"Work is the grandest cure for all the maladies and miseries
that ever beset mankind.--CARLYLE."
Jerry nodded approvingly at the quotation above her desk in the office.
It had been hung there in Old Nick's day and was quite as pertinent in
her case as it might have been in his. To be sure, their maladies
differed. His couldn't by the remotest possibility have been lack of
money, she thought with a laugh.
Steve had installed her at her desk two weeks ago and had then forgotten
her, presumably. Tommy Benson was giving her instructions as to her
duties, but even his attentions were episodic. Ranlett had departed
swearing vengeance in the good old nineteenth century style and Steve
and Gerrish were out from morning till night taking account of stock and
checking up. Tommy was riding range and being general utility man.
Neither he nor Steve knew how closely she had remained at her desk. She
must make good and she must accomplish it without taking too much of
Tommy's time. As Steve had insisted upon paying her a month's salary in
advance she had surreptitiously sent for a correspondence course on
bookkeeping. She was making Sandy's life miserable because the material,
which she expected would make her efficient in twenty-four hours, had
not arrived.
Arms on the back of her swivel-chair, one knee in the seat she twisted
slowly about. The room inspired the same sense of breathless interest it
had the first time she entered it. Two walls were encased in glass.
Behind the glass hung a collection of riding equipment and firearms.
Some of the pieces dated back to the epoch-making journey of the
pathfinders, Lewis and Clark, some to the first white settlers in the
region west of the Mississippi. There were saddles rich in silver
filigree which had come from the southwest of the cattle country; there
were saddles with short round skirts, open stirrups, narrow and rimmed
with iron; some had borders and emblems stamped on the leather, some had
dark stains. There were chaps, fringed and unfringed, in infinite
variety. There were coiled ropes of rawhide and of well worn grass;
there were guns and knives and tomahawks, there was a stained and
tattered Stars and Stripes.
"You fairly ooze atmosphere." Jerry mused aloud, her dreamy brown eyes
on the saddles. "If you could speak what couldn't you tell of romance
and comedy and tragedy. Herds, bad men, _voyageurs_, rustlers, settlers,
prairie-schooners and Indians, you must have seen them all." Her voice
had dropped to a whisper. Its tenseness roused her from what was fast
becoming a vermilion orgy of imagination. She swung her chair round and
dropped into it with a laugh and the reflection, "Pete Gerrish says that
when a person talks to himself he's sure in for adventure."
She picked up a typewritten letter and regarded it with vainglorious
elation. Not so bad! There was a spiral effect at the end of one
sentence but on the whole it was a creditable affair for a person who
had never used a typewriter till the week before and who was relying on
the hunt-and-punch method for progress. Her already flushed cheeks took
on a deeper tinge as she looked at the filing cases. Would she ever
acquire a feeling of even bowing acquaintance with them, she wondered;
they were most awe-inspiring.
The sun lay warmly on the fields outside, a gay little breeze spiced
with pine danced in at the open window, stirred the curls at the nape of
the girl's neck and whisked out again. Jerry looked out longingly, shook
her head. "Remember, you're a daughter of toil now," she adjured the
vagabond impulse which urged her to be up and away on her horse. She
resolutely turned her back on the tempting out-of-doors and picked up
her letter.
"'Gentlemen,'" she read aloud, "'We are shipping'--now why should I have
typed that slipping--'thirty head of Guernseys on the----'" A shadow
from the open door fell on her paper. Absorbed in her corrections, she
spoke without looking up from her desk:
"You are wanted at the Lower Field, Pete. The Chief just 'phoned that
more calves are missing. That----" as no colorful ejaculation followed
her announcement, Gerrish swore with fascinating facility when he was
deeply moved, she looked up in surprise. The smile which the thought of
Pete had brought stiffened on her lips. She sprang to her feet and
pushed back her chair. A man leaned against the door, a giant of a man
fully six feet two. In a flash she sized him up. He was of different
caliber from the "boys" of the outfit. No one of them would have stood
with his hat on in her presence. The stranger's Mexican sombrero, pushed
far back on his head, revealed rough red hair; his eyes were a hard
blue; his nose suggested the beak of a hawk; his mouth was his best
feature, it looked as though it might have been tender before the
insidious processes of discouragement and recklessness got in their
work. One temple gave the impression of having been knocked in and from
the dent to the corner of his lips ran an angry, wrinkled scar. It
contributed a curiously saturnine expression to what in youth might have
been a pleasing face. From feet to waist his clothing was reminiscent of
the army; from the belt up it might have belonged to a rider, even to
the gay purple and crimson bandana at his neck. The stranger smiled
boldly as his eyes met the girl's. Jerry's heart did a handspring and
righted. A fleeting cloud of apprehension dimmed the brilliance of her
eyes.
