“Oh!” exclaimed Kitty, disappointed, “and didn’t you ever shoot anybody?”
Creede blushed for her, in spite of himself. “Well,” he replied evasively, “I don’t know how it would be up where you come from, but that’s kind of a leadin’ question, ain’t it?”
“Oh, you have, then!” exclaimed Kitty Bonnair ecstatically. “Oh, I’m so glad to see a really, truly cowboy!” She paused, and gazed up at him soulfully. “Won’t you let me have it for a minute?” she pleaded, and with a sheepish grin Creede handed over his gun.
But if there had been another cowboy within a mile he would have hesitated, infatuated as he was. Every land has its symbolism and though the language of flowers has not struck root in the cow country––nor yet the amorous Mexican system of “playing the bear”––to give up one’s pistol to a lady is the sign and token of surrender. However, though it brought the sweat to his brow, the byplay was pulled off unnoticed, Hardy and Lucy Ware being likewise deep in confidences.
“How strange you look, Rufus!” exclaimed Lucy, as Kitty Bonnair began her assault upon the happiness of Jefferson Creede. “What have you been doing to yourself in these two years?”
“Why, nothing,” protested Hardy, a little wan 201 from his encounter with Kitty. “Perhaps you have forgotten how I used to look––our hair gets pretty long up here,” he added apologetically, “but––”
“No,” said Lucy firmly. “It isn’t a matter of hair, although I will admit I hardly knew you. It’s in your eyes; and you have some stern, hard lines about your mouth, too. Father says you spend all your time trying to keep the sheep out––and he’s very much displeased with you for disobeying his directions, too. He gave up some important business to come down here and see you, and I hope he scolds you well. Have you been writing any lately?” she asked accusingly.
“No!” answered Hardy absently, “we don’t have to fight them––”
“But, Rufus,” protested Lucy Ware, laying her hand on his arm, “do take your mind from those dreadful sheep. I asked you if you have been doing any writing lately––you promised to send me some poems, don’t you remember? And I haven’t received a thing!”
“Oh!” said Hardy, blushing at his mistake. “Well, I acknowledge that I haven’t done right––and you have been very kind, too, Miss Lucy,” he added gently. “But somehow I never finish anything down here––and the sheep have been pretty bad lately. I have to do my work first, you know. 202 I’ll tell you, though,” he said, lowering his voice confidentially, “if I can see you when no one is around I’ll give you what little I’ve written––at least, some of the best. A poet at his worst, you know,” he added, smiling, “is the poorest man in the world. He’s like a woman who tells everything––no one could respect him. But if we can take our finer moods, and kind of sublimate them, you know, well––every man is a poet some time.”
He hesitated, ended lamely, and fell suddenly into a settled silence. The hard lines about his lips deepened; his eyes, cast to the ground, glowed dully; and in every feature Lucy read the despair that was gnawing at his heart. And with it there was something more––a tacit rebuke to her for having brought Kitty there to meet him.
“We have missed you very much,” she began softly, as if reading his thoughts, “and your letters were so interesting! Ever since I showed Kitty the first one she has been crazy to come down here. Yes, she has been reading ‘The Virginian’ and O. Henry and ‘Wolfville’ until it is simply awful to hear her talk. And ride––she has been taking lessons for a year! Her saddle is out there now in the wagon, and if she could have caught one of those wild horses out in that inclosed field I really believe she would have mounted him and taken to the hills like an Indian. 203 I had to come down to take care of father, you know, and––aren’t you glad to see us, Rufus?”
She gazed up at him anxiously, and her eyes became misty as she spoke; but Hardy was far away and he did not see.
“Yes,” he said absently, “but––I shall be very busy. Oh, where is your father?”
A light went suddenly from Lucy’s eyes and her lips quivered, but her voice was as steady as ever.
“He has gone down to the river,” she said patiently. “Would you like to see him?”
“Yes,” he replied, still impersonally; and with his head down, he walked out to where Chapuli was standing. Then, as if some memory of her voice had come to him, he dropped the bridle lash and stepped back quickly into the house.
“You mustn’t notice my rudeness, Miss Lucy,” he began abjectly. “Of course I am glad to see you; but I am a little confused, and––well, you understand.” He smiled wanly as he spoke, and held out his hand. “Is it all right?” he asked. “Good-bye, then.” And as he stepped quietly out the light came back into Lucy’s eyes.
“I am going to hunt up the judge,” he said, as he swung up on his horse; and, despite the protests of Jeff and Kitty Bonnair, who were still deep in an animated conversation, he rode off down the river.
It was not exactly like a draught of Nepenthe to go out and face the righteous indignation of Judge Ware, but Hardy’s brain was in such a whirl that he welcomed the chance to escape. Never for a moment had he contemplated the idea of Kitty’s coming to him, or of his seeing her again until his heart was whole. He had felt safe and secure forever within the walled valley of Hidden Water––but now from a cloudless sky the lightning had fallen and blinded him. Before he could raise a hand or even turn and flee she had come upon him and exacted his forgiveness. Nay, more––she had won back his love and enslaved him as before. Could it mean––what else could it mean? Nothing but that she loved him; or if not love, then she cared for him above the others. And Kitty was proud, too! Those who became her slaves must respect her whims; she would acknowledge no fault and brook no opposition; whatever she did was right. Yes, it had always been the same with her: the Queen could do no wrong––yet now she had put aside her regal prerogatives and come to him!
