AT the ranch-house at Forlorn River Belding stood alone in his darkened
room. It was quiet there and quiet outside; the sickening midsummer
heat, like a hot heavy blanket, lay upon the house.
He took up the gun belt from his table and with slow hands buckled it
around his waist. He seemed to feel something familiar and comfortable
and inspiring in the weight of the big gun against his hip. He faced
the door as if to go out, but hesitated, and then began a slow,
plodding walk up and down the length of the room. Presently he halted
at the table, and with reluctant hands he unbuckled the gun belt and
laid it down.
The action did not have an air of finality, and Belding knew it. He had
seen border life in Texas in the early days; he had been a sheriff when
the law in the West depended on a quickness of wrist; he had seen many
a man lay down his gun for good and all. His own action was not final.
Of late he had done the same thing many times and this last time it
seemed a little harder to do, a little more indicative of vacillation.
There were reasons why Belding's gun held for him a gloomy fascination.
The Chases, those grasping and conscienceless agents of a new force in
the development of the West, were bent upon Belding's ruin, and so far
as his fortunes at Forlorn River were concerned, had almost
accomplished it. One by one he lost points for which he contended with
them. He carried into the Tucson courts the matter of the staked
claims, and mining claims, and water claims, and he lost all.
Following that he lost his government position as inspector of
immigration; and this fact, because of what he considered its
injustice, had been a hard blow. He had been made to suffer a
humiliation equally as great. It came about that he actually had to
pay the Chases for water to irrigate his alfalfa fields. The
never-failing spring upon his land answered for the needs of household
and horses, but no more.
These matters were unfortunate for Belding, but not by any means wholly
accountable for his worry and unhappiness and brooding hate. He
believed Dick Gale and the rest of the party taken into the desert by
the Yaqui had been killed or lost. Two months before a string of
Mexican horses, riderless, saddled, starved for grass and wild for
water, had come in to Forlorn River. They were a part of the horses
belonging to Rojas and his band. Their arrival complicated the mystery
and strengthened convictions of the loss of both pursuers and pursued.
Belding was wont to say that he had worried himself gray over the fate
of his rangers.
Belding's unhappiness could hardly be laid to material loss. He had
been rich and was now poor, but change of fortune such as that could
not have made him unhappy. Something more somber and mysterious and
sad than the loss of Dick Gale and their friends had come into the
lives of his wife and Nell. He dated the time of this change back to a
certain day when Mrs. Belding recognized in the elder Chase an old
schoolmate and a rejected suitor. It took time for slow-thinking
Belding to discover anything wrong in his household, especially as the
fact of the Gales lingering there made Mrs. Belding and Nell, for the
most part, hide their real and deeper feelings. Gradually, however,
Belding had forced on him the fact of some secret cause for grief other
than Gale's loss. He was sure of it when his wife signified her desire
to make a visit to her old home back in Peoria. She did not give many
reasons, but she did show him a letter that had found its way from old
friends. This letter contained news that may or may not have been
authentic; but it was enough, Belding thought, to interest his wife.
An old prospector had returned to Peoria, and he had told relatives of
meeting Robert Burton at the Sonoyta Oasis fifteen years before, and
that Burton had gone into the desert never to return. To Belding this
was no surprise, for he had heard that before his marriage. There
appeared to have been no doubts as to the death of his wife's first
husband. The singular thing was that both Nell's father and
grandfather had been lost somewhere in the Sonora Desert.
Belding did not oppose his wife's desire to visit her old home. He
thought it would be a wholesome trip for her, and did all in his power
to persuade Nell to accompany her. But Nell would not go.
