There was a big fire out under the mesquite that night and a band of cowboys, in all the bravery of spurs, shaps, and pistols, romped around it in a stage-struck exuberance of spirits. The night was hardly cold enough to call for fringed leather chaparejos, and their guns should have been left in their blankets; nor are long-shanked Texas spurs quite the proper thing about camp, having a dirty way of catching and tripping their wearers; but the rodéo outfit felt that it was on dress parade and was trying its best to look the cowboy part. Bill Lightfoot even had a red silk handkerchief draped about his neck, with the slack in front, like a German napkin; and his cartridge belt was slung so low that it threatened every moment to drop his huge Colt’s revolver into the dirt––but who could say a word?
The news of Judge Ware’s visit had passed through the Four Peaks country like the rumor of an Indian uprising and every man rode into Hidden Water with an eye out for calico, some with a foolish grin, some downcast and reserved, some swaggering 243 in the natural pride of the lady’s man. But a becoming modesty had kept Lucy Ware indoors, and Kitty had limited herself to a furtive survey of the scene from behind what was left of Sallie Winship’s lace curtains. With the subtle wisdom of a rodéo boss Jefferson Creede had excused himself to the ladies at the first sound of jangling horse-bells, and now he kept resolutely away from the house, busying himself with the manifold duties of his position. To the leading questions of Bill Lightfoot and the “fly bunch” which followed his lead he turned a deaf ear or replied in unsatisfying monosyllables; and at last, as the fire lit up the trees and flickered upon their guns and silver-mounted trappings and no fair maids sallied forth to admire them, the overwrought emotions of the cowboys sought expression in song.
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“Oh my little girl she lives in the town,” |
chanted Lightfoot, and the fly bunch, catching the contagion, joined promptly in on the refrain:
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“A toodle link, a toodle link, a too––oo-dle a day!” |
At this sudden and suggestive outbreak Jeff Creede surveyed Bill Lightfoot coldly and puffed on his cigarette. Bill was always trying to make trouble.
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“And every time I see ’er, she asts me f’r a gown,” |
carolled the leading cowboy; and the bunch, not to seem faint-hearted, chimed in again:
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“Reladin to reladin, and reladin to relate!” |
Now they were verging toward the sensational part of the ballad, the place where a real gentleman would quit, but Lightfoot only tossed his head defiantly.
“O-Oh––” he began, and then he stopped with his mouth open. The rodéo boss had suddenly risen to an upright position and fixed him with his eye.
“I like to see you boys enjoyin’ yourselves,” he observed, quietly, “but please don’t discuss politics or religion while them ladies is over at the house. You better switch off onto ‘My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean,’ Bill.” And Bill switched.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded aggrieved, “ain’t anybody but you got any rights and privileges around here? You go sportin’ around and havin’ a good time all day, but as soon as one of us punchers opens his mouth you want to jump down his throat. What do we know about ladies––I ain’t seen none!”
The discussion of the moral code which followed was becoming acrimonious and personal to a degree when a peal of girlish laughter echoed from the ranch house and the cowboys beheld Judge Ware 245 and Hardy, accompanied by Miss Lucy and Kitty Bonnair, coming towards their fire. A less tactful man might have taken advantage of the hush to utter a final word of warning to his rebellious subjects, but Creede knew Kitty Bonnair and the human heart too well. As the party came into camp he rose quietly and introduced the judge and the ladies to every man present, without deviation and without exception, and then, having offered Miss Ware his cracker box, he moved over a man or two and sat down.
In the bulk of his mighty frame, the rugged power of his countenance, and the unconscious authority of his words he was easily master of them all; but though he had the voice of Mars and a head like Olympian Zeus he must needs abase his proud spirit to the demands of the occasion, for the jealousy of mortal man is a proverb. Where the punchers that he hired for thirty dollars a month were decked out in shaps and handkerchiefs he sat in his shirt-sleeves and overalls, with only his high-heeled boots and the enormous black sombrero which he always wore, to mark him for their king. And the first merry question which Miss Kitty asked he allowed to pass unnoticed, until Bill Lightfoot––to save the credit of the bunch––answered it himself.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied politely. “That was a genuwine cowboy song we was singin’––we sing ’em to keep the cattle awake at night.”
“Oh, how interesting!” exclaimed Kitty, leaning forward in her eagerness. “But why do you try to keep them awake? I should think they would be so tired, after travelling all day.”
“Yes, ma’am,” responded Bill, twisting his silk handkerchief nervously, “but if they go to sleep and anything wakes ’em up quick they stompede––so we ride through ’em and sing songs.”
“Just think of that, Lucy!” cried Miss Kitty enthusiastically. “And it was such a pretty tune, too! Won’t you sing it again, Mr. Lightfoot? I’d just love to hear it!”
Here was a facer for Mr. Lightfoot, and Jefferson Creede, to whom all eyes were turned in the crisis, smiled maliciously and let him sweat.
“Bill ain’t in very good voice to-night,” he observed at last, as the suspense became unbearable, “and we’re kinder bashful about singin’ to company, anyway. But if you want to hear somethin’ good, you want to git Bill goin’ about Coloraydo. Sure, Mr. Lightfoot is our best story-teller; and he’s had some mighty excitin’ times up there in them parts, hain’t you, Bill?”
