The two men faced each other silently. The morning light accentuated the
lines on Denbigh's thin, ascetic face, revealed the brooding sorrow in
his eyes. After his involuntary halt of surprise Courtlandt sprang
forward with outstretched hand.
"Phil, old scout, it's good to see you! But--but what the dickens are
you doing here? I know Jim Carey but you're--not----"
"The same. I'm Bill Small, range-rider of the Bear Creek outfit, which
extensive outfit consists at present of the owner and yours truly. It
has taken some dexterity to keep out of your way, Steve. Your Uncle Nick
got me the job. Curious that I should have turned to him in my despair,
but--but he was the first person I thought of. I had heard Mother rail
about his caustic tongue. I concluded if she thought that, he must have
a keen sense of justice and fair-dealing. Mrs. Carey thinks that I
dropped from the air or any old place. Jim went away three days ago and
left me in charge. We didn't think that this--this--was coming so soon.
My first thought when Mrs. Carey called me last evening was to get hold
of the nearest woman and--and Mrs. Courtlandt seemed to be it. I went
to your ranch, first and they sent me on to the X Y Z."
"I can't make you seem real yet, Phil. I'm dazed with the succession of
surprises. Saturday, Beechy, my late sergeant walked in and----"
"Beechy!"
"Say, 'The Devil!' and be done with it, that's what your tone implied.
What do you know about Carl Beechy?"
"I've run across him in Slippy Bend. A regular fella with the ladies,
isn't he?"
"So that's it! I'll have to admit that Carl is an easy mark with the
fair sex, but he's all there when it comes to fighting. I wanted to keep
him at the Double O, but he insisted that he must keep his contract with
the railroad."
"Oh, he did. You're fond of Beechy, Steve?"
"He saved my life, Phil. I was as sure of the man's loyalty as I was
that the sun would rise in the morning."
"Have patience, Steve, you'll get him back. Sadder and wiser, perhaps a
bit damaged, but you'll get him back."
"Damaged! What do you mean?"
"Nothing specific. I'm judging from what I've seen the railroads do. I
hear Ranlett has left you. Take it from me, you're in luck."
"I'll say you're right. I haven't had a chance to talk it over with
Greyson yet; he came back from the East only a few days ago. Uncle Nick
relied on his judgment. Good Lord!"--as remembrance of the evening
before flashed clear in his mind, "do you know who came with him?
Your--your wife."
Denbigh leisurely lighted a cigarette and as leisurely drew a long whiff
of it.
"My wife! I haven't a wife. Felice will have her divorce in a few
months. Desertion. Mamma Peyton's master-mind directed the campaign.
Trust an old-timer like her to know the ropes. Felice didn't love me
when she married me; she merely contracted a virulent attack of the
war-marriage epidemic. I found that out when you came home. I'm through
with women, Steve, that is until I've proved myself a man whose sense of
right and justice can't be twisted by them. If I hadn't been weak Mother
couldn't have--oh, why go into it? It wasn't her fault; life had been
too easy for her; she couldn't bear to be hurt. Well, she has lost me as
effectually as though I had been shot to pieces in the Argonne where so
many of my friends lie. The effects of gas and shot and shell aren't in
it with the intolerable sense of shame which a man, who didn't do his
best to get into the war, will carry through the years. God knows, I'm
paying for my weakness. Don't mind this outburst, Steve. Forget it!
You're the first person I've seen from home. It--it just surged out."
He leaned his head upon his horse's neck. The animal which had been
pawing impatiently settled into bronze immobility at his touch. Only his
sensitive nostrils quivered. Courtlandt laid a sympathetic hand on
Denbigh's shoulder. His voice was unsteady as he protested:
"You're torturing yourself unnecessarily, Phil. The world has almost
forgotten----"
"I haven't, Steve, but we'll let it go at that. Don't let Felice know
that I am here. When she gets her divorce----"
"But, Phil, can't you and she patch things up? Divorce is a hard thing
for a woman to live down."
"Not in our set. Good Lord, man, Felice thinks no more of it than she
would of discarding an unbecoming gown. It's in her blood. It's in mine.
Her mother had changed husbands once before Felice was born. Mine
changed hers when he was young and unsuccessful. She had the money. When
the Fates want to hand it to a man good and plenty they marry him to a
girl who has slathers more money than he has." Steve's face whitened.
