The Good Old Sport
The Longstreets remained several days upon Desert Valley Ranch, as the
wide holding had been known for half a century. Also John Carr and his
young retainer, Yellow Barbee, prolonged their stay. It appeared that
Carr had come over from some vague place still further toward the east
upon some matter of business connected with the sale of this broad
acreage; Carr had owned the outfit and managed it personally for a
dozen years, and now was selling to Alan Howard. It further devolved
that Barbee had long been one of Carr's best horsemen, hence a
favourite of Carr, who loved good horses, and that he had accompanied
his employer merely to help drive over to the ranch a small herd of
colts which had been included in the sale but had not until now been
delivered. Carr was a great deal with Howard, and Howard managed to
see a great deal of the Longstreets; as for Barbee, Helen met his
insolent young eyes only at mealtimes.
'My business is over,' Carr confessed to Helen in the _patio_ the next
morning. 'There's no red tape and legal nonsense between Al and me.
To sell a ranch like this, when you know the other chap, is like
selling a horse. But,' and his eyes roved from his cigar to a glimpse
through an open door of wide rolling meadows and grazing stock, 'I
guess I'm sort of homesick for it. If it was to do over I don't know
that I'd sell it this morning.'
Helen had rested well last night; this morning she had thrilled anew to
the world about her. She thought that she had never seen such a
sunrise; the day appeared almost to come leaping and shouting up out of
the desert; the air of the morning, before the heat came, was nothing
less than glorious. Her eyes were bright; there was the flush of
joyousness in her cheeks.
'How a man could own this,' she said slowly, 'and then could sell
it----' She shook her head and looked at him half wonderingly. 'I
don't see how you could do it.'
'You feel that way about it, too?' He brought his eyes back soberly to
his cigar.
Howard, whose swinging stride Helen had learned to know already, came
out from the living-room, hat in hand, carrying a pair of spurs he had
been tinkering with.
'What are you talking about?' he laughed. 'Somebody dead?'
'Miss Longstreet was saying,' Carr said quietly, his eyes still grave,
'that she couldn't understand a man selling an outfit like this, once
he had called it his own.'
'Good for you, Miss Helen,' cried Howard heartily. 'I am with you on
that. John, there, must have been out of his senses when he let me
talk him out of Desert Valley.'
'I don't know but that I was,' said Carr.
Howard looked at him swiftly, and swiftly the light in his eyes
altered. For Carr had spoken thoughtfully and soberly, and there was
no hint of jest in the man.
'You don't mean, John,' said Alan, a trifle uncertainly, 'that you are
sorry you let go? That you are not satisfied----'
Carr appeared to be considering the matter as though it were enwrapped
in his cigar. He took ample time in replying, so much time, in fact,
that Helen found herself growing impatient for his reply.
'Suppose I were sorry?' he said finally. 'Suppose I were not
satisfied? Then what? The deal is made, and a bargain, old-timer, is
a bargain.'
Now it was Howard's turn for silence and sober eyes. He looked
intently into his friend's face; then with a lingering affection across
his broad lands.
'Not between friends,' he said. 'Not between friends like you and me,
John. I've hardly got my hooks into it; you had it long enough for it
to get to be a part of you. If you made a mistake in selling, if you
know it now----' He shrugged and smiled. 'Why, of course it doesn't
mean as much to me as to you, and anyway, it's yours until I get all my
payments made, and if you say the word----'
'Well?' asked Carr steadily.
'Why,' cried Howard, 'we'll frame a new deal this very minute and you
can take it over again!'
'You'd do that for me, Al?'
'You're damned well right, I would!' cried Howard heartily. And Helen
understood that for the moment at least he had forgotten that she was
present.
A slow smile came into Carr's eyes.
'That's square shooting, Long Boy.'--he spoke more impetuously than
Helen had thought the man could--'but I never went back on a play yet,
did I? I'm just sort of homesick for the old place, that's all.
Forget it.' He slapped Howard upon the shoulder, the two friends' eyes
met for a moment of utter understanding and he went on down to the
stable, calling back, 'I'm going to take the best horse you've
got--that would be Bel and no other--and ride. So long.'
'So long,' answered Howard.
