Courtlandt backed his horse suddenly into the shadow of the quaking
aspens which were fluttering their gold in the sunshine. He adjusted the
field-glasses which he carried slung from his saddle-fork and looked
intently at the bluff which reared from the western bank of the stream.
He was right. There were two men there. The day being Sunday, ordinarily
he would have thought nothing of it, but disturbing things were
happening every day now and Instinct and Caution were riding close to
his saddle-bow. He had the sense of living on the thin crust of a
simmering volcano. He couldn't distinguish their faces, but he would be
willing to swear that the men belonged to the Double O outfit.
Above the roar of the stream as it made its way through the canyon formed
by the bluff he heard another sound. There was no mistaking it. Steve
had heard the curious whirr of a plane too often not to recognize it
now. It was not uncommon to have one pass over the Double O, but for
some unaccountable reason Courtlandt linked this one to those two
skulking figures at the foot of the bluff. He heard its approach for
some minutes before it came in sight above the hill which he knew was
back of the B C ranch.
"That's queer! Looks as though it came out of Buzzard's Hollow," he
muttered as he watched the approaching aeroplane. He focussed his
glasses on the men again. They were waving something. Something white.
As though in answer to the signal the huge mechanical bird went
wing-over-wings and slid gracefully into a barrel-roll, then sailed off
into the distance. When Courtlandt's eyes returned from their journey
with the plane the two men had disappeared.
Motionless, deep in thought, Steve sat his horse. What baneful force was
at work on the ranch? Calves had vanished as completely as though
conjured into thin air, curiously enough, though they were the least
valuable in the herd. The man who had taken them couldn't know much
about cattle. Some of the boys appeared surly and disgruntled. The stand
he had taken on the alien question couldn't account for it all. The
trouble had started a few weeks after his arrival at the ranch. He had
expected that Ranlett would resent having a much younger man than
himself in possession, but he had looked for no such series of
complications as had presented themselves.
The situation had one compensating side. He had been too occupied with
Double O affairs to have much time for Jerry. He said something under
his breath. Blue Devil nosed round at him inquiringly. Courtlandt looked
at the sun and touched the horse lightly with his heels. It was time to
meet her now. To-day they were resuming a custom that Nicholas Fairfax
had inaugurated, which was to have luncheon beside the stream on Sunday.
Old Nick, young Nick he was then, had announced that the ceremony would
stand for church, that he would worship God through nature. He and Doc
Rand had provided the fish which were cooked on forked sticks over a
fire on the bank of the stream. The work-logged physician's weekly
holiday came to be respected in Slippy Bend. Men, women and children
endured to the limit before they would disturb the doctor's fishing
trip.
Opposite the rendezvous Courtlandt drew rein and looked across the
stream. Benson, on his knees on the pebbly beach, was struggling with a
fire. He was in khaki riding clothes. A small book protruded from his
hip pocket. Steve smiled. To think of Tommy without a book would be like
thinking of an elephant without his trunk. Beyond the firemaker a spring
bubbled out of the bank in a clear, pure stream, above him the land
sloped smoothly, greenly up to a clump of cottonwoods. In the middle of
the clearing knelt Jerry. A lovely Jerry in riding coat and breeches,
hatless, with millions of golden motes glinting in her hair where the
sunlight rested. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glowed with
friendliness as she talked eagerly with the man who knelt on the other
side of the cloth spread between them.
Bruce Greyson! Steve's jaws set ominously. The owner of the X Y Z was
passing something to the girl and it seemed to the prejudiced eyes of
the looker-on that their fingers touched and lingered. The two had
evidently been preparing the feast, for with a satisfied nod Jerry sank
back on her heels. She made a megaphone of her hands and called:
"Coo-e-e! Coo-e-e-e!"
From around a bend of the river came an answering shout. In spite of the
unaccountable fury which the sight of Greyson in just that spot had
roused in Courtlandt, he laughed as his eyes rested on the figure which
came splashing down the middle of the stream. It was Doc Rand attired in
his usual ministerial black frock coat, with the unusual addition of hip
boots of rubber. The effect of the combination would have tickled the
risibilities of a stoic, if a stoic has the luck to be blessed with
risibilities. A fish basket was slung from one shoulder, his white hair
bushed beneath the brim of his Stetson; the sun on his glasses added an
uncanny touch. His broad black tie, which he usually wore in a Byronic
bow, streamed back over his shoulders. He waved and shouted as
Courtlandt rode his horse down the bank and forded the stream. When
Steve reached the improvised table Greyson and Jerry sat at discreet
distances from it.
"When did you get back, Bruce?" he asked as with cordial friendliness
the owner of the X Y Z sprang to his feet and gripped his extended hand.