Bill cast a baleful glance at his rival and thrust 247 out his chin insolently. His Coloraydo experiences were a matter of jest with Jeff Creede, but with the ladies it might be different. His courage rose before the flattering solicitude of Kitty Bonnair and he resolved then and there to fool Mr. Creede or know the reason why.
“Well,” he replied, stoutly, “they may look kinder tame alongside of your Arizona lies, but––”
“Oh, Mr. Lightfoot, do tell me all about it!” broke in Kitty, with an alluring smile. “Colorado is an awfully wild country, isn’t it? And did you ever have any adventures with bears?”
“Bears!” exclaimed Bill contemptuously. “Bears! Huh, we don’t take no more account of ordinary bears up in Coloraydo than they do of coons down here. But them big silver-tips––ump-um––excuse me!” He paused and swaggered a little on the precarious support of his cracker box. “And yet, Miss Bunnair,” he said, lowering his voice to a confidential key, “I slept a whole night with one of them big fellers and never turned a hair. I could’ve killed him the next day, too, but I was so grateful to him I spared his life.”
This was the regular “come-on” for Lightfoot’s snow-storm story, and Creede showed his white teeth scornfully as Bill leaned back and began the yarn.
“You see, Miss Bunnair,” began the Colorado cowboy, 248 rolling his eyes about the circle to quell any tendency to give him away, “Coloraydo is an altogether different country from this here. The mountains is mighty steep and brushy, with snow on the peaks, and the cactus ain’t more ’n a inch high out on the perairie. But they’s plenty of feed and water––you betcher life I wisht I was back there now instead of fightin’ sheep down here! The only thing aginst that country up there is the blizzards. Them storms is very destructive to life. Yes, ma’am. They’s never any notice given but suddenly the wind will begin to blow and the cattle will begin to drift, and then about the time your horse is give out and your ears frozen it’ll begin to snow!
“Well, this time I’m tellin’ about I was up on the Canadian River west of the Medicine Bow Mountains and she came on to snow––and snow, I thought it would bury me alive! I was lost in a big park––a kind of plain or perairie among the mountains. Yes’m, they have’m there––big level places––and it was thirty miles across this here level perairie. The wind was blowin’ something awful and the snow just piled up on my hat like somebody was shovellin’ it off a roof, but I kept strugglin’ on and tryin’ to git to the other side, or maybe find some sheltered place, until it was like walkin’ in your sleep. And that light fluffy snow jest closed in over me until I was 249 covered up ten feet deep. Of course my horse had give out long ago, and I was jest beginnin’ to despair when I come across one of them big piles of rocks they have up there, scattered around promiscus-like on the face of nature; and I begin crawlin’ in and crawlin’ in, hopin’ to find some cave or somethin’, and jest as I was despairin’ my feet fell into a kind of trail, kinder smooth and worn, but old, you know, and stomped hard under the snow. Well, I follers along this path with my feet until it come to a hole in the rocks; and when I come to that hole I went right in, fer I was desprit; and I crawled in and crawled in until I come to a big nest of leaves, and then I begin to burrow down into them leaves. And as soon as I had made a hole I pulled them leaves over me and fell to sleep, I was that exhausted.
“But after a while I had some awful bad dreams, and when I woke up I felt somethin’ kickin’ under me. Yes ’m, that’s right; I felt somethin’ kinder movin’ around and squirmin’, and when I begin to investergate I found I was layin’ down right square on top of a tremenjous big grizzly bear! Well, you fellers can laugh, but I was, all the same. What do you know about it, you woolies, punchin’ cows down here in the rocks and cactus?
“How’s that, Miss Bunnair? W’y sure, he was hibernatin’! They all hibernate up in them cold 250 countries. Well, the funny part of this was that Old Brin had gone to sleep suckin’ his off fore foot, jest like a little baby, and when I had piled in on top of him I had knocked his paw out of his mouth and he was tryin’ to git it back. But he was all quilled up with himself under them leaves, and his claws was so long he couldn’t git that foot back into his mouth nohow. He snooped and grabbed and fumbled, and every minute he was gittin’ madder and madder, a-suckin’ and slobberin’ like a calf tryin’ to draw milk out of the hired man’s thumb, and a-gruntin’ and groanin’ somethin’ awful.
“Well, I see my finish in about a minute if he ever got good an’ woke up, so I resolved to do somethin’ desprit. I jest naturally grabbed onto that foot and twisted it around and stuck it into his mouth myself! Afraid? Ump-um, not me––the only thing I was afraid of was that he’d git my hand and go to suckin’ it by mistake. But when I steered his paw around in front of him he jest grabbed onto that big black pad on the bottom of his foot like it was m’lasses candy, and went off to sleep again as peaceful as a kitten.”
The man from Coloraydo ended his tale abruptly, with an air of suspense, and Kitty Bonnair took the cue.
“What did I do then?” demanded Lightfoot, with 251 a reminiscent smile. “Well, it was a ground-hog case with me––if I moved I’d freeze to death and if I knocked his paw out’n his mouth again he’d mash my face in with it––so I jest snuggled down against him, tucked my head under his chin, and went to sleep, holdin’ that paw in his mouth with both hands.”
“Oh, Mr. Lightfoot,” exclaimed Kitty, “how could you? Why, that’s the most remarkable experience I ever heard of! Lucy, I’m going to put that story in my book when I get home, and––but what are you laughing at, Mr. Creede?”
