He learned, partially, when Gordon handed him the widow's recipe for
"liniment," after Lee had gone in and they were unsaddling at the
stable. It ran:
"Dear Friend,--Sliver took Mr. Nevil to see Felicia at the
_fonda_ the other day, and Lee caught her wearing his watch-fob.
It made her so mad she flirted her head off with Ramon." In her
ignorance of later developments, she had concluded: "But there
is no harm done. She likes Mr. Nevil, and if you can just keep
him away from the _fonda_, I am sure things will turn out all
right."
Bull read and reread the epistle a second and third time for his own
pleasure, regardless of its sense. In its reverent tenderness there was
something pathetic in the way he touched with his big forefingers the
signature "Your friend, Mary Mills." Gordon had almost finished caring
for the horses before Bull placed the note in his shirt pocket after
carefully wrapping it in a piece of newspaper. The ceremony completed,
he fished for further information.
"Any one else there?" he inquired, nonchalantly.
"Young Mexican," Gordon replied, with what, for him, was excessive
curtness.
"Ramon Icarza, I reckon." Bull went innocently on: "He an' Miss Lee were
almost what you could call raised together. She thinks a good deal of
him--"
"No reason why she shouldn't."
Nevertheless, the tone caused Bull to duck behind Lee's horse to hide a
chuckle. "Jealous! green-cheese jealous. Mary--" he paused, reddening,
for never before in his thought had he used her given name. He repeated
it with lingering delight. "Mary--was right. We've sure stirred 'em up.
On'y we'll have to 'tend to Felicia at once."
His mind thus made up, he proceeded to Felicia's solution with the
characteristic directness he gave to any problem. When, after supper
that evening, Gordon went straight to the bunk-house, Bull herded Jake
and Sliver into the stable to deliberate by lantern-light.
"You-all never orter ha' taken him there," he charged Sliver. "Here we
go an' import this young fellow at no end of trouble an' expense, then
you herd him right into the arms of another girl."
"Aw! she don't count." Sliver excused himself. "She's Mex an' wild
girl." He sagely added: "You see, I was that anxious to make sure he
didn't drink. We kain't have no young soaks 'round Lady-girl."
His solicitude drew Jake's satirical grin. "You wasn't looking for a
drink yourself, heigh? As for her being Mex an' wild--you damn fool,
don't you know that at his age wild girls draws like wild honey. He's
be'n there once an' he'll go again."
"If he ain't stopped," Bull qualified.
"If he ain't stopped," Jake nodded. "An' it's up to you to do it."
"But how?" Sliver's broad, round face struggled like a full moon in
clouds of helplessness. "How in the 'tarnal kin _I_ stop him?"
"By 'quiring vested rights in the premises," Jake nodded sagely. "If you
marry her he kain't come 'round."
"_Marry_ her? _Me?_ Marry a _Mex_?" Sliver almost yelled it.
"That's what." While his thin lips parted in his characteristic wolf
grin, Jake went on: "Anyhow, what's your idee in shying an' rearing
this-a-way at domestic happiness wuss 'n a colt at flying paper? Why,
other men rush for it like 'twas--"
"Sticky fly-paper," Sliver ungallantly supplied. "An' once they're
in--_good night_!"
But Jake ignored the interruption. "You-all orter take shame to
yourself. Marriage is nature's most holy an' necessary ordinance. Don't
all the preachers tell it? An' what would become of the census without
it? But here, instead of accepting your lot with thankfulness an'
thanking your stars that a girl can be found that's damn fool enough to
take you, you-all go a-holding up your head an' howling like a hungry
coyote."
While Jake thus orated, Sliver's expression of obstinacy was leavened by
fleeting hope. "If you b'lieve all that--what's the matter with you
marrying her yourself?"
Jake's thin lips parted again in his sarcastic grin. "I've no calling
for it. You see I'm that soft by nat'er any woman could crush my tender
feelings. But one glance at your brutal count'nance would tell even a
blind man that your wife would be kep' in her place. Besides--was it me
that took Gordon up there?"
"Quit your fooling," Bull interposed. Then, unconscious of the humor of
the situation, aware in his simplicity only of the danger to his
cherished plan, he faced Sliver. "Yes or no--will you do it?"