"If you are looking for a job you'll have to come back after five," she
volunteered with her best in-charge-of-the-office manner. "The manager
is off on the range." She could have cheerfully bitten out her tongue as
she noted the smile with which the man received the information.
"I'm no cow-puncher," he answered disdainfully. "I'm not hunting a job
here. I'm looking for the railroad. I took the ranch road by mistake,
but, now that I am here----" He straightened his great shoulders, pulled
his soft hat jauntily over one ear with his big hairy hand, and took a
step into the room. "Well, you're too pretty a girl to be left alone,
_sabe_? I always had a taste for stenogs."
Jerry's heart did another turn. She hated the man's eyes. Hers flashed
to the desk. There was no use trying to telephone, he might stop her;
besides, the ranch was an affair of magnificent distances; it would take
time for anyone she called to reach the office. Ming and Hopi would be
of as much assistance as two Chinese dolls. She must depend upon herself
to get rid of the creature. She swiftly computed the relative splashing
values of the ink-well and the pot of paste. The ink had it. Her hand
crept along the desk.
"Don't come any nearer. If you're wise you'll go at once."
"I get you. Here's-your-hat-what's-your-hurry stuff, yes? But I think
I'll stay. I've just come up from the border. You're the handsomest
white girl I've seen in months. Come on, be friends. I like that
gilt-edged effect in your hair and eyes. Take it from me----"
Jerry was white to the lips. She lifted the ink-well.
"You'd better go or I----"
"What's your business here?" a crisp voice interrupted from the door.
"Steve!"
With the startled whisper the stiffening departed from Jerry's knees.
She sank back in her chair. The stranger wheeled with military precision
then, in a startled voice laden with pride and affection, cried:
"_Comment ca va, mon Lieutenant!_"
"Carl! Oh boy, Carl, where did you come from?"
The undertone in Courtlandt's voice brought the tears stinging to
Jerry's eyes. Steve gripped the stranger's hand as though he would never
let it go. The two patted one another's shoulders with their free hands
and beamed with suspiciously bright eyes.
"What good wind blew you here, Beechy?" Steve demanded. "Jerry, this is
Carl Beechy, who was my top sergeant in France. That scar he wears was
intended for me, and--and--he took it. Carl, this is my--this is Mrs.
Courtlandt."
"Mrs. Courtlandt! Your wife, Lieutenant? _C'est drole, ca!_
I--I--thought----" The girl had never seen such contrition as clouded
Beechy's eyes as they met hers. There was not a trace of recklessness in
them now; they were frankly pleading. She hesitated for a moment, then
smiled.
"I'm glad that you came to the Double O, Sergeant Beechy. It was
fortunate that you arrived when you did, Steve. Mr. Beechy was just
going. You--you might not have recognized him had you met him on the
road." Her lips twitched traitorously as her glance flashed to the
ink-well on the desk.
Beechy's eyes sent her a wireless of passionate gratitude and
admiration. Then he turned to Courtlandt.
"You are the last person I expected to see here, Lieutenant."
"Weren't you looking for me, Carl? I told you----"
"I know, you told me to look you up, but--two years is a long time and
I've found men forget. I went to Mexico after I left hospital. I've been
drifting till now----" He broke off the sentence sharply. His face had
the curious look which tanned skin has when the blood has been drawn
away from it. Jerry could have sworn that there was fright in his eyes.
Did Steve see what she saw? Evidently not, for he exclaimed:
"When you didn't turn up I thought you'd re-enlisted."
"Me! Nothing doing, Lieutenant. The next time my country calls it'll
have to call so loud that I'll hear it at the other end of the world.
No, me and the U.S.A. is through."
"That's fool talk, Beechy. I've heard it before. If you were needed you
and every man who talks like you would be the first to answer the call
to the colors. I know you. You jumped in at the first sign of trouble.
