Almost
Long hours and hard work in the cattle country mean that a man slips
from his saddle into his bunk and to sleep, and from his bunk into his
saddle again, with only time to bolt his food and hot coffee
infrequently and at irregular intervals. Chuck Evans had obeyed
orders; the ranch was short-handed and the 'old-timers' remaining
cursed a little, to be sure, at the new order of things, but understood
and went to work. Howard, when he met them all at supper long after
dark, noted how their sunburned eyes turned upon him speculatively.
And he knew that in their own parlance every mother's son of them was
ready to go the limit if the old man set the pace. That night, when
the others trooped off to bed, he detained Chuck Evans and Plug Oliver
and Dave Terril for a brief conference. To them he gave in what detail
he could his latest plans. Also, since they were friends as well as
hired hands, he told them frankly of his difficulties and of his
success with Engle. When the men left him they had accepted his fight
as their own.
The first man in the saddle the next day was Howard. He ordered the
tally taken of every head of stock on his ranch. This alone, since his
acres were broad and since his stock grazed free over thousands of
acres lying adjacent to Desert Valley on three sides, was a big task.
Already, during his absence, a number of the best of the beef cattle
had been moved to the meadowlands. He set a man to close-herd there;
he sent other men to bring in still other straying stock; he himself
judged every single head, cutting out those he deemed unfit; finally he
saw the growing herd driven down into the choicest of his meadow
grazing land to fatten.
All of this required days. Between breakfast and supper every man with
the outfit changed his horse several times; Howard, the hardest rider
of them all, changed horses five times the first day. He and his men
showed signs of the strain they put upon their bodies; they were a
gaunt, lean-jawed, wild-eyed lot. There was little frolic left in them
when night came; they were short-spoken, prone to grow fierce over
trifles. But there was not a sullen or discontented man among them.
They took what came; they had known times of stress before; they could
look forward to a day to come of boisterous relaxation and money to be
spent in town. Though the subject had never been mentioned, they fully
understood that there would be a bonus coming and a glorious holiday.
They would see the old man through now: later he would square the
account.
Eat, sleep and work; there was nothing else in their schedule. The
times when Howard had a few moments over a cigarette to think quietly
of Helen were times when he could not go to her: in the dimness of the
coming day when he was going out to saddle and she would still be
asleep; in the dark of the day ended when she would be going to bed.
But he held grimly to his task here, saying to himself that in a few
days he would ride to her and with something to say; wondering how she
would listen; sometimes aglow with his hope, sometimes fearing. And,
as he thought of her, so did he think often of John Carr. He did not
know if Carr had gone East or if still he were a daily guest at the
Longstreet home. Not a man of his riders had been beyond the confines
of the grazing lands; no one had come in from the outside. There was
no news.
So a full week sped by. Then for the first time came both opportunity
and excuse for Howard to leave the ranch. Chuck Evans had ridden into
San Ramon to see if there were a market for a string of mules; he
brought back word that a teamster named Roberts in the new mining-camp
had been making inquiries. It seemed that he wanted high-grade stock
and had the money to pay for it. Everything was running smoothly on
the ranch, and Howard rode this time on his own errand. But, before
starting for Sanchia's Town, he slipped into the ranchhouse and shaved
and changed to a new shirt and chaps and recently blackened boots.
Thereafter he brushed his best black hat. Then from a bottom drawer of
his old bureau, where it was hidden under a pile of clothing, he
brought out a parcel which had come with him from a store in San Juan.
As good a way as any to see Roberts in Sanchia's Town led by way of the
Longstreet camp on Last Ridge. Howard took the winding trail up which
his horse could climb to the plateau, and once on the level land came
swooping down on the well-remembered spot joyously. The spot itself
was hidden from him by the grove of stunted pines until he came within
a couple of hundred yards of it. Then he jerked his horse down to a
standstill and sat staring before him incredulously. The cabin was
gone quite as though there had never been a cabin there in all time.