In that instant Courtlandt saw that the whiteness of the hair about the
older man's temples was more noticeable, that it added to his fine,
upright air of distinction.
"Yesterday. Brought my sister Paula, Vance, her husband, and a friend of
hers along. I want you all to dine with us to-morrow night. We'll show
these blown-in-the-glass New Yorkers that we are not entirely devoid of
the social graces even if we are not in the Dude-ranch neighborhood. Got
half-way to the Double O before I remembered that it was the old custom
to lunch here Sundays. You'll come, won't you?"
"Come!" Jerry's eyes were starry with excitement. "Yes, thank--oh, what
beauties!" as Doc Rand puffed up the bank dangling a string of trout for
her inspection.
"Take 'em, Steve. You and the Benson boy can cook 'em. Isn't that an
equitable division of labor, Mrs. Jerry? I caught them." He dropped to
the ground beside her and pulled off his hat. "These--these fishing
trips aren't what they were. I miss Nick," he confided as he mopped his
hot brow. Jerry's eyes were tender with sympathy. They wandered dreamily
to the illimitable spaces above the purple mountains as she asked
softly:
"Where is he, Doctor Rand? Death is such a strange thing. I--I try to
keep a brave front to Peggy but--but I don't care to think about it."
"Why should you at your age? All your thought should be on making your
life count for something. It is different with me. I find it profoundly
interesting to wonder and imagine what follows this world. For instance,
look at the question in this way. At this moment I can send my mind to
the Manor; in spirit I'm pacing the terrace with Sir Peter. I can see
the boats chugging up and down the river, can smell the queer fragrance
which the sun is baking out of the box hedge in the garden, can hear the
birds twittering among the vines. If I can do all that now, what will it
be when the spirit is not hampered by the body? It will be like flying,
won't it? That reminds me! Oh, Steve!"
Courtlandt poked his head above the bank beneath which he and Benson
were cooking the fish. A tiny spiral of smoke rose and with it the aroma
of sizzling bacon and frying trout.
"Did you see the plane that went over?"
"Yes, Doc."
"I wonder where it came from. It wasn't one of the government flyers. I
know their marks. Did you see the pilot do those stunts above the bluff?
Curious that he should pull off that cut-up stuff there, infernally
risky I call it. He couldn't have been doing it for my benefit. What do
you make of it, Steve?"
"Probably some crazy, reckless flier getting ready for a contest,"
Courtlandt observed, and disappeared below the bank.
Doc Hand and Greyson left directly after luncheon. Benson packed the
basket which some of the boys would take back to the ranch before he
rode off to Upper Farm on an errand for Courtlandt. Steve helped Jerry
mount and swung into the saddle. The girl tightened her rein then held
up an arresting finger.
"Listen! The Kreutzer Sonata," she whispered.
From somewhere up-stream came the notes of a violin. There was a rare
brightness, an aerial quality to the music that most artists take too
gravely. The variations of the slow movements gave the sense of a
glorified voice. Jerry drew a long, tremulous breath as the last note
died away.
"That must have been the Man of Mystery," she confided in a low voice,
as though fearful even at that distance of disturbing the musician. "I
don't care if he did drop from the sky, if he never receives letters, he
plays like--like an angel--if angels can play," with a laugh. Courtlandt
looked up-stream as though mystified.
"I knew a man who played that sonata, just like that, but--but it can't
possibly be he. Who did you say you thought it was?"
"Bill Small, the range-rider at the B C. Mrs. Carey told me about him
when I called there yesterday. She said that the boys of the Double O
and X Y Z outfits trailed over there every chance they could get to hear
him play. That reminds me," her beautiful face glowed with enthusiasm,
"I--I wonder if--if the boys of our outfit would care to have me play
and sing for them? I should so love to do it."
"Care! I know they would. Pete says that they line up outside the court
wall after dinner on the chance of hearing you sing."
"Really--really, Steve? I'd rather have that tribute than--than my name
in electric lights on the Great White Way. Ask them up this afternoon.
We'll have an honest-to-goodness musicale with Signora Geraldina
Courtlandta as head-liner. Hurry!" She touched her horse with her heels.
"It's a pity that Bruce Greyson didn't wait. He----"
"Your proposition was to sing for the Double O outfit. Greyson doesn't
come in on that."
"Ogre! I can hear my bones scrunch between those strong white teeth of
yours when you look at me like that."
"Then remember that you're married."
"Are you sure that the ceremony wasn't a dream?" with a provocative
ripple of laughter. "Do you know, Steve, somehow I never can think of
you as Benedick the married man. You--you are such a good-looking boy."