It was after Mrs. Belding's departure that Belding discovered in Nell a
condition of mind that amazed and distressed him. She had suddenly
become strangely wretched, so that she could not conceal it from even
the Gales, who, of all people, Belding imagined, were the ones to make
Nell proud. She would tell him nothing. But after a while, when he
had thought it out, he dated this further and more deplorable change in
Nell back to a day on which he had met Nell with Radford Chase. This
indefatigable wooer had not in the least abandoned his suit. Something
about the fellow made Belding grind his teeth. But Nell grew not only
solicitously, but now strangely, entreatingly earnest in her
importunities to Belding not to insult or lay a hand on Chase. This
had bound Belding so far; it had made him think and watch. He had
never been a man to interfere with his women folk. They could do as
they liked, and usually that pleased him. But a slow surprise gathered
and grew upon him when he saw that Nell, apparently, was accepting
young Chase's attentions. At least, she no longer hid from him.
Belding could not account for this, because he was sure Nell cordially
despised the fellow. And toward the end he divined, if he did not
actually know, that these Chases possessed some strange power over
Nell, and were using it. That stirred a hate in Belding--a hate he had
felt at the very first and had manfully striven against, and which now
gave him over to dark brooding thoughts.
Midsummer passed, and the storms came late. But when they arrived they
made up for tardiness. Belding did not remember so terrible a storm of
wind and rain as that which broke the summer's drought.
In a few days, it seemed, Altar Valley was a bright and green expanse,
where dust clouds did not rise. Forlorn River ran, a slow, heavy,
turgid torrent. Belding never saw the river in flood that it did not
give him joy; yet now, desert man as he was, he suffered a regret when
he thought of the great Chase reservoir full and overflowing. The dull
thunder of the spillway was not pleasant. It was the first time in his
life that the sound of falling water jarred upon him.
Belding noticed workmen once more engaged in the fields bounding his
land. The Chases had extended a main irrigation ditch down to
Belding's farm, skipped the width of his ground, then had gone on down
through Altar Valley. They had exerted every influence to obtain right
to connect these ditches by digging through his land, but Belding had
remained obdurate. He refused to have any dealings with them. It was
therefore with some curiosity and suspicion that he saw a gang of
Mexicans once more at work upon these ditches.
At daylight next morning a tremendous blast almost threw Belding out of
his bed. It cracked the adobe walls of his house and broke windows and
sent pans and crockery to the floor with a crash. Belding's idea was
that the store of dynamite kept by the Chases for blasting had blown
up. Hurriedly getting into his clothes, he went to Nell's room to
reassure her; and, telling her to have a thought for their guests, he
went out to see what had happened.
The villagers were pretty badly frightened. Many of the poorly
constructed adobe huts had crumbled almost into dust. A great yellow
cloud, like smoke, hung over the river. This appeared to be at the
upper end of Belding's plot, and close to the river. When he reached
his fence the smoke and dust were so thick he could scarcely breathe,
and for a little while he was unable to see what had happened.
Presently he made out a huge hole in the sand just about where the
irrigation ditch had stopped near his line. For some reason or other,
not clear to Belding, the Mexicans had set off an extraordinarily heavy
blast at that point.
Belding pondered. He did not now for a moment consider an accidental
discharge of dynamite. But why had this blast been set off? The loose
sandy soil had yielded readily to shovel; there were no rocks; as far
as construction of a ditch was concerned such a blast would have done
more harm than good.
Slowly, with reluctant feet, Belding walked toward a green hollow,
where in a cluster of willows lay the never-failing spring that his
horses loved so well, and, indeed, which he loved no less. He was
actually afraid to part the drooping willows to enter the little cool,
shady path that led to the spring. Then, suddenly seized by suspense,
he ran the rest of the way.
He was just in time to see the last of the water. It seemed to sink as
in quicksand. The shape of the hole had changed. The tremendous force
of the blast in the adjoining field had obstructed or diverted the
underground stream of water.
Belding's never-failing spring had been ruined. What had made this
little plot of ground green and sweet and fragrant was now no more.
Belding's first feeling was for the pity of it. The pale Ajo lilies
would bloom no more under those willows. The willows themselves would
soon wither and die. He thought how many times in the middle of hot
summer nights he had come down to the spring to drink. Never again!
