A thin, saturnine man whose lips never seemed to move, a man with dead-looking eyes into which no light of emotion ever came, watched them expressionlessly from where he stood with Carson. It was Poker Face.
"No," Poker Face answered, to a sharp question from the persistent Carson.
"Sure, are you?"
"Yes."
At last word came from Judith. Carson and Lee were to bring both of the suspected men to the house. Doc Tripp, wiping his hands on a towel, his sleeves up, bestowed upon the two of them a look of unutterable contempt and hatred.
"You low-lived skunks!" was his greeting to them.
"Easy, Doc," continued Judith from her desk. "That won't get us anywhere. Who are you?" she demanded of the man standing at Lee's side.
"Me?" demanded the man with an assumption of jauntiness. "I'm Donley, Dick Donley, that's who I am!"
"When did you get here?"
"'Bout an hour ago."
"What did you come for?"
"Lookin' for a job."
"Did Carson say he hadn't anything for you?"
"No, he didn't. You're askin' a lot of questions, if you want to know," he added with new surliness.
"Then why are you going in such a hurry? Don't you like to see any one shoot pigeons?"
Donley stared back at her insolently.
"Because I didn't fall for the crowd," he retorted bluntly. "An', if you want to know, because I didn't hanker for the job when I found out who was runnin' it."
"Meaning me? A girl? That it?"
"You guessed it."
"Who told you that I was running the outfit?" she demanded suddenly, her eyes hard on his. "You must have found that out pretty soon! Who told you?"
Donley hesitated, his eyes running from her to the other faces about him, resting longest upon the expressionless, dead-looking eyes of Poker Face.
"What difference does it make who told me?" he snapped.
"Answer me," she commanded. "Who told you?"
"Well," said Donley, "he did. Poker Face told me."
"Who told you that his name was Poker Face?" Judith shot the question at him.
Donley moved a scuffling foot back and forth, stirring uneasily. That he was lying, no one there doubted; that he was but a poor liar after all was equally evident.
"You ain't got no call to keep me here," he said at last. "I ain't goin' to answer questions all day."
"You'll answer my questions if you don't want me to turn you over to Emmet Sawyer in Rocky Bend!" she told him coolly. "How did you know this man was called Poker Face? Did you know him before?"
Donley's eyes went again, furtive and swift, to Poker Face. But so did all other eyes. Poker Face gave no sign.
"Yes," answered Donley then, taking refuge at last upon the solid basis of truth.
"Did you know this man?" Judith asked then of Poker Face, turning suddenly on him.
"No," said Poker Face.
Donley, having guessed wrong, flushed and dropped his head. Then he looked up defiantly and with a short, forced laugh.
"Suppose I know him or don't know him," he asked with his old insolence, "whose business is it?"
But Judith was giving her attention to Poker Face now.
"Where did you get that white pigeon you turned loose this morning?" she asked crisply.
"Caught it," was the quiet answer.
"How?"
"With my han's."
"Why?"
"Jus' for fun."
"Did you know that pigeons could carry hog-cholera on their feet?"
"No. But I wouldn't have been afraid, not bein' a hawg."
Donley tittered. Poker Face looked unconcerned.
"Take that man Donley into the hall," Judith said to Lee. "See if he has got any pigeon feathers sticking to him anywhere, inside his shirt, probably. If you need any help, say so."
Very gravely Bud Lee put a hand on Donley's shoulder.
"Come ahead, stranger," he said quietly.
"You go to hell!" cried Donley, springing away.
But Bud Lee's hand was on him, and though he struggled and cursed and threatened he went with Lee into the hallway. Tripp, watching through the open door, smiled. Donley was on his back, Lee's knees on his chest.
"I'll tell you one thing, stranger," Bud Lee was saying to him softly, as his hand tore open Donley's shirt, "you open your dirty mouth to cuss just once more in Miss Sanford's presence and I'll ruin the looks of your face for you. Now lie still, will you?"
"Connect me with the Bagley ranch," Judith directed the Rocky Mountain operator. "That's right, isn't it, Doc?"
"Yes," answered Tripp. "That's the nearest case of cholera."
"Hello," said Judith when the connection had been established. "Mr. Bagley? This is Judith Sanford, Blue Lake ranch. I've got a case of hog-cholera here, too. I want some information."
She asked her questions, got her answers. Triumphantly she turned to Tripp.
