CHAPTER VII
A GLIMPSE OF THE UNKNOWN
It was very late, so late that the sun entering at the south windows of the room shone glaringly upon the white counterpane of his bed when Craig awoke the next morning. Breakfast had long been over, but throughout the unplastered ranch house the suggestion of coffee and the tang of bacon still lingered. At home those odours would have aroused slight sensations of pleasure in the man, even at this time of day; but now and here they were distinctly welcome, distinctly inviting. With the aid of a tin pail of water and a cracked queensware bowl, he made a hasty toilet, soliloquised an opinion of a dressing-room without a mirror, and descended the creaking stairs to the level below.
The main floor of the ranch house contained but three rooms. Of these, it was the living-room which he entered. No one was about. The pipe which he had smoked with his uncle before retiring the night before remained exactly as he had put it down. His cap and gloves were still beside it. Obviously there was no possibility of breakfast here, and he moved toward the adjoining room. On his way he passed a hook where upon arrival he had hung his riding blouse. Telltale with its litter of dust and grass stems, it hung there now; and unconsciously he scowled at the recollection it suggested.
Opening the door, he was face to face with a little fast-ticking cheaply ornate clock. Its hands indicated eleven, and the man grimaced tolerantly. As in the living-room, no human was present, but here the indications for material sustenance were more hopeful. It was the dining-room, and, although in the main the table had been cleared, at one end a clean plate, flanked by a bone-handled knife and fork and an old-fashioned castor, still remained. Moreover, from the third room, the kitchen, he could now hear sounds of life. The fire in a cook-stove was crackling cheerily. Above it, distinct through the thin partition, came the sound of a girlish voice singing. There was no apparent effort at time or at tune; it was uncultivated as the grass land all about; yet in its freshness and unconsciousness it was withal distinctly pleasing. It was a happy voice, a contented voice. Instinctively it bore a suggestion of home and of quiet and of peace; like a kitten with drowsy eyes purring to itself in the sunshine. A moment the visitor stood silent, listening; then, his heavy shoes clumping on the uncarpeted floor, he moved toward it. Instantly the song ceased, but he kept on, pushed open the door gently, stepped inside.
"Good-morning!" he began, and then halted in an uncertainty he seldom felt among women folk. He had met no one but his uncle the previous night. Inevitably the preceding incident with his guide had produced a mental picture. It was with the expectation of having this conception personified that he had entered, to it he had spoken; then had come the revelation, the halt.
"Good-morning!" answered a voice, one neither abnormally high nor repressedly low, the kind of voice the man seldom heard in the society to which he was accustomed—one natural, unaffected, frankly interested. The owner thereof came forward, held out her hand. Two friendly brown eyes smiled up at him from the level of his shoulder. "I know without your introducing yourself that you're Mr. Craig," she welcomed. "Uncle Landor told me before he left what to expect. He and Aunt Mary had to go to town this morning. Meanwhile I'm the cook, and at your service," and she smiled again.
For far longer than civility actually required, to the extreme limit of courtesy and a shade beyond, in, fact, until it unmistakably sought to be free, Clayton Craig retained that proffered hand. Against all the canons of good breeding he stared. Answering, a trace of colour, appearing at the brown throat, mounted higher and higher, reached the soft oval cheeks, journeyed on.
"I beg your pardon," apologised the man. He met the accusing eyes fairly, with a return of his old confidence. "You had the advantage of me, you know. I was not forewarned what to expect."
It was the breaking of the ice, and they laughed together. The girl had been working with arms bare to the elbow, and as now of a sudden she rolled the sleeves down Craig laughed again; and in unconscious echo a second later she joined. Almost before they knew it, there alone in the little whitewashed kitchen with the crackling cook-stove and the sunshine streaming in through the tiny-paned windows, they were friends. All the while the girl went about the task of preparing a belated breakfast they laughed and chatted—and drew nearer and nearer. Again while Craig ate and at his command the girl sat opposite to entertain him, they laughed and chatted. Still later, the slowly eaten meal finished, while Elizabeth Landor washed the dishes and put everything tidy and Craig from his seat on the bottom of an inverted basket reversed the position of entertainer, they laughed and chatted. And through it all, openly when possible, surreptitiously when it were wise, the man gave his companion inspection. And therein he at first but followed an instinct. Very, very human was Clayton Craig of Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, and very, very good to look upon was brown-eyed, brown-skinned, brown-haired Elizabeth Landor. Neither had thought of evil, had other thought than the innocent pleasure of the moment that first morning while the tiny clock on the wall measured off the swift-moving minutes. Good it is to be alive in sun-blessed South Dakota on a frosty warm October day, doubly good when one is young; and these two, the man and the girl, were both young. Months it takes, years sometimes, in civilisation, with barriers of out on the prairie, alone, with the pulse of nature throbbing, throbbing, insistently all about, the process is very swift, so swift that an hour can suffice. No, not that first hour wherein unconsciously they became friends, did the angel with the big book record evil opposite the name of Clayton Craig; not until later, not until he had had time to think, not until—.