"Was that a door closing? Go quick, Steve. If it is Mrs. Courtlandt I
don't want her to see me. Don't tell her who I am." He seized his horse
by the bridle and vanished into the barn.
Steve met Jerry beside his car. His jaw set in the manner dreaded by his
father as he looked at the girl's face. It was white with violet shadows
under the wide, strained eyes. Her exquisite frock was torn where she
had caught it on a hook. A long angry burn was visible on the wrist
which the sleeve of her wrap didn't cover. Her lips quivered
traitorously as she saw Steve's eyes on it. She hastily concealed it
behind her back with a valiant attempt at a laugh.
"It's nothing. I hoped that it would escape your ruthless managerial
eye. I tried to heat water and I'm not used to a kitchen range. In fact,
I don't know what I can do that's vitally useful. When--when I go back
to civilization I shall take a course in nursing, then I won't be so
absolutely useless at a time like this." Her voice was pitched in a key
of nervous excitement, and she shivered as she spoke.
"Come here!" Courtlandt's face was as white as the girl's as he picked
her up in his arms and put her into the car. He drew her wrap closer
about her shoulders and tucked a light robe about her knees. She sat
there tense, unresponsive, but as he started the car she suddenly
relaxed with a stifled sob and covered her face with her hands. Steve
stopped the car. With quiet determination he put his arm about her.
"Cry it out, child," he encouraged tenderly. When the storm broke he
wondered if he had been wise in the recommendation. He was frightened at
the tempest of sobs which shook the slender body. He tightened his arm.
Then after a few moments, "Was it as bad as that, girl?"
She sat up with a start and drew as far away from him as the limited
space would permit. He laid his arm across the back of the seat. She
pushed the hair from her forehead and looked up at him through drenched
eyes.
"Bad!" she controlled a shudder. "Bad only because I was so powerless to
help. An angel from heaven wouldn't have looked as good to me as Doc
Rand." There was an hysterical note of laughter in her voice as she
continued, "He must have thought I had gone suddenly mad for when he
opened the door I flew at him and kissed him." She made furtive dabs at
her eyes. "Don't think that I'm constitutionally a cry-baby," she
laughed up at Courtlandt shamefacedly. He turned away from her quickly,
removed his arm from the back of the seat and started the car.
"Now that you've got your grip again we'll go on. I'm famished," he
announced prosaically.
"Now that I think of it, so am I," she agreed with gay camaraderie, but
her breath came in a little sob as a child's might after crying,
"and--and so are they! Look, Steve! Over on that hillside--look!"
She gripped his arm with one hand as she pointed with the other. On the
top of a low hill, outlined like shadow pictures against the morning
sky, so near that their hanging tongues were plainly visible, were three
dark, sinister shapes.
"Coyotes?" the girl whispered as though even at that distance they might
hear.
"Timber wolves. See those sheep grazing in the coulee below? They are
after them."
"Oh, Steve, can't we do something?"
For answer Courtlandt reached into the pocket of the car and drew his
automatic. The shots rang through the morning quiet, the echoes
ricochetted back from the hills. The sheep kicked up their heels and
scampered off. The wolves stood like creatures of stone for an instant,
then slowly, quite without panic, turned and disappeared over the brow
of the hill. Jerry shivered.
"Wolves! I thought you were rid of them in this country."
"We are almost. Occasionally the boys bring in reports of the trail of a
wolf or a mountain lion. We have a pest of coyotes though, this year. If
you want to insult a ranchman or cowboy to fighting mad, call him a
coyote; it means the most despicable creature in the animal world.
They're cowards. If that bunch of sheep turned and faced a coyote they
would terrify him."
"Ranch life is just one problem after another, isn't it?"
"No more than any life which is packed with interest."
"My mistake! Didn't the little boy want his little ranch found fault
with? Then he shan't be teased."
As he turned and looked at her she caught her breath, colored richly and
apologized. "Don't mind me, Steve. The sudden release from
responsibility and the elixir of the morning air have gone to my head.
I'll be good, really I will. Did you see the Man of Mystery? I--I
somehow have a feeling that he may know something of the missing
calves."
"You're wrong. He's all right, he's doing a man's job--_he_ isn't
troubling me but--but I wish I knew what Beechy had up his sleeve. What
had he said to you before I came in that day in the office?" with quick
suspicion. His tone sent the color flying to the girl's hair.
