SILCOTT DISCOVERS HE IS NOT WELCOME
RUTH lay snuggled up on the lounge in her sewing room, one foot tucked
comfortably under her, half a dozen soft pillows piled at her back. She
was looking rather indolently over the two days’ old Wagon Wheel _Spoke_
to see if it gave any beef quotations. The day had been a busy one. In
the morning she had ridden across to Pine Hollow to inspect a drift
fence. Later she had come home covered with dust after watching the men
fan oats. Getting out of her serviceable khaki, she had revelled in a
hot bath and put on a loose morning gown and slippers. To-night she was
content to be lazy and self-indulgent.
A leaded advertisement caught and held her eye. It was on the back page
and boxed to draw more attention:
The Open A N C Ranch, together with all cattle and personal
property pertaining thereto, is offered for sale by me at a
figure much below its value to an immediate purchaser.
I shall be at the ranch, ENTIRELY UNARMED, for a week beginning
next Monday. Prospective buyers may see me there.
LAWRENCE SILCOTT
The young woman read the announcement with contemptuous interest. She
had expected Silcott to leave the country. It was not to be looked for
that a man weak enough to betray his friends would run the risk of
living in the neighbourhood of those who had suffered from his
treachery. At the two capitalized words she smiled bitterly. They were
both a confession and a shield of defense. They admitted fear, and at
the same time disarmed the righteous anger of his former neighbours.
Ruth conceded the shrewdness of his policy, even while her pluck
despised the spirit that had dictated it.
Inevitably she compared him with Rowan. Her imagination pictured McCoy
as he had sat through the strain of the trial—cool, easy, undisturbed,
master of whatever fate might be in store for him. She saw in contrast
Silcott, no longer graceful and debonair, smiles and gaiety all wiped
out, a harried, irritable wretch close to collapse. It was the first
time she had ever seen two men’s souls under the acid test. One had
assayed pure gold; the other a base alloy.
Why? What was the difference between them? Both had lived clean, hard
lives in the open. Neither of them had spurred their nerves with alcohol
or unduly depressed them with overmuch tobacco. Externally both of them
were fine specimens of the genus man. But in crisis one had crumpled up,
his manhood vanished; the other had quietly stood his punishment. The
distinction between them was that one had character and the other lacked
it.
Yet all these years Silcott had been accepted in the community as a good
fellow. His showy accomplishments, his shallow good looks, and his
veneer of friendliness had won a place for him. Ruth was deeply ashamed
that she had let him go as far with her as he had.
Her thoughts went back to Rowan. They never wandered very long from him
these days. He was the centre of her universe, though he was shut up
behind bars in a dingy prison. She knew she was not responsible for the
thing he had done, but she reproached herself that she had not been a
greater comfort to him in the dark days and nights of trial. She had
thought of herself, of her grievances, too much; not enough of him and
his needs.
No, that was not true. He had been in her mind enough, but she had not
been able to forget the treason to love in which he had involved
himself. It had risen like a barrier between them every time she had
wanted to let him know how much she suffered with him. There was
something about it almost unforgiveable, something that struck at the
very roots of faith and confidence and hope. It negatived everything she
had believed him to be, since it proved that he could not be the man she
had so tremendously admired.
Even now she would not let herself think of it if she could help. She
thrust the memory back into the unused chambers of her mind and tried to
forget.
What she wanted to see in Rowan, what she always did see except for this
one incongruous aspect, was what others saw, too, the fineness and the
strength of him.
Some sound on the porch outside attracted her attention. A loose plank
creaked. It seemed to her she heard the shuffling of furtive feet. Then
there was silence.
Ruth sat up. The curtains were drawn, so that she could not see out
without rising.
Fingers fumbled at the latch of the French window she had had made. She
was not afraid, but she felt a curious expectant thrill of excitement.
Who could be there?
Slowly the casement opened. A man’s head craned forward. Eyes searched
the room warily and found the young woman.
Ruth rose. “You—here!”
Larry Silcott put his finger to his lips, came in, and closed the window
carefully.
“What do you want?” demanded the girl, eyes flashing.
The man looked haggard and miserable. All his gay effrontery had been
wiped out.
“I want to see you—to talk with you,” he pleaded.
“What about?” Her manner was curt and uncompromising.
“I want to explain. I want to tell you how it was.”
“Is that necessary?” asked Ruth, her scornful eyes full on him.
“Yes. I don’t want you to blame me. You know how—how fond I am of you.”
She threw out a contemptuous little gesture. “Please spare me that.”
“Don’t be hard on me, Ruth. Listen. They had the goods on us. We were
going to hang—every one of us. They kept at me day and night. They
pestered me—woke me out of my sleep to argue and explain. If it hadn’t
been me it would have been one of the others that gave evidence for the
State.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true. Both Haight and Matson told me so. The only question was who
would come through first.”
“If that was the only question for you, then it shows just what you are.
Did you never hear of such things as honour and decency and fair play?
If anybody was entitled to the benefit of State’s evidence it should
have been the married men, poor Sam Yerby or Mr. Rogers. They have
children dependent on them. Anybody with the least generosity could see
that. But you’re selfish to the core. You never think of anybody but
yourself.”
“How can you say that when you know that I love you, Ruth?”