But again we anticipate.
"I'm so glad you've come," the girl had ejaculated, "now when you have." At last the work was over, and in unconscious comradery they sat side by side on the broad south doorstep; the sun shining down full upon their uncovered heads—smiling an unconscious blessing more potent than formula of clergy. She was looking out as she spoke, out over the level earth dazzling with its dancing heat waves, mysterious in its suggestion of unfathomable silence, of limitless distance. "It's such a little time now before I am going away, and Uncle Landor has talked of you so much, particularly of late." A pause, a hesitating pause. "I suppose you'll laugh at me, but I hope you'll stay here, for a time, anyway, after I'm gone."
Clayton Craig, the listener, was not gazing out over the prairie. The object at which he was looking was very near; so near that he had leaned a trifle back the better to see, to watch. He shifted now until his weight rested on his elbow, his face on his hand.
"You are going away, you say?" he echoed.
"Yes. I supposed you knew—that Uncle had told you." Despite an effort, the tiny ears were reddening. She was very human also, was Elizabeth Landor. "I am to be married soon."
"Married?" A long pause. "And to whom, please?" The voice was very low.
Redder than before burned the tiny ears. No more than she could keep from breathing could she prevent telling her secret, her happiness, this prairie girl; no more than she could prevent that accompanying telltale scarlet flood.
"You didn't know it, but you've met him already," she confided. "You met him last night." To her at this time there was no need of antecedent. There was but one to whom the pronoun might refer. "It was he who showed you here—How Landor."
For a long time—for he was thinking now, was Clayton Craig, and did not answer—there was silence. Likewise the girl, her confession voiced, said no more; but her colour came and went expectantly, tantalisingly, and the eyes that still looked into the distance were unconscious of what they saw. From his place the man watched the transparent pantomime, read its meaning, stored the picture in his memory; but he did not speak. A minute had already passed; but still he did not speak. He was thinking of the night before, was the man, of that first look he had received—and of what had followed. His eyes were upon the girl, but it was of this he was thinking. Another minute passed. A big shaggy-haired collie, guardian of the dooryard, paused in his aimless wandering about the place to thrust a friendly muzzle into the stranger's hand; but even then he did not respond. For almost the first time in his irresolute life a definite purpose was taking form in the mind of Clayton Craig, and little things passed him by. A third minute passed. The colour had ceased playing on the face he watched now. The silence had performed its mission. It was the moment for which he was waiting, and he was prepared. Then it was the angel of the great book opened the volume and made an entry; for then it was the watcher spoke.
"I met him last, night, you say?" It was the hesitating voice of one whose memory is treacherous, "I have been trying to recall—Certainly you must be mistaken. I saw no one last night except Uncle Landor and an Indian cow-puncher with a comic opera name." He met the brown eyes that were of a sudden turned upon him, frankly, innocently. "You must be mistaken," he repeated.
Searchingly, at first suspiciously, then hesitatingly, with a return of the colour that came as easily as a prairie wind stirs the down of a milk-weed plant, Elizabeth Landor returned his look. It was an instinct that at last caused her eyes to drop.
"No, I was not mistaken," she voiced. "How Landor is an Indian. It is he I meant."
For a carefully timed pause, the space in which one recovers from hearing the unbelievable, Craig was silent; then swiftly, contritely he
roused. "I beg a thousand pardons," he apologised. "I meant no disrespect. I never dreamed—Forgive me." He had drawn very near. "I wouldn't hurt you for the world. I—Please forgive me." He was silent.
"There's nothing to forgive." The girl's colour was normal again and she met his eyes frankly, gravely.
"But there is," protested the man humbly. "Because he happened to be minus a collar and had a red skin—I was an ass; an egregious, blundering ass."
"Don't talk that way," hurriedly. "You merely did not know him, was all. If you had been acquainted all your life as I have—" Against her will she was lapsing into a defence, and she halted abruptly. "You were not at fault."
Again for a carefully timed pause the man was silent. Then abruptly, obviously, he changed the subject.
"You said you were going away," he recalled. "Is it to be a wedding journey?"
"Yes," tensely.
"Tell me of it, please; I wish to hear."
"You would not be interested."
"Elizabeth—" syllabalised, reproachfully. "Am I not your cousin?"
No answer.