He hugged the thought to his bosom like a man infatuated, and then a chill misgiving came upon him. Perhaps after all it was but another of those childish whims which made her seem so lovable––always eager, always active, always striving for the forbidden 205 and unusual, yet so dear with her laughing eyes and dancing feet that all the world gave way before her. He bowed his head in thought, following the judge’s tracks mechanically as he cantered down the trail, and when he came to the hill above the whirlpool and looked down at the empty landscape he was still wrestling with his pride. Never in the two years of his exile had he so much as mentioned her name to any one; it was a thing too sacred for confidences, this love which had changed the deep current of his life, a secret for his own soul and God––and yet, Lucy Ware might help him!
And where in all the world would he find a more faithful friend than Lucy Ware? A secret shared with her would be as safe as if still locked in his own breast––and Lucy could understand. Perhaps she understood already; perhaps––his heart stopped, and pounded against his side––perhaps Kitty had told Lucy her story already and asked her to intercede! He dwelt upon the thought again as he gazed dumbly about for his employer; and then suddenly the outer world––the plain, rough, rocks-and-cactus world that he had lived in before they came––flashed up before him in all its uncompromising clearness; the judge was nowhere in sight!
A sudden memory of Creede’s saying that he could lose his boss any time within half a mile of camp 206 startled Hardy out of his dreams and he rode swiftly forward upon the trail. At the foot of the hill the tracks of Judge Ware’s broad shoes with their nice new hob-nails stood out like a bas-relief, pointing up the river. Not to take any chances, Hardy followed them slavishly through the fine sand until they turned abruptly up onto a ridge which broke off at the edge of the river bottom. Along the summit of this they showed again, plainly, heading north; then as the ravine swung to the west they scrambled across it and began to zigzag, working off to the east where Black Butte loomed up above the maze of brushy ridges like a guiding sentinel. At first Hardy only smiled at the circuitous and aimless trail which he was following, expecting to encounter the judge at every turn; but as the tracks led steadily on he suddenly put spurs to his horse and plunged recklessly up and down the sides of the brushy hogbacks in a desperate pursuit, for the sun was sinking low. The trail grew fresher and fresher now; dark spots where drops of sweat had fallen showed in the dry sand of the washes; and at last, half an hour before sundown, Hardy caught sight of his wandering employer, zealously ascending a particularly rocky butte.
“Hello there, Judge!” he called, and then, as Judge 207 Ware whirled about, he inquired, with well-feigned surprise: “Where’d you drop down from?”
This was to let the old gentleman down easy––lost people having a way of waxing indignant at their rescuers––and the judge was not slow to take advantage of it.
“Why, howdy do, Rufus!” he exclaimed, sinking down upon a rock. “I was just taking a little short cut to camp. My, my, but this is a rough country. Out looking for cattle?”
“Well––yes,” responded Hardy. “I was taking a little ride. But say, it’s about my supper time. You better give up that short-cut idea and come along home with me.”
“We-ell,” said the judge, reluctantly descending the butte, “I guess I will. How far is it?”
“About two miles, by trail.”
“Two miles!” exclaimed Judge Ware, aghast. “Why, it’s just over that little hill, there. Why don’t you take a short cut?”
“The trail is the shortest cut I know,” replied Hardy, concealing a smile. “That’s the way the cattle go, and they seem to know their business. How does the country look to you?”
But the old judge was not to be led aside by persiflage––he was interested in the matter of trails.
“Cattle trails!” he exclaimed. “Do you mean to say that you do all your travelling on these crooked cow paths? Why, it is a matter of scientific observation that even on the open prairie a cow path loses nearly a quarter of its headway by constant winding in and out, merely to avoid frail bushes and infinitesimal stones. Now if you and Jeff would spend a little of your leisure in cutting trails, as they do in forestry, you would more than save yourselves the time and labor involved, I’m sure.”
“Yes?” said Hardy coldly. There was a subtle tone of fault-finding in his employer’s voice which already augured ill for their debate on the sheep question, and his nerves responded instinctively to the jab. Fate had not been so kind to him that day, that he was prepared to take very much from any man, and so he remained quiet and let the judge go the whole length.
“Why, yes, if you would stay about the ranch a little closer instead of going off on these armed forays against sheep––now just for example, how much would it cost to clear a passable trail over that ridge to the ranch?”
He pointed at the hill which in his misguided enthusiasm he had been mounting, and Hardy’s eyes glittered wickedly as he launched his barbed jest.
“About a billion dollars, I guess,” he answered, after mature consideration.
“A billion dollars!” repeated the judge. “A billion dollars! Now here, Rufus,” he cried, choking with exasperation, “I am in earnest about this matter! I don’t altogether approve of the way you and Jeff have been conducting my affairs down here, anyway, and I intend to take a hand myself, if you don’t mind. I may not know as much as you about the minor details of the cattle business, but I have been looking into forestry quite extensively, and I fail to see anything unreasonable in my suggestion of a trail. How far is it, now, over that hill to the ranch?”
“About twenty-five thousand miles,” replied Hardy blandly.
“Twenty-five thousand! Why––”
“At least, so I am informed,” explained Hardy. “Geographers agree, I believe, that that is the approximate distance around the world. The ranch is over here, you know.”
He pointed with one small, sinewy hand in a direction diametrically opposite to the one his boss had indicated, and struck out down a cow trail. It was a harsh blow to the old judge, and rankled in his bosom for some time; but after making sure that his superintendent was correct he followed meekly behind 210 him into camp. On the way, as an afterthought, he decided not to put down his foot in the matter of the sheep until he was quite sure of the material facts.