At first he wouldn't believe his eyes. Then swiftly his wonderment
altered to consternation. They had gone! Helen and her father had
gone. Carr had prevailed upon them; Howard had not come to see; by now
they were flying eastward upon the speeding overland train, or perhaps
were already in New York.
The splendour of the day died; the joyousness went out of his heart; he
sat staring at the emptiness before him, then at the parcel in brown
paper clutched so foolishly in his hand. He looked all about him;
through the trees as though he expected to see Helen's laughing face
watching him; across the broken ridges beyond the flat; down into his
own valley. Down there, too, the glory had passed. When he had stood
here with Helen and they two had looked across the valley lands
together, it had been to him like the promised land. Now it was so
much dirt and rock and grass with cows and horses browsing stupidly
across all of it.
For a long time he sat very still. Then his face hardened.
'If she has gone, then I am going, too,' he told himself. 'And I am
going to bring her back.'
He turned his horse and rode swiftly to Sanchia's Town. They would
have gone that way, on to Big Run, San Ramon and down to the railroad.
In such a case he would have word of them in the mining-camp. In his
present mood he required only a few minutes to come to the new
settlement. Had he been less absorbed in his own thoughts he must have
been amazed at what he saw about him. He had known men before now to
make towns upon dry bare ground and in a mere handful of days; not even
he, with his first-hand knowledge of such venturings, had ever seen the
like of Sanchia's Town. The spirit which had initiated it into the
world was still its driving spirit. It sprawled, it overflowed its
boundaries incessantly, it hooted and yelled and sang. It grew like a
formless mass lumped about fermenting yeast. Already there were shacks
and tents up and down both sides of Dry Gulch and strung along in the
gravelly bed. There were gambling-houses, monstrosities which named
themselves hotels and rooming-houses, stores, lunch counters. The
streets were crooked alleys; everywhere dust puffed up and thickened
and never settled; teams and jolting wagons and pack burros disputed
the congested way; there were seasoned miners, old-time prospectors,
going their quiet ways; there were tenderfeet of all descriptions. Not
less than five thousand human souls had already found their way to
Sanchia's Town and more were coming.
In all of this to-day, Howard took scant interest. His major emotion
was one of annoyance. Among such a seething crowd where should he ask
of the Longstreets? He sat his horse in a narrow space between a lunch
counter and a canvas bar-room and stared about him. Then he saw that
the solitary figure perched upon a box before the lunch counter was
Yellow Barbee. He called to him quickly.
Barbee's young eyes, which he turned promptly, were still eloquent of
an amorous joyousness within Barbee's young soul. He bestowed his
glance only fleetingly upon Howard, said a brief 'Hello, Al,' and
turned immediately to the cause of the obvious flutter in Barbee's
bosom. Howard expected to see Sanchia Murray behind the counter.
Instead he saw a young girl of a little less than Barbee's age,
roguish-eyed, black-haired, red-mouthed, plump and saucy. Her sleeves
were up; her arms were brown and round; there was flour on them.
'Where are the Longstreets, Barbee?' asked Howard.
'Gone,' announced Barbee cheerfully. And as though that closed the
matter to his entire satisfaction, he demanded: 'Come on, Pet; be a
good kid. Going with me, ain't you?'
Pet laughed and thereafter turned up her pretty nose with obviously
mock disdain.
'Dancing old square dances and polkas, I'd bet a stack of wheats,' she
scoffed. 'Why, there ain't any more real jazz in your crowd of
cow-hands than there is in an old man's home. What do you take me for,
anyway?'
'Aw, come on,' grinned Barbee. 'You're joshing. If it's jazz you
want----'
'Look here,' said Howard impatiently. 'I'm just asking a question, and
I'll get out of your way. Where did they go?'
'Who?' asked Barbee.
'The Longstreets.'
'Dunno,' Barbee shrugged. Then, as an afterthought, 'Sanchia Murray
could tell you; she's been sticking tight to them. She's got a tent up
yonder, back of the Courtot House on the edge of town.'
Howard hurried on. The lunch counter girl, following him with critical
eyes, demanded for him or anyone else to hear:
'Who's your bean-pole friend, Kid?'