You'd do it again. Well, there's a job for you right here."
The man's lips stiffened. A look of dog-like devotion flooded his eyes.
"That's just like you, but--but I can't take it, Lieutenant. I've signed
up for--for something else, and you know--there's--there's honor among
thieves," with a strained attempt at levity which was belied by his
eyes. He looked at Jerry. "I never knew what a man could be till I met
the Lieutenant, Mrs. Courtlandt. I'd always thought that a rich guy was
bound to be soft, but he's tested steel. I've got to beat it this
minute. I--I was telling your wife when I came in, Lieutenant, that I
was looking for the railroad and took the ranch road by mistake."
"But you can't go, Beechy. Good Lord, man, you've got to eat somewhere,
at least stop for chow. Come along to the bunk-house. I want the boys to
know you." He turned to Jerry. "Did you get hold of Pete?"
"No, I couldn't reach him. I--I thought that it was he when Mr. Beechy
appeared."
"Let it go then." He looked at her keenly. "Have you been out of the
office this week? I thought not," as she colored faintly. "Don't do any
more work to-day--please. Let's go, Carl."
Beechy turned to Jerry. He twisted his hat awkwardly in his big hands.
"Good-bye, Mrs. Courtlandt. I hope that you'll--you'll----"
Jerry held out her hand with a smile.
"I shall always remember what you did for your lieutenant, Sergeant
Beechy. Good luck; if you don't like the railroad come back to us." He
gripped the hand she extended. Jerry gave his a warning pressure as she
looked up and saw Steve regarding them intently. With a squeeze which
made her see fifty-seven varieties of stars and their collateral
branches, Beechy released her hand.
"Let's go, Lieutenant."
Jerry looked after the two as they strode away broad shoulder almost
touching broad shoulder. Had they been girls they would have their arms
around each other's waists, she was sure. What strange friendships the
war had welded. Braggadocio had slipped from Beechy like a garment the
instant he recognized Courtlandt's voice. He had assumed an entirely
different personality. Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. The soldier was a much
safer citizen than the man of peace, she told herself with a reminiscent
shiver.
She picked up the papers on her desk, then dropped them. Steve had been
emphatic about her going out. Suddenly she felt that she couldn't endure
four walls a moment longer. She must be in the open. She pulled down the
top of her desk and dashed through the flowering court to the house.
She called Ming Soy to bring lunch to her room. She telephoned the
corral to send up Patches.
In her cool, silvery gray linen riding clothes Jerry drew an ecstatic
breath as she gave Patches his head. He pirouetted for a moment then
settled to a steady canter. On all sides spread fields and pastures in
luxuriant greenness. Beyond them mountains swept to hazy, purple
heights. In one of the fields a rider turned and looked at her as she
passed. She leaned forward in her saddle, opened a gate and closed it;
she hoped the man had noticed with what ease it had been accomplished.
Great blooded Shorthorns turned ruminative eyes upon her; she had seen
women with that same expression when at a society function another
entered as to whose social status they were in doubt. Off in a pen a
perfect specimen of pure-blooded Ayreshire bull pawed the ground and
sent showers of earth spraying on his satiny back. Where the trail left
the flower-dotted meadow a spring bubbled from under a mushroom-shaped
rock. Jerry dismounted and knelt for a drink, more for the feel of the
sparkling water against her lips than because of thirst.
Where should she go, she wondered as she mounted Patches. She had an
inspiration. She would make a neighborly call on the wife of the
ex-service man at Bear Creek ranch. Jerry had never seen her, but Sandy
the Carrier, who was the artery for news in the county, had told her
that she was lonely.
The water was high in the stream. The banks were pink with wild roses
and among their denseness the meadow-larks kept up an invisible chorus.
Jerry forced Patches to a coquettish prance across the rustic bridge. It
was there that the apex of the B C triangle of land forced its way
between the Double O and the X Y Z. She knew the place; Tommy had shown
her the dividing fences. From where the rushing water narrowed and
whitened over a rocky bed an aged pack-trail staggered into a cuplike
ravine. Rejuvenated by the sunshine in the hollow it straightened and
sprinted straight as an arrow for the foot-hills. The sun shone warmly
on lustrous fields. The air was spicy with the breath of pines. A rabbit
hopped from cover and skurried back again.