The Bagley ranch, though a hundred miles away, was the nearest cholera-infected place of which Tripp had any knowledge. Bagley did have a flock of pigeons; a man, a month or so ago, had bought two dozen from him; the man wasn't Trevors. Bagley didn't know who he was. The same man, however, had shown up three days ago and had asked for another half-dozen of the birds. There had been three white pigeons among them. He was a shifty-eyed chap, Bagley said, old brown suit, hat with a rattlesnake skin around the crown. That, point for point, spelled Donley.
Lee returned with the shirt which he had ripped from his prisoner's back. Adhering to the inside of it were little, downy feathers and three or four larger feathers from a pigeon's wing.
"I guess he rode mostly at night, at that," concluded Lee. "A great little fat man you must have looked, stranger, with six of those birdies in your shirt."
Donley's face was a violet red. But a glance from Lee shut his mouth for him. Poker Face, still looking on, gave no sign of interest.
"Put him in the grain-house," said Judith, her eyes bright with anger. "And see that he doesn't go Shorty's trail. Poker Face, have you anything else to say for yourself?"
"No," answered Poker Face.
"Then," cried Judith hotly, "you can have your time right now! Donley, here, I'll prosecute. He's going to pay for this morning's work. I've got nothing on you. It's up to you to see that I don't get it! And you can tell Shorty for me—yes, and Quinnion too, and Bayne Trevors, if you like—that I am ready and waiting for your next play! And don't forget that when San Quentin is full there's still room in Folsom."
Judith telephoned Emmet Sawyer that she had a man for him. Lee and Carson conducted an expostulating Donley to the grain-house and jailed him wordlessly. Then Carson put a man on guard at the door, daylight though it was. When all was done he filled his pipe slowly and turned troubled eyes after Poker Face.
"She made a mistake there, though," he said regretfully. "A better cow-hand I never ask to see, Bud. An' you ought to see the game of crib that man plays! Nope, Judy; you're wrong there."
But Bud Lee, the man who did not approve of the sort of woman who did man's work, said with unusual warmth:
"Don't you fool yourself, Carson! She hasn't made one little misplay yet!"
Though, under the surface, life upon Blue Lake ranch was sufficiently tense, the remaining days of June frivoled by as bright and bonny as the little meadow-blues flirting with the field-flowers.
Since from the very first the ranch had been short-handed, the hours from dawn to dusk were filled with activity. Carson, who, true to Judith's expectations, had brought back some new ideas from his few days at the experimental farm—ideas not to be admitted by Carson, however—bought a hundred young steers from a neighboring overstocked range. In the lower corrals the new milking-machines were working smoothly, only a few of the older cows refusing to have anything to do with them.
Tripp had succeeded in locating and getting back some of the men who had worked long under Luke Sanford and whom Trevors had discharged. It was a joy to see the familiar faces of Sunny Harper, Johnny Hodge, Bing Kelley, Tod Bruce. The alfalfa acreage was extended, a little more than doubled. Plans were made for an abundance of dry fodder to be fed with the lush silage during the coming lean months. Bud Lee broke his string of horses, and with Tommy Burkitt and one other dependable man began perfecting their education, with an eye turned toward a profitable sale in January.
Quinnion, perforce, was left undisturbed upon the sheep-ranch whither Emmet Sawyer had followed him. Against Bud Lee's word that he had had a hand at the trouble at the old cabin were the combined oaths of two of the sheepmen that he had been with them at the time.
Hampton's guests, who had planned for a month at the ranch, stayed on. But they would be leaving at the end of June. That is, Farris and Rogers positively; the Langworthys, perhaps. The major was content here, and to stay always and always, would be an unbounded joy—of course, with little runs to the city for the opera season and for shopping trips, and a great, jolly house-party now and then.
The only fly in Marcia's ointment was Hampton himself. She confessed as much to Judith. She liked him, oh, ever so much! But was that love? She yearned for a man who would thrill her through and through, and Hampton didn't always do that. Just after his heroic capture of the terrible Shorty, Marcia was thrilled to her heart's content. But there were other days when Hampton was just Pollock Hampton. If it could only be arranged so that she could stay on and on, with no day of reckoning to come, no matrimonial ventures on the horizon …
"That's simple, my dear," Judith smiled at her. "When you get through being Pollock Hampton's guest, you can be mine for a while."