They found Creede in the last throes of agony as he blundered through the motions of cooking supper. Half an hour of house-cleaning had done more to disarrange his kitchen than the services of two charming assistants could possibly repair. His Dutch oven was dropped into the wood box; his bread pan had been used to soak dirty dishes in; the water bucket was empty, and they had thrown his grease swab into the fire. As for the dish-rag, after long and faithful service it had been ruthlessly destroyed, and he had to make another one out of a flour sack. Add to this a hunger which had endured since early morning and a series of rapid-fire questions, and you have the true recipe for bad bread, at least.
Kitty Bonnair had taken a course in sanitation and domestic science in her college days, since which time the world had been full of microbes and every unpleasant bacillus, of which she discoursed at some length. But Jefferson Creede held steadily to his fixed ideas, and in the end he turned out some baking-powder biscuits that would have won honors in a cooking school. There was nothing else to cook, his kettle of beans having been unceremoniously dumped 211 because the pot was black; but Kitty had the table spotlessly clean, there was an assortment of potted meats and picnic knicknacks in the middle of it, and Lucy had faithfully scoured the dishes; so supper was served with frills.
If the ladies had taken hold a little strong in the first spasms of house-cleaning, Jeff and Rufus were far too polite to mention it; and while the dishes were being washed they quietly gathered up their belongings, and moved them into the storeroom. Their beds being already spread beneath the ramada, it was not difficult to persuade the girls to accept Hardy’s room, which for a man’s, was clean, and the judge fell heir to Jeff’s well-littered den. All being quickly arranged and the beds made, Creede threw an armful of ironwood upon the fire and they sat down to watch it burn.
Three hours before, Hidden Water had been the hangout of two sheep-harrying barbarians, bushy-headed and short of speech; now it was as bright and cheerful as any home and the barbarians were changed to lovers. Yet, as they basked in the warmth of the fireside there was one absent from his accustomed place––a creature so fierce and shy that his wild spirit could never become reconciled to the change. At the first sound of women’s voices little Tommy had dashed 212 through his cat-hole and fled to the bowlder pile at the foot of the cliff, from whose dank recesses he peered forth with blank and staring eyes.
But now, as the strange voices grew quiet and night settled down over the valley, he crept forth and skulked back to the house, sniffing about the barred windows, peeking in through his hole in the door; and at last, drawing well away into the darkness, he raised his voice in an appealing cry for Jeff.
As the first awful, raucous outburst broke the outer silence Kitty Bonnair jumped, and Lucy and her father turned pale.
“What’s that?” cried Kitty, in a hushed voice, “a mountain lion?”
“Not yet,” answered Creede enigmatically. “He will be though, if he grows. Aw, say, that’s just my cat. Here, pussy, pussy, pussy! D’ye hear that, now? Sure, he knows me! Wait a minute and I’ll try an’ ketch ’im.”
He returned a few minutes later, with Tommy held firmly against his breast, blacker, wilder, and scrawnier than ever, but purring and working his claws.
“How’s this for a mountain lion?” said Creede, stopping just inside the door and soothing down his pet. “D’ye see that hook?” he inquired, holding up the end of Tommy’s crooked tail and laughing at 213 Kitty’s dismay. “He uses that to climb cliffs with. That’s right––he’s a new kind of cat. Sure, they used to be lots of ’em around here, but the coyotes got all the rest. Tom is the only one left. Want to pet him? Well––whoa, pussy,––come up careful, then; he’s never––ouch!”
At the first whisk of skirts, Tommy’s yellow eyes turned green and he sank every available hook and claw into his master’s arm; but when Kitty reached out a hand he exploded in a storm of spits and hisses and dashed out through the door.
“Well, look at that, now,” said Creede, grinning and rubbing his arm. “D’ye know what’s the matter with him? You’re the first woman he ever saw in his life. W’y, sure! They ain’t no women around here. I got him off a cowman over on the Verde. He had a whole litter of ’em––used to pinch Tom’s tail to make him fight––so when I come away I jest quietly slipped Mr. Tommy into my shaps.”
“Oh, the poor little thing,” said Kitty; and then she added, puckering up her lips, “but I don’t like cats.”
“Oh, I do!” exclaimed Lucy Ware quickly, as Creede’s face changed, and for a moment the big cowboy stood looking at them gravely.
“That’s good,” he said, smiling approvingly at Lucy; and then, turning to Kitty Bonnair, he said: “You want to learn, then.”
But Kitty was not amenable to the suggestion.
“No!” she cried, stamping her foot. “I don’t! They’re such stealthy, treacherous creatures––and they never have any affection for people.”
“Ump-um!” denied Creede, shaking his head slowly. “You don’t know cats––jest think you do, maybe. W’y, Tommy was the only friend I had here for two years. D’ye think he could fool me all that time? Rufe here will tell you how he follows after me for miles––and cryin’, too––when the coyotes might git ’im anytime. And he sleeps with me every night,” he added, lowering his voice.
“Well, you can have him,” said Kitty lightly. “Do they have any real mountain lions here?”
“Huh?” inquired Creede, still big-eyed with his emotions. “Oh, yes; Bill Johnson over in Hell’s Hip Pocket makes a business of huntin’ ’em. Twenty dollars bounty, you know.”
“Oh, oh!” cried Kitty. “Will he take me with him? Tell me all about it!”
Jefferson Creede moved over toward the door with a far-away look in his eyes.
“That’s all,” he said indifferently. “He runs ’em with hounds. Well, I’ll have to bid you good-night.”
He ducked his head, and stepped majestically out the door; and Hardy, who was listening, could hear him softly calling to his cat.
“Oh, Rufus!” cried Kitty appealingly, as he rose to follow, “do stop and tell me about Bill Johnson, and, yes––Hell’s Hip Pocket!”