“Who? Me?” inquired Jeff, who had been rocking about as if helpless with laughter. “W’y, I ain’t laughin’!”
“Yes, you are too!” accused Miss Kitty. “And I want you to tell me what it is. Don’t you think Mr. Lightfoot’s story is true?”
“True?” echoed Creede, soberly. “W’y, sure it’s true. I ain’t never been up in those parts; but if Bill says so, that settles it. I never knew a feller from Coloraydo yet that could tell a lie. No, I was jest laughin’ to think of that old bear suckin’ his paw that way.”
He added this last with such an air of subterfuge and evasion that Kitty was not deceived for a moment.
“No, you’re not, Mr. Creede,” she cried, “you’re just making fun of me––so there!”
She stamped her foot and pouted prettily, and the big cowboy’s face took on a look of great concern.
“Oh, no, ma’am,” he protested, “but since it’s gone so far I reckon I’ll have to come through now in order to square myself. Of course I never had no real adventures, you know,––nothin’ that you would care to write down or put in a book, like Bill’s,––but jest hearin’ him tell that story of gittin’ snowed in reminded me of a little experience I had up north here in Coconino County. You know Arizona ain’t all sand and cactus––not by no means. Them San Francisco Mountains up above Flag are sure snow-crested and covered with tall timber and it gits so cold up there in the winter-time that it breaks rocks. No, that’s straight! Them prospectors up there when they run short of powder jest drill a line of holes in a rock and when one of them awful cold snaps comes on they run out and fill the holes up with hot water out of the tea-kittle. Well, sir, when that water freezes, which it does in about a minute, it jest naturally busts them rocks wide open––but that ain’t what I started to tell you about.”
He paused and contemplated his hearers with impressive dignity.
“Cold ain’t nothin’,” he continued gravely, “after 253 you git used to it; but once in a while, ladies, she snows up there. And when I say ‘snows’ I don’t refer to such phenominer as Bill was tellin’ about up in Coloraydo, but the real genuwine Arizona article––the kind that gits started and can’t stop, no more ’n a cloudburst. Well, one time I was knockin’ around up there in Coconino when I ought to’ve been at home, and I come to a big plain or perairie that was seventy miles across, and I got lost on that big plain, right in the dead of winter. They was an awful cold wind blowin’ at the time, but I could see the mountains on the other side and so I struck out for ’em. But jest as I got in the middle of that great plain or perairie, she come on to snow. At first she come straight down, kinder soft and fluffy; then she began to beat in from the sides, and the flakes began to git bigger and bigger, until I felt like the Chinaman that walked down Main Street when they had that snow-storm in Tucson. Yes, sir, it was jest like havin’ every old whiskey bum in town soakin’ you with snow-balls––and all the kids thrown in.
“My horse he began to puff and blow and the snow began to bank up higher and higher in front of us and on top of us until, bymeby, he couldn’t stand no more, and he jest laid down and died. Well, of course that put me afoot and I was almost despairin’. The snow was stacked up on top of me about ten feet 254 deep and I was desprit, but I kept surgin’ right ahead, punchin’ a hole through that fluffy stuff, until she was twenty foot deep. But I wasn’t afraid none––ump-um, not me––I jest kept a-crawlin’ and a-crawlin’, hopin’ to find some rocks or shelter, until she stacked up on top of me thirty foot deep. Thirty foot––and slumped down on top o’ me until I felt like a horny-toad under a haystack. Well, I was gittin’ powerful weak and puny, but jest as I was despairin’ I come across a big rock, right out there in the middle of that great plain or perairie. I tried to crawl around that old rock but the snow was pushin’ down so heavy on top o’ me I couldn’t do nothin’, and so when she was fif-ty-two foot deep by actual measurement I jest give out an’ laid down to die.”
He paused and fixed a speculative eye on Bill Lightfoot.
“I reckon that would be considered pretty deep up in Coloraydo,” he suggested, and then he began to roll a cigarette. Sitting in rigid postures before the fire the punchers surveyed his face with slow and suspicious glances; and for once Kitty Bonnair was silent, watching his deliberate motions with a troubled frown. Balanced rakishly upon his cracker box Bill Lightfoot regarded his rival with a sneering smile, a retort trembling on his lips, but Creede only leaned 255 forward and picked a smoking brand from the fire––he was waiting for the “come-on.”
Now to ask the expected question at the end of such a story was to take a big chance. Having been bitten a time or two all around, the rodéo hands were wary of Jeff Creede and his barbed jests; the visitors, being ignorant, were still gaping expectantly; it was up to Bill Lightfoot to spring the mine. For a moment he hesitated, and then his red-hot impetuosity, which had often got him into trouble before, carried him away.
“W’y, sure it would be deep for Coloraydo,” he answered, guardedly.
Jefferson Creede glanced up at him, smoking luxuriously, holding the cigarette to his lips with his hand as if concealing a smile.
“Aw, rats,” snapped out Lightfoot at last, “why don’t you finish up and quit? What happened then?”
“Then?” drawled Creede, with a slow smile. “W’y, nothin’, Bill––I died!”