Carr gone from sight, Howard stood musing a moment, unconscious of
Helen's wondering eyes upon him. Then he turned to her and began
speaking of his friend: big and generous and manly was Carr; a man to
tie to, and, though he did not say it in so many words, a man to die
for. He explained how Carr had taken the old Diaz ranch that had been
Spanish and then Mexican in its time and had made it over into what it
was, the greatest stock run north of the Rio Grande and west of the
Mississippi. Helen's interest was ready and sympathetic, and Howard
passed from one point to another until he had sketched the way in which
the ranch had been sold to him. And the girl, though she knew little
enough about business methods, was startled to learn how these two men
trusted each other. She recalled what Carr had said; between him and
Howard a deal involving many thousands of dollars was as simple a
matter as the sale of a horse. The two, riding together, had in a few
words agreed upon price and terms. They had returned to the house and
Howard had written a cheque for seven thousand dollars as first
payment; all of his ready cash, he admitted freely, saving what he must
keep on hand for ranch manipulation. There was no deed given, no deed
of trust, no mortgage. It was understood that Howard should pay
certain sums at certain specified dates; each man had jotted down his
memoranda in his own hand; the deal was made.
'But,' gasped Helen, 'if anything unforeseen should happen? If--if he
should die? Or you? If----'
'In any case there would be one of us left, wouldn't there?' he
countered in his off-hand way. 'Unless we both went out, and then what
difference? He has no one to look out for; neither have I. Besides,'
he laughed carelessly, 'John and I both plan on being on the job a good
fifty years from now. Come out here and I'll show you a real horse.'
She went with him to the porch. Carr was leaving the stable, riding
Bel. Helen knew little enough of horseflesh and yet she understood
that here was an animal to catch anyone's eye; yes, and Carr, sitting
massive and stalwart in the saddle, was a man to hold any woman's. The
horse was a big, bright bay; mane and tail were like fine gold; the sun
winked back from them and from the glorious reddish hide. Carr saw
them and waved his hat; Bel danced sideways and whirled, and for an
instant stood upon his rear legs, his thin, aristocratic forelegs
flaying the air. Then came Carr's deep bass laugh; the polished hoofs
struck the ground and they were off, flashing away across the
meadowlands.
'Some day,' said Helen, her eyes sparkling, 'I want to ride a horse
like that!' She turned to him, asking eagerly, 'Could I learn?'
'If with all my heart I wanted to be a first-rate Philadelphia lawyer
or a third-rate San Francisco politician,' he announced with that
sweeping positiveness which was one of his characteristics, 'I'd
consider the job done to start with! All you've got to do is to want a
thing, want it hard, and it's as good as yours. Now, to begin with,
you love a horse. The rest is easy.'
Helen saw her father, accompanied by young Barbee, emerge from behind
the stable, and sighed.
'I don't believe you know what failure means,' she said.
'There isn't any such bird,' he laughed at her.
'Not really.'
'Then,' her eyes still upon the pair talking together by the stable
door, 'dear old dad should find his gold-mine. He wants it with all
his heart, Heaven knows. And he has the faith that is supposed to move
mountains.'
Howard scratched his head. Within the few hours he had come to like
the old professor, for Longstreet, though academic, was a
straight-from-the-shoulder type of man, one of no subterfuges. And yet
he did not greatly inspire confidence; he was not the type that
breathes efficiency.
'Tell me about him,' Howard urged. 'What makes him so dead certain he
can nail his Golconda out here? I take it he has never been out this
way before, and that he doesn't know a whole lot of our part of the
country.'
Confidence inspires confidence. Howard had hardly finished sketching
for her his own plans and hopes; he had gone succinctly and openly into
detail concerning his deal with John Carr. Now Helen, glad to talk
with some one, answered in kind.
'The University elected a young president, a New Broom,' she said
bitterly. 'He is a man of more ambition than brains. His slogan is
"Young Men." He ousted father together with a dozen other men of his
age. I thought father's heart would be broken; he had devoted all of
the years of his life, all of his best work, to his University. But
instead he was simply enraged! Can you imagine him in a perfectly
towering rage?'
Howard grinned. 'Go ahead,' he chuckled. 'He's a good old sport and I
like him.'
'Well,' said Helen, without meeting his smile, 'father and I went into
business session right away. We had never had much money; father had
never cared for wealth measured in money; had always been richly
content with his professor's salary; had never saved or asked me to
save. When the thing happened, all we had in the world was a little
over seven hundred dollars. I was right away for economizing, for
managing, for turning to some other position. But father, I tell you,
was in a perfect rage. When I mentioned finances to him he got up and
shouted. "Money!" he yelled at me. "What's money? Who wants money?