"Why--why--nothing--but----"
"Don't perjure yourself," dryly. "Much as I think of Carl I'm not blind
to his ways with women. He couldn't have been unbearably raw or you
wouldn't have shaken hands with him, would you? I--didn't like his eyes
when he said he had work on the railroad."
"Steve, you are developing nerves; your imagination is running wild. One
would think that we were back in the days of armed bandits, when masked
men held up trains at the point of a gun. That isn't done now, you
know," with gay patronage.
"Perhaps--look up on the hill! The boys are bringing down the horses."
The girl's eyes followed his pointing finger. Nose to tail, close herded
by riders, the animals trailed toward the corral after their night of
feeding in the hillside pastures. They tossed their manes, they made
sportive attempts to escape their keepers.
"How well our boys ride." Steve's pulses responded to that possessive
"our."
"They ought to. They are as near old-timers as can be found now. The
Double O was Uncle Nick's master-passion. He took up the land when it
was the ranchman's paradise, in the years before fence-posts and barbed
wire, when cowboys packed guns and drank and gambled away their pay. He
adapted himself with amazing success to changing conditions though, and
hung on to all the real boys whom he could tempt with pay and the pride
of raising thoroughbreds."
As Courtlandt stopped the car in front of the ranch-house, the door was
flung open and a girl ran down the steps. Jerry stared incredulously.
"Peggy! Peggy!" she was out of the car in a flash and had her sister in
her arms. Steve heard one more muffled "Peggy!" before the two entered
the house. The surprise following so close upon her night's vigil might
be too much for Jerry, he feared. When Peg had written him and begged
him to keep her coming a surprise he had weakly consented. He had
intended to meet her train but had had to delegate Tommy to take his
place.
Jerry had quite recovered her poise when she appeared for breakfast in
the court. If there was a trace of _vibrato_ in her voice only
Courtlandt noticed it. She and Peg had stopped talking long enough to
get two hours' sleep. Overhead the sky spread like a Della Robbia glaze,
the atmosphere was so clear that the snow-tipped mountains seemed
reachable. A tractor in a distant field sounded but a few feet away. The
air was sweet with the fragrance of roses, the fountain tinkled
musically. Benito, yellow eyes blinking, his gay plumage ruffled till he
looked like an animated feather-duster, sidled round and round the rim
of the basin.
Peggy regarded her sister with elfish, hazel eyes as she took her seat
at the table.
"Ye gods, Jerry, but I'm glad to see you clothed and in your right mind.
That green skirt and sweater is a little bit of all right and I'm crazy
about your frills; they make me think of the soap-suds you see in the
demonstration electric washers, they're so--so fleecy. When you drove up
in that vampish gold gown this morning I thought it must be the custom
of the country to breakfast in evening clothes and I could have wept.
I'd been disillusioned enough. I thought that every honest-to-goodness
he-man on a ranch wore chaps and tore about with his six-shooter
'spittin' death and damnation,' but the man who brought out my trunks
evidently has a passion for overalls, and Mr. Benson met me at the train
looking like a model of the Well-Dressed Man."
Her sister laughed.
"You've been reading Zane Gray et als. Please understand that we are
ultra civilized on this ranch after six o'clock."
"Then you'll eat up my news. That smitten salesman of yours at Tiffany's
told me before I left New York that he was on the trail of the
Alexandrite ring you'd been wanting. It belonged to one of the late
royalties. He says that it is a wonder, beautifully set and only two
thousand dollars! You'd better write him about it. Of course he can't
hold it indefinitely."
"Two thousand dollars!" Jerry regretted the shocked exclamation as soon
as it left her lips. She glanced furtively at Steve. His eyes, clear and
clean and shining from his out-of-door life, disconcertingly direct, met
hers. She looked away hastily. "I'm--I'm not buying jewels now, Peg."
"You're not! Growing miserly in your old age, Geraldine?" with
patronizing surprise. "You've been talking of that Alexandrite for----"
"Will you ride the range with your ancient brother-in-law this morning,
Peg-o'-my-heart?" broke in Courtlandt. "We'll have lunch at Upper Farm."
"I'll say I'd love it. Will you come, Jerry?"