“Ah-hah-hah!” yelled the punchers, throwing up handfuls of dirt in the extravagance of their delight, and before Bill could realize the enormity of the sell one of his own partisans rose up and kicked the cracker box out from under him in token of utter defeat. For an hour after their precipitate retreat 256 the visitors could hear the whoops and gibes of the cowboys, the loud-mouthed and indignant retorts of Lightfoot, and the soothing remonstrances of Jefferson Creede––and from the house Kitty the irrepressible, added to their merriment a shriek of silvery laughter. But after it was all over and he had won, the round-up boss swore soberly at himself and sighed, for he discerned on the morrow’s horizon the Indian signs of trouble.
To the Eastern eye, blinded by local color, the Four Peaks country looked like a large and pleasantly variegated cactus garden, sparsely populated with rollicking, fun-loving cowboys who wore their interesting six-shooters solely to keep their balance in the saddle. The new grass stood untrampled beneath the bushes on Bronco Mesa, there were buds and flowers everywhere, and the wind was as sweet and untainted as if it drew out of Eden. But somewhere, somewhere in that great wilderness of peaks which lay to the south and through which only the dogged sheepmen could fight their way, stealthily hidden, yet watching, lay Jasper Swope and his sheep. And not only Jasper with his pet man-killing Chihuahuano and all those low-browed compadres whom he called by circumlocution “brothers,” but Jim, sore with his defeat, and many others––and every man armed.
After the first rain they had disappeared from the desert absolutely, their tracks pointing toward the east. The drought had hit them hard, and the cold of Winter; yet the ewes had lambed in the springtime, 258 and as if by magic the tender grass shot up to feed their little ones. Surely, God was good to the sheep. They were ranging far, now that the shearing was over, but though they fed to the topmost peaks of the Superstitions, driving the crooked-horned mountain sheep from their pastures, their destiny lay to the north, in the cool valleys of the Sierra Blancas; and there in the end they would go, though they left havoc in their wake. Once before the sheep had vanished in this same way, mysteriously; and at last, travelling circuitous ways and dealing misery to many Tonto cowmen, they had poured over the very summit of the Four Peaks and down upon Bronco Mesa. And now, though they were hidden, every man on the round-up felt their presence and knew that the upper range was in jeopardy.
After amusing the ladies with inconsequential tales, the rodéo outfit therefore rose up and was gone before the light, raking the exposed lowland for its toll of half-fed steers; and even Rufus Hardy, the parlor-broke friend and lover, slipped away before any of them were stirring and rode far up along the river. What a river it was now, this unbridled Salagua which had been their moat and rampart for so many years! Its waters flowed thin and impotent over the rapids, lying in clear pools against the base of the black cliffs, and the current that had uprooted trees like feathers 259 was turned aside by a snag. Where before the sheep had hung upon its flank hoping at last to swim at Hidden Water, the old ewes now strayed along its sandy bed, browsing upon the willows. From the towering black buttes that walled in Hell’s Hip Pocket to the Rio Verde it was passable for a spring lamb, and though the thin grass stood up fresh and green on the mesas the river showed nothing but drought. Drought and the sheep, those were the twin evils of the Four Peaks country; they lowered the price of cattle and set men to riding the range restlessly. For the drought is a visitation of God, to be accepted and endured, but sheep may be turned back.
As he rode rapidly along the river trail, halting on each ridge to search the landscape for sheep, Hardy’s conscience smote him for the single day he had spent in camp, dallying within sight of Kitty or talking with Lucy Ware. One such day, if the sheepmen were prepared, and Bronco Mesa would be a desert. Threats, violence, strategy, would be of no avail, once the evil was done; the sheep must be turned back at the river or they would swarm in upon the whole upper range. One man could turn them there, for it was the dead line; but once across they would scatter like quail before a hawk, crouching and hiding in the gulches, refusing to move, yet creeping with brutish stubbornness toward the north and leaving a clean 260 swath behind. There were four passes that cut their way down from the southern mountains to the banks of the river, old trails of Apaches and wild game, and to quiet his mind Hardy looked for tracks at every crossing before he turned Chapuli’s head toward camp.
The smoke was drifting from the chimney when, late in the afternoon, he rode past the door and saw Lucy Ware inside, struggling with an iron kettle before the fireplace. Poor Lucy, she had undertaken a hard problem, for there is as much difference between camp cooking and home cooking as there is between a Dutch oven and a steel range, and a cooking-school graduate has to forget a whole lot before she can catch the knack of the open fire. For the second time that day Rufus Hardy’s conscience, so lately exercised over his neglect of the sheep, rose up and rebuked him. Throwing Chapuli into the corral he kicked off his spurs and shaps and gave Lucy her first lesson in frontier cookery; taught her by the force of his example how to waste her wood and save her back; and at the end of the short demonstration he sat down without ceremony, and fell to eating.
“Excuse me,” he said, “if I seem to be greedy, but I had my breakfast before sun-up. Where’s your father, and Kitty?”
“Oh, they had the Mexican boy catch their horses for them and have ridden up the valley to watch for the cattle. I stayed behind to make my first water color, and then––I thought you would be coming back soon, so I tried to cook supper instead. I’m a pretty good housekeeper––at home,” she said apologetically.
Hardy watched her as she experimented painstakingly with the fire, scooping out shovelfuls of coal from beneath the glowing logs and planting her pots and kettles upon them with a hooked stick, according to instructions.
“You look like a picture of one of our sainted Puritan ancestors,” he observed, at last, “and that’s just exactly the way they cooked, too––over an open fire. How does it feel to be Priscilla?”
