[Cover Illustration]
=T R O U B L E D=
=W A T E R S=
=BY=
=WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE=
=AUTHOR OF=
=BUCKY O’CONNOR, MAN-SIZE,=
=THE BIG-TOWN ROUND-UP,=
=GUNSIGHT PASS, ETC.=
=[Illustration]=
=G R O S S E T= =&= =D U N L A P=
=P U B L I S H E R S= =N E W Y O R K=
COPYRIGHT, 1918, 1925, BY WILLIAM
MACLEOD RAINE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE
COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
=CONTENTS=
CHAPTER PAGE
I. AMONG THE APPLE BLOSSOMS. . . . 1
II. TIM FLANDERS OFFERS INFORMATION AND
OPINIONS. . . . . . . . . 11
III. A CHALLENGE. . . . . . . . 17
IV. INTRODUCING ROWAN MCCOY TO RUTH
TROVILLION. . . . . . . . 25
V. A RIDE. . . . . . . . . . 32
VI. CHAMPION OF THE WORLD. . . . . 42
VII. FATE FLINGS OPEN A CLOSED DOOR. . 56
VIII. A COLD TRAIL. . . . . . . . 65
IX. A RIFT IN THE LUTE. . . . . . 70
X. THE RIFT WIDENS. . . . . . . 84
XI. LARRY GOES CALLING. . . . . . 92
XII. ACROSS THE DEAD LINE. . . . . 103
XIII. THE NIGHT RAID. . . . . . . 114
XIV. THE DAY AFTER. . . . . . . . 129
XV. A HOT TRAIL. . . . . . . . 135
XVI. MATSON MAKES HIS GATHER. . . . 147
XVII. PADLOCKED LIPS. . . . . . . 155
XVIII. “I RECKON I’LL HANG”. . . . . 162
XIX. SAM YERBY SINGS. . . . . . . 169
XX. “YOU DAMNED JUDAS”. . . . . . 174
XXI. A COMPROMISE. . . . . . . . 185
XXII. FALKNER TALKS. . . . . . . . 195
XXIII. RUTH WHISPERS A SECRET. . . . . 207
XXIV. AT THE CIRCLE DIAMOND. . . . . 216
XXV. SILCOTT DISCOVERS HE IS NOT WELCOME 221
XXVI. AN EXPLANATION. . . . . . . 232
XXVII. THE SYMBOL. . . . . . . . . 242
XXVIII. DISTINGUISHED VISITORS. . . . . 250
XXIX. A DISAPPOINTMENT. . . . . . . 256
XXX. THE BLIZZARD. . . . . . . . 267
XXXI. “COMPANY FOR EACH OTHER”. . . . 275
XXXII. THE CLOUDS BREAK. . . . . . . 283
XXXIII. GOOD NEWS. . . . . . . . . 294
XXXIV. A HONEYMOON IN THE HILLS. . . . 299
TROUBLED WATERS
TROUBLED WATERS
CHAPTER I
AMONG THE APPLE BLOSSOMS
THE young man drew up his horse at the side of the dusty road and looked
across the barbed-wire fence into the orchard beyond. Far distant
against the horizon could be seen the blue mountain range of the Big
Horns, sharp-toothed, with fields of snow lying in the gulches. But in
the valley basin where he rode an untempered sun, too hot for May, beat
upon his brown neck and through the gray flannel shirt stretched taut
across his flat back.
The trees were clouds of soft blossoms and the green alfalfa beneath
looked delightfully cool. Warm and dry from travel as he was, that
shadowy paradise of pink and white bloom and lush deep grass called
mightily to him. A reader of character might have guessed that handsome
Larry Silcott followed the line of least resistance. If his face
betrayed no weakness, certainly it showed self-satisfaction, an assured
smug acceptance of the fact that he was popular and knew it. Yet his
friends, and he had many of them, would have protested that word smug.
He was a good fellow, amiable, friendly, anxious to please. At dance and
round-up he always had a smile or a laugh ready.
He caught a glimpse of the weathered roof of the ranch house where the
rambling road dipped into a draw. Well, it would wait there for him.
There were twenty-four hours in every day and seven days in each week.
Time was one thing Larry had plenty of. Why not climb the fence and
steal a long luxurious nap in the orchard of the Elkhorn Lodge? He
looked at his watch—and ten seconds later was trespassing with long
strides through the grass.