"Haven't you forgiven me yet?" The voice was very low. Its owner was again very near.
"You'd laugh at me if I told you," repressedly. "You wouldn't understand."
Slowly, meaningly, Clayton Craig drew away—resumed the former position; the place from which, unobserved, he could himself watch.
"We're going away out there," complied the girl suddenly, reluctantly. Her hand indicated the trackless waste to the right. "Just the two of us are going: How and I. We'll take a pack horse and a tent and How's camp kit and stay out there alone until winter comes." Against her will she was warming to the subject, was unconsciously painting a picture to please the solitary listener. "We'll have our ponies and ammunition and plenty to read. The cowboys laugh at How because ordinarily he never carries a gun; but he's a wonderful shot. We'll have game whenever we want it. We'll camp when we please and move on when we please." Again unconsciously she glanced at the listener to see the effect of her art. "We'll be together, How and I, and free—free as sunshine. There'll be nothing but winter, and that's a long way off, to bring us back. It's what I've always wanted to do, from the time I can remember. How goes away every year, and he's promised this once to take me along." Suddenly, almost challengingly, she turned, facing the man her companion. "Won't it be fine?" she queried abruptly.
"Yes," answered a voice politely, a voice with a shade of listlessness in its depths, "fine indeed. And if you want anything at any time you can go to the nearest ranch house. One always does forget something you know."
"That's just what we can't do," refuted the girl swiftly. "That's the best of it all. The Buffalo Butte is the last ranch that way, to the west, until you get to the Hills. We probably won't see another human being while we're gone. We'll be as much alone as though we were the only two people in the world."
Craig hesitated; then he shrugged self-tolerantly.
"I'm hopelessly civilised myself," he commented smilingly. "I was thinking that some morning I might want toast and eggs for breakfast. And my clean laundry might not be delivered promptly if I were changing my residence so frequently." He lifted from his elbow. "Pardon me again, though," he added contritely. "I always do see the prosaic side of things." The smile vanished, and for the first time he looked away, absently, dreamily. As he looked his face altered, softened almost unbelievably. "It would be wonderful," he voiced slowly, tensely, "to be alone, absolutely alone, out there with the single person one cared for most, the single person who always had the same likes and dislikes, the same hopes and ambitions. I had never thought of such a thing before; it would be wonderful, wonderful!"
No answer; but the warm colour had returned to the girl's face and her eyes were bright.
"I think I envy you a little, your happiness," said Craig. Warmer and warmer tinged the brown cheeks, but still the girl was silent.
"Yes, I'm sure I envy you," reiterated the man. "We always envy other people the things we haven't ourselves; and I—" He checked himself abruptly.
"Don't talk so," pleaded the girl. "It hurts me."
"But it's true."
Just a child of nature was Elizabeth Landor; passionate, sympathetic, unsophisticated product of this sun-kissed land. Just this she was; and another, this man with her, her cousin by courtesy, was sad. Inevitably she responded, as a flower responds to the light, as a parent bird responds to the call of a fledgling in distress.
"Maybe it's true now—you think it is," she halted; "but there'll be a time—"
"No, I think not. I'm as the Lord made me." Craig laughed shortly, unmusically. "It's merely my lot."
The girl hesitated, uncertain, at a loss for words. Distinctly for her as though the brightness of the day had faded under a real shadow, it altered now under the cloud of another's unhappiness. But one suggestion presented itself; and innocently, Instinctively as a mother comforts her child, she drew nearer to the other in mute human sympathy.
The man did not move. Apparently he had not noticed.
"The time was," he went on monotonously, "when I thought differently,
when I fancied that some time, somewhere, I would meet a girl I understood, who could understand me. But I never do. No matter how well I become acquainted with women, we never vitally touch, never become necessary to each other. It seems somehow that I'm the only one of my kind, that I must go through life so—alone."
Nearer and nearer crept the girl; not as maid to man, but as one child presses closer to another in the darkness. One of her companion's hands lay listless on his knee, and instinctively, compellingly, she placed her own upon it, pressed it softly.
"I am so selfish," she voiced contritely, "to tell you of my own love, my own happiness. I didn't mean to hurt you. I simply couldn't help it, it's such a big thing in my own life. I'm so sorry."
Just perceptibly Craig stirred; but still he did not look at her. When he spoke again there was the throb of repression in his voice; but that was all.
"I'm lonely at times," he went on dully, evasively, "you don't know how lonely. Now and then someone, as you unconsciously did a bit ago, shows me the other side of life, the happy side; and I wish I were dead." A mist came into his eyes, a real mist. "The future looks so blank, so hopeless that it becomes a nightmare to me. Anything else would be preferable, anything. It's so to-day, now." He halted and of a sudden turned away so that his face was concealed. "God forgive me, but I wish it were over with, that I were dead!"