Suddenly he thought of Blanco Diablo. How the great white thoroughbred
had loved this spring! Belding straightened up and looked with
tear-blurred eyes out over the waste of desert to the west. Never a
day passed that he had not thought of the splendid horse; but this
moment, with its significant memory, was doubly keen, and there came a
dull pang in his breast.
"Diablo will never drink here again!" muttered Belding.
The loss of Blanco Diablo, though admitted and mourned by Belding, had
never seemed quite real until this moment.
The pall of dust drifting over him, the din of the falling water up at
the dam, diverted Belding's mind to the Chases. All at once he was in
the harsh grip of a cold certainty. The blast had been set off
intentionally to ruin his spring. What a hellish trick! No Westerner,
no Indian or Mexican, no desert man could have been guilty of such a
crime. To ruin a beautiful, clear, cool, never-failing stream of water
in the desert!
It was then that Belding's worry and indecision and brooding were as if
they had never existed. As he strode swiftly back to the house, his
head, which had long been bent thoughtfully and sadly, was held erect.
He went directly to his room, and with an air that was now final he
buckled on his gun belt. He looked the gun over and tried the action.
He squared himself and walked a little more erect. Some long-lost
individuality had returned to Belding.
"Let's see," he was saying. "I can get Carter to send the horses I've
left back to Waco to my brother. I'll make Nell take what money there
is and go hunt up her mother. The Gales are ready to go--to-day, if I
say the word. Nell can travel with them part way East. That's your
game, Tom Belding, don't mistake me."
As he went out he encountered Mr. Gale coming up the walk. The long
sojourn at Forlorn River, despite the fact that it had been laden with
a suspense which was gradually changing to a sad certainty, had been of
great benefit to Dick's father. The dry air, the heat, and the quiet
had made him, if not entirely a well man, certainly stronger than he
had been in many years.
"Belding, what was that terrible roar?" asked Mr. Gale. "We were badly
frightened until Miss Nell came to us. We feared it was an earthquake."
"Well, I'll tell you, Mr. Gale, we've had some quakes here, but none of
them could hold a candle to this jar we just had."
Then Belding explained what had caused the explosion, and why it had
been set off so close to his property.
"It's an outrage, sir, an unspeakable outrage," declared Mr. Gale,
hotly. "Such a thing would not be tolerated in the East. Mr. Belding,
I'm amazed at your attitude in the face of all this trickery."
"You see--there was mother and Nell," began Belding, as if apologizing.
He dropped his head a little and made marks in the sand with the toe of
his boot. "Mr. Gale, I've been sort of half hitched, as Laddy used to
say. I'm planning to have a little more elbow room round this ranch.
I'm going to send Nell East to her mother. Then I'll-- See here, Mr.
Gale, would you mind having Nell with you part way when you go home?"
"We'd all be delighted to have her go all the way and make us a visit,"
replied Mr. Gale.
"That's fine. And you'll be going soon? Don't take that as if I
wanted to--" Belding paused, for the truth was that he did want to
hurry them off.
"We would have been gone before this, but for you," said Mr. Gale.
"Long ago we gave up hope of--of Richard ever returning. And I
believe, now we're sure he was lost, that we'd do well to go home at
once. You wished us to remain until the heat was broken--till the
rains came to make traveling easier for us. Now I see no need for
further delay. My stay here has greatly benefited my health. I shall
never forget your hospitality. This Western trip would have made me a
new man if--only--Richard--"
"Sure. I understand," said Belding, gruffly. "Let's go in and tell
the women to pack up."
Nell was busy with the servants preparing breakfast. Belding took her
into the sitting-room while Mr. Gale called his wife and daughter.
"My girl, I've some news for you," began Belding. "Mr. Gale is leaving
to-day with his family. I'm going to send you with them--part way,
anyhow. You're invited to visit them. I think that 'd be great for
you--help you to forget. But the main thing is--you're going East to
join mother."
Nell gazed at him, white-faced, without uttering a word.
"You see, Nell, I'm about done in Forlorn River," went on Belding.
"That blast this morning sank my spring. There's no water now. It was
the last straw. So we'll shake the dust of Forlorn River. I'll come on
a little later--that's all."