Larry was Irish by descent. He was five-and-twenty. He had the digestion
of an ostrich. For which good reasons and several others he whistled as
his quirt whipped the alfalfa tops from the stems. For the young range
rider was in love with life, the mere living. Take last night, now. He
had flirted outrageously at the Circle O T Ranch dance with Jack Cole’s
girl, though he had known she was expecting to be married before winter.
Jack was his friend, and he had annoyed him and made him jealous. Larry
had excited Kate with the flattery of a new conquest, and he had made
the ranchers and their wives smile tolerantly at the way he had “rushed”
her. All of this was grist to his mill. He liked to be envied, to be
admired, to be thought irresistible. His vanity accepted it as tribute
to his attractiveness. Besides, what harm did it do? Kate and Jack would
quarrel and make up. This would be a variation to the monotony of their
courtship. He had really done them a kindness, though probably Jack
would not recognize it as one.
Flinging himself down beneath a tree, he drew a deep breath of content.
Roving eyes swept the open pasture adjoining, the blue sky with its
westering sun ready to sink behind a crotch of the hills. His blinking
lids closed sleepily, and opened again while he nestled closer to the
ground and pillowed a dusky head on an arm. He had slept only two hours
the night before.
From the foliage above came a faint rustle followed by what might pass
as a discreet little cough. The range rider sat up as though he were
hinged at the hips, rose to his feet, and lifted the pinched-in felt hat
to a glimpse of blue in the shower of blossoms.
“Where did _you_ come from?” he demanded, face lifted to the foliage.
“From Keokuk, Iowa,” came the prompt answer.
He laughed at this literal response. “I’ll never believe it, ma’am.
You’re one of these banshees my mother used to talk about, or else
you’re a fairy or one of these here nymphs that dwell in trees.”
Through the blossoms he made out a slim figure of grace, vaguely
outlined in the mass of efflorescence.
Her laughter rippled down to him. “Sorry to disappoint you, sir. But I’m
a mere woman.”
“I ain’t so sure you won’t open up yore wings an’ fly away,” he
protested. “But if you’re givin’ me the straight of it, all I’ve got to
say is that I like women. I been waitin’ for one twenty-odd years. Last
night I dreamed I was gonna find her before sunset to-day. That’s
straight.”
She was seated on a branch, chin tilted in a little cupped fist, one
heel caught on the bough below to steady her. With an instinct wholly
feminine she dexterously arranged the skirt without being able to
conceal some inches of slender limb rising from a well-turned ankle.
“You’ll have to hasten on your way, then. The sun sets in half an hour,”
she told him.
His grin was genial, insinuating, an unfriendly critic might have said
impudent. “Room for argument, ma’am,” he demurred. “Funny, ain’t it,
that of all the millions of apple trees in the world I sat down under
this one—an’ while you were in it? Here we are, the man, the tree, an’
the girl, as you might say.”
“Are you listing the items in the order of their importance?” she asked.
“And anyhow we won’t be here long, since I am leaving now.”
“Why are you going?” he wanted to know.
“A little matter, a mere trifle. You seem to have forgotten it, but—we
haven’t been introduced.”
“Now looky here, ma’am. What’s in a name? Some guys says, ‘Meet Mr.
Jones,’ an’ you claim you know me. Not a thing to that. It’s a heap more
fun to do our own introducin’. Now ain’t it? Honest Injun! I’m anything
you want to call me, an’ you’re Miss-Lady-in-the-Apple-Blossoms. An’ now
that’s been fixed, I reckon I’ll take the elevator up.”
The girl’s eyes sparkled. There was something attractive about this
young fellow’s impudence that robbed it of offence. Womanlike, her mind
ran to evasions. “You can’t come up. You’d shake down all the blossoms.”
“If I shook ’em all down but one I’ll bet the tree would bloom to beat
any other in the orchard.”
“If that is meant for a compliment——”
“No, Lady, for the truth.”
He caught the lowest limb and was about to swing himself up. Her sharp
“No!” held him an instant while their eyes met. A smile crept into his
and gave the face a roguish look, a touch of Pan.
“Will you come down then?”
“At my convenience, sir.”
An upward swing brought him to the fork of the tree. Yet a moment, and
he was beside her among the blossoms. Her eyes swept him in one swift
glance, curiously, a little shyly.
“With not even a by-your-leave. You are a claim jumper,” she said.