“Well, if Priscilla’s hands looked like mine,” exclaimed Lucy despairingly, “John Alden must have been madly in love with her. How do you keep yours clean?”
“That’s a secret,” replied Hardy, “but I’ll tell you. I never touch the outside of a pot––and I scour them with sandsoap. But I wish you’d stop cooking, Lucy; it makes me feel conscience-stricken. You are my guests, remember, even if I do go off and neglect you for a whole day; and when you go back to Berkeley I want you to have something more interesting 262 than housekeeping to talk about. Didn’t I see two ladies’ saddles out in the wagon?”
Miss Lucy’s eyes lighted up with pleasure as, anticipating his drift, she nodded her head.
“Well then,” said Hardy, with finality, “if you’ll get up early in the morning, I’ll catch you a little pony that I gentled myself, and we can ride up the river together. How does that strike you?”
“Fine!” exclaimed Lucy, with sudden enthusiasm.
“Oh, Rufus,” she cried impulsively, “if you only knew how weak and helpless a thing it is to be a woman––and how glad we are to be noticed! Why, I was just thinking before you came in that about the only really helpful thing a woman could do in this world was just to stay around home and cook the meals.”
“Well, you just let me cook those meals for a while,” said Rufus, with brotherly authority, “and come out and be a man for a change. Can you ride pretty well?”
Lucy glanced at him questioningly, and thought she read what was in his mind.
“Yes,” she said, “I can ride, but––but I just couldn’t bring myself to dress like Kitty!” she burst out. “I know it’s foolish, but I can’t bear to have people notice me so. But I’ll be a man in everything else, if you’ll only give me a chance.” She stood 263 before him, radiant, eager, her eyes sparkling like a child’s, and suddenly Hardy realized how much she lost by being always with Kitty. Seen by herself she was as lithe and graceful as a fairy, with a steady gaze very rare in women, and eyes which changed like the shadows in a pool, answering every mood in wind and sky, yet always with their own true light. Her cheeks glowed with the fresh color which her father’s still retained, and she had inherited his generous nature, too; but in mind and stature she took after her dainty mother, whose exquisite grace and beauty had made her one of the elect. Perhaps it was this quality of the petite in her which appealed to him––for a little man cannot endure to be laughed at for his size, even in secret––or perhaps it was only the intuitive response to a something which in his prepossession he only vaguely sensed, but Rufus Hardy felt his heart go out to her in a moment and his voice sank once more to the caressing fulness which she most loved to hear.
“Ah, Lucy,” he said, “you need never try to be a man in order to ride with me. It would be hard luck if a woman like you had to ask twice for anything. Will you go out with me every day? No? Then I shall ask you every day, and you shall go whenever you please! But you know how it is. The sheepmen are hiding along the river waiting for a chance to 264 sneak across, and if I should stay in camp for a single day they might make a break––and then we would have a war. Your father doesn’t understand that, but I do; and I know that Jeff will never submit to being sheeped out without a fight. Can’t you see how it is? I should like to stay here and entertain you, and yet I must protect your father’s cattle, and I must protect Jeff. But if you will ride out with me when it is not too hot, I––it––well, you’ll go to-morrow, won’t you?”
He rose and took her hand impulsively, and then as quickly dropped it and turned away. The muffled chuck, chuck, of a horse’s feet stepping past the door smote upon his ear, and a moment later a clear voice hailed them.
“What are you children chattering about in there?” cried Kitty Bonnair, and Hardy, after a guilty silence, replied:
“The ways of the weary world. Won’t you come in and have the last word?”
He stepped out and held Pinto by the head, and Kitty dropped off and sank wearily into a rawhide chair.
“Oh, I’m too tired to talk, riding around trying to find those cattle––and just as I was tired out we saw them coming, away out on The Rolls. Lucy, do 265 put on your riding habit and go back on Pinto––you haven’t been out of the house to-day!”
As half an hour later Lucy Ware trotted obediently away, riding up the cañon toward the distant bawling of cattle, Kitty turned suddenly upon Hardy with half-closed, accusing eyes.
“You seem to be very happy with Lucy,” she said, with an aggrieved smile. “But why,” she continued, with quickening animus, “why should you seek to avoid me? Isn’t it enough that I should come clear down here to see you? But when I want to have a word with you after our long silence I have to scheme and manage like a gypsy!”
She paused, and flicked her booted leg with the lash of a horsehair quirt, glancing at him furtively with eyes that drooped with an appealing sadness.
“If I had known how hard-hearted you could be,” she said, after a silence, “I should never have spoken as I did, if the words choked me. But now that I have come part way and offered my poor friendship again, you might––oh Rufus, how could you be so inconsiderate! No one can ever know what I suffered when you left that way. Every one knew we were the best of friends, and several people even knew that you had been to see me. And then, without a word, without a sign, with no explanation, to 266 leave and be gone for years––think what they must have thought! Oh, it was too humiliating!”
She paused again, and to Hardy’s apprehensive eyes she seemed on the verge of tears. So he spoke, blindly and without consideration, filled with a man’s anxiety to stave off this final catastrophe.
“I’m sorry,” he began, though he had never meant to say it, “but––but there was nothing else to do! You––you told me to go. You said you never wanted to see me again, and––you were not very kind to me, then.” He paused, and at the memory of those last words of hers, uttered long ago, the flush of shame mantled his cheeks.