Hampton was now a great puzzle to Mrs. Langworthy, and even an object of her secret displeasure. Not that that displeasure ever went to the limit of changing Mrs. Langworthy's plans. But she longed for the right to talk to him as a mother should. For, seeking to emulate those whom he so unstintedly admired, Bud Lee and Carson and the rest of the hard-handed, quick-eyed men in the service of the ranch, Hampton was no longer the careless, frankly inefficient youth who had escorted his guests here. He went for days at a time unshaven, having other matters to think of; he came to the table bringing with him the aroma of the stables. He wore a pair of trousers as cylindrical in the leg as a stove-pipe; over them he wore a pair of cheap blue overalls, with the proper six-inch turn-up at the bottom to show the stovepipe trousers underneath. The overalls got soiled, then dirty, then disgracefully blotched with wagon grease and picturesque stains, and Hampton made no apologies for them.
Twice he left the ranch, once to be gone overnight, intending that it should be a mystery where he went. But, since he rode the north trail which led to the Western Lumber camp, no one doubted that he had gone to see Bayne Trevors, in whom he still stoutly believed.
Between the 15th and the memorable 30th of June, Bud Lee saw little of Judith Sanford. She was here, there, everywhere; busy, preoccupied. Marcia he talked with twice; once when they rode together while Hampton, racing recklessly down a rocky slope for a shot at a deer got a fall, a sore shoulder and made his debut in certain new swear-words; once when all of the guests, with the exception of Farris, who was painting the portrait of the stallion, Nightshade, and the major, who had "letters to write," came out to watch the horse-breaking. This time, introduced to Mrs. Langworthy, Lee got for his bow a remarkably cold stare. Others might forget, here in the open, the distinction between people of the better class and their servants—not Mrs. Langworthy, if you please.
Having created his imaginary woman, Lee was ripe to fall in love with her when she came. He had thrilled to the touch of Judith's hand that night in the cabin; his thoughts, many and many a day, centred about the superbly alive beauty that was Judith's. The fact disturbed him vaguely. The thought that he was very deeply interested in her in the good old way between man and maid, never entered his stubborn head. She was as far removed from his ideal woman as the furthermost star in the infinite firmament. Perhaps it was this very disquiet within him, caused by Judith, which now turned his thoughts to Marcia.
"That's the sort of woman," he told himself stoutly. "A man's woman; his other self, not just a pardner; the necessary other side of him, not just the same side in a different way."
Marcia had little, feminine ways of helplessness which turned flatteringly to the strength of the other sex. Judith asked no man to aid her in mounting her horse; Marcia coquettishly slipped a daintily slippered foot into a man's palm, rising because of his strength.
Now, when his thoughts went to Judith, Bud Lee turned them dexterously to Marcia, making his comparisons, shaping them to fit into his pet theory. When, days passing, he did not see Judith, he told himself that he was going to miss Marcia when she left. When one day he came unexpectedly upon Judith and with lips and eyes she flashed her ready smile at him, he felt that odd stir in his blood. What a pity that a girl like her, who might have been anything, elected to do a man's work! When, again unexpectedly, he came another day upon Marcia riding with Hampton, there was no quick stirring of the pulses, and he contented himself with the thought: "Now, that is the sort of woman. A man's woman! His other self …" and so on.
When Judith planned a little party to mark the departure of Marcia on the 30th of June—it wasn't definitely decided that the Langworthys were leaving then, but at least Farris and Rogers were—the reasons actuating her were rather more complex than Judith herself fully realized or would have admitted. She liked Marcia; she wanted to do at least this much for her. Living-room, dining-room, music-room, library—they would all be cleared of the larger pieces of furniture, the double-doors thrown open. The string band from Rocky Bend would come. Judith would send out invitations to the nicer people there and to the ranches hereabout. She would have a barbecue, there would be races and the usual holiday games, then the dance. Marcia would know nothing of it until the last day, when her eager enthusiasm would send her a-flutter to her dressing-room.
Unanalyzed, it was simplicity itself, this giving a farewell party to Marcia. Under analysis, it was a different matter. The boys at the ranch would be invited, and of course most of them would come. Bud Lee would come. Judith would see to that, even if he should hesitate.
Bud Lee had always been so self-possessed, had so coolly found her lacking, that, piqued a little, Judith longed for the opportunity to place him in an atmosphere where a little of his calm self-possession might be snatched from him. If she could embarrass him, if she could see the red rise under his tanned skin, she would be giving Mr. Lee a lesson good for his soul.
"I've got powerful little use for an affair like that," said Lee coolly, when she told him. "Thank you, Miss Sanford, but I don't think I'll come."