"No, no! You mustn't say that! You mustn't!" Forgetful entirely, the girl arose, stood facing him. Tears that she could not prevent were in the brown eyes and her lip twitched. "It's so good to be alive. You can't mean it. You can't."
"But I do. It's true." Craig did not stir, did not glance up. "What's the use of living, of doing anything, when no one else cares, ever will care. What's the use—"
"But somebody does care," interrupted the girl swiftly, "all of us here care. Don't say that again, please don't. I can't bear to hear you." She halted, swallowed hard at a lump which rose hinderingly in her throat. "I feel somehow as though I was to blame, as though if you should mean what you said, should—should—" Again she halted; the soft brown eyes glistening, the dainty oval chin trembling uncontrollably, her fingers locked tight. A moment she stood so, uncertain, helpless; then of a sudden the full horror of the possibility the other had suggested came over her, swept away the last barrier of reserve. Not the faintest suspicion of the man's sincerity, of his honesty, occurred to her, not the remotest doubt. In all her life no one had ever lied to her; she had never consciously lied to another. The world of subterfuge was an unread book. This man had intimated he would do this terrible thing. He meant it. He would do it, unless—unless—
"Don't," she pleaded in abandon. "Don't!" The hand was still lying idle on the man's knee, and reaching down she lifted it, held it prisoner between her own. It was not a suggestion she was combating now. It was a certainty. "Promise me you won't do this thing." She shook the hand insistently; at first gently, then, as there was no response, almost roughly. "Tell me you won't do it. Promise me; please, please!"
"But I can't promise," said the man dully. "I'm useless absolutely; I never realised before how useless. You didn't intend to do it, but you've made me see it all to-day. I don't blame you, but I can't promise. I can't."
Silence fell upon them; silence complete as upon the top of a mountain, as in the depths of a mine, the absolute silence of the prairie. For seconds it remained with them, for long-drawn-out, distorted seconds; then, interrupting, something happened. There was not a cloud in the sky, nor the vestige of a cloud. The sun still shone bright as before; yet distinctly, undeniably, the man felt a great wet spattering drop fall from above upon his hand—and a moment later another. He glanced up, hesitated; sprang to his feet, his big body towering above that of the little woman already standing.
"Elizabeth!" he said tensely. "Cousin Bess! I can't believe it." He took her by the shoulders compellingly, held her at arm's length; and the angel who watched halted with pen in air, indecisive. "We've known each other such a ludicrously short time—but a few hours. Can it be possible that you really meant that, that at least to someone it does really matter?" It was his turn to question, to wait breathlessly when no answer came. "Would you really care, you, if I were dead? Tell me, Bess, tell me, as though you were saying a prayer." One hand still retained its grip on her shoulder, but its mate loosened, instinctively sought that averted, trembling chin, as hundreds of men, his ancestors, had done to similar chins in their day, lifted it until their eyes met. Had he been facing his Maker that moment and the confession his last, Clayton Craig could not have told whether it were passion or art, that action. "Tell me, Bess girl, is it mere pity, or do you really care?"
Face to face they stood there, eye to eye as two strangers, meeting by chance in darkness and storm, read each the other's mind in the glitter of a lightning flash. It was all so swift, so fantastic, so unexpected that for a moment the girl did not realise, did not understand. For an instant she stood so, perfectly still, her great eyes opening wider and wider, opening wonderingly, dazedly, as though the other had done what she feared—and of a sudden returned again to life; then in mocking, ironic reaction came tardy comprehension, and with the strength of a captured wild thing she drew back, broke free. A second longer she stood there, not her chin alone, but her whole body trembling; then without a word she turned, mounted the single step, fumbled at the knob of the door. "Bess," said the man softly, "Cousin Bess!" But she did not glance back nor speak, and, listening, his ear to the panel, Craig heard her slowly climb the creaking stairs to her own room and the door close behind her.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SKELETON WITHIN THE CLOSET
Comparatively few men of cheerful outlook and social inclination attain the age of five and fifty without contracting superfluous avoirdupois and distinctive mannerism. That Colonel William Landor was no exception to the first rule was proven by the wheezing effort with which he made his descent from the two-seated canvas-covered surrey in front of Bob Manning's store, and, with a deftness born of experience, converted the free ends of the lines into hitch straps. That the second premise held true was demonstrated ten seconds later in the unconscious grunt of soliloquy with which he greeted the sight of a wisp of black rag tacked above the knob of the door before him.