But the answer Howard did not hear. He swung out to the side to be
free of the town and galloped on to Sanchia's tent, which he found
readily. Sanchia herself was in front of it, just preparing to saddle
her white mare.
'Hello, Al,' she greeted him carelessly, though her eyes narrowed at
him speculatively.
'Where have the Longstreets gone?' he asked without preliminary.
'Back in the hills, Bear Valley way,' she replied, still scrutinizing
him. She marked the look of relief in his eyes and laughed cynically
and withal a trifle bitterly. 'On the Red Hill trail. Going to see
them?'
'Yes.' He reined away, and then added stiffly, 'Thank you.'
'Wait a minute,' she called to him. 'I'm just going up there myself.
You might saddle for me, and I'll ride with you.'
He paused and looked her sternly and steadily in the eyes. His voice
was cold and his words were outspoken.
'I had rather ride alone, and you know it. Further, after the way you
have tricked that man, I'd think you'd draw off and leave them alone.
You can't do a thing like that twice.'
For an instant the look in her eyes was baffling. Then there shot
through the inscrutability of it a sudden gleam of malice that was like
a spurt of flame. It was the fire which before now Howard's attitude
had kindled there.
'What you men see in that little fool, I don't know!' she cried hotly.
'What has she that I haven't? I could have made you the biggest man in
the country; I would have given everything and held nothing back. I am
even honest enough to say so, and I am not afraid to say so. And you
are stupid like every other man. Oh, I am done with the crowd of you!'
she broke out violently, half hysterically. 'Laugh at me, will you?
Turn your back on me, will you?' She paused and panted out the words.
'Why, if you came crawling to me now I'd spit on you. And, so help me
God, I'll ruin the last one of you and your precious flock of lambs
before I have done with you. If Jim Courtot can't do the trick, I'll
do for you first and Jim next.'
He wheeled his horse and left her, groping wonderingly for an
explanation of her fury. He had not spoken with her above a score of
times in his life. He had merely been decent to her when, in the
beginning, it struck him that after all she was only a defenceless
woman and that men were hard on her. That his former simple kindness
would have awakened any serious affection had failed to suggest itself
to him.
But swiftly he forgot Sanchia and her vindictiveness. She had
mentioned Courtot; for a little as he rode into the hills he puzzled
over Courtot's recurrent disappearances. He recalled how, always when
he came to a place where he might expect to find the gambler, he had
passed on. Here of late he was like some sinister will-o'-the-wisp.
What was it that urged him? A lure that beckoned? A menace that
drove? He thought of Kish Taka. There was a nemesis to dog any man.
Jim Courtot had dwelt with the desert Indians; he had come to know in
what savage manner they meted out their retributive justice. Was Kish
Taka still unsleeping, patient, relentless on Courtot's trail? Kish
Taka and his dog?
But his horse's hoofs were beating out a merry music on the winding
trail that led toward the Red Hill country, and at the end of the trail
was Helen. Helen had not gone East. The frown in his eyes gave place
to his smile; the sunlight was again golden and glorious; the emptiness
of the world was replaced by a large content.
'They just couldn't stand being so close to what they had lost,' he
argued. 'It was a right move to come up here.'
He found the new camp without trouble. As he entered the lower end of
the tiny valley he saw the canvas-walled cabin at the farther end,
under the cliffs. He saw Helen herself. She was just stepping out
through the door. He came racing on to her, waving his hat by way of
greeting. He slipped down from the saddle, let his bundle fall and
caught both of her hands in his.
After this long, unexplained absence Helen had meant to be very stiff
when, on some fine day, Alan Howard remembered to come again. But now,
under his ardent eyes, the colour ran up into her cheeks in rebellious
defiance of her often strengthened determination and, though she
wrenched herself free from him, something of the fire in his eyes was
reflected in hers.
'Good afternoon, Mr. Cyclone,' she said quite as carelessly as his
sudden appearance permitted her vaguely disturbed senses. 'What are
you going to do? Run over me?'
He laughed joyously.
'I could eat you,' he told her enthusiastically. 'You look just that
good to me. Lord, but I'm hungry for the sight of you!'