Judith shrugged her shoulders as though it did not in the least matter to her.
"I'm giving it for Marcia," she said. "Do you think it would be quite nice to her to stay away? I am afraid that she will be hurt."
Not Judith's words, but the look in her eyes changed Lee's intentions.
"If it's for Miss Langworthy," he said quietly, "I'll come."
The day came and Bud Lee began to regret that he had given his promise to go to Marcia's dance. All day he was taciturn, aloof, avoiding not only the visitors from Rocky Bend and the other ranches, but his own fellows as well. He took no part in the races, was missing when the blazing trenches and smell of broiling meat told that the barbecue was in progress. He worked with his horses as he had worked yesterday, as he would work to-morrow. With the dusk he went, not to the men's quarters, but to the old cabin at the Upper End.
Again and again that day he had thought of that look in Judith's eyes when she had asked him to come for Marcia's sake. What the devil did she mean by it? He didn't know exactly, but he did know that in its own vague way it irritated him. Her eyes had laughed at him, they had teased, they had told him that Judith herself wasn't wasting a single thought upon Mr. Bud Lee, but that she had noticed his obvious interest in Miss Langworthy.
"Damn it," muttered Lee. "I won't go."
But he had said that he would go, and in little things as in big ones he was scrupulous. He would go, just to dance with Marcia and show Miss Judith a thing or two. He felt unreasonably like taking Miss Judith across his knee and spanking her. And he did have a curiosity to see just what Judith would look like in a real party-dress.
"Poor little wild Indian," he grumbled. "She's got the making of a wonder in her, and she doesn't even know it. What's worse, doesn't care."
He sat with a dead cigarette between his fingers, staring at the wind-blown flame of his coal-oil lamp. Judith was doing this as she did everything that she set her two hands on, thoroughly and with her whole heart and soul. In that lay the key to her character. There was no half-way with her. When she gave, it was open-handedly, with no reservation; where she loved or hated, it was unreservedly; if she gave a dance it would be a dance for the countryside to remember.
Yesterday Hampton had wondered, grinning, what he'd look like in a dress-suit again. Hadn't had a thing on here of late but his war togs. Whereby he called attention to his turned-up overalls, soft shirt, battered hat, and flapping vest with the tobacco-tag hanging out.
Bud Lee turned down the wick of his lamp, which had been smoking, and sat staring at it another five minutes.
"By thunder," he said softly to himself. "I'll do it."
He shoved the bunk away from its place in the corner, opened a trap-door in the floor and, lamp in hand, went down into the cabin's cellar. Here was a long pine box, hooped with tin bands for shipping, its lid securely nailed on. He set down his lamp and with shirt-sleeve wiped off some of the accumulation of dust and spider-web. A card with the words, "David Burrill Lee, Rocky Bend," tacked to it made its appearance. Lee shook his head and attacked the lid.
"It's like digging out a dead man," he muttered. "Well, we'll bury him again to-morrow."
It was a box of odds and ends. Clothing, a few books, a pack of photographs, an ornate bridle, a pair of gold-chased spurs, a couple of hats, gloves, no end of the varied articles which might have gone hastily into such a receptacle as this from the hurried packing in a bachelor's apartments.
Bud Lee, with a dress-suit and the articles it demands, even to tie and dancing-shoes, went back into the room above.
"Like Hampton," he mused, looking at the things in his hands, "I wonder what it'll feel like to get back into these! I'm a fool." He laughed shortly and set to work to improvise a flat-iron to take the worst wrinkles out of the cloth. "Once a fool, always a fool. You can't get away from it."
It was settled. He was going to Marcia's party. He insisted upon calling it in his mind, "Marcia's party." And he was wondering, as he shaved, how Judith was going to look.
As Bud Lee came through the lilacs into the courtyard, he heard the tinkle of a distant piano and the tremolo of a violin, so faint as hardly to be distinguished above the plash and gurgle of the fountains. The court, bathed in soft light, seemed a corner of fairyland, the music vanishing elfin strains of some mischievous troop putting sighs and love dreams into a sleeping maid's breast. The night was rich with stars, warm with summer, serene with the peace of the mountains. He was late. They were already dancing within.