As Patches, with ears pricked, silky neck preened, stepped daintily
along the trail the girl sang happily:
"'My road calls me, lures me
West, east, south and north;
"'Most roads lead me homeward,
But my road leads men forth--
To add more miles to the tal----'"
The last word was broken in the middle as they rounded a clump of
cottonwoods and came suddenly upon a horseman with a small bunch of
sheep. He jerked his hat low over his eyes as the girl hailed him.
"Good-afternoon! I am looking for Bear Creek ranch. Will you direct me?"
Without answering in words the man pointed toward a clutter of buildings
in a slight depression. Back of them a scantily timbered hill, in places
rich with grass dotted with grazing sheep, gave the impression of an
animated Corot. Before Jerry could speak the stranger had galloped off.
"A responsive party," she soliloquized. "Was he afraid of me, I wonder?
He registered guilt, all right. If he is the owner of B C ranch Uncle
Nick and Bruce Greyson were buncoed. That man is hiding something."
A woman flung open the cabin door as Jerry rode up. She was young and
pretty. Her clear, full eyes reminded the girl of Ox-eyed Juno. She was
dressed in a bungalow apron of hectic design but scrupulous neatness. A
wistful smile trembled on her lips as she asked:
"Have--have you lost your way?"
Jerry Courtlandt shook her head and slipped from the saddle. The gold in
her brown eyes predominated as she fastened Patches to a post and
approached the door.
"Lost? No, I came to call. I am Geraldine Courtlandt, your neighbor at
the Double O."
The woman's face colored a delicate shell pink. Her expression was
radiance tempered by incredulity.
"How--how nice of you, Mrs. Courtlandt, how human. I--I am Mrs. Jim
Carey. Nell Carey. Won't you come in?"
Jerry liked her dignity. She showed no consciousness of the difference
between her three-room shack and the luxurious ranch-house from which
the visitor had come. "Thoroughbred," thought the girl as she preceded
her hostess into a small but immaculately clean room. With a happy laugh
tinged with excitement, Nell Carey waved her to a seat.
"Do make yourself comfortable. If you'll excuse me for a moment I'll
bring some tea. The kettle has just boiled. You won't vanish while I'm
gone, will you? Promise. I have a horrible fear that your being here may
be nothing but an iridescent dream."
Jerry's heart smarted with self-reproach. What heathen people can be and
yet be neighbors, she thought. Here was this girl, and she was a girl in
spite of that betraying heap of white sewing on the machine in the
corner, craving companionship, and she spent hours and hours riding
about the country with never a thought of being neighborly. She looked
about the room. What part of it wasn't taken up by a roll-top desk was
filled by a table fairly groaning under its load of magazines. Three
chairs and the machine completed the furnishings; that is, unless a worn
violin case in a corner came under that head. She hastily cleared an end
of the table as Nell Carey entered with a tea-tray.
"Thank you. You are the first woman who has been inside my house since I
came here a year ago," she announced breathlessly. Her eyes glowed, her
cheeks were flushed. "Of course Jim has flivvered me to town, but--but I
haven't met anyone whom I cared to have here. Cream?"
The loneliness of it, Jerry thought, as she watched her hostess pour
thick cream into the fragrant tea with hands that trembled. Then she
remembered that she had been at the Double O three months, and that
except for Ming Soy and Mrs. Simms, the foreman's wife at Upper Farm,
she had not seen a woman. Curious that she had not missed them. Doc Rand
had been as neighborly as his busy life permitted; Bruce Greyson had
been away from the X Y Z since her arrival. With Steve and Tommy she had
been absolutely content. Why? Her thoughts bolted on a tour of
investigation; she dragged them back to answer a question from her
hostess:
"Not another cookie, thank you. I've been a gourmand, but they are
delicious."
"Jim likes them."
"I wonder if I saw your husband by the stream?"
"No. Jim left yesterday on a hunt for help. He'll only be away four days
but it seems years to look forward to. You must have met our
range-rider, Bill Small. He dropped from the sky, figuratively speaking,
ten months ago. I call him the Man of Mystery. He never talks about
himself, never mentions his people, never has letters, but he's a shark
for work and he plays beautifully. That is his." She nodded toward the
violin case in the corner. "The boys from the Double O and the X Y Z hit
the trail for the Bear Creek every chance they can get to hear him
play."