"No, I'm da--"
"You won't?" Bleak eyes pin-points of steel, teeth bared in a snarl,
knife flashing blue in the lantern-light, Jake sprang from the pile of
corn fodder on which he was sitting. "You upset the beans we put to
b'ile an' refuse to pick 'em up?"
Almost as quickly Sliver's knife took the lantern gleam, and as they
circled, looking for an opening, the friendly habit of the last months
dropped away. They were again the rustlers, wild, fierce, united against
man and his law, but equally ready to fight among themselves. But before
they could close, Bull's bulk pushed in between. One shove of his great
hands sent them staggering back.
"Cut it out! We can't stand for no blood-letting around Miss Lee."
Towering in the lantern-light, he turned to Sliver and laid down the
law. "You an' us have ridden an' fit together for many a year. So far
you've never failed us an' I don't believe you will. We brought this
young fellow in, as you know, to cut that damn Mexican out, an' you've
sp'iled our game by throwing him in Felicia's way. Now it's up to you.
If you make good--we go on. If you don't--there's the trail."
He could not have taken better ground. Where threats would have provoked
only further obstinacy, the appeal won. While putting up his knife,
though, Sliver glared at Jake.
"I'll knock your block off the first time I catch you alone on the
range." Addressing Bull, he went on: "Of course if it's to help
Lady-girl, you bet I'll go the limit. But what d'you-all expect? That
I'm a-going to cinch her with a priest an' license?"
"That'd be more loving-like; she'd appreciate it, too."
"Shut up, Jake! We don't care so long as you acquire enough title to
shoo Gordon off. Here's fifty pesos. For half that, old Antonio 'u'd
sell her along with his soul. You kin settle the details with him. Of
course you'll have to live out there for a whiles--mebbe till this Ramon
business is knocked out of Miss Lee's head."
"What! An' cut out the range?" Sliver exclaimed in horror. "Me hang
around there a-selling aguardiente to _peones_?"
"What's left after you get through," Jake began, but was cut off again.
"No, we can arrange the work so there'll be plenty for you within easy
riding."
"So's you won't be drug too far away during the honeymoon. She wouldn't
stan' for that."
Though a model in force and brevity, Sliver's answer transcends print.
He wound up with the complaint: "All right, I'll go, but I see my
finish. I'll die on Felicia's grub."
"Couldn't be any worse than Rosa's," Jake comforted. "You managed to
live on that."
With a certain resignation, but still grumbling, Sliver set out next
morning. To make sure that he followed program, Jake and Bull packed his
kit and even escorted him a mile or two on his way. Throughout all these
preliminaries, Sliver's mien was rather that of chief mourner at a
funeral than a groom on his way to his bride, and just before they left
him he even advanced a belated plea.
"Don't you allow we ked get some one else?"
"With all the men in the country off at the wars?" Bull shook his head.
"Besides, no _peon_ could hold her down. She needs a strong hand."
"It's either you or Gordon," Jake added. "You'll have to sacrifice."
Not until they turned homeward after his lone figure had faded behind
the next rise did they consider how the affair was to be broken to Lee.
"'Tain't going to be so dreadful easy," Bull frowned thoughtfully, "she
being a girl and prejudiced. She'd hardly cotton to sech primitive
nupt'als as Sliver is likely to consummate."
"I she'd think not!" Jake looked his horror and scorn. "You'll make a
mess of it. Better leave it to me."
Bull was quite willing, but though he had looked for some embroidery on
the bare facts, the woof of romance Jake wove through the warp of fact
at lunch that day made him choke on his food and gasp. A tale of secret
love and stealthy visitations, a reluctant lady gradually won,
ornamented with priests and licenses and other trimmings necessary for
feminine approval, were woven into a consistent narrative that proved
how much Bacchus gained and the Muses lost when Jake enlisted in the
former's service.
"No, Missy, you ain't a-going to lose him," Bull answered, on his part,
Lee's troubled question. "He'll take care of things over that way."
"Well--" Lee laughed, a little choked laugh, "I hope he'll be--happy."
Then becoming conscious of Gordon's gaze, she dropped her glance to her
plate. But not before he had read its meaning.
"Why hadn't this happened a week ago!"