“Every man has his limit,” he said bluntly, “and I am no dog, to be scolded and punished and sent away. I have been ashamed many times for what I did, but I had to keep my own respect––and so I left. Is it too much for a man to go away when he is told?”
Kitty Bonnair fixed him with her dark eyes and shook her head sadly.
“Ah, Rufus,” she sighed, “when will you ever learn that a woman does not always mean all she says? When you had made me so happy by your tender consideration––for you could be considerate when you chose––I said that I loved you; and I did, but not in the way you thought. I did mean it 267 at the moment, from my heart, but not for life––it was no surrender, no promise––I just loved you for being so good and kind. But when, taking advantage of what I said in a moment of weakness, you tried to claim that which I had never given, I––I said more than I meant again. Don’t you understand? I was hurt, and disappointed, and I spoke without thinking, but you must not hold that against me forever! And after I have come clear down here––to avoid me––to always go out with Lucy and leave me alone––to force me to arrange a meeting––”
She stopped, and Hardy shifted uneasily in his seat. In his heart of hearts he had realized from the first his inequality in this losing battle. He was like a man who goes into a contest conquered already by his ineptitude at arms––and Kitty would have her way! Never but once had he defied her power, and that had been more a flight than a victory. There was fighting blood in his veins, but it turned to water before her. He despised himself for it; but all the while, in a shifting, browbeaten way, he was seeking for an excuse to capitulate.
“But, Kitty,” he pleaded, “be reasonable. I have my duties down here––the sheep are trying to come in on us––I have to patrol the river. This morning before you were awake I was in the saddle, and 268 now I have just returned. To-morrow I shall be off again, so how can I arrange a meeting?”
He held out his hands to her appealingly, carried away by the force of his own logic.
“You might at least invite me to go with you,” she said. “Unless you expect me to spend all my time getting lost with Judge Ware,” she added, with a plaintive break in her voice.
“Why, yes––yes,” began Hardy haltingly. “I––I have asked Lucy to go with me to-morrow, but––”
“Oh, thank you––thank you!” burst out Kitty mockingly. “But what?”
“Why, I thought you might like to come along too,” suggested Hardy awkwardly.
“What? And rob her of all her pleasure?” Kitty smiled bitterly as she turned upon him. “Why, Rufus Hardy,” she exclaimed, indignantly, “and she just dotes on every word you say! Yes, she does––any one can see that she simply adores you. I declare, Rufus, your lack of perception would make an angel weep––especially if it was a lady angel. But you may as well understand once and for all that I will never deprive dear, patient, long-suffering Lucy of anything she sets her heart on. No, I will not go with you the next day. If you haven’t consideration enough to invite me first, I have sense 269 enough to stay away. It was only yesterday that you took Lucy up to Hidden Water, and to-day I find you with her again; and to-morrow––well, I perceive that I must amuse myself down here. But––oh, look, look! There’s a cowboy––up on that high cliff!”
She started up, pointing at a horseman who was spurring furiously along the side of the cañon after a runaway steer.
“Oh, look!” she cried again, as Hardy surveyed him indifferently. “He is whirling his lasso. Oh! He has thrown it over that big cow’s horns! Goodness me, where is my horse? No, I am going on foot, then! Oh, Lucy––Lucy dear,” she screamed, waving her hand wildly, “do let me have Pinto, just for a moment! All right––and Lucy––wasn’t that Mr. Creede?” She lingered on the ground long enough to give her an ecstatic kiss and then swung up into the saddle. “Yes, I knew it––and isn’t he just perfectly grand on that big horse? Oh, I’ve been wanting to see this all my life––and I owe it all to you!”
With a smile and a gay salutation, she leaned forward and galloped out into the riot and confusion of the rodéo, skirting the edge of the bellowing herd until she disappeared in the dust. And somehow, even by the childlike obliviousness with which she 270 scampered away, she managed to convey a pang to her errant lover which clutched at his heart for days.
And what days those were for Jefferson Creede! Deep and devious as was his knowledge of men in the rough, the ways of a woman in love were as cryptic to him as the poems of Browning. The first day that Miss Kitty rode forth to be a cowboy it was the rodéo boss, indulgent, but aware of the tenderfoot’s ability to make trouble, who soberly assigned his fair disciple to guard a pass over which no cow could possibly come. And Kitty, sensing the deceit, had as soberly amused herself by gathering flowers among the rocks. But the next day, having learned her first lesson, she struck for a job to ride, and it was the giddy-headed lover who permitted her to accompany him––although not from any obvious or selfish motives.
Miss Bonnair was the guest of the ranch, her life and welfare being placed for the time in the keeping of the boss. What kind of a foreman would it be who would turn her over to a hireling or intrust her innocent mind to a depraved individual like Bill Lightfoot? And all the decent cowmen were scared of her, so who was naturally indicated and elected but Jefferson D. Creede?
There wasn’t any branding at the round corral that night. The gather was a fizzle, for some reason, 271 though Miss Kitty rode Pinto to a finish and killed a rattlesnake with Creede’s own gun. Well, they never did catch many cattle the first few days,––after they had picked up the tame bunch that hung around the water,––and the dry weather seemed to have driven the cows in from The Rolls. But when they came in the second afternoon, with only a half of their gather, Creede rode out from the hold-up herd to meet them, looking pretty black.