'That's nice of you to say so,' Helen answered. And now she was quite
all that she had planned to be; as coolly indifferent as only a girl
can be when something has begun to sing in her heart and she has made
up her mind that no one must hear the singing. 'But I fail to see why
this very excellent imitation of a man who hasn't seen his best friend
for a couple of centuries.'
'It has been that long, every bit of it--longer.'
Helen's smile was that stock smile to be employed in answer to an
inconsequential compliment paid by a chance acquaintance.
'Three or four days is hardly an eternity,' she retorted.
'Three or four days? Why, it's been over nine! Nearly ten.'
She appeared both amazed and incredulous. Then she waved the matter
aside as of no moment.
'I was going out to the spring for a drink,' she said. 'Will you wait
here? Father will be in soon.'
'I'll come along, if there's room for two.' He picked up his parcel,
which Helen noted without seeming to note anything. 'Look here,
Helen,' as she started on before him to the thicket of willows, 'aren't
you the least little bit glad to see me?'
'Why, of course I am,' she assured him politely. 'And papa was
wondering about you only this morning. Isn't it pretty here?'
He admitted without enthusiasm that it was. He had not seen anything
but her. She had on a blue dress; she wore a wide hat; her eyes were
nothing less than maddening. He recalled the prettiness of Barbee's
new girl at the lunch counter; he remembered Sanchia's regular
features; these two were simply not of the same order of beings as
Helen. No woman was. He strode behind her as she flitted on up the
trail and felt thrilling through him an odd commingling of reverence,
of adoration, of infinite yearning.
She came to the spring and stopped, watching him eagerly though she
pretended to be looking anywhere but at him. And for a moment Howard,
marvelling at the spot, let his eyes wander from her. The spring had
been cleaned out and rimmed with big flat rocks. About it, as though
recently transplanted here, were red and blue flowers. Just at hand
close to the clear pool was a delightful shade cast by a freshly
constructed shelter. And the shelter itself made him open his eyes.
Willow poles, with the leaves still green on them, had been set in the
soft earth. Across them other poles had been placed cunningly woven in
and out. Still other branches, criss-crossed above, and piled high
with foliage, offered a thick mat of verdure to shield one from the hot
rays of the sun. Within the elfin chamber was a rustic seat;
everywhere, their roots enwrapped in wet earth, were flowers.
'It's wonderful!' he told her, and now his enthusiasm had been
awakened. 'And, of course it's your own idea and your own work.'
'Oh my, no! It was John's idea and John made it!'
'John?'
'John Carr. He has been a perfect dear. Isn't he wonderful?'
Yes, Carr was wonderful. But already Howard's enthusiasm had fled.
'The leaves will wilt pretty soon,' he found fault in spite of himself.
He was a little ashamed even while he was speaking. 'The flowers will
die, and then----'
Helen was already seated within, smiling, looking placid and
unconcerned.
'By then,' she announced lightly, 'I'll be gone; so it won't matter.'
'Gone?' he demanded sharply. 'Where?'
'East. Mr. Carr has gone on ahead. We are to meet him in New York.'
He sat down upon a rock just outside her door and made no attempt to
hide what was in his heart. He had thought to have lost her when he
came to the spot whence the cabin had vanished; he had found her here;
he was going to lose her again. . . . Helen's heart quickened at his
look, and she lowered her head, pretending to be occupied exclusively
with a thistle that had caught on her skirt, afraid that he would know.
'Why are you going like this?' he asked suddenly.
She appeared to hesitate.
'I ought not to say anything against one of your friends,' she said
with a great show of ingenuousness. 'But, Mrs. Murray----'
Explosively he cut her short. 'You know that she is not a friend of
mine and that she has never been and never will be a friend of mine.
Why do you say that?'
She shrugged her shoulders and went on smiling at him. That smile
began to madden him; it appeared to speak of such an unruffled spirit
when his own was in tumult.
'I beg your pardon, I'm sure. I was merely going to say that Mrs.
