Ironheart

With an unusual depression Betty had watched the tramp move down the dusty road to the railroad track after he had declined her offer of employment. An energetic young person, she was accustomed to having her own way. One of her earliest delightful discoveries had been that she could nearly always get what she wanted by being eager for it and assuming that, of course, the others involved would recognize her plan as best, or at least would give up theirs cheerfully when she urged hers.

But this ragged scamp, out of whose heart youth and hope had been trampled, was leaving her dashed and rebuffed. She liked to make conquests of people in bending them to the schemes she made for the regulation of her small universe, though she would have denied even to herself that she liked to manage her friends. In the case of this drear-eyed boy, the hurt was not only to her vanity. He might be five or six years older than she, but the mothering instinct—the desire to save him from himself and his fate—fluttered yearningly toward him.

She did not blame him. There was at least a remnant of self-respect in his decision. Nobody wants to be done good to. Perhaps she had seemed smug to him, though she had not meant to be.

He was on her mind all the way back to the ranch, so much so that she blurted out the whole story to her father as soon as she saw him.

Clint Reed moved to prompt action. He did not see eye to eye with his daughter. What concerned him was that these bums should waylay and insult Betty. It was a nice state of affairs when a girl was not safe alone on the roads. He gathered his men and gave them orders to find the hoboes and bring them to the ranch.

The girl’s protest was lost on Reed. It hardly reached his mind at all. Besides, this had become public business. It was not her personal affair. If hoboes needed to be taught a sense of decency, the men of the community would attend to that.

Betty went into the house dissatisfied with herself. She had not meant to make more trouble, but to enlist her father’s sympathy in the cause of the young fellow who had saved her from the other tramp. As for the one who had attacked her, she did not care whether he was punished or not. She had much rather no hue and cry over the country was made about it. Though she did not say so, she hoped the vagrants would get away uncaught.

She busied herself with household duties. Under her direction and with her help, Bridget the cook was putting up half a dozen boxes of peaches. The two women worked into the middle of the hot afternoon before they had finished.

“An’ that’s that,” Bridget said with a sigh of relief as she sealed the last jar. “Fegs, I don’t mind a hotter day this summer. It’s a b’iler.”

She was an old family servant and was in part responsible for the bringing up of Betty. More than one rancher in the neighborhood had attempted the adventure of wooing Bridget Maloney, but none of them had been able to lure her from the Diamond Bar K to become the mistress of a home of her own.

“You’d better lie down and sleep an hour, dear,” the girl advised.

“An’ phwat would I be doin’ that for wid all these kettles an’ pots to be cleaned up? Scat! Get ye out o’ my kitchen now, mavourneen, an’ I’ll redd up in a jiff.”

Betty found a magazine and walked out to the shade of a pine grove where a hammock hung. She settled herself comfortably and began to read. It was delightfully cool among the pines after the hot kitchen. She grew drowsy. Her eyes closed.

The sound of far-away voices was in her ears when she wakened. As her thoughts cleared, so did the voices. She heard Dusty’s, strident, triumphant.

“It’s up to the old man now.”

The girl turned in the hammock and saw the squat cowpuncher go jingling into the house. Burt lounged on a horse, his right leg thrown round the horn of the saddle. Some one else, partly hidden from her by the ponies, was sitting on the porch.

She got up quickly and walked toward the house. The man on the porch, she saw presently, had a rope around his waist the other end of which was fastened to the saddle of Dusty’s mount. An eyeflash later she recognized him.

“You!” she cried.

The tramp called Tug rose. He did not lift his hat, for he no longer had one. But his bow and sardonic smile gave an effect of ironic politeness.

“The bad penny back again,” he said.

“What have they been doing to you?” she asked breathlessly.

He had been a disreputable enough specimen when she had last seen him. The swollen and discolored face, the gaping shoes, the ragged coat; all of these he had carried then. But there were scratches like skin burns down one side of the jaw and on his hands that had come since. His coat was in shreds. From head to foot dust covered every available inch.

“Your men have been having a little sport. Why not? The boss had his first and they had to follow his example. They’re good obedient boys,” he scoffed bitterly.

“What do you mean? What did they do?” she demanded sharply.

He shrugged his shoulders and she turned imperiously to the man on horseback. “Burt, you tell me.”

The lank cowboy showed embarrassment. “Why, Dusty he—he kinda dragged him when the fellow lagged. Jus’ for a ways.”

“On the ground? That what you mean?” The dark eyes flashed anger.

“Well, you might say so. He sorta stumbled, an’ he’d been right sassy to Dusty, so—” Burt’s explanation died away. He felt he was not getting very far with it.

“So you acted like brutes to him—to a man who had just fought for me when—when—” A sob of chagrin and vexation choked up in her throat. She stamped her foot in exasperation.

“Don’t get excited about me,” the victim gibed. “I’m nothing but a gay-cat anyhow. What’s it matter?”

Dusty strutted out of the house, his spurs making music.

The girl turned on him with pantherish swiftness.

“Who told you to torture this man, Dusty? What right have you got to make yourself law on the Diamond Bar? You’re only a drunken lunkhead, aren’t you? Or did Father ask you to be judge and jury on the ranch?”