It is the duty of a rodéo boss to know what is going on, if he has to ride a horse to death to find out; and the next day, after sending every man down his ridge, Jeff left Kitty Bonnair talking lion hunt with old Bill Johnson who had ridden clear over from Hell’s Hip Pocket to gaze upon this horse-riding Diana, and disappeared. As a result, Bat Wings was lathered to a fine dirt-color and there was one man in particular that the boss wanted to see.
“Jim,” he said, riding up to where one of the Clark boys was sullenly lashing the drag with his reata, “what in the hell do you mean by lettin’ all them cattle get away? Yes, you did too. I saw you tryin’ to turn ’em back, so don’t try to hand me anything like that. I used to think you was a good puncher, Jim, but a man that can’t keep a herd of cows from goin’ through a box pass ought to be smokin’ cigarettes 272 on the day herd. You bet ye! All you had to do was be there––and that’s jest exactly where you wasn’t! I was up on top of that rocky butte, and I know. You was half a mile up the cañon mousin’ around in them cliffs, that’s where you was, and the only question I want to ask is, Did you find the Lost Dutchman? No? Then what in hell was you doin’?”
The rodéo boss crowded his horse in close and thrust his face forward until he could look him squarely in the eye, and Clark jerked back his head resentfully.
“What is it to you?” he demanded belligerently.
“Oh, nawthin’,” returned the boss lightly, “jest wanted to know.”
“Uhr!” grunted the cowboy contemptuously. “Well, I was killin’ snakes, then! What ye goin’ to do about it?”
“Snakes!” cried Creede incredulously. “Killin’ snakes! Since when did you call a feud on them?”
“Since thet young lady come,” replied Clark, glancing around to see if any one had the nerve to laugh. “I heerd her say she was collectin’ rattles; an’ I thought, while I was waitin’, I might as well rustle up a few. Oh, you don’t need to look pop-eyed––they’s others!”
He rolled his eyes significantly at the group of 273 assembled cowboys, and Creede took it all in at a flash. There were others––he himself had a set of rattles in his shap pocket that were not two hours from the stump. The situation called for diplomacy.
“Well,” he drawled, scratching his bushy head to cover his confusion, “this reflects great credit on your bringin’ up, Jim, and I’m sure Miss Bonnair will appreciate what you’ve done for her, especially as I happened to notice a couple o’ head of your own cows in that bunch, but it’s a mighty expensive way to collect snake-tails. We ain’t gittin’ the cattle, boys; that’s the size of it, and they’re as much yours as they are mine. Now I suggest that we run these few we’ve got down to the corral and brand ’em quick––and then the whole shootin’-match goes over to the big white cliff and rounds up every rattlesnake in the rock pile! Is it a go?”
“Sure!” yelled the bunch impetuously, and as they charged down upon the herd Creede quietly fished out his snake-tail and dropped it in the dirt.
If he lacked a virtue he could feign it, anyhow––but there was no doubt about it, Miss Kitty was putting his rodéo on the bum. There had never been so many men to feed and so few calves to brand in the history of Hidden Water. Even old Bill Johnson had got the fever from hearing the boys talk and was hanging around the fire. But then, what were a few head 274 of cows compared to––well, what was it, anyway? The only man who could stay away was Rufe, and he was in good company.
Yet Creede was not satisfied with this explanation. Miss Kitty was always asking questions about Rufe––they had known each other well in Berkeley––and at the same time the little partner with whom he had been so friendly never came around any more. He was always very polite, and she called him by his first name––and then one of them rode up the river and the other followed the round-up.
The night after the big snake-killing Jefferson Creede picked up his blankets and moved quietly back to the ramada with Hardy.
“Them locoed punchers have been skinnin’ rattlers and stretchin’ their hides,” he said, “until the camp stinks like a buzzard roost. I’m due to have some bad dreams to-night anyhow, on the strength of this snake-killin’, but it’d give me the jumpin’ jimjams if I had to sleep next to them remains. Didn’t git back in time to join in, did ye? Well, no great loss. I always did intend to clean out that snake hole over’n the cliff, and the boys was stoppin’ every time they heard one sing, anyhow, in order to git the rattles for Miss Bonnair, so I thought we might as well git it off our minds before somethin’ worse turned up. See any sheep tracks?”
He kicked off his boots, poked his six-shooter under his pillow, and settled down comfortably for the night.
“Nary one, eh?” he repeated musingly. “Well, when you see one you’ll see a million––that’s been my experience. But say, Rufe, why don’t you come and ride with the boys once in a while? The rodéo has been goin’ rotten this year––we ain’t gittin’ half of ’em––and you’d come in mighty handy. Besides, I’ve been braggin’ you up to Miss Bonnair.”
He dropped this last as a bait, but Hardy did not respond.
“I told her you was the best bronco-buster in the Four Peaks country,” continued Creede deliberately, “and that you could drift Chapuli over the rocks like a sand lizard; but I’m too heavy for anything like that now, and Bill Lightfoot has been puttin’ up the fancy work, so far. You know how I like Bill.”
Once more he waited for an answer, but Hardy was wrestling with those elementary passions which have been making trouble since Helen of Troy left home, and he received the remark in silence.