"Dad, you're packing your gun!" exclaimed Nell, suddenly pointing with
a trembling finger. She ran to him, and for the first time in his life
Belding put her away from him. His movements had lost the old slow
gentleness.
"Why, so I am," replied Belding, coolly, as his hand moved down to the
sheath swinging at his hip. "Nell, I'm that absent-minded these days!"
"Dad!" she cried.
"That'll do from you," he replied, in a voice he had never used to her.
"Get breakfast now, then pack to leave Forlorn River."
"Leave Forlorn River!" whispered Nell, with a thin white hand stealing
up to her breast. How changed the girl was! Belding reproached
himself for his hardness, but did not speak his thought aloud. Nell
was fading here, just as Mercedes had faded before the coming of Thorne.
Nell turned away to the west window and looked out across the desert
toward the dim blue peaks in the distance. Belding watched her;
likewise the Gales; and no one spoke. There ensued a long silence.
Belding felt a lump rise in his throat. Nell laid her arm against the
window frame, but gradually it dropped, and she was leaning with her
face against the wood. A low sob broke from her. Elsie Gale went to
her, embraced her, took the drooping head on her shoulder.
"We've come to be such friends," she said. "I believe it'll be good
for you to visit me in the city. Here--all day you look out across
that awful lonely desert.... Come, Nell."
Heavy steps sounded outside on the flagstones, then the door rattled
under a strong knock. Belding opened it. The Chases, father and son,
stood beyond the threshold.
"Good morning, Belding," said the elder Chase. "We were routed out
early by that big blast and came up to see what was wrong. All a
blunder. The Greaser foreman was drunk yesterday, and his ignorant men
made a mistake. Sorry if the blast bothered you."
"Chase, I reckon that's the first of your blasts I was ever glad to
hear," replied Belding, in a way that made Chase look blank.
"So? Well, I'm glad you're glad," he went on, evidently puzzled. "I
was a little worried--you've always been so touchy--we never could get
together. I hurried over, fearing maybe you might think the blast--you
see, Belding--"
"I see this, Mr. Ben Chase," interrupted Belding, in curt and ringing
voice. "That blast was a mistake, the biggest you ever made in your
life."
"What do you mean?" demanded Chase.
"You'll have to excuse me for a while, unless you're dead set on having
it out right now. Mr. Gale and his family are leaving, and my daughter
is going with them. I'd rather you'd wait a little."
"Nell going away!" exclaimed Radford Chase. He reminded Belding of an
overgrown boy in disappointment.
"Yes. But--Miss Burton to you, young man--"
"Mr. Belding, I certainly would prefer a conference with you right
now," interposed the elder Chase, cutting short Belding's strange
speech. "There are other matters--important matters to discuss.
They've got to be settled. May we step in, sir?"
"No, you may not," replied Belding, bluntly. "I'm sure particular who
I invite into my house. But I'll go with you."
Belding stepped out and closed the door. "Come away from the house so
the women won't hear the--the talk."
The elder Chase was purple with rage, yet seemed to be controlling it.
The younger man looked black, sullen, impatient. He appeared not to
have a thought of Belding. He was absolutely blind to the situation,
as considered from Belding's point of view. Ben Chase found his voice
about the time Belding halted under the trees out of earshot from the
house.
"Sir, you've insulted me--my son. How dare you? I want you to
understand that you're--"
"Chop that kind of talk with me, you ------ ------ ------ ------!"
interrupted Belding. He had always been profane, and now he certainly
did not choose his language. Chase turned livid, gasped, and seemed
about to give way to fury. But something about Belding evidently
exerted a powerful quieting influence. "If you talk sense I'll
listen," went on Belding.
Belding was frankly curious. He did not think any argument or
inducement offered by Chase could change his mind on past dealings or
his purpose of the present. But he believed by listening he might get
some light on what had long puzzled him. The masterly effort Chase put
forth to conquer his aroused passions gave Belding another idea of the
character of this promoter.