"Mourning, eh," he commented to his listening ego. "Looks like a strip of old Bob's prayer-meeting trousers." He tried the entrance, found it locked, and in lieu of entering tested the badge of sorrow between thumb and finger. "Pant stuff, sure enough," he corroborated. "It can't be Bob himself, or they'd have needed these garments to lay him out in. Now what in thunder, I wonder—"
He glanced across the street at Slim Simpson's eating house. Like the general store, the door was closed, and just above the catch, flapping languidly in a rising prairie breeze, was the mate to the black rag dangling at his back. The spectator's shaggy eyebrows tightened in genuine surprise, and with near-sighted effort he inspected the fronts of the short row of other buildings along the street.
"Civilisation's struck Coyote Centre good and proper, at last, evidently," he commented. "They'll be having a bevel plate hearse with carved wood tassels and a coon driver next!" He halted, indecisive, and for the first time became conscious that not a human being was in sight. In the street before him a pair of half-grown cockerels with ludicrously long legs and abbreviated tails were scratching a precarious living from amid the litter. On the sunny expanse of sidewalk before Buck Walker's meat market a long-eared mongrel lay stretched out luxuriously in the physical contentment of the subservient unmolested; but from one end of the single street to the other not a human being was in sight; save the present spectator, not a single disturber of the all-pervading quiet. Landor had seen the spot where the town now stood when it was virgin prairie, had watched every building it boasted rise from the earth, had hitherto observed it through the gamut of its every mood from nocturnal recklessness to profoundest daybreak remorse; but as it was now with the sun nearing the meridian, deserted, dead—.
"Well, I'm beat!" he exploded as emphatically as though another were listening. "There must have been a general cleanup this time. I fear that the report of my respected nephew—" He checked himself suddenly, a bit guiltily. Even though no one was listening, he was loath to voice an inevitable conclusion. Decision, however, had triumphed over surprise at last, and, leaving the main street, he headed toward what the proud citizens denominated the residence quarter—a handful of unpainted weather-stained one-story boxes, destitute of tree or of shrub surrounding as factory tenements. The sun was positively hot now, and as he went he unbuttoned his vest and sighed in unconscious satisfaction at the relief. At the second domicile, a residence as nearly like the first as a duplicate pea from the same pod, he turned in at the lane leading to the house unhesitatingly, and without form of knocking opened the door and stepped inside.
The room he entered was bare, depressingly so; bare as to its uncarpeted cottonwood floor, bare in its hard-finished, smoke-tinted walls. In it, to the casual observer, there were visible but four objects: an old-fashioned walnut desk that had once borne a top, but which did so no longer; two cane-bottomed chairs with rickety arms; and, seated in one thereof, a man. The latter looked up as the visitor entered, revealing an unshaven chin and a pair of restless black eyes over the left of which the lid drooped appreciably. He was smoking a long black stogie, and scattered upon his vest and in a semicircle surrounding his chair was a sprinkling of white ash from vanished predecessors. Though he looked up when the other entered, and Landor returned the scrutiny, there was no salutation, not even when, without form of invitation, the rancher dropped into the vacant seat opposite and tossed his broad felt hat familiarly amid the litter of the desk. A moment they sat so, while with an effort the newcomer recovered his breath.
"I thought I'd find you here, Chantry," he initiated eventually. "I've noticed that the last place to look for a doctor is in the proximity of a funeral." He fumbled in his pocket and produced a stogie, mate to that in the other's mouth. "This particular ceremony, by the way, I gather from the appearance of the metropolis, must have been of more than ordinary interest." And lighting a match he puffed until his face was concealed.
"Rather," laconically.
"Never mind the details," Landor prevented hurriedly. The haze had cleared somewhat, and he observed his taciturn companion appreciatively. "I left Mary up with Jim Burton's wife, and I think she can be trusted to attend to such little matters."
Chantry smoked on without comment, but his restless black eyes were observing the other shrewdly. Not without result had the two men known each other these five years.
"It's a great convenience, this having women in the family," commented Landor impersonally. "It's better than a daily paper, any time." Again the deliberate, appreciate look. "You haven't decided yet to prove the fact for yourself, have you?"
Still Chantry smoked in silence, waiting. The confidence that had brought the other to him was very near now, almost apparent. Only too well he knew the signs—the good-natured satire that ill concealed a tolerance broad as the earth, the flow of trivialities that cleared the way later of non-essentials. In silence he waited; and, as he had known the moment that big figure appeared in the doorway, it came.
Deliberately Landor removed the stogie from his lips, as deliberately flicked off the loose ash onto the floor at his side, inspected the burning tuck critically.