“Why, Kitty!” exclaimed Lucy Ware innocently, and while they were discussing the morals of geographical swearing Hardy made his bow, and passed out into the night.
The bitter-sweet of love was upon him again, making the stars more beautiful, the night more mysterious and dreamy; but as he crept into his blankets he sighed. In the adjoining cot he could hear Jeff stripping slivers from a length of jerked beef, and Tommy mewing for his share.
“Want some jerky, Rufe?” asked Creede, and then, commenting upon their late supper, he remarked:
“A picnic dinner is all right for canary birds, but it takes good hard grub to feed a man. I’m goin’ to start the rodér camp in the mornin’ and cook me up some beans.” He lay for a while in silence, industriously feeding himself on the dry meat, and gazing at the sky.
“Say, Rufe,” he said, at last, “ain’t you been holdin’ out on me a little?”
“Um-huh,” assented Hardy.
“Been gettin’ letters from Miss Lucy all the time, eh?”
“Sure.”
“Well,” remarked Creede, “you’re a hell of a feller! But I reckon I learned somethin’,” he added philosophically, “and when I want somebody to tell my troubles to, I’ll know where to go. Say, she’s all right, ain’t she?”
“Yeah.”
“Who’re you talkin’ about?”
“Who’re you?”
“Oh, you know, all right, all right––but, say!”
“Well?”
“It’s a pity she don’t like cats.”
The sun was well up over the cañon rim when the tired visitors awoke from their dreams. Kitty Bonnair was the first to open her eyes and peep forth upon the fairy world which promised so much of mystery and delight. The iron bars of their window, deep set in the adobe walls, suggested the dungeon of some strong prison where Spanish maidens languished for sight of their lovers; a rifle in the corner, overlooked in the hurried moving, spoke eloquently of the armed brutality of the times; the hewn logs which supported the lintels completed the picture of primitive life; and a soft breeze, breathing in through the unglazed sills, whispered of dark cañons and the wild, free out-of-doors.
As she lay there drinking it all in a murmur of voices came to her ears; and, peering out, she saw Creede and Rufus Hardy squatting by a fire out by the giant mesquite tree which stood near the bank of the creek. Creede was stirring the contents of a frying-pan with a huge iron spoon, and Rufus was cooking strips of meat on a stick which he turned above a 218 bed of coals. There was no sign of hurry or anxiety about their preparations; they seemed to be conversing amiably of other things. Presently Hardy picked up a hooked stick, lifted the cover from the Dutch oven, and dumped a pile of white biscuits upon a greasy cloth. Then, still deep in their talk, they filled their plates from the fry-pan, helped themselves to meat, wrapped the rest of the bread in the cloth, and sat comfortably back on their heels, eating with their fingers and knives.
It was all very simple and natural, but somehow she had never thought of men in that light before. They were so free, so untrammelled and self-sufficient; yes, and so barbarous, too. Rufus Hardy, the poet, she had known––quiet, soft-spoken, gentle, with dreamy eyes and a doglike eagerness to please––but, lo! here was another Rufus, still gentle, but with a stern look in his eyes which left her almost afraid––and those two lost years lay between. How he must have changed in all that time! The early morning was Kitty’s time for meditation and good resolutions, and she resolved then and there to be nice to Rufus, for he was a man and could not understand.
As the sound of voices came from the house Jefferson Creede rose up from his place and stalked across the open, rolling and swaying in his high-heeled boots like a huge, woolly bear.
“Well, Judge,” he said, after throwing a mountain of wood on the fire as a preliminary to cooking breakfast for his guests, “I suppose now you’re here you’d like to ride around a little and take stock of what you’ve got. The boys will begin comin’ in for the rodér to-day, and after to-morrow I’ll be pretty busy; but if you say so I’ll jest ketch up a gentle horse, and show you the upper range before the work begins.”
“Oh, won’t you take me, too?” cried Kitty, skipping in eagerly. “I’ve got the nicest saddle––and I bet I can ride any horse you’ve got.”
She assumed a cowboy-like strut as she made this assertion, shaking her head in a bronco gesture which dashed the dark hair from her eyes and made her look like an unbroken thoroughbred. Never in all his life, even in the magazine pictures of stage beauties which form a conspicuous mural decoration in those parts, had Creede seen a woman half so charming, but even in his love blindness he was modest.
“We’ll have to leave that to the judge,” he said deferentially, “but they’s horses for everybody.” He glanced inquiringly at Lucy, who was busily unpacking her sketching kit; but she only smiled, and shook her head.
“The home is going to be my sphere for some time,” she remarked, glancing about at the half-cleaned 220 room, “and then,” she added, with decision, “I’m going to make some of the loveliest water colors in the world. I think that big giant cactus standing on that red-and-gray cliff over there is simply wonderful.”
“Um, pretty good,” observed Creede judicially. “But you jest ought to see ’em in the gorge where Hidden Water comes out! Are ye goin’ along, Rufe?” he inquired, bending his eyes upon Hardy with a knowing twinkle. “No? Well, you can show her where it is! Didn’t you never hear why they call this Hidden Water?” he asked, gazing benignly upon the young ladies. “Well, listen.
“They’s a big spring of water right up here, not half a mile. It’s an old landmark––the Mexicans call it Agua Escondida––but I bet neither one of you can find it and I’ll take you right by the gulch where it comes out. They can’t nobody find it, unless they’re wise enough to follow cow tracks––and of course, we don’t expect that of strangers. But if you ever git lost and you’re within ten miles of home jest take the first cow trail you see and follow it downhill and you’ll go into one end or the other of Hidden Water cañon. Sure, it’s what you might call the Hello-Central of the whole Four Peaks country, with cow paths instead of wires. The only thing lackin’ is the girls, to talk back, and call you down for your 221 ungentlemanly language, and––well, this country is comin’ up every day!”