"I want to make a last effort to propitiate you," began Chase, in his
quick, smooth voice. That was a singular change to Belding--the
dropping instantly into an easy flow of speech. "You've had losses
here, and naturally you're sore. I don't blame you. But you can't see
this thing from my side of the fence. Business is business. In
business the best man wins. The law upheld those transactions of mine
the honesty of which you questioned. As to mining and water claims, you
lost on this technical point--that you had nothing to prove you had
held them for five years. Five years is the time necessary in law. A
dozen men might claim the source of Forlorn River, but if they had no
house or papers to prove their squatters' rights any man could go in
and fight them for the water. .... Now I want to run that main ditch
along the river, through your farm. Can't we make a deal? I'm ready
to be liberal--to meet you more than halfway. I'll give you an
interest in the company. I think I've influence enough up at the
Capitol to have you reinstated as inspector. A little reasonableness
on your part will put you right again in Forlorn River, with a chance
of growing rich. There's a big future here.... My interest, Belding,
has become personal. Radford is in love with your step-daughter. He
wants to marry her. I'll admit now if I had foreseen this situation I
wouldn't have pushed you so hard. But we can square the thing. Now
let's get together not only in business, but in a family way. If my
son's happiness depends upon having this girl, you may rest assured
I'll do all I can to get her for him. I'll absolutely make good all
your losses. Now what do you say?"
"No," replied Belding. "Your money can't buy a right of way across my
ranch. And Nell doesn't want your son. That settles that."
"But you could persuade her."
"I won't, that's all."
"May I ask why?" Chases's voice was losing its suave quality, but it
was even swifter than before.
"Sure. I don't mind your asking," replied Belding in slow
deliberation. "I wouldn't do such a low-down trick. Besides, if I
would, I'd want it to be a man I was persuading for. I know
Greasers--I know a Yaqui I'd rather give Nell to than your son."
Radford Chase began to roar in inarticulate rage. Belding paid no
attention to him; indeed, he never glanced at the young man. The elder
Chase checked a violent start. He plucked at the collar of his gray
flannel shirt, opened it at the neck.
"My son's offer of marriage is an honor--more an honor, sir, than you
perhaps are aware of."
Belding made no reply. His steady gaze did not turn from the long lane
that led down to the river. He waited coldly, sure of himself.
"Mrs. Belding's daughter has no right to the name of Burton," snapped
Chase. "Did you know that?"
"I did not," replied Belding, quietly.
"Well, you know it now," added Chase, bitingly.
"Sure you can prove what you say?" queried Belding, in the same cool,
unemotional tone. It struck him strangely at the moment what little
knowledge this man had of the West and of Western character.
"Prove it? Why, yes, I think so, enough to make the truth plain to any
reasonable man. I come from Peoria--was born and raised there. I went
to school with Nell Warren. That was your wife's maiden name. She was
a beautiful, gay girl. All the fellows were in love with her. I knew
Bob Burton well. He was a splendid fellow, but wild. Nobody ever knew
for sure, but we all supposed he was engaged to marry Nell. He left
Peoria, however, and soon after that the truth about Nell came out.
She ran away. It was at least a couple of months before Burton showed
up in Peoria. He did not stay long. Then for years nothing was heard
of either of them. When word did come Nell was in Oklahoma, Burton was
in Denver. There's chance, of course, that Burton followed Nell and
married her. That would account for Nell Warren taking the name of
Burton. But it isn't likely. None of us ever heard of such a thing
and wouldn't have believed it if we had. The affair seemed destined to
end unfortunately. But Belding, while I'm at it, I want to say that
Nell Warren was one of the sweetest, finest, truest girls in the world.
If she drifted to the Southwest and kept her past a secret that was
only natural. Certainly it should not be held against her. Why, she
was only a child--a girl--seventeen--eighteen years old.... In a moment
of amazement--when I recognized your wife as an old schoolmate--I
blurted the thing out to Radford. You see now how little it matters to
me when I ask your stepdaughter's hand in marriage for my son."