The sun topped the cap of a mountain like a mammoth red button as Jerry
leaned from the saddle and held out her hand.
"You will come and see me, won't you?"
Nell Carey's lips quivered betrayingly.
"Of course, if you really want me. But it will be after----" Jerry gave
the hand she held an impulsive squeeze.
"I'll come here again before that. Aren't you madly happy? I must hurry
or they'll have the entire outfit hunting for me. Good-bye!"
As she reached the pack-trail she turned and waved and the woman
standing alone by her door waved back. What an atom she seemed in the
wide spaces about her. As she rode Jerry's mind was full of the home she
had left behind. What courage Nell Carey had had to follow her man into
a wilderness like that. And now a little child was coming. She thought
of her father, of his anger because his daughter had insisted upon
accompanying the man she had married to the Double O ranch with all its
luxury. Men were curious creatures.
The sun had disappeared, fluffy islands of cloud, pink, lemon and
violet, floated above the tops of the mountains, the sky was fast
purpling, there was a suspicion of razor-edge in the crystal-clear air
as Jerry unlatched the gate by the road and closed it after her. She
gave Patches his head and raced toward the ranch-house. In the distance
she saw two horsemen galloping toward her. Steve and Pete Gerrish! She
glanced guiltily at her wrist watch. She was late. Did Steve care enough
to be anxious? The thought gave a tingling sense of excitement. As she
came near the two riders she touched Patches with her spurs, then pulled
him up suddenly. He stop-slid on his haunches, a bit of circus-variety
of horsemanship which Tommy had taught her. She pulled off her
broad-brimmed hat with a sweep reminiscent of Jose at his best and
called gayly:
"_Que hay, senors! Buenos dias!_ La senora has been on a wild devil of a
ride, yes?"
She laughed up into Steve's white face. He moistened his lips as though
they were stiff. She had worried him then. Pete Gerrish's eyes regarded
her with frank admiration.
"Can she ride, Chief? I want to know! Can she ride! Steve is scared,
ma'am. There's a lot of strangers snooping round and he----"
"Where have you been, Jerry?" Courtlandt had recovered his voice.
"Don't beat me, Steve!" Patches was loping along between Blue Devil and
Gerrish's big sorrel. Encouraged by the foreman's quickly suppressed
"Haw-haw" at her pleasantry, she went on, "I've been to Bear Creek ranch
for tea."
"To the B C alone?"
"Do I look as though I carried concealed escorts?" with tormenting
charm. "I had an acute attack of conscience. It occurred to me that I
had been something of a heathen to ignore little Mrs. Carey, though I
didn't know that she was little when I went. I only knew what Sandy had
told me, that there was a woman at Bear Creek hungering for someone of
her own sex to talk to."
"You are to be commended more for your conscience than your common
sense," retorted Courtlandt dryly. "Don't do it again." They reached the
ranch-house steps as he spoke. He slipped to the ground and before Jerry
could protest had lifted her from the saddle. She felt the muscles of
his arms twitch in the second he held her. Before she could speak he had
gathered up the bridles of the horses and started for the corral. The
brown depths of the girl's eyes were troubled as she looked after him.
What menaced the good-comradeship which their arrival at the Double O
had established between herself and Steve? Now he reminded her of a wary
foe thrusting and retreating on the slightest pretext. What could she
have done to change him so? She looked up at Gerrish, a puzzled question
in her eyes. He shook his head as his met them.
"We mustn't mind if the Chief does act a little locoed, ma'am. He's
walkin' right into trouble. It's Ranlett the Skunk, saving your
presence. Somebody's cayuse got rid of some hobbles when the fence was
cut where the Double O and the X Y Z join, and a bunch of calves has
disappeared. There ain't hide nor hair of 'em to be seen. But, shucks,
don't tell the Chief I told you. I'll mosey 'long now."
Jerry looked after him with narrowed eyes. "Where the Double O and the X
Y Z join," Pete had said. That was where Bear Creek ranch came in! Like
a movie close-up came a vision of the solitary horseman she had hailed,
the man who had dropped from the air, who never talked about himself or
his people, who never received letters, the Man of Mystery.