He grinned broadly, wiping his floury hands on his overalls in defiance of Miss Kitty’s most rudimentary principles; and yet even she, for all her hygiene, was compelled to laugh. There was something about Creede that invited confidence and feminine badgering, he was so like a big, good-natured boy. The entire meal was enlivened by her efforts, in the person of a hello girl, to expurgate his language, and she ended by trying to get him to swear––politely.
But in this the noble cowboy was inexorable. “No, ma’am,” he said, with an excess of moral conviction. “I never swear except for cause––and then I always regret it. But if you want to git some of the real thing to put in your phonygraft jest come down to the pasture to-morrow when the boys are breakin’ horses. Your hair’s kind of wavy, I notice, but it will put crimps in it to hear Bill Lightfoot or some of them Sunflower stiffs when they git bucked onto a rock pile. And say, if you call yourself a rider I can give you a snake for to-day.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Creede,” answered Miss Kitty, bowing low as she left the table. “Its tail, if it chanced to be a rattler, would be most acceptable, I am sure, and I might make a belt out of its skin. But 222 for riding purposes I prefer a real, gentle little horse. Now hurry up, and I’ll be dressed in half an hour.”
Ten minutes later Creede rode up to the house, leading a sober gray for the judge, but for Kitty Bonnair he had the prettiest little calico-horse in the bunch, a pony painted up with red and yellow and white until he looked like a three-color chromo. Even his eye was variegated, being of a mild, pet-rabbit blue, with a white circle around the orbit; and his name, of course, was Pinto. To be sure, his face was a little dished in and he showed other signs of his scrub Indian blood, but after Creede had cinched on the new stamped-leather saddle and adjusted the ornate hackamore and martingale, Pinto was the sportiest-looking horse outside of a Wild West show.
There was a long wait then, while Diana completed her preparations for the hunt; but when Kitty Bonnair, fully apparelled, finally stepped through the door Creede reeled in the saddle, and even Rufus Hardy gasped. There was nothing immodest about her garb––in fact, it was very correct and proper––but not since the Winship girls rode forth in overalls had Hidden Water seen its like. Looking very trim and boyish in her khaki riding breeches, Kitty strode forth unabashed, rejoicing in her freedom. A little scream of delight escaped her as she caught sight of the calico-pony; she patted his nose a moment, inquired 223 his name, and then, scorning all assistance, swung lightly up into the saddle. No prettier picture had ever been offered to the eye; so young, so supple and strong, with such a wealth of dark, wavy hair, and, withal, so modest and honestly happy. But, somehow, Jefferson Creede took the lead and rode with his eyes cast down, lest they should be dazzled by the vision. Besides, Jeff had been raised old-fashioned, and Golden Gate Park is a long, long ways, chronologically, from Hidden Water.
As the procession passed away up the cañon, with Creede in sober converse with the judge and Kitty scampering about like an Indian on her pinto horse, Hardy and Lucy Ware glanced at each other, and laughed.
“Did you ever see any one like her?” exclaimed Lucy, and Hardy admitted with a sigh that he never had.
“And I am afraid,” observed Miss Lucy frankly, “you were not altogether pleased to see her––at first. But really, Rufus, what can any one hope to do with Kitty? When she has set her heart on anything she will have it, and from the very moment she read your first letter she was determined to come down here. Of course father thinks he came down to look into this matter of the sheep, and I think that I came down to look after him, but in reality I have no doubt 224 we are both here because Kitty Bonnair so wills it.”
“Very likely,” replied Hardy, with a doubtful smile. “But since you are in her counsels perhaps you can tell what her intentions are toward me. I used to be one of her gentlemen-in-waiting, you know, and this visit looks rather ominous for me.”
“Well, just exactly what are you talking about, Rufus?”
“I guess you know, all right,” replied Hardy. “Have I got to ride a bucking bronco, or kill a sheep-herder or two––or is it just another case of ‘move on’?”
He paused and smiled bitterly to himself, but Lucy was not in a mood to humor him in his misanthropy.
“I must confess,” she said, “that you may be called upon to do a few chivalrous feats of horsemanship, but as for the sheep-herder part of it, I hope you will try to please me by leaving them alone. It worries me, Rufus,” she continued soberly, “to see you becoming so strong-willed and silent. There was a whole year, when none of us heard a word from you––and then it was quite by accident. And father thinks you stopped writing to him with the deliberate intention of driving the sheep away by violence.”
“Well, I’m glad he understands so well,” replied 225 Hardy naively. “Of course I wouldn’t embarrass him by asking for orders, but––”
“Oh, Rufus!” exclaimed Miss Lucy impatiently, “do try to be natural again and take your mind off those sheep. Do you know what I am thinking of doing?” she demanded seriously. “I am thinking of asking father to give me this ranch––he said he would if I wanted it––and then I’ll discharge you! You shall not be such a brutal, ugly man! But come, now, I want you to help clear the table, and then we will go up to Hidden Water and read your poems. But tell me, have you had any trouble with the sheepmen?”
“Why, no!” answered Hardy innocently. “What made you ask?”
“Well, you wrote father you expected trouble––and––and you had that big, long pistol when you came in yesterday. Now you can’t deny that!”