He stood a moment, looking in at the outer edge of the flood of light which gushed through the wide doors. Behind him Japanese lanterns hanging from a vine-covered trellis; before him flowers, bright chandeliers, girls' dresses like fluttering, many-colored, diaphanous butterfly wings. He had been saying to himself: "I must hurry if I want to dance with Marcia." And something stirring restlessly within him shoved aside the thought of Marcia and put in its stead the old wonder: "What sort of a Judith would he see to-night?"
He found it difficult to form any picture of her here, among these gay, inconsequent merry-makers. Judith to him spelled a girl upon a horse, booted, spurred, with a scarf about her neck fluttering wildly behind her as she rode, the superb, splendid figure of a girl of the out-of-doors, alive with the hot pioneer blood which had been her rich inheritance, a sort of wonderful boy-girl. Remove her flapping hat, her boots, and spurs and riding-suit, and what was left of Judith?
Outside were half a dozen of the boys who had not mustered courage to set foot on the polished floors, Carson and Tommy Burkitt among them. Tommy stared at Bud Lee and his jaw dropped in amazement. Carson took swift stock of such clothes as he had never suspected a good horse foreman owned, and gasped faintly:
"The damn … lady-killer!"
But Lee had neither eyes nor thoughts for them, nor remembrance of his own change from working garb to that of polite society. The dance came to a lingering end, the couples throughout the big rooms strolled up and down, clapping their hands softly or vehemently as their natures or degree of enthusiasm dictated, and Lee forgot Marcia and sought eagerly for a glimpse of Judith.
Refused a second encore, the couples stood about chatting, the hum of lively voices bespeaking eager enjoyment. There was no early chill upon the assembly, to be dissipated as the dance wore on; the day of festivity outdoors had thawed the thin crust of icy strangeness which is so natural a part of such a function as this. Already it seemed that everybody was on the most cheerful terms with everybody else.
Suddenly Lee's eyes, still seeking Judith, found Marcia. Surrounded by a little knot of men, each of them plainly seeking to become her happy partner for the next dance, adorably helpless as usual, Miss Langworthy was allowing the men to fight it out among themselves. Lee moved a little nearer to see her better. In a pale-blue gown, fluffy as a summer cloud, her cheeks delicately flushed, a white rose like a snowdrop in the gold of her hair, she was flutteringly happy, reminding him of those little meadow blues that had flown palpitatingly about him that day in the fields. And she was obviously as much at her ease here, in an atmosphere of music and flattery, as the tiny butterflies in their own meadows.
Bud Lee came in, his tall form conspicuous, and went straight to Marcia. She saw him immediately; forget herself to stare almost as Carson had done; smiled at him brightly; waved her fan to him.
He took her hand and told her with his eyes how pretty she was. The delicate tint in Marcia's cheeks deepened and warmed, her eyes grew even brighter.
"Flatterer!" she chided him. "Are we to talk of the moth and the star again, Mr. Lee?"
The knot of men about her melted away. Lee stood looking down into her upturned eyes, measuring her gentle beauty. He had thought of her as a little blue butterfly—she was more like a wee white moth, fluttering, fluttering …
The music, again from a hidden distance, set feet to tapping. Marcia plainly hesitated, flashed a quick look from Lee to the others about them, then whispered hurriedly:
"It's terrible of me, but——"
And she slipped her hand into his arm, cast another searching glance over her shoulder for a partner who had been too tardy in finding her, and yielded to the temptation to have this first dance with "the most terribly fascinating man there"! Lee slipped his arm about her, felt her sway with him, and lightly they caught the beat of the dance and lost themselves in it. And still, again and again turning away from Marcia, he sought Judith.
The dance over, their talk was interrupted by an excited and rather overdignified youth with a hurt look in his young worshipping eyes, who stiffly reminded Miss Langworthy that she had cut his dance. She was so contrite and helpless about it that the youth's heart was touched; she blamed herself for her terribly stupid way of always getting things tangled up, gave him the promise of the next dance, which she had already given to some one else, disposed of him with charming skill, and sighed as she turned again to Lee.
"I haven't paid my respects to our hostess," he said quietly. "Where is Miss Sanford?"
"She sent her excuses," Marcia told him. "Aren't we in a draft, Mr. Lee?"
He moved with her away from the soft current of air, a distinct disappointment moving him to the verge of sudden anger. What business had Judith to stay away?
"You mean she isn't coming at all?" he asked quickly.
"Oh, no," she told him, busy with the rose in her hair, her eyes bright on his. "Just as the dance was beginning she had to go to the telephone. Some ranch business, I don't know what. But she sent word she would be here immediately—I believe," and Marcia made her remark teasingly, though she did want to know, "that a certain mysterious gentleman who masquerades as a horse-breaker is very much interested in Judith."