"Supposing," he introduced baldly, "a fellow—an old fellow like myself," he corrected precisely, "was to be going about his business as an old fellow should, in a two-seated surrey with canvas curtains such as you've seen me drive sometimes." The speaker paused a second to clear his throat. "Supposing this old fellow was just riding through the country easy, taking his time and with nothing particular on his mind, and all of a sudden he should feel as though someone had sneaked up and stuck him from behind with a long, sharp knife. Supposing this should happen, and, although it was the middle of the day, everything should go black as night and he should wake up, he couldn't tell how much later, and find himself all heaped up in the bottom of the rig and the team stock still out in the middle of the prairie." Deliberately as it had left, the cigar returned to the speaker's lips, was puffed hard until it glowed furiously; and was again critically examined. "Supposing such a fat old fellow as myself should tell you this. As a doc and a specialist, would you think there was something worth while the matter with him?"
Still Chantry did not speak, but the burned-out stump in his fingers sought a remote corner of the room, consorted with a goodly collection of its mates, and the drooping eyelid tightened.
"Supposing," continued Landor, "the thing should happen the second time, and the old fellow, who wasn't good at walking, should be spilled out and have to foot it home three miles. What would you think then?"
One of Chantry's hands, itself not over clean, dusted the ash off his vest absently.
"When was it, this last time?" he questioned.
"Yesterday," impassively. "I'd started for here to meet my nephew when the thing struck me; and when I managed to get home I sent How over instead." He halted reminiscently. "I wrote the boy to come a couple of weeks ago—that's when it caught me first."
"Your nephew, Craig, knows about it, does he?"
Landor puffed anew with a shade of embarrassment.
"No. I thought there was no call to tell the folks at the ranch. Mary'd have a cat-fit if she knew. I told them I got out to shoot at a coyote, and the bronchos ran away." He glanced at the other explanatorily, deprecatingly. "Clayton is my sister's son and the only real relative I have, you know. I just asked him to come on general principles."
Chantry made no comment. Opening a drawer of the desk, he fumbled amid a litter of articles useful and useless, and, extracting a battered stethoscope, shifted his chair forward until it was close to the other and stuck the tiny tubes to his ears. Still without comment he opened the rancher's shirt, applied the instrument, listened, shifted it, listened, shifted and listened the third time—slid his chair back to the former position.
"What else do you know?" he asked.
Landor buttoned up the gap in his shirt methodically.
"Nothing, except that the thing is in the family. My father went that way when he was younger than I am, and his father the same." The stogie had gone dead in his fingers, and he lit a fresh one steadily. "I've been expecting it to catch up with me for years."
"Your father died of it, you say?"
"Yes; on Thanksgiving Day." The big rancher shifted position, and in sympathy the rickety chair groaned dismally. "Dinner was waiting, I remember, a regular old-fashioned New England dinner with a stuffed sucking pig and a big turkey with his drumsticks in the air. Mother and Frances—that's my sister—were waiting, and they sent me running to call father. He was a lawyer, and a great hand to shut himself up and work. I was starved hungry, and I remember I hot-footed it proper upstairs to his den and threw open the door." Puff! puff! went the big stogie. "An Irish plasterer with seven kids ate that turkey, I recollect," he completed, "and I've never kept Thanksgiving from that day to this."
"And your grandfather?" unemotionally.
"Just the same. He was a preacher, and the choir was singing the opening anthem at the time."
The doctor threw one thin leg over the other and stared impassively out the single window. It faced the main street of the town.
"The doings are over for this time, I fancy," he digressed evenly. "I see a row of bronchos tied down in front of Red's place."
Landor did not look around.
"Mary and Mrs. Burton will count them, never fear," he recalled in mock sarcasm. "What I want to know is your opinion."
"In my opinion there's nothing to be done," said Chantry.
Landor shifted again, and again the chair groaned in mortal agony.
"I know that. What I mean is how long is it liable to be before—" he halted and jerked his thumb over his shoulder—"before Bob and the rest will be doing that to me?"
Chantry's gaze left the window, met the shrewd grey eyes beneath the other's drooping lids.
"It may be a day and it may be ten years," he said.
Unconsciously Landor settled deeper into his seat. His jaws closed tight on the stump of the stogie. Unwaveringly he returned the other's gaze.
"You have a more definite idea than that, though," he pressed. "Tell me, and let's have it over with."
For five seconds Chantry did not speak; but the restless black eyes bored the other through and through, at first impersonally, as, scalpel in hand, he would have studied a patient before the first incision in a major operation; then, as against the other's will, a great drop of sweat gathered on the broad forehead, personally, intimately.