“I’ll tell you, Rufe,” said Creede, lowering his voice confidentially. “Of course I see how it is with you and Miss Ware, and I’m glad of it; but things 276 ain’t goin’ so lovely for me. It ain’t my fault if Miss Bonnair happens to like my company, but Bill and some of the other boys have got their backs up over it, and they’ve practically gone on a strike. Leastwise we ain’t gittin’ the cattle, and God knows the range won’t more ’n carry what’s left. I’ve got to git out and do some ridin’, and at the same time I want to do the right thing by Miss Bonnair, so if you could jest kindly come along with us to-morrow I’ll be much obliged.”
The elemental passions––man-love, jealousy, the lust for possession––are ugly things at best, even when locked in the bosom of a poet. In their simplest terms they make for treachery and stealth; but when complicated with the higher call of friendship and duty they gall a man like the chains of Prometheus and send the dragon-clawed eagles of Jove to tear at his vitals. Never until this naive confession had Hardy suspected the sanity of his friend nor the constancy of Kitty Bonnair. That she was capable of such an adventure he had never dreamed––and yet––and yet––where was there a more masterful man than Jeff? Anything can happen in love; and who was there more capable of winning a romantic woman’s regard than good-natured, impulsive, domineering Jeff?
The thoughts flashed through his brain with the 277 rapidity of lightning, and only his instinct of reserve protected him from his blundering tongue.
“I––I was––” he began, and stopped short. The idea of loyalty had ruled his mind so long that it had become a habit, ill suited to the cause of a jealous lover; and Jeff had confided to him as a child might run to its mother. Should a man take advantage of his friend’s innocence to deprive him of that for which they both strove? Hardy fought the devil away and spoke again, quietly.
“I was going up the river to-morrow, Jeff,” he said. “Seemed to me I saw a kind of smoke, or dust, over south of Hell’s Hip Pocket this afternoon––and we can’t take any chances now. That would take all day, you know.”
He lay still after that, his brain whirling with contending emotions. Each evening as he listened to the music of her laughter he had resolved to quit his lonely watch and snatch from life the pleasure of a single day with Kitty, such days as they used to have when he was her unacknowledged lover and all the world was young. Then he could always please her. He could bend to her moods like a willow, braving the storms of her displeasure, which only drew them closer in the end, secure in the hope of her ultimate yielding. But now the two barren years lay between; years which had stiffened his jaw 278 and left him rough in his ways; years which had wrought some change in her, he knew not what. A single day might solve the crux––nay, it might bring the great happiness of which he dreamed. But each morning as he woke with the dawn he saw that mighty army without banners, the sheep, marching upon their stronghold, the broad mesa which fed the last of Jeff’s cows, and Judge Ware’s, and Lucy’s––and sprang from his blankets. And when the sun rose and Kitty came forth he was far away. But now––
He was awakened from his dreams by the voice of Creede, low, vibrant, full of brotherly love.
“Rufe,” he was saying, “Miss Bonnair has told me a lot about you––a lot I didn’t know. She likes you, boy, and she’s a good woman. I never knowed but one like her, and that was Sallie Winship. You mustn’t let anything that’s happened stand between you. Of course she never said anything––never said a word––but I’m wise that way; I can tell by their voice, and all that. You want to let them dam’ sheep go for a day or two and git this thing patched up.”
He paused, and Hardy’s mind whirled backward, upsetting his fears, unmaking his conclusions. It was Jeff the friend who spoke, Jeff the peacemaker, who had stampeded him by the equivocation of his 279 words. But now the voice broke in again, apologetic, solicitous, self-seeking.
“Besides, that son-of-a-gun, Bill Lightfoot, has been tryin’ to cut me out.”
God! There it hit him hard. Kitty, the immaculate, the exquisite, the friend of poets and artists, the woman he had loved and cherished in his dreams––striven for by Jeff and Bill, revelling in the homage of Mexicans and hard-drinking round-up hands, whose natural language was astench with uncleanliness. It was like beholding a dainty flower in the grime and brutality of the branding pen.
“I’m sorry, Jeff,” he said, in a far-away voice. “I––I’d do anything I could for you––but I’m afraid of those sheep.”
He dragged miserably through the remnant of their conversation and then lay staring at the stars while his hulk of a partner, this great bear who in his awkward good nature had trampled upon holy ground, slept peacefully by his side. The Pleiades fled away before Orion, the Scorpion rose up in the south and sank again, the Morning Star blinked and blazed like a distant fire, such as shepherds kindle upon the ridges, and still Hardy lay in his blankets, fighting with himself. The great blackness which precedes the first glow of dawn found him haggard and weary of the struggle. He rose and 280 threw wood on the coals of last night’s fire, cooked and ate in silence, and rode away. There was a great burden upon his soul, a great fire and anger in his heart, and he questioned the verities of life. He rode up the river gloomily, searching the southern wilderness with frowning, bloodshot eyes, and once more, far to the east where the jagged cliffs of the Superstitions sweep down to the gorge of the Salagua and Hell’s Hip Pocket bars the river’s sweep, he saw that vague, impalpable haze––a smoke, a dust, a veil of the lightest skein, stirred idly by some wandering wind, perhaps, or marking the trail of sheep. And as he looked upon it his melancholy gaze changed to a staring, hawk-like intentness; he leaned forward in the saddle and Chapuli stepped eagerly down the slope, head up, as if he sniffed the battle.