“I’m afraid you’ve had some Western ideas implanted in your bosom by Kitty, Miss Lucy,” protested Hardy. “We never shoot each other down here. I carry that pistol for the moral effect––and it’s necessary, too, to protect these sheepmen against their own baser natures. You see they’re all armed, and if I should ride into their camp without a gun and ask them to move they might be tempted to do something overt. But as it is now, when Jeff and I 226 begin to talk reason with them they understand. No, we’re all right; it’s the sheep-herders that have all the trouble.”
“Rufus Hardy,” cried Miss Lucy indignantly, “if you mention those sheep again until you are asked about them, I’ll have you attended to. Do you realize how far I have come to see your poems and hear you talk the way you used to talk? And then to hear you go on in this way! I thought at first that Mr. Creede was a nice man, but I am beginning to change my opinion of him. But you have just got to be nice to me and Kitty while we are here. I had so many things to tell you about your father, and Tupper Browne, and The Circle, but you just sit around so kind of close-mouthed and silent and never ask a question! Wouldn’t you like to know how your father is?” she asked.
“Why, yes,” responded Hardy meekly. “Have you seen him lately?”
“I saw him just before we came away. He is dreadfully lonely, I know, but he wouldn’t send any message. He never says anything when I tell him what you are doing, just sits and twists his mustache and listens; but I could tell by the way he said good-bye that he was glad I was coming. I am sorry you can’t agree––isn’t there something you could do to make him happier?”
Hardy looked up from his dish-washing with a slow smile.
“Which do you think is more important?” he asked, “for a man to please his father or his best friend?”
Lucy suspected a trap and she made no reply.
“Did you ever quote any of my poetry to father?” inquired Hardy casually. “No? Then please don’t. But I’ll bet if you told him I was catching wild horses, or talking reason to these Mexican herders, you’d have the old man coming. He’s a fighter, my father, and if you want to make him happy when you go back, tell him his son has just about given up literature and is the champion bronco-twister of the Four Peaks range.”
“But Rufus––would that be the truth?”
Hardy laughed. “Well, pretty near it––but I’m trying to please my best friend now.”
“Oh,” said Lucy, blushing. “Will––will that make much difference?” she asked.
“All the difference in the world,” declared Hardy warmly. “You want me to become a poet––he wants me to become a fighter. Well now, since I haven’t been able to please him, I’m going to try to please you for a while.”
“Oh, Rufus,” cried Lucy, “am I really––your best friend?”
“Why sure! Didn’t you know that?” He spoke the words with a bluff good-fellowship which pleased her, in a way, but at the same time left her silent. And he, too, realized that there was a false note, a rift such as often creeps in between friends and if not perceived and checked widens into a breach.
“You know,” he said, quietly making his amends, “when I was a boy my father always told me I talked too much; and after mother died I––well, I didn’t talk so much. I was intended for a soldier, you know, and good officers have to keep their own counsel. But––well, I guess the habit struck in––so if I don’t always thank you, or tell you things, you will understand, won’t you? I wasn’t raised to please folks, you know, but just to fight Indians, and all that. How would you like to be a soldier’s wife?”
“Not very well, I am afraid,” she said. “All the fear and anxiety, and––well, I’m afraid I couldn’t love my husband if he killed anybody.” She paused and glanced up at him, but he was deep in thought.
“My mother was a soldier’s wife,” he said, at last; and Lucy, seeing where his thoughts had strayed, respected his silence. It was something she had learned long before, for while Rufus would sometimes mention his mother he would never talk about her, even to Lucy Ware. So they finished their housework, deep in their own thoughts. But when at last they 229 stepped out into the sunshine Lucy touched him on the arm.
“Wouldn’t you like to bring your poems with you?” she suggested. “We can read them when we have found the spring. Is it very beautiful up there?”
“Yes,” answered Hardy, “I often go there to write, when nobody is around. You know Jeff and all these cowboys around here don’t know that I write verse. They just think I’m a little fellow from somewhere up in California that can ride horses pretty good. But if I had handed it out to them that I was a poet, or even a college man, they would have gone to tucking snakes into my blankets and dropping chili bravos into my beans until they got a rise out of me, sure. I learned that much before I ever came up here. But I’ve got a little place I call my garden––up in the cañon, above Hidden Water––and sometimes I sneak off up there, and write. Would you like to see a poem I wrote up there? All right, you can have the rest some other time.” He stepped into the storeroom, extracted a little bundle from his war bag, and then they passed on up the valley together.
The cañon of the Alamo is like most Arizona stream beds, a strait-jacket of rocky walls, opening out at intervals into pocket-like valleys, such as the broad and fertile flat which lay below Hidden Water. 230 On either side of the stream the banks rise in benches, each a little higher and broader and more heavily covered: the first pure sand, laid on by the last freshet; the next grown over with grass and weeds; the next bushed up with baby willows and arrow weed; and then, the high bench, studded with mesquite and palo verdes; and at the base of the solid rim perhaps a higher level, strewn with the rocks which time and the elements have hurled down from the cliff, and crested with ancient trees. Upon such a high bench stood the Dos S ranch house, with trails leading off up and down the flat or plunging down the bank, the striated cliff behind it and the water-torn valley below.
Up the cañon a deep-worn path led along the base of the bluff; and as the two best friends followed along its windings Hardy pointed out the mysteries of the land: strange trees and shrubs, bristling with thorns; cactus in its myriad forms; the birds which flashed past them or sang in the wild gladness of springtime; lizards, slipping about in the sands or pouring from cracks in the rocks––all the curious things which his eyes had seen and his mind taken note of in the long days of solitary riding, and which his poet’s soul now interpreted into a higher meaning for the woman who could understand. So intent were they upon the wonders of that great display that 231 Lucy hardly noticed where they were, until the trail swung abruptly in toward the cliff and they seemed to be entering a cleft in the solid rock.