"Yes, my opinion is more definite than that," he corroborated evenly. He did not suggest that he was sorry to say what he was about to say, did not qualify in advance by intimating that his prognosis might be wrong. "I think the next attack will be the last. Moreover, I believe it will come soon, very soon." Impassively as he had spoken, he produced a book of rice paper from his pocket and a rubber pouch of tobacco. The long fingers were skilful, and a cigarette came into being as under a machine. Without another word he lit a match and waited until the flame was well up on the wood. Of a sudden a great cloud of kindly smoke separated him from the other.
With an effort the big rancher lifted in his seat, passed his sleeve across his forehead clumsily.
"Thank you, Chantry." He cleared his throat raspingly. "As I said, I expected this; that's why I came to see you to-day." For the second time his cigar was dead, but he did not light it again. There was no need of subterfuge now. "I want you to do me a favour." He looked at the other steadily through the diminishing haze. "Will you promise me?"
"No," said Chantry.
Landor stared as one who could not believe his ears.
"No!" he interrogated.
"I said so."
A trace of colour appeared in the rancher's mottled cheeks as, with an effort, he got to his feet.
"I beg your pardon then for disturbing you," he said coldly. "I was labouring under the delusion that you were a friend."
The brief career of the cigarette was ended. Chantry's long fingers had locked over his knee. He did not move.
"Sit down, please," he said. "It is precisely because I am your friend that I will not promise."
Landor halted, a question in every line of his face.
"I think I fail to understand," he groped. "I suppose I'm dense."
"No, you're merely transparent. You were going to ask the one thing I can't promise you."
Landor stared, in mystified uncertainty.
"Please sit down. You were going to ask me to take charge of your affairs if anything was to happen. Is it not so?"
"Yes. But how in the world—" "Don't ask it then, please," swiftly. He ignored the other's suggestion. "Get someone else, someone you've known for a long time."
"I've known you for a long time—five years."
"Or leave everything in your wife's hands." Again Chantry scouted the obvious. "If there should be need she could get a lawyer from the city—"
"Lawyer nothing!" refuted Landor. "That's just what I wish to avoid. Mary or the girl, either one, have about as much idea of taking care of themselves as they have of speaking Chinese. They'd be on the county inside a year, with no one interested to look out for them."
"But How—"
"He's as bad. He can ride a broncho, or stalk a sandhill crane where there isn't cover to hide your hat, or manage cattle, or stretch out in the sun and: dream; but business—He wouldn't know a bank cheque if he saw one; and, what's worse, he doesn't want to know."
"Craig, then, your nephew—" It was not natural for Chantry to be perfunctory, and he halted.
For a moment the big rancher was silent. In his lap his fingers met unconsciously, tip to tip, in the instinctive habit of age.
"I anticipated that," he said wearily. "I realise it's the obvious thing to do. I never adopted How as I did the girl—I was willing to, but he didn't see the use—and so Craig's the only man kin I have." The life and magnetism, usually so noticeable in Landor's great figure, had vanished. It was merely an old man facing the end who settled listlessly into his seat. "I had big hopes of the boy. I hadn't seen him since he was a youngster, and Frances, while she lived, was always bragging about his doings. That's why I sent for him." Pat, pat went the big fingers in his lap against each other. "I've always felt that if worst came to worst the women folks would have someone practical to rely on; but somehow, when I saw him last night, from what he said and what he didn't say, from the way he acted and the way he explained—what happened here last evening—" The speaker caught himself. A trace of the old shrewdness crept into the grey eyes as he inspected his companion steadily. "I know How pretty well, and when someone intimates to me that he is a grand-stand player, or goes out of his way to pick a quarrel, or meddles with someone else's affairs—" Again the big man caught himself. The scrutiny became almost a petition. "I cut you off short about what went on here yesterday," he digressed. "I didn't want to hear. I guess I was afraid to hear. It's been foolish, I know, but I've depended a good deal upon the boy, and I'm afraid he's going to be a—disappointment."
With the old machine-like precision Chantry rolled another cigarette, lit it, sent a great cloud of smoke tumbling up toward the ceiling. That was all.