“No, ma’am. I’m locatin’ the one adjoinin’ yores.”
“You may have mine, since I’m vacating it.”
“Now don’t you,” he protested. “Let yoreself go once an’ be natural.
Like a human being. Hear that meadow-lark calling to his mate. He’s
tellin’ his lady friend how strong he is for her. Why even the
irrigation ditch is singin’ a right nice song about what a peach of a
day it is.”
The girl’s eyes appraised him without seeming to do so. So far the
cow-punchers she had met had been shy and awkward, red-faced and
perspiring. But this youth was none of these. The sun and the wind of
the Rockies had painted the tan on face and neck and hands, had
chiselled tiny humorous wrinkles that radiated from the corners of his
eyes. Every inch of the broad-rimmed felt hat, of the fancy silk
kerchief, of the decorated chaps, certified him a rider of the range.
But where had he picked up that spirited look of gay energy, that
whimsical smile which combined deference and audacity?
“He travels fast,” the girl announced to the world at large. “Which
reminds me that so must I.”
Larry too made a confidant of his environment. “I wonder how she’ll get
past me—unless she really has wings.”
“I’ve heard that all Westerners are gentlemen at heart,” she mused
aloud. “Of course he’ll let me past.”
“Now she’s tryin’ to flatter me. Nothin’ doing. We’ll give it out right
now that I’m no gentleman,” he replied, impersonally. Then, abandoning
his communion with the apple blossoms, he put a question to the young
woman who shared the tenancy of the tree with him: “Mind if I smoke?”
“Why should you ask me, since you confess—or do you boast?—that you
are no gentleman?”
From the pocket of his shirt he drew tobacco and paper, then rolled a
cigarette. “I’m one off an’ on,” he explained. “Whenever it don’t cramp
my style, you understand.”
She took advantage of his preoccupation with the “makings,” stepped
lightly to a neighbouring branch, swung to a lower one, and dropped
easily to earth.
The eyes that looked up at him sparkled triumph. “I wish you luck in
your search for that paragon you’re to meet before sunset,” she said.
“I’ll be lucky. Don’t you worry about that,” he boasted coolly. “Only I
don’t have to find her now. I’ve found her.”
Then, unexpectedly, they went down into the alfalfa together amid a
shower of apple blossoms. For he, swinging from the branch upon which he
sat, had dropped, turned his ankle on an outcropping root, and clutched
at her as he fell.
The girl merely sat down abruptly, but he plunged cheek first into the
soft loam of the plowed orchard. His nose and the side of his face were
decorated with débris. Mopping his face with a handkerchief, he
succeeded in scattering more widely the soil he had accumulated.
She looked at him, gave a little giggle, suppressed it decorously, then
went off into a gale of laughter. He joined her mirth.
“Not that there’s anything really to laugh at,” he presently assured her
with dignity.
The young woman made an honest attempt at gravity, but one look at his
embellished face set her off again.
“We just sat down,” he explained.
“Yes. On your bubble of romance. It’s gone—punctured——”
“No, no, Miss Lady-in-the-Apple-Blossoms. I’m stickin’ to my story.”
“But it won’t stick to you, as for instance the dirt does that you
grubbed into.”
“Sho!” He mopped his face again. “You know blame’ well we’re gonna be
friends. Startin’ from right now.”
She started to rise, but he was before her. With both hands he drew her
to her feet. She looked at him, warily, with a little alarm, for he had
not released her hands.
“If you please,” she suggested, a warning in her voice.
He laughed, triumphantly, and swiftly drew her to him. His lips brushed
her hot cheek before she could push him away.
She snatched her hands from him, glared indignantly for an instant at
him, then turned on her heel in contemptuous silence.
Smilingly he watched her disappear.
Slowly, jubilation still dancing in his eyes, he waded through the
alfalfa to the fence, crept between two strands, and mounted the patient
cow pony.
As he rode by the ranch house the girl he had kissed heard an unabashed
voice lifted gaily in song. The words drifted to her down the wind.
“Foot in the stirrup and hand on the horn,
Best damned cowboy that ever was born.”
It came to her as a boast, almost as a challenge. She recognized the
voice, the jaunty impudence of its owner. There was no need to go to the
window of her room to make sure of who the singer was. The blood burned
in her cheeks. Fire sparked in her eyes. If he ever gave her a chance
she would put him in his place, she vowed.