“Where do we go now?” she asked, and Hardy laughed at her confusion.
“This is the gate to Hidden Water,” he said, lowering his voice to its old-time poetic cadence. “And strait is the way thereof,” he added, as he led her through the narrow pass, “but within are tall trees and running water, and the eagle nests undisturbed among the crags.”
“What are you quoting?” exclaimed Miss Lucy, and for an answer Rufus beckoned her in and pointed with his hand. Before them stood the tall trees with running water at their feet, and a great nest of sticks among the crags.
“Hidden Water!” he said, and smiled again mysteriously.
Then he led the way along the side of the stream, which slipped softly over the water-worn bowlders, dimpling in pool after pool, until at the very gate of the valley it sank into the sand and was lost. Higher and higher mounted the path; and then, at the foot of a smooth ledge which rose like a bulwark across the gorge, it ended suddenly by the side of a cattle-tracked pool.
“This is the wall to my garden,” said Hardy, pointing 232 to the huge granite dyke, “beyond which only the elect may pass.” He paused, and glanced over at her quizzically. “The path was not made for ladies, I am afraid,” he added, pointing to a series of foot holes which ran up the face of the ledge. “Do you think you can climb it?”
Lucy Ware studied his face for a moment; then, turning to the Indian stairway, she measured it with a practised eye.
“You go up first,” she suggested, and when he had scaled the slippery height and turned he found her close behind, following carefully in his steps.
“Well, you are a climber!” he cried admiringly. “Here, give me your hand.” And when he had helped her up he still held it––or perhaps she clung to his.
Before them lay a little glade, shut in by painted rocks, upon whose black sides were engraved many curious pictures, the mystic symbols of the Indians; and as they stood gazing at it an eagle with pointed wings wheeled slowly above them, gazing with clear eyes down into the sunlit vale. From her round nest in the crotch of a sycamore a great horned owl plunged out at their approach and glided noiselessly away; and in the stillness the zooning of bees among the rocks came to their ears like distant music. Beneath their feet the grass grew long and matted, 233 shot here and there with the blue and gold of flowers, like the rich meadows of the East; and clustering along the hillsides, great bunches of grama grass waved their plumes proudly, the last remnant of all that world of feed which had clothed the land like a garment before the days of the sheep. For here, at least, there came no nibbling wethers, nor starving cattle; and the mountain sheep which had browsed there in the old days were now hiding on the topmost crags of the Superstitions to escape the rifles of the destroyers. All the world without was laid waste and trampled by hurrying feet, but the garden of Hidden Water was still kept inviolate, a secret shrine consecrated to Nature and Nature’s God.
As she stood in the presence of all its beauty a mist came into Lucy’s eyes and she turned away.
“Oh, Rufus,” she cried, “why don’t you live up here always instead of wasting your life in that awful struggle with the sheep? You could––why, you could do anything up here!”
“Yes,” assented Hardy, “it is a beautiful spot––I often come up here when I am weary with it all––but a man must do a man’s work, you know; and my work is with the sheep. When I first came to Hidden Water I knew nothing of the sheep. I thought the little lambs were pretty; the ewes were mothers, the herders human beings. I tried to be friends with 234 them, to keep the peace and abide by the law; but now that I’ve come to know them I agree with Jeff, who has been fighting them for twenty years. There is something about the smell of sheep which robs men of their humanity; they become greedy and avaricious; the more they make the more they want. Of all the sheepmen that I know there isn’t one who would go around me out of friendship or pity––and I have done favors for them all. But they’re no friends of mine now,” he added ominously. “I have to respect my friends, and I can’t respect a man who is all hog. There’s no pretence on either side now, though––they’re trying to sheep us out and we are trying to fight them off, and if it ever comes to a show-down––well––”
He paused, and his eyes glowed with a strange light.
“You know I haven’t very much to live for, Miss Lucy,” he said earnestly, “but if I had all that God could give me I’d stand by Jeff against the sheep. It’s all right to be a poet or an artist, a lover of truth and beauty, and all that, but if a man won’t stand up for his friends when they’re in trouble he’s a kind of closet philosopher that shrinks from all the realities of life––a poor, puny creature, at the best.”
He stood up very straight as he poured out this torrent of words, gazing at her intently, but with his 235 eyes set, as if he beheld some vision. Yet whether it was of himself and Jeff, fighting their hopeless battle against the sheep, or of his life as it might have been if Kitty had been as gentle with him as this woman by his side, there was no telling. His old habit of reticence fell back upon him as suddenly as it had been cast aside, and he led the way up the little stream in silence. As he walked, the ardor of his passion cooled, and he began to point out things with his eloquent hands––the minnows, wheeling around in the middle of a glassy pool; a striped bullfrog, squatting within the spray of a waterfall; huge combs of honey, hanging from shelving caverns along the cliff where the wild bees had stored their plunder for years. At last, as they stood before a drooping elder whose creamy blossoms swayed beneath the weight of bees, he halted and motioned to a shady seat against the cañon wall.
“There are gardens in every desert,” he said, as she sank down upon the grassy bank, “but this is ours.”
They sat for a while, gazing contentedly at the clusters of elder blossoms which hung above them, filling the air with a rich fragrance which was spiced by the tang of sage. A ruby-throated humming-bird flashed suddenly past them and was gone; a red-shafted woodpecker, still more gorgeous in his scarlet plumage, descended in uneven flights from the 236 sahuaros that clung against the cliff and, fastening upon a hollow tree, set up a mysterious rapping.