"No, I have work to do. Behold your erstwhile humble sister the private
secretary of the owner of Double O ranch," with laughing empressement.
"Don't work. Sleep, or ride with Peg," cut in Steve sharply. "Remember
you were out all night."
"O King Live Forever!" mocked Geraldine gayly. "Just as though I hadn't
danced all night many a time and ridden in the park all morning. I
shall----"
"Pete Glellish tlell you dat Ranlett make bad pidgin in Lower Flield,"
interrupted Ming Soy's soft voice at Courtlandt's elbow. "He say,
'Hully--hully--hully!'"
Steve sprang from his chair and caromed into Tommy Benson who had just
entered the court and stood beaming upon Peggy Glamorgan.
"What, down already, Miss Peg? Methinks
"'This morning, like the spirit of a youth
That means to be of note, begins betimes.'
Why the glassy-eye and furrowed-brow effect, Steve? I hope that you've
left me a taste of the honey, Miss Glamorgan?" he reproached as he took
his place at the table beside the girl.
"As soon as you've had a bite, Tommy, join me at Lower Field. Bring Peg
along. Jerry," Steve Courtlandt's voice was peremptory, "remember, no
work in the office and if you don't go with Peg and Tommy stay in sight
of the ranch-house if you ride. Don't expect me until you see me. I may
not be at home to-night."
He didn't wait for her answer. In his own room he picked up a Colt 45,
spun the cylinder, slipped a box of cartridges into his pocket and
hurried to the side door. Gerrish, mounted on the big sorrel, held Blue
Devil by the bridle. Both horses were prancing nervously, for the
parrot, who had climbed to the gutter under the roof, was clucking and
calling:
"Gid-dap! Go-long!"
"That bird ought to be shot," Steve growled as with some difficulty he
mounted. "What's to pay now, Pete, Ranlett?"
"You've got your rope on the right pair of horns this time, Chief. The
fences of Lower Field have been cut."
"Toward the railroad?"
"By cripes, no. Toward the mountains. If 't been the railroad side we
might have stood a chance of corralling the Shorthorns, but if they once
get into the mountains--Lord-ee, I believe yer uncle'll rise out of his
grave an' go after 'em. Them critters was the pride of his life. Ranlett
was a low-down dawg to turn a trick like this. Say, do you know anything
about thet range-rider at Bear Creek?"
"Why--why--I've spoken to him. You don't suspect him of being in this
deal, do you?"
"I ain't suspectin' nothin', but after I'd saw him twice talkin' to
Ranlett I sort of got his number."
"You've got it wrong, then, Pete. I happen to know that the man is white
clear through."
"Well, I ain't shootin' off my mouth careless when I say that the
range-rider's got somethin' up his sleeve. It's my best bet there's
going to be fifty-seven varieties of hell blowin' up round this ranch
before we get through. If you ask me, I'll say that the crime-wave
that's been lappin' the coast has swashed out here in a flood."
"But, Pete, it's impossible for rustlers to get away with their old
stuff now."
"You're shoutin', Chief, it sure is, but--they'll find some new ways. I
got it doped out your way too, but if it ain't rustlin', what fool thing
is that coyote Ranlett up to?"
"Giving us a run for our cattle, I guess. Spite. How many boys can we
spare to round up the Shorthorns?"
"I've sent fer the bunch. There's somethin' else phoney that I haven't
told yer. It's been open and shut in my mind whether I'd better."
"Shoot, old-timer!" commanded Courtlandt curtly.
"Well, since you fed Ranlett his time he's been moseyin' round Slippy
Bend. The other day when I rode over there to see Baldy Jennings, 'bout
shippin' them steer, I just naturally dropped into the Lazy Wolf. Our
late manager was settin' at a table with two girls and a man. It wasn't
my butt-in and I wouldn't have specially noticed the stranger if he
hadn't been makin' goo-goo eyes at one of the females out of all
proportion to her good looks. She hed----"
"Let's pass up what she looked like. Who was the man?"
"I didn't know then, but Saturday you brought the ol' son-of-a-gun of a
lady-killer to the bunk-house yourself. Savvy?"
"You don't mean Beechy?"
"Sorry, Chief, but he's the same. An' unless I'm locoed Ranlett's got
the feller's hide nailed to his stable door; he's got him an' he's got
him tight."