Belding stood listening. The genuine emotion in Chase's voice was as
strong as the ring of truth. Belding knew truth when he heard it. The
revelation did not surprise him. Belding did not soften, for he
devined that Chase's emotion was due to the probing of an old wound,
the recalling of a past both happy and painful. Still, human nature
was so strange that perhaps kindness and sympathy might yet have a
place in this Chase's heart. Belding did not believe so, but he was
willing to give Chase the benefit of the doubt.
"So you told my wife you'd respect her secret--keep her dishonor from
husband and daughter?" demanded Belding, his dark gaze sweeping back
from the lane.
"What! I--I" stammered Chase.
"You made your son swear to be a man and die before he'd hint the thing
to Nell?" went on Belding, and his voice rang louder.
Ben Chase had no answer. The red left his face. His son slunk back
against the fence.
"I say you never held this secret over the heads of my wife and her
daughter?" thundered Belding.
He had his answer in the gray faces, in the lips that fear made mute.
Like a flash Belding saw the whole truth of Mrs. Belding's agony, the
reason for her departure; he saw what had been driving Nell; and it
seemed that all the dogs of hell were loosed within his heart. He
struck out blindly, instinctively in his pain, and the blow sent Ben
Chase staggering into the fence corner. Then he stretched forth a long
arm and whirled Radford Chase back beside his father.
"I see it all now," went on Belding, hoarsely. "You found the woman's
weakness--her love for the girl. You found the girl's weakness--her
pride and fear of shame. So you drove the one and hounded the other.
God, what a base thing to do! To tell the girl was bad enough, but to
threaten her with betrayal; there's no name for that!"
Belding's voice thickened, and he paused, breathing heavily. He
stepped back a few paces; and this, an ominous action for an armed man
of his kind, instead of adding to the fear of the Chases, seemed to
relieve them. If there had been any pity in Belding's heart he would
have felt it then.
"And now, gentlemen," continued Belding, speaking low and with
difficulty, "seeing I've turned down your proposition, I suppose you
think you've no more call to keep your mouths shut?"
The elder Chase appeared fascinated by something he either saw or felt
in Belding, and his gray face grew grayer. He put up a shaking hand.
Then Radford Chase, livid and snarling, burst out: "I'll talk till I'm
black in the face. You can't stop me!"
"You'll go black in the face, but it won't be from talking," hissed
Belding.
His big arm swept down, and when he threw it up the gun glittered in
his hand. Simultaneously with the latter action pealed out a shrill,
penetrating whistle.
The whistle of a horse! It froze Belding's arm aloft. For an instant
he could not move even his eyes. The familiarity of that whistle was
terrible in its power to rob him of strength. Then he heard the rapid,
heavy pound of hoofs, and again the piercing whistle.
"Blanco Diablo!" he cried, huskily.
He turned to see a huge white horse come thundering into the yard. A
wild, gaunt, terrible horse; indeed, the loved Blanco Diablo. A
bronzed, long-haired Indian bestrode him. More white horses galloped
into the yard, pounded to a halt, whistling home. Belding saw a slim
shadow of a girl who seemed all great black eyes.
Under the trees flashed Blanco Sol, as dazzling white, as beautiful as
if he had never been lost in the desert. He slid to a halt, then
plunged and stamped. His rider leaped, throwing the bridle. Belding
saw a powerful, spare, ragged man, with dark, gaunt face and eyes of
flame.
Then Nell came running from the house, her golden hair flying, her
hands outstretched, her face wonderful.
"Dick! Dick! Oh-h-h, Dick!" she cried. Her voice seemed to quiver in
Belding's heart.
Belding's eyes began to blur. He was not sure he saw clearly. Whose
face was this now close before him--a long thin, shrunken face,
haggard, tragic in its semblance of torture, almost of death? But the
eyes were keen and kind. Belding thought wildly that they proved he
was not dreaming.
"I shore am glad to see you all," said a well-remembered voice in a
slow, cool drawl.