"What makes you say a thing like that?" he asked, startled a little.
Marcia laughed.
"A woman's intuition, Sir Mystery!" she informed him gayly.
"What does the woman's intuition find to be the mysterious gentleman's interest in a certain Miss Langworthy?" he asked lightly.
"It tells her that he likes her; that it would be fun for him to come and play with her; that he would be kind and courteous; but that he considers her very much as he would a foolish little butterfly!"
Again she startled him. He looked at her wonderingly. But before he could frame a bantering reply, Marcia had involuntarily gripped at his arm with a look upon her face that first was sheer bewildered astonishment, and was crying for him to look yonder.
Judith had come.
Across the floor, now nearly deserted, Bud Lee and Marcia stared at her. She was coming toward them, her dainty little slippers seeming to kiss their own reflections in the gleaming floor. It was Judith and not Judith. It was some strange, unknown Judith. A wonderfully gowned, transcendently lovely Judith. A Judith who had long hidden herself, masquerading, and who now stepped forth smiling and bright and vividly beautiful; a Judith of bare white arms, round and soft and rich in their tender curves; a Judith whose filmy gown floated about her like a sun-shot mist; a Judith whose skin above the low-cut corsage was like a baby's, whose tender mouth was a red flower, whose hair was a shimmering mass of bronze-brown, whose eyes were Aphrodite's own, glorious, dawn-gray; a Judith of rare maidenly charm; a glorious, palpitant, triumphant Judith.
It might have been just because it was fitting that they should greet their hostess so; it might have been because the men and women who saw this new Judith were caught suddenly in a compelling current of admiration, that above the hum of voices rose from everywhere a quick clapping of hands as she came through the room. The color of her cheeks deepened, her eyes flashed a joyous acknowledgment of the greeting, and bright and cool and self-possessed she came on to Marcia.
"Marcia, dear," she said, taking Marcia's two hands—and Bud Lee found that even Judith's voice had taken on a new note, deeper, richer, gladder, fraught with the quality of low music—"forgive me for being late. I wanted to be here every little second to see you enjoy yourself." She put her lips closer to Marcia's ear, whispering: "You are the prettiest thing to-night I ever saw!"
Marcia shook her head, her eyes filled with frank wonder.
"Don't fib, Judith, dear," she answered. And, for Marcia, she was very grave. "I know you have a glass in your room. You wonderful, wonderful Judith!"
Their voices were indistinct to Bud Lee. Now at the moment when she was so rich in the splendor of her own sweet femininity he filled his heart with her. Judith had come in the only way Judith could come, surrendering herself utterly to the hour.
She turned to him, no surprise at his own costume in her happy eyes, and gave him her cool hand. A swift tremor ran through him at the contact, a tremor which was like that of the night in the cabin, which he could not conceal, which Judith must notice. She said something, but he let the words go, holding only the vibrant music of the voice.
She had stirred him, and now he did not seek a theory for a buckler; the sight of her, the brushing of her fingers against his, made riotous tumult in his blood.
The first strains of a waltz joined the lure of Judith's warm loveliness, whispering, counselling, commanding: "Take her." Marcia gasped and stepped back, startled by the look she saw in the eyes of this man who, having spoken no word since Judith came, put out his arms and took her into them. Judith flashed at him a look of quick wonder. His face was almost stern; no hint of a smile had come into his eyes. He merely caught her to him as though she were his, and swung her out into the whirl of dancers.
"You are rather—abrupt, aren't you?" said Judith coolly.
"Am I?" he asked gravely. "I don't know. It seems to me that I have been loitering, just loitering while——"
He didn't attempt to finish. He held Judith in his arms while for him the room was emptied of its gay throng, the music no longer pulsed; its beat was in the rhythm of their bodies, swaying as one.
The dance over, she was lost to him in the crowd of men who came eagerly to her. His eyes followed her wherever she went. A slow anger kindled in his heart that she should let other men talk with her, that she should suffer another man to take her in his arms.
A number of country dances followed. He stood by the door waiting a little before he went again to Judith. He saw Marcia across the room beckoning to him with her fan. There was nothing to do but to go to her. He frowned but went, still watching for Judith. Marcia wanted him to meet some of her friends. He shook hands with Hampton, was introduced to Rogers. Marcia explained that Mr. Lee was the gentleman who achieved perfect wonders in the education of his horses. She turned to introduce Farris, the artist. But Farris broke into Marcia's words with a sudden exclamation.
