AT THE CIRCLE DIAMOND
ROWAN’S decision to sell the ranch was on the face of it a wise one.
Ruth recognized this. She knew nothing of cattle, nothing of farming.
But she told herself she could learn. Her interest was very greatly
engaged in saving the Circle Diamond for Rowan. Other women had done
well homesteading. She knew one widow who raised cattle, another who
made money on sheep. Why should she not do the same? It was all very
well to say that she had no business experience, but she had as much as
other people had when they began. If she did not succeed, the failure
would hurt her rather than Rowan.
She talked it all over with Flanders, a long-headed business man who
knew cattle from hoof to horn.
“The cattleman sure has his troubles aplenty,” he told her. “Short
summers, long winters, deep snows, blizzards, bad roads, heavy railroad
rates, a packers’ trust to buck, drought, and now sheep. A cowman has
got to bet before the draw; he can’t ever tell whether he’s going to
finish with a hand all blue or a busted flush.”
“Yes, but I’ve heard you say yourself that cattle-raising used to be a
gamble and that from now on it’s going to be a business instead,” she
reminded him.
He took off his big white hat and rubbed a polka-dot handkerchief over
his bald head.
“Tha’s right, too. Government reports show there’s several million fewer
cattle in the country than there was five years ago. That spells good
prices. There’s a good side to this forest-reserve business, too. It
keeps the range from being overcrowded, and it settles the sheep and
cattle war. I’ve got a hunch there would be money in leasing the range
and putting cattle to run on it.”
“Well, then?” she demanded triumphantly.
“That ain’t saying _you_ could make money. Jennings is a good foreman,
but it takes a boss to run any shebang right.”
“When the boss is in doubt she could telephone to you.”
Ruth always had been a favourite of Flanders’s. It pleased him that he
could help her in her affairs, and it flattered him to think that he
could help her make a success of the Circle Diamond. The conspiracy she
proposed intrigued his interest. She had some money. Why not use it to
save the ranch for Rowan? Why not let her have the pleasure of showing
her husband later how well she had done in his absence? It would give a
zest to her life that would otherwise be lacking. Moreover, it would be
another tie to bind her to McCoy.
He yielded to the temptation, fell into her plans, grew eager over them.
There was a good deal of sympathy for her in the country, so that she
had little difficulty in securing a permit for her cattle to range on
the reserve at the usual price.
In a letter, Ruth wrote her husband that Flanders thought it better not
to sell out just yet, but she gave no details of what she was doing in a
business way. She left him to gather that they were watching their
chance to get a good figure for the place. There was, she felt, no use
worrying him about the venture she was making.
Her interest in the ranch developed amazingly. Jennings was an
experienced cattleman and devoted to Rowan. It had been his curt opinion
that McCoy was a fool for marrying this feather-footed girl from the
East. Her gaiety and extravagance had annoyed him. The flirtation with
Silcott had set him flatly against her. But now he began to revise his
estimate. He liked the eagerness with which she flung herself into this
exciting game of saving the Circle Diamond. He liked the deference she
paid his judgment, and he admired the courage with which once or twice
she decided flatly against him.
“Dinged if she ain’t got more sense than half the men you meet!”
chuckled the foreman on one occasion when her verdict had proved more
discriminating than his advice. “The little boss done right not to take
that Cheyenne bid for the dogies.” He did not know that it was really
Flanders who was responsible for vetoing the sale.
There were hours, of course, when the loneliness of her life swept over
Ruth in waves, when she fought desperately for a footing against
despair. It was her inheritance to tread the hilltops or the valleys
rather than the dusty road. But in general she was almost happy. A warm
glow flushed her being when she thought of Rowan. Some sure voice
whispered to her that however long he might be kept from her the flame
of love would burn bright in his heart.
He had sinned against her pride and self-esteem, and she had forgiven
him. He had brought to her trouble and distress by breaking the law of
the land. All her Eastern friends pitied her. They pelted her with
letters beginning, “Poor dear Ruth.” But she refused to feel humiliated.
Rowan was Rowan, the man she loved, no matter what wrong he had done.
There burned bright in him a dynamic spark of self-respect that would
never be quenched. She clung to this. She never let herself doubt it
now, even though one memory of him still stung her to shame.
Ruth was coming through storm to her own. A shock, a sorrow, a sin that
by reason of its consequence cuts to the quick—any of these may lead to
spiritual crises resulting in a convulsively sudden soul birth. But
growth is slow, imperceptible. The young wife had lived for her own
pleasure. Now the self was being burned out of her. She came to her new
life with humility, with a steadfast purpose, with self-abnegation no
less real because it brought to her a great and quiet joy. For the first
time in her life she lived with another in view rather than herself. It
would be long before she could move in a universe of peace and serenity,
but at least she was on the road to self-mastery.