"You see for yourself how it is," said the rancher. "I wouldn't ask you again if there was anyone else I could go to; but there isn't. Maybe I'm only borrowing trouble, maybe there won't be anything for you or anyone to do; but it would be a big load off my mind to know that if anything should happen.—" He halted abruptly. It was not easy for this man to discuss his trouble, even to a friend. "It isn't such a big thing I'm asking," he hurried. "I'm sure if positions were reversed and you were to request me—"
"I know you would. I realise I seem ungrateful. I—" Of a sudden, interrupting, Chantry arose precipitately: a thin, ungainly figure in shiny, thread-bare broadcloth, exotic to the point of caricature. Unconsciously he started pacing back and forth across the room, restlessly, almost fiercely. Never in the years he had previously known the man had Landor seen him so, seen him other than the impassive, almost forbidding practitioner of a minute ago. For the time being his own trouble was forgotten in surprise, and he stared at the transformation almost unbelievingly. Back and forth, back and forth went the thin, ungainly shape, the ill-laid floor creaking as he moved, paused at last before the single dust-stained window, stood like a silhouette looking out over the desolate town. Watching, Landor shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Once he cleared his throat as if to speak. An instinct told him he should say something; but he was in the dark absolutely, and words would not come. Reaching over to the desk he took up his broad felt hat and sat twirling it in his fingers, waiting.
As suddenly as he had arisen Chantry returned, resumed his seat. His face had grown noticeably pale, and his left eyelid drooped even more than normally.
"I feel I owe you an apology," he said swiftly. "In a way we've been friends, and as you say, it's not a big thing you ask of me; but nevertheless I can't grant it. Please don't ask me."
The hat in Landor's hands became still, significantly still.
"I admit I don't understand," he accepted, "but of course if you feel that way, I shall not ask you again." Unconsciously a trace of the former stiffness returned to his manner as he arose heavily. "I think I'd better be going." His mouth twitched in an effort at pleasantry. "Mary'll be dying to give me the details."
Chantry did not smile, did not again ask the other to resume his seat. Instead, he himself arose, stood facing his guest squarely.
"I feel that I owe you an explanation as well," he said repressedly. "Would you like to hear?"
"Yes—if you don't mind. If you'd prefer not to, however—"
"No, I'd rather you—understood than to go that way." The doctor cleared his throat in the manner of one who smokes overmuch. "We all have our skeleton hid away somewhere, I suppose. At least I have mine, and it keeps bobbing out at times like this when I most wish—" He caught himself, met his companion's questioning look fairly. "Haven't you wondered why I ever came here; why, having come, I remain?" he queried suddenly. "You know that I barely make enough to live, that sometimes I don't have a case a week. Did it never occur to you that there was something peculiar about it all?"
"Peculiar?" The hat in the rancher's hand started revolving again. He had, indeed, thought of it before, thought of it tolerantly, with a vague sense of commiseration—an attitude very similar to that with which the uninitiated observe a player at golf; but that there might be another, a sinister meaning—.
"If it hasn't occurred to you before, doesn't it seem peculiar, now that you consider it?" The question came swiftly, tensely, with a significance there was no misunderstanding. "Tell me, please."
"Yes, perhaps; but—"
"But you do see, though," relentlessly. "You can't help but see." The speaker started anew the restless, aimless pace. "The country is full of us; all new countries are." He was still speaking hurriedly, tensely, as we tell of a murder or a ghastly tragedy; something which in duty we must confide, but which we hasten to have over. "It's easier to get here than to Mexico or to Canada, and until the country is settled, until people begin to suspect—" He halted suddenly opposite the other, his face deathly pale, deathly tortured. "In God's name, don't you understand now?" he questioned passionately. "Must I tell you in so many words why I refused, why I don't dare do anything else but refuse?"
"No, you don't need to tell me." Absently, unconsciously, the rancher produced a red bandana handkerchief and wiped his face; then thrust it back into his pocket. "I think I understand at last." His eyes had dropped and he did not raise them again to his companion. "I'm sorry, very sorry, that I asked you; sorry most of all that—" He halted diffidently, his great hands hanging loose at his side, his broad shoulders drooping wearily. He was not glib of speech, at best, and this second blow was hard to bear. A full half minute he stood so, hesitant, searching for words; then heavily, clumsily, he turned, started for the door. "I really must be going," he concluded.
Chantry did not ask him to stay, made no motion to prevent his going. Tense, motionless, he stood where he had last paused, waited in silence until the visitor's hand was upon the knob.
"Good-bye Landor," he said then simply.
Not the words themselves, but something in the tone caused the rancher to halt, to look back.
"Good-day, you mean, rather," he corrected.
"No, good-bye. You will not see me again."
"You don't mean—"
"No. I'm too much of a coward for that, or I should have done so long ago. I merely mean I'll move on to-morrow."
Face to face the two men stood staring at each other. Seconds drifted by. It was the doctor who spoke at last.
"God knows that if I could, I'd change with you even now, Landor," he said repressedly. "I'd change with you gladly." A moment he stood so, tense as a wire drawn to the point of breaking, ghastly tense; then of a sudden he went lax. Instinctively his fingers sought his pockets, and there where he stood he started swiftly to roll a cigarette.
"Go, please," he requested. "Good-bye."