It's a fool's game to get money; anybody can do it." When he saw that
I doubted he told me to pack up that very day and he'd show me; he'd
show the world. The new University man named him an old fogy, did he?
He'd show him. Didn't he know more than any other man living about
geology? About the making of the earth and the minerals of the earth?
Was it any trick to find gold? Not in the dribbles, but such a mine as
never a miner drove a pick into yet?'
She sighed again and grew silent. Howard, toying idly with the spurs
in his hands, could at the moment find nothing to say.
'Dear old pops,' she said more softly in a moment. 'I am afraid that
his heart-breaking time is coming now--when he learns that it isn't so
easy to find gold, after all.'
'No,' said Howard slowly. 'No. It doesn't break a man's heart, for he
is always sure that it is coming the next day and the next and the
next. I've known them to go on that way until they died, and then know
in their hearts that they'd make a strike the next day--if only the
Lord would spare them twenty-four hours more.'
'I wanted father to bank our money,' went on Helen, her eyes darkening.
'I wanted to go to work, to earn something. I can teach. But he
wouldn't hear of it. He said--he said that if the time had come when
he couldn't support his own daughter it was high time he was dead.'
Howard nodded his understanding. 'He's a good sport, I tell you,' he
maintained warmly. 'And I like him. Who knows but that he may make
his ten-strike here after all? Or,' as he marked the droop of the
girl's mouth and understood how she must be thinking of how little was
left of their pittance, he added briskly, 'this is a better place than
the East any day; there are more chances. If a man is the right sort
there is always a chance for him. If you want to teach---- Well,
we've got schools out here, haven't we?'
Helen's eyes rounded at him. 'Have you? Where?'
'And bully good schools,' he insisted. 'There's the Big Springs school
not over ten miles off, over that way. You could have a job there
to-morrow, if you said the word.'
Her eyes brightened. 'There is a vacancy, then?'
'Well,' he admitted, 'I'm not so sure about that. There's a teacher
there, I believe. But,' and now it was his eyes that brightened, 'it
could be fixed somehow. Just leave it to John and me.'
She laughed at him and all her gaiety came surging back.
'Here I've been drawing a face a mile long,' she cried lightly, 'when
everything's all right as far as I can see in all directions. I am
going down to see what father is up to; he and Mr. Barbee look to me
like a couple of youngsters plotting trouble.'
A look of understanding flashed between Yellow Barbee and Professor
Longstreet as the two came down from the ranch-house. Thereafter
Longstreet beamed upon his daughter while Yellow Barbee, his hat far
back upon the blonde cluster of curls, turned his insolent eyes upon
her. Helen, deeming him overbold, sought to 'squelch' him with a look.
Instead she saw both mirth and admiration shining in the baby-blue
eyes. She turned her back upon El Joven, who retaliated by turning his
back upon her and swaggering away into the stable, whistling through
his teeth as he went. Howard went with him for his horse.
'Papa,' said Helen after the stern fashion which in time comes natural
to the girl with a wayward father, 'what are you two up to?'
'My darling,' said Longstreet hurriedly, 'what do you mean?'
'I mean you and that young scamp. He's bad, papa; bad all the way
through. And you, you dear old innocent----'
Longstreet glanced hastily over his shoulder and then frowned at her.
'You mustn't talk that way. He is a remarkably fine young fellow. We
are in a new environment, you and I, Helen. We are in Rome and must
learn something of the Romans. Now, Mr. Barbee----'
'Is Roman all the way through!' sniffed Helen. 'You just look out that
he doesn't lead you into mischief.'
In the stable Howard was saddling two horses, meaning to invite Helen
to begin her serious study now. He, too, was interested in the odd
friendship which seemed to be growing up so swiftly between two men so
utterly unlike. He turned to Barbee to ask a question and saw the
young fellow stoop and sweep up something that had fallen into the
straw underfoot. Howard's eyes were quick and keen; it was only a
flash, but he recognized a ten of spades. He turned back to the latigo
he was drawing tight. But before they left the stable he offered
carelessly:
'What do you think of the professor, Barbee?'
And Barbee answered joyously:
'He's a reg'lar ring-tailed old he-devil, Al.' He winked brightly.
'One of these days him and me is going to drift down to Tres Pinos.
And, say, won't the town know about us?'
'What do you mean?' demanded Howard sharply.
Barbee considered him a thoughtful moment. Then he shrugged.
'Oh, nothing,' he said.