She was the incarnation of girlish diablerie indulging an irresistible
desire to torment. The color burned to Courtlandt's temples. He caught
the bridle and drew Patches close. His eyes compelled Jerry's.
"Do you know what happens to a person who rocks a boat, Mrs.
Courtlandt?" he demanded autocratically.
"Do you know what happens when a person gets unbearably dictatorial, Mr.
Courtlandt? This!" She slapped her horse smartly on the hip. Patches
threw up his head and broke from Steve's hold. The girl looked over her
shoulder. Lips and eyes challenged in unison as she sang mischievously:
"'My road calls me, lures me
West, east, south and north;
Most roads lead me homewards,
But my road leads----'"
Patches stepped in a gopher hole, which, feat brought the song to an
abrupt termination.
When she met him in the late afternoon on the terrace which overlooked
the court Jerry was as coolly friendly as though the little
passage-at-arms, which had left Steve's pulses hammering, had never
taken place. The piano had been moved out and the outfit, in its Sunday
best, occupied the rustic seats and benches and overflowed to the turf
paths. The girl felt choky as the men rose to greet her. They looked so
big and fine, so like eager, wistful boys. She smiled at them through a
mist.
"I'll sing what I think you'll like, then you must ask for anything you
want. Please smoke," she added, as she realized what it was that had
made them seem so unfamiliar. They looked from her to Steve. He nodded.
With delighted grins they dropped back to their places and proceeded
with the business of rolling cigarettes.
Courtlandt and Benson took their places on the edge of the terrace.
Overhead the sky spread like a flawless turquoise; cameoed against the
blue were snow-tipped mountains. The court was gay and fragrant with
blossoms. In the dark shadow of the open doorway Ming and Hopi Soy made
a patch of Oriental brilliance. Jerry in her filmy pink frock looked not
unlike a flower herself, against the rosewood background of the raised
piano top, Courtlandt thought. He looked from her to the rapt,
weather-browned faces of his men. His gaze came back and rested in
fascinated interest on her foot in its pink slipper on the pedal of the
instrument.
Jerry sang as she had never sung before, ballads, rollicking melodies.
The men drew nearer. When she stopped a swarthy Italian stepped as near
the piano as the terrace would permit. His black eyes seemed too big for
his thin face, his plastered-down hair suggested infinite labor with
brush and pomade.
"What is it, Tony?" Jerry asked with a smile.
"Hava you the one grand opera song?" he asked shyly. Jerry was
nonplussed. She had not thought of opera for these men. As she turned
over her music she asked:
"You like opera, Tony?"
"Vera much, Signora. At home we taka the leetle seester to grand opera
even if we have not mucha to eat. We feel that eef the leetle seester
hear great music, she be fine lady, not common, not bad--never." His
earnest voice broke as he realized that he was being stared at in
amazement by the outfit. He mumbled an apology and hurried back to his
seat. With a smile at Tony, Jerry placed Tales of Hoffmann on the rack.
She sang the Barcarole. As the exquisite, langorous notes floated out
over the court the shadows lengthened, the sun dropped behind the
mountains. There was no applause when she finished, no one was smoking,
the men sat motionless. Where were their thoughts, the girl wondered.
With a glance at the crimsoning foot-hills she struck a few chords and
sang softly:
"'Day is dying in the west;
Heaven is touching earth with rest;
Wait and worship while the night
Sets her evening lamps alight
Thro' all the sky.'"
With the second verse the men took up the song. To most of them it
brought a vivid picture of mother and home and the village church at
sunset. They sang until with the last line mountains and foot-hills took
up the words and sent them pealing into space.
That closed the musicale. One by one the men came forward and thanked
Jerry as she stood between Courtlandt and Benson. As the last one left
the court Tommy turned to the girl.
"I'll say that was a wonderful thing to do, Mrs. Steve." With a quick
change of tone he spoke to Courtlandt. "Marks and Schoeffleur weren't
here; did you miss them?"
"Would you expect them to be here?"
"I should have expected it until to-day. Ever since Marks blew in here
from nowhere two months ago I've been wondering where the dickens I'd
seen him. When that airplane passed over to-day memory flipped into
place the missing piece of the puzzle. He was a mechanician at the
hangar where I tried to develop wings in 1917."
"You are sure of that, Tommy?"
"Sure as shootin'. What's up? Why that 'Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the
blood of an Englishman' scowl, old dear?"
"Nothing, except that your information confirms me in my suspicion that
Marks and Schoeffleur signaled to that pilot when he went over."
"'And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he knew,'"
contributed Benson in mock amazement.
Up from the corral floated a chorus of men's voices singing:
"'Wait and worship while the night
Sets her evening lamps alight
Thro' all the sky.'"