Her eyes blazed. “Don’t say that. Don’t dare say it,” she cried.
“It’s true.”
“Nothing of what you say is true. You don’t know the truth when you see
it. They picked you, Haight and Matson did, because they knew you had no
strength or courage. Do you suppose that the others didn’t get a chance
to betray their friends, too? All of them did. Every one of them. But
they were _men_. That was the difference. So the prosecution focused on
you. And you weakened.”
“Why not? I didn’t kill Tait or Gilroy. Why should I be hanged for it? I
wasn’t guilty.”
“You are as guilty as Rowan was.”
“I dunno about that. He shot Gilroy, if Falkner didn’t,” Silcott said
sulkily.
“Never! Never in the world!” she cried. “Don’t tell me so, you cowardly
Judas!”
“You can talk. That’s easy. But you’ve never had a rope round your neck.
You’ve never awakened in the night from a dream where they were taking
you out to hang you. You’ve never been hounded till your nerves were
ragged and you wanted to scream out.”
“I don’t care to discuss all that. You had no business to come here. You
made your choice to save yourself. That was your privilege, just as it
is mine to prefer never to see you again.”
His voice rose. “Why do you say that? I’m not a leper. I’m still Larry
Silcott, your friend. Say I did wrong. Don’t you suppose I’ve paid?
Don’t you suppose I’ve lived in hell ever since? Have I got to spend all
the rest of my life an outcast?”
She would not let herself sympathize with his wretchedness. He had
betrayed the man she loved, had struck at his life. The harsh judgment
of youth condemned him.
“You should have thought of that before you sold out the men who trusted
you,” she told him coldly.
“I didn’t sell them out. I didn’t get a penny for it. I told the truth.
That’s all,” he cried wildly.
“You had forfeited the right to tell the truth. And you did sell them
out. You wouldn’t be here to-night if you hadn’t.”
Silcott shifted his defense. “I’m sick and tired of things to-night,
Ruth. Let’s not quarrel,” he begged.
“I’m not quarrelling. I don’t quarrel with any one except my friends,
and I’m trying to make it clear that Mr. Lawrence Silcott is not one of
them. You are not welcome here, sir. I ask you to leave.”
“Do you chuck your friends overboard when they make one mistake? Don’t
you ever give them a second chance?” he appealed. “Can’t you make any
allowance for circumstances? I was sick all the time I was in jail. They
took advantage of me. I never would have done it if I’d been _well_.
You’ve got to believe me, Ruth.”
“Maybe it’s true. I hope so.” In spite of herself she was touched by his
misery.
“You’ve got to forgive me, Ruth. I—oh, you don’t know what I’ve been
through!” He broke down and brushed his hand across his eyes. “I haven’t
slept for a week. It’s been hell every hour.”
“You’d better go away somewhere,” she suggested. “Leave your affairs
with an agent. You ought not to stay here.”
“No. My nerves are all jumpy. I’ve got to get away.” He took a long
breath and plunged on: “I’m going to begin all over again in Los Angeles
or San Francisco. I’ve had my lesson. I’ll run straight from now on. I’m
going to work hard and get ahead. If you’d only stand by me, Ruth. If
you’d——”
“I can’t be a friend of the man who betrayed my husband, if that’s what
you mean.”
“You’d have to choose between him and me. That’s true. Well, Rowan is in
the penitentiary for life. You’re young. You can’t wait for ever. It
wouldn’t be right you should. Besides, you and Rowan never did get along
well. I’m not saying a word against him, but——”
“You’d better not!” she flamed, the lace on her bosom rising and falling
fast with her passionate anger. “You say he is in the penitentiary. Who
put him there?”
“That isn’t the point, Ruth. Hear me out. You can get free from him
without any trouble. The law says that a convict’s wife can get a
divorce any time——”
“I don’t want a divorce. I’d rather be his wife, if he stays in prison
for ever, than be married to any other man on earth. I—I never heard
such insolence in my life. I’ve a good mind to call the men to throw you
off the place. Every moment you stay here is an insult to me.”
He moistened his parched lips with the tip of his tongue. “There is no
use getting excited, Ruth. I came here because I love you. If you’d only
be reasonable. Listen. I’m going to California. If you change your mind
and want to come out there——”
Ruth marched past him and flung the door open. She turned on him eyes
that blazed. “If you’re not gone in five seconds, I’ll turn the men
loose on you. They’ve been aching for a chance.”
His vanity withered before her wrath. For the moment he saw himself as
she saw him, a snake in the grass, hateful to all decent human beings.
It was a moral certainty that she would keep her word and call the
Circle Diamond riders. What they would do to him he could guess.
He went without another word.
Presently she heard him galloping down the road and out of her life.
The anger died out of Ruth almost instantly. She was filled with a sense
of desolating degradation. There had been a time in her life when she
had put this weakling before Rowan, when her laughter and her
friendliness had been for him instead of for the man to whom she was
married. He had never of course been anything vital to her life, never
one hundredth part as important to her as Rowan. Indeed, she had used
him as an instrument with which to punish her husband. But the fact
remained that she had offered him her friendship, had in resentment
flirted with him and skirted the edge of sex emotion.
The feeling that flooded her now was almost a physical nausea.