"Dave Lee!" he cried, as if he could not believe his eyes. "You! Here!"
"Hello, Dick," Lee answered quietly. "Yes, I'm here. I didn't know that you were the artist fellow Hampton had brought up with him."
Farris's hand went out swiftly to be gripped in Lee's. Marcia, mystified, looked from one to the other.
"You two know each other? Why, isn't that——"
She didn't know just what it was, so stopped, looking frankly as though she'd like to have one of them finish her sentence for her.
"But," muttered Farris, "I thought that you——"
"Never mind, Dick," said Lee quickly. And to Marcia's mystified expression: "You'll pardon us a moment, Miss Langworthy? I want to talk a little with Mr. Farris."
His hand on the artist's elbow, Bud Lee forced him gently away. The two disappeared into the little room off the library where José was placing a great bowl of punch on the table.
"Que hay, Bud," grinned José. "Your ol' nose smell the booze damn' queek, no?"
He set down his bowl and went out. Farris stared wonderingly at Lee.
"Bud, is it?" he grunted. "Breaker of horses; hired man at a dollar a day——?"
"Ninety dollars a month, Dick," Lee corrected g him, with a short laugh. "Give a fellow his true worth, old-timer."
Farris frowned.
"What devil's game is this!" he demanded sharply. "Isn't it enough that you should drop out of the world with never a word, but that you must show up now breaking horses and letting such chaps as Mrs. Simpson's Black Spanish chum with you? Not a cursed word in five years, and I've lain awake nights wondering. When you went to smash——"
"When a Lee goes to smash," said Bud briefly, "he goes to smash. That's all there is to it."
"But there was no sense, no use in your dropping out of sight that way——"
"There was," said Lee curtly, "or I shouldn't have done it. It wasn't just that I went broke; that was a result of my own incompetence in a bit of speculation and didn't worry me a great deal. But other things did. There were a couple of the fellows that I thought were friends of mine. I found out that they had knifed me; had helped pluck me to feather their own nests. It hurt, Dick; hurt like hell. Losing the big ranch in the South was a jolt, I'll admit; seeing those fellows take it over and split it two ways between them, sort of knocked the props out from under me. I believed in them, you see. After that I just wanted to get away and sort of think things over."
"You went to Europe?"
"I did not. I don't know how that report got out, but if people chose to think I had gone to take a hand in the fighting over there, I saw no need to contradict a harmless rumor. I took a horse and beat it up into the coast mountains. I tell you, Dick, I wanted to think! And I found out before I was through thinking that I was sick of the old life, that I was sick of people, the sort of people you and I knew, that there was nothing in the world but horses that I cared the snap of my finger about, that the only life worth living—for me—was a life in the open. I drifted up this way. I've been living my own life in my own way for five years. I am happier at it than I used to be. That's all of the flat little story, Dick."
"You might have let me know, it seems to me," said Farris a bit stiffly.
"So I might," answered Lee thoughtfully. "I was going to in the first place. But you'll remember that you were off somewhere travelling when the bubble broke. When Dick Farris travels," and his grave smile came back to him, "let no mad letter think that it can track him down. Then I hit my stride in this sort of life; I grew away from the old news; the years passed as years do after a man is twenty-five; and I just didn't write. But I didn't forget, Dickie, old man," he said warmly, and his hand rested on Farris's shoulder. "You can put it in that old black pipe of yours and smoke it, that I didn't forget. Some day I planned to hit town again, heeled you know, and remind you of auld lang syne."
"You are a fool, David Burrill Lee," said Farris with conviction. "Look here: you can take a new start, pull yourself together, come back—where you belong."
But Lee shook his head.
"That's like the old Dick Farris I used to know," he said gently. "But this is where I belong, Dick. I don't want to start over, I don't want to come back to the sort of thing we knew. The only thing in the world I do want is right here. And I don't see that it would do any good for you to go stirring up any memories about the old Lee that was shot 'somewhere in France.'"
When Farris had to go and claim a dance, Lee watched him with eyes soft with affection. Then he, too, left the room and went back to the outer door, to his old spot, looking for Judith.
"The only thing I want is right here," he repeated softly.
He watched Farris join Marcia and Judith. He noted the eager excitement in Marcia's eyes, saw her turn impulsively to Farris. The artist shook his head and left them, ostensibly going in search of his partner. Marcia was speaking excitedly to Judith. Lee frowned.