It was ludicrous to see the complacency vanish from the fatuous face. The jaw fell and the mouth opened.

“Why, Miss Betty, I figured as how he’d done you a meanness, an’ I thought—”

She cut his explanation short with stinging ruthlessness. “What for? You weren’t hired to think, but to obey orders. You’d better get back into the wheatfield before Father comes. Pronto.”

The cowboy shut his mouth with a view to opening it again in self-defense, but Betty would have none of his excuses. She shooed him from the scene indignantly. While she was busy with Dusty, the lank rider quietly vanished.

The prisoner watched her, the rope still about his waist. His mind paid tribute to the energy with which she got results.

“Greatly obliged,” he said with sarcasm. “I suppose your father won’t have me hanged now.”

“Take off that rope,” she said.

“That’s an order, is it?”

“I don’t blame you for hating us all,” she flamed. “I would in your place. The whole place is bewitched to-day, I believe. We’re all acting like bullies instead of the quiet, decent people we are. Take Dusty now. He’s a good little fellow, but he thought you’d attacked me. He wouldn’t stand that. Men in the ranch country won’t, you know. They look after us women.”

“That’s a peculiarity of the ranch country, I suppose.”

She ignored the derisive gleam in his eyes. “No ... no! Good men always do. I wish I could tell you—could show you—my thanks because you stood up for me. I’ll never forget. It was fine, the way you fought for me.”

“Nothing to that. I’d been saving a punch or two for him. Don’t forget that I’m a good-for-nothing bum, on the authority of your own father. No need of getting sentimental. Don’t make the mistake of putting me in a class with him and other such truly good men as your friend Dusty and the lamblike foreman who beat up Cig because he wouldn’t apologize for being alive.”

Voice and manner both fleered at her, but she was determined to accept no rebuff.

“Did Dusty hurt you? Can I do anything for you? Tell me. I’d be so glad to. Let me get you a drink.”

Like a flash, she was off at her own suggestion to the kitchen. His impulse was to go at once, but he could not escape his past and be deliberately discourteous to a woman whose only desire was to help him. He waited, sullenly, for her return. Why could she not let him alone? All he asked of the Diamond Bar K was for it to let him get away and forget it as soon as possible.

When the girl came back, it was with a pitcher and a glass. The outside of the jug was beaded with moisture. From within came the pleasant tinkle of ice.

Betty filled the tumbler with lemonade.

The vagabond had no desire to accept the hospitality of the ranch, but he found it impossible to affront her churlishly again.

“Thank you,” he said, and drank.

The drink was refreshing. Two fresh-beaten eggs had been stirred into it for nutrition.

“Another?” she begged, and poured without waiting for an answer.

The ghost of a smile crept into his eyes. It was the first hint of wholesome humor she had yet seen in him. He offered her, with a little bow, a quotation.

The dimples broke into her cheeks as her smile flashed out in the pleasure of having broken the crust of his reserve.

“That’s Shakespeare, isn’t it? I’m dreadfully illiterate, but it sounds like him.”

“It does a little, doesn’t it?” He raised the glass before drinking. “Happy days, Miss Reed.”

“That goes double,” she said quickly.

The sardonic mask, that had for a moment been lifted, dropped again over his face. “Many more like this one,” he fleered.

“You may look back on it and find it a good day yet,” she said bravely.

He handed back the empty tumbler. “Afraid I’m not an optimist. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll be going. The ranch might change its mind about that hanging bee.”

“But I do mind,” she protested. “I don’t want you to go yet. Please stay and meet my father. He’s not really hard and cruel as you think.”

Again she saw on his lips the dry, bitter smile.

“Think I’ll take your word for it. I’ve met him once.”

“No, you haven’t met him—not to know him,” she cried softly, giving rein to swift impulse. “You’ve not met my Daddy—the best man in Paradise Valley. You can ask any one about him. He’s the squarest that ever was. The man you met was exasperated and—and not himself. Dad’s not like that—really.”

“Indeed!” His voice was a compound of incredulity and indifference. It put her out of court.

But her good impulses were not easily daunted. She had already learned that this young fellow wore armor of chain-mail to protect his sensitive pride. In her horoscope it had been written that she must give herself, and still give and give. The color beat through her dusky cheeks beneath the ardent eyes. She stabbed straight at his jaundiced soul.

“If it were my father only that you don’t like—but it isn’t—you don’t find joy in anything. Your mind’s poisoned. I was reading the other day how Mr. Roosevelt used to quote from Borrow’s ‘Lavengro’: ‘Life is sweet, brother—there’s day and night, brother; both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, all sweet things—and likewise there’s a wind on the heath.’ It’s because he felt this in everything he did that they called him ‘Greatheart.’”

It came to him that the name might not inaptly be applied to her. He thought of Browning’s “My Last Duchess”:

He hardened his heart to her generous appeal to him. “It’s a very comfortable point of view to have,” he said with no spring of life in his voice.

“And a true one,” she added swiftly.

“If you say so, of course.” His skeptical smile made no concessions.

He turned to leave, but stopped to look at a cloud of white dust moving down the road toward them.