“He is hunting for grubs,” explained Hardy. “Does that inspire you?”
“Why, no,” answered Lucy, puzzled.
“The Mexicans call him pajaro corazon––páh-hah-ro cor-ah-sóne,” continued the poet. “Does that appeal to your soul?”
“Why, no. What does it mean––woodpecker?”
Hardy smiled. “No,” he said, “a woodpecker with them is called carpintero––carpenter, you understand––because he hammers on trees; but my friend up on the stump yonder is Pajaro Corazon––bird of the heart. I have a poem dedicated to him.” Then, as if to excuse himself from the reading, he hastened on: “Of course, no true poet would commit such a breach––he would write a sonnet to his lady’s eyebrow, a poem in memory of a broken dream, or some sad lament for Love, which has died simultaneously with his own blasted hopes. But a sense of my own unimportance has saved me––or the world, at any rate––from such laments. Pajaro Corazon and Chupa Rosa, a little humming-bird who lives in that elder tree, have been my only friends and companions in the muse, until you came. I wouldn’t abuse Chupa Rosa’s confidence by reading my poem to her. Her lover has turned out a worthless fellow and left her––that 237 was him you saw flying past just now, going up the cañon to sport around with the other hummers––but here is my poem to Pajaro Corazon.”
He drew forth his bundle of papers and in a shamefaced way handed one of them to Lucy. It was a slip of yellow note paper, checked along the margin with groups of rhyming words and scansion marks, and in the middle this single verse.
|
“Pajaro Corazon! Bird of the Heart! |
Lucy folded the paper and gazed across at him rapturously.
“Oh, Rufus,” she cried, “why didn’t you send it to me?”
“Is it good?” asked Hardy, forgetting his pose; and when she nodded solemnly he said:
“There is another verse––look on the other side.”
Lucy turned the paper over quickly and read again:
As she followed the lines Hardy watched her face with eyes that grew strangely soft and gentle. It was Lucy Ware of all the world who understood him. Others laughed, or pitied, or overdid it, or remained unmoved, but Lucy with her trusting blue eyes and broad poet’s brow––a brow which always made him think of Mrs. Browning who was a poet indeed, she always read his heart, in her he could safely trust. And now, when those dear eyes filled up with tears he could have taken her hand, yes, he could have kissed her––if he had not been afraid.
“Rufus,” she said at last, “you are a poet.” And then she dried her eyes and smiled.
“Let me read some more,” she pleaded; but Hardy held the bundle resolutely away.
“No,” he said gently, “it is enough to have pleased you once. You know poetry is like music; it is an expression of thoughts which are more than thoughts. They come up out of the great sea of our inner soul like the breath of flowers from a hidden garden, like the sound of breakers from the ocean cliffs; but not every one can scent their fragrance, and some ears are too dull to hear music in the rush of waters. And 239 when one has caught the music of another’s song then it is best to stop before––before some discord comes. Lucy,” he began, as his soul within him rose up and clamored for it knew not what, “Lucy––”
He paused, and the woman hung upon his lips to catch the words.
“Yes?” she said, but the thought had suddenly left him. It was a great longing––that he knew––a great desire, unsensed because unknown––but deep, deep.
“Yes––Rufus?” she breathed, leaning over; but the light had gone out of his eyes and he gazed at her strangely.
“It is nothing,” he murmured, “nothing. I––I have forgotten what I was going to say.” He sighed, and looked moodily at his feet. “The thoughts of a would-be poet,” he mused, cynically. “How valuable they are––how the world must long for them––when he even forgets them himself! I guess I’d better keep still and let you talk a while,” he ended, absently. But Lucy Ware sat gazing before her in silence.
“Isn’t it time we returned?” she asked, after a while. “You know I have a great deal to do.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Hardy, easily, “I’ll help you. What do you want to do––clean house?”
Lucy could have cried at her hero’s sudden lapse––from Parnassus to the scullery, from love to the commonplaces 240 of living; but she had schooled herself to bear with him, since patience is a woman’s part. Yet her honest blue eyes were not adapted to concealment and, furtively taking note of her distress, Hardy fell into the role of a penitent.
“Is my garden such a poor place,” he inquired gravely, “that you must leave it the moment we have come? You have not even seen Chupa Rosa.”
“Well, show me Chupa Rosa––and then we will go.”
She spoke the words reluctantly, rising slowly to her feet; and Hardy knew that in some hidden way he had hurt her, yet in what regard he could not tell. A vague uneasiness came over him and he tried awkwardly to make amends for his fault, but good intentions never yet crossed a river or healed a breach.
“Here is her nest,” he said, “almost above our seat. Look, Lucy, it is made out of willow down and spider webs, bound round and round the twig. Don’t you want to see the eggs? Look!” He bent the limb until the dainty white treasures, half buried in the fluffy down, were revealed––but still she did not smile.
“Oh, stop, Rufus!” she cried, “what will the mother-bird think? She might be frightened at us and leave her nest. Come, let’s hurry away before she sees us!”
She turned and walked quickly down the valley, 241 never pausing to look back, even when Rufus stopped to pluck a flower from among the rocks.
“Here,” he said, after he had helped her down the Indian stairway; and when she held up her hand, passively, he dropped a forget-me-not into it.
“Oh!” she cried, carried away for a moment, “do they grow down here?”
“Yes,” he said, soberly, “even here. And they––sometimes you find them where you wouldn’t expect––in rough places, you know, and among the stones. I––I hope you will keep it,” he said, simply. And Lucy divined what was in his heart, better perhaps than he himself; but when at last she was alone she buried her face in the pillow, and for a long time the house was very still.