Murray shows too great an interest in papa. Of course I understand
her, and he doesn't. Dear old pops is a perfect child. She has
tricked him once; she seems to think him worth watching; she is
unbearable. So I am going to do the very natural thing and take him
away from her. Back where he belongs by the way; where we both belong.'
'That is not true; you don't belong anywhere but here.' He began
speaking slowly, very earnestly and with little show of emotion. But
little by little his speech quickened, his voice was raised, his words
became vehement. 'You belong here. There is no land in the world like
this, just as there is no girl like you. Listen to me, Helen! For
your sake, for my sake--yes, and for your father's sake--you must stay.
You were speaking of him; let's think of him first. He is like a child
in that he has kept a pure, simple heart. But he is not without his
own sort of wisdom. He knows rocks and strata and geological
formation; he found gold once, and that was not just accident. He
lost, but he lost without a whimper. He is a good sport. He will find
gold again because it is here and he knows how to find it and where to
find it.'
He paused, and Helen, though with no great show of interest and no
slightest indication of being impressed, waited for him to go on.
'The fault in what has occurred is less his than mine. Knowing the
sort Sanchia Murray is, I should not have given her the opportunity
that day of a long talk alone with him. But,' his meaning was plain as
he caught and held her eye, 'I was in the mood to forget Sanchia Murray
and Professor Longstreet and every one else but the girl I was with.'
Helen laughed lightly, again passing the remark by as a mere compliment
of the negligible order.
'Don't do that, Helen,' he said gravely. She saw that a new sort of
sternness had entered into his manner. 'I have been working, working
hard not alone for myself but for you. Desert Valley has always been
to me the one spot in the world; you saw it and loved it, and since
then there is no money that would buy it from me. If it were really
mine! And I have been working night and day to make it mine. So that
some day----'
She was not ready for this, and, though her colour warmed, she
interrupted swiftly:
'You speak as though there were danger of losing it.'
He explained, plunging into those matters which had absorbed his mind
during so many hard hours, telling her how he had paid Carr twelve
thousand and five hundred dollars when he had expected to pay only ten
thousand, how he had been obliged to ride to San Juan for money, of his
success with Engle, of his plans for sales, of cutting down his force
of men; all that he had done and all that he hoped to do. She caught
something of the spirit of the endeavour and leaned forward tense and
listening.
'But surely Mr. Carr, being your best friend, would not have driven you
like this?'
Howard did not answer directly. This hesitation, being unusual in him,
caught Helen's attention.
'I imagine John needed the money,' he said quietly. 'I didn't say
anything to him about being short of cash. By the way, while in San
Juan I got this for you. I thought you'd like it.'
He unwrapped the bundle. In it were a beautiful Spanish bit, richly
silvered and with headstall and reins of cunningly plaited rawhide, and
a pair of dainty spurs which winked gaily in the sunshine. Helen's
eyes sparkled as she put out her hand for them. Her rush of thanks he
turned aside by saying hastily:
'I've got the little horse to go with them. I'd like mighty well to
give him to you. I don't know whether you can accept yet, but I'm
rounding up a lot of horses and when we get a rope on Danny I'm going
to lend him to you. To keep indefinitely, as long as you'll have him.'
Long ago Helen's fancies had been ensnared by the big picturesque
ranch; long ago her heart had gone out to a fine saddle horse. No
longer did she seek to hold her interest in check; she asked him quick
questions about everything that he had overlooked telling her and
exclaimed with delighted anticipation when he suggested that she and
her father ride down and watch at the round-up. He'd have Danny ready
for her and would have ridden him enough to remind him that his long
frisky vacation was at an end.
They were very close together and very happy just then, when a laughing
voice broke in upon their dreamings.
'Isn't he the most adorable lover in the world? But look out for him,
my dear child. He nearly broke my heart once. Hello, Al! Sorry I
couldn't come up with you. But, you see, I followed as dose as I
could!'
They had not heard Sanchia's horse, and Sanchia had drawn her own
deduction from the fact. Helen stiffened perceptibly, drawing slowly
back. Howard's face reddened to his anger.