in you; and it's curiosity, not anger. I—I don't blame him—for being interested," he ventured, and hated himself for the flush that swept up from his neck.
They both laughed, and Gail said: "So this country hasn't taken the flattery out of you?"
"Why, it's been years—years since I said a thing like that to a girl of your sort," VB answered soberly.
An awkward pause followed.
"Dare I touch him?" the girl finally asked.
"No, I wouldn't to-day," VB advised. "Just let him look at you now. Some other time we'll see if—That is, if you'll ever come to see us—to see the Captain again."
"I should like to come to see the Captain very much, and as often as is proper," she said with mocking demureness.
And she did come again; and again and yet again. Always she took pains to begin with inquiries about the horse. When she did this in Jed Avery's presence it was with a peculiar avoidance of his gaze, that might have been from embarrassment; when she asked Young VB those questions it was with a queer little teasing smile. A half-dozen times she found the boy alone at the ranch, and the realization that on such occasions she stayed longer than she did when Jed was about gave him a new thrill of delight.
At first there was an awkward reserve between them, but after the earlier visits this broke down and their talk became interspersed with personal references, with small, inconsequential confidences that, intrinsically worthless, meant much to them. Yet there was never a word of the life both had lived far over the other side of those snowcaps to the eastward. Somehow the girl felt intuitively that it had not all been pleasant for the man there, and VB maintained a stubborn reticence. He could have told her much of her own life back in the East, of the things she liked, of the events and conditions that were irksome, because he knew the environment in which she had lived and he felt that he knew the girl herself. He would not touch that topic, however, for it would lead straight tohislife; and all that he wanted for his thoughts now were Jed and the hills and the Captain and—this girl. They composed a comfortable world of which he wanted to be a part.
Gail found herself feeling strangely at home with this young fellow. She experienced a mingled feeling compounded of her friendship for the finished youths she had known during school days and that which she felt for the men of her mountains, who were, she knew, as rugged, as genuine, as the hills themselves. To her Young VB rang true from the ground up, and he bore the finish that can come only from contact with many men. That is a rare combination.
It came about that after a time the Captain let Gail touch him, allowed her to walk about him and caress his sleek body. Always, when she was near, he stood as at attention, dignified and self-conscious, and from time to time his eyes would seek the face of his master, as though for reassurance. Once after the girl had gone VB took the Captain's face between his hands and, looking into the big black eyes, muttered almost fiercely:
"She's as much of the real stuff as you are, old boy! Do you think, Captain, that I can ever match up with you two?"
Before a month had gone by the girl could lead the Captain about, could play with him almost as familiarly as VB did; but always the horse submitted as if uninterested, went through this formality of making friends as though it were a duty that bored him.
Once Dick Worth, the deputy from Sand Creek, and his wife rode up the gulch to see the black stallion. While the Captain would not allow the man near him, he suffered the woman to tweak his nose and slap his cheeks and pull his ears; then it was that Jed and VB knew that the animal understood the difference between sexes and that the chivalry which so became him had been cultivated by his intimacy with Gail Thorpe.
After that, of course, there was no plausible excuse for Gail's repeated visits. However, she continued coming. VB was always reserved up to a certain point before her, never yielding beyond it in spite of the strength of the subtle tactics she employed to draw him out. A sense of uncertainty of himself held him aloof. Within him was a traditional respect for women. He idealized them, and then set for men a standard which they must attain before meeting women as equals. But this girl, while satisfying his ideal, would not remain aloof. She forced herself into VB's presence, forced herself, and yet with a delicacy that could not be misunderstood. She came regularly, her visits lengthened, and one sunny afternoon as they stood watching the Captain roll she looked up sharply at the man beside her.
"Why do you keep me at this?"
"This? What? I don't get your meaning."
"At coming over here? Why don't you come to see me? I— Of course, I haven't any fine horse to show you, but—"
Her voice trailed off, with a hint of wounded pride in the tone. The man faced her, stunning surprise in his face.
"You—you don't think I fail to value this friendship of ours?" he demanded, rallying. "You—Why, what can I say to you? It has meant so much to me—just seeing you; it's been one of the finest things of this fine country. But I thought—I thought it was because of this,"—with a gesture toward the Captain, who stood shaking the dust from his hair with mighty effort. "I thought all along you were interested in the horse; not that you cared about knowing me—"
"Did you really think that?" she broke in.
VB flushed, then laughed, with an abrupt change of mood.
"Well, itbeganthat way," he pleaded weakly.
"And you'd let it end that way."
"Oh, no; you don't understand, Miss Thorpe," serious again. "I—I can't explain, and you don't understand now. But I've felt somehow as though it would be presuming too much if I came to see you."
She looked at him calculatingly a long moment as he twirled his hat and kicked at a pebble with his boot.
"I think it would be presuming too much if you let me do all the traveling, since you admit that a friendship does exist," she said lightly.
"Then the only gallant thing for me to do is to call on you."
"I think so. I'm glad you recognize the fact."
"When shall it be?"
"Any time. If I'm not home, stay until I get back. Daddy likes you. You'll love my mother."
The vague "any time" occurred three days later. Young VB made a special trip over the hills to the S Bar S. The girl was stretched in a hammock, reading, when he rode up, and at the sound of his horse she scrambled to her feet, flushed, and evidently disconcerted.
"I'd given you up!" she cried.
"In three days?" taking the hand she offered.
"Well—most boys in the East would have come the next morning—if they were really interested."
"This is Colorado," he reminded her.
He sat crosslegged on the ground at her feet, and they talked of the book she had been reading. It was a novel of music and a musician and a rare achievement, she said. He questioned her about the story, and their talk drifted to music, on which they both could converse well.
"You don't know what it means—to sit here and talk of these things with you," he said hungrily.
"Well, I should like to know," she said, leaning forward over her knees.
For two long hours they talked as they never had talked before; of personal tastes, of kindred enthusiasms, of books and plays and music and people. They went into the ranch house, and Gail played for him—on the only grand piano in that section of the state. They came out, and she saddled her pony to ride part way back through the hills with him.
"Adios,my friend," she called after him, as he swung away from her.
"It's your turn to call now," he shouted back to her, and when the ridge took him from sight he leaned low to the Captain's ear and repeated gently,—"my friend!"
So the barrier of reserve was broken. VB did not dare think into the future in any connection—least of all in relation to this new and growing friendship; yet he wanted to make their understanding more complete though he would scarcely admit that fact even to himself.
A week had not passed when Gail Thorpe drove the automobile up to the VB gate.
"I didn't come to see the Captain this time," she announced to them both. "I came to pay a party call to Mr. VB, and to include Mr. Avery. Because when a girl out here receives a visit from a man it's of party proportions!"
As she was leaving, she asked, "Why don't you come down to the dance Friday night?"
"A big event?"
"Surely!" She laughed merrily. "It's the first one since spring, and everybody'll be there. Mr. Avery will surely come. Won't you, too, Mr. VB?"
He evaded her, but when she had turned the automobile about and sped down the road, homeward bound, he let down the bars for youth's romanticism and knew that he would dance with her if it meant walking every one of the twenty-two miles to the schoolhouse.
For the first time in years VB felt a thrill at the anticipation of a social function, and with it a guilty little thought kept buzzing in the depths of his mind. The thought was: Is her hair as fragrant as it is glorious in color and texture?