Once more that night he held Judith in his arms. He meant to make amends for his brusque way with her before. But again the magic of her presence was like a glorious mist, shutting them in together, shutting all of the world out. They spoke little and the music had its will with them. Judith did not know that she sighed as the dance ended. She seemed moving in a dream as Lee led her through the door. They were out in the courtyard, the stars shining softly down on them. In the subdued light here he stood still, looking down into her pleasure-flushed face. Again the insistent tremor shot down his blood.
Here in this tender light she looked to him the masterpiece of God striving for the perfect in a woman's form. Her gown, gently stirred by the warm breeze, seemed a part of her, elusive, alive, feminine. The milk-white of bare throat and shoulder and rounded arm, the rise and fall of her breast, the soft lure of her eyes, the tender smile upon her lips, drew him slowly closer, closer to her. She lifted her face a little, raising her eyes until they shone straight into his.
"Judith," he said very quietly, very gravely, making her wonder at the tone and the words to follow: "You have had your way with me to-night. Do you understand all that means? And now—I am going to have my way with you!"
He caught her in his arms, crushed her to him, kissed her. Then he let her go and stood, stern-faced, watching her.
For a moment he thought that the hand at her side was rising to strike him full in the face. But he did not move.
Had such been Judith's intention, suddenly it changed.
"So," she cried softly, "this is the sort of fine gentleman into which a dress-suit has made Bud Lee, horse foreman! For so great an honor surely any woman would thank him!"
She made him a slow, graceful courtesy, and laughed at him. And so she left him, her laughter floating back, taunting him.
Lee watched her until she had gone from his sight. Then he turned and went down the knoll, into the night.
Going down the knoll to the bunk-house, Bud Lee cursed himself at every stride. He cursed Carson when the cattle foreman, turning to follow him, addressed a merry remark to him concerning his "lady-killing clothes." The words reminded him of Judith's and he didn't cherish the remembrance. In the bunk-house Carson watched him curiously over his old pipe as Lee began ripping off his dress-suit.
"A feller called you up a while ago," said Carson, still bright-eyed with interest but pretending that that interest had to do with the new wall telephone recently installed. "Sandy Weaver, it was. Said——"
"What did he want?" demanded Lee, swinging suddenly on Carson, his coat balled up in his hand and hurled viciously under a bunk.
"Wasn't I telling you?" Carson grunted. "What's eating you, Bud? You ac' mighty suspicious, like a man that had swallered poison or else was coming down with the yeller jaundice or else was took sudden an' powerful bad with love. They all treats a man similar——"
"Damn it," growled Lee irritably, "can't you tell me what Weaver said?"
"Said, call him up, real pronto," replied Carson cheerfully. "Say, Bud, where in heck did you get that outfit? By cripes, if I had a regalia like that I'd be riding herd in 'em ev'ry Sunday! On the square now——"
But Lee wasn't listening to him and Carson knew it. He had gone quickly to the telephone, had rung the one bell for "Central," and a moment later was speaking with Sandy Weaver of the Golden Spur saloon. Carson sucked at his pipe and kept his eyes on Lee's face.
The ensuing conversation, only one side of which came to Carson, was brief. Most of the talking was done by Sandy Weaver. Lee asked three questions; the third a simple,
"Sure of it, Sandy?"
Then he jammed the receiver back upon its hook, and with no remark continued his hurried dressing. When he had come in, his face had been flushed; now it was suddenly red, the hot red of rage. His eyes, when they met Carson's once, were stern, bright with the same quick anger. When he had drawn on his working garb and stuffed his trousers into his boots, he went to his bunk and tossed back the blanket. From the straw mattress he took a heavy, old style Colt revolver. Carson, still watching him, saw him spin the cylinder, slip a box of fresh cartridges into his pocket and turn to the door.
"Riding, Bud?" He got to his feet, stuffed his pipe into his pocket and reached for his hat. "Care if I mosey along?"
"What for?" asked Lee curtly.
"Oh, hell, what's the use being a hawg," Carson grumbled deep down in his brown throat. "If you're on your way to little ol' Rocky hunting trouble, if they's going to be shooting-fun, why can't you let me in on it?"
Lee stood a moment framed in the doorway, frowning down at Carson. Then he turned on his heel and went out, saying coolly over his shoulder:
"Come on if you want to. Quinnion's in town."