Miss Rutherford Speaks her Mind
For the first time in over a year an itinerant preacher was to hold
services in the Huerfano Park schoolhouse. He would speak, Beulah
Rutherford knew, to a mere handful of people, and it was to mitigate
his disappointment that she rode out into the hills on the morning of
her disappearance to find an armful of columbines for decorating the
desk-pulpit. The man had written Miss Rutherford and asked her to
notify the community. She had seen that the news was carried to the
remotest ranch, but she expected for a congregation only a scatter of
patient women and restless children with three or four coffee-brown
youths in high-heeled boots on the back row to represent the sinners.
It was a brave, clean world into which she rode this summer morning.
The breeze brought to her nostrils the sweet aroma of the sage. Before
her lifted the saw-toothed range into a sky of blue sprinkled here and
there with light mackerel clouds. Blacky pranced with fire and
intelligence, eager to reach out and leave behind him the sunny miles.
Near the upper end of the park she swung up an arroyo that led to Big
Flat Top. A drawling voice stopped her.
"Oh, you, Beulah Rutherford! Where away this glad mo'ning?"
A loose-seated rider was lounging in the saddle on a little bluff fifty
yards away. His smile reminded her of a new copper kettle shining in
the sun.
"To find columbines for church decorations," she said with an answering
smile.
"Have you been building a church since I last met up with you?"
"There will be services in the schoolhouse tomorrow at three P.M.,
conducted by the Reverend Melancthon Smith. Mr. Charlton is especially
invited to attend."
"Maybe I'll be there. You can't sometimes 'most always tell. I'm
going to prove I've got nothing against religion by going with you to
help gather the pulpit decorations."
"That's very self-sacrificing of you." She flashed a look of gay
derision at him as he joined her. "Sure you can afford to waste so
much time?"
"I don't call it wasted. But since you've invited me so hearty to your
picnic, I'd like to be sure you've got grub enough in the chuck wagon
for two," he said with a glance at her saddle-bags.
"I'm not sure. Maybe you had better not come."
"Oh, I'm coming if you starve me. Say, Beulah, have you heard about
Jess Tighe?"
"What about him?"
"He had a stroke last night. Doc Spindler thinks he won't live more
than a few hours."
Beulah mused over that for a few moments without answer. She had no
liking for the man, but it is the way of youth to be shocked at the
approach of death. Yet she knew this would help to clear up the
situation. With the evil influence of Tighe removed, there would be a
chance for the park to develop along more wholesome lines. He had been
like a sinister shadow that keeps away the sunlight.
She drew a deep breath. "I don't wish him any harm. But it will be a
good thing for all of us when he can't make us more sorrow and trouble."
"He never made me any," Charlton answered.
"Didn't he?" She looked steadily across at him. "You can't tell me he
didn't plan that express robbery, for instance."
"Meaning that I was in the party that pulled it off?" he asked,
flushing.
"I know well enough you were in it--knew it all along. It's the sort
of thing you couldn't keep out of."
"How about Ned? Do you reckon he could keep out of it?" She detected
rising anger beneath his controlled voice.
"Not with you leading him on." Her eyes poured scorn on him. "And I'm
sure he would appreciate your loyalty in telling me he was in it."
"Why do you jump on me, then?" he demanded sulkily. "And I didn't say
Ned was in that hold-up--any more than I admit having been in it
myself. Are you trying to make trouble with me? Is that it?"
"I don't care whether I make trouble with you or not. I'm not going to
pretend and make-believe, if that's what you want. I don't have to do
it."
"I see you don't," he retorted bluntly. "I suppose you don't have to
mind your own business either."
"It is my business when Ned follows you into robbery."
"Maybe I followed him," he jeered.
She bit back the tart answer on her tongue. What was the use of
quarreling? It used to be that they were good friends, but of late
they jangled whenever they met. Ever since the Western Express affair
she had held a grudge at him. Six months ago she had almost promised
to marry him. Now nothing was farther from her thoughts.
But he was still very much of the mind that she should.
"What's the matter with you, Boots?" he wanted to know roughly. "You
used to have some sense. You weren't always flying out at a fellow.
Now there's no way of pleasing you."
"I suppose it is odd that I don't want my friends to be thieves," she
flung out bitterly.
"Don't use that word if you mean me," he ordered.
"What word shall I substitute?"
He barely suppressed an oath. "I know what's ailing you? We're not
smooth enough up here for you. We're not educated up to your standard.
If I'd been to Cornell, say--"
"Take care," she warned with a flash of anger in her black eyes.
"Oh, I don't know. Why should I cull my words so careful? I notice
yours ain't hand-picked. Ever since this guy Beaudry came spying into
the park, you've had no use for me. You have been throwing yourself at
his head and couldn't see any one else."
She gasped. "How dare you, Brad Charlton?"
His jealousy swept away the prudence that had dammed his anger.
"Didn't you take him out driving? Didn't you spend a night alone with
him and Dave Dingwell? Didn't you hot-foot it down to Hart's because
you was afraid yore precious spy would meet up with what he deserved?"
Beulah drew up Blacky abruptly. "Now you can leave me. Don't stop to
say good-bye. I hate you. I don't ever want to see you again."
He had gone too far and he knew it. Sulkily he began to make his
apology. "You know how fond I am of you, Boots. You know--"
"Yes, I ought to. I've heard it often enough," she interrupted curtly.
"That's probably why you insult me?"
Her gypsy eyes stabbed him. She was furiously angry. He attempted to
explain. "Now, listen here, Beulah. Let's be reasonable."
"Are you going up or down?" she demanded. "I'm going the other way.
Take one road or the other, you--you scandalmonger."
Never a patient man, he too gave rein to his anger. "Since you want to
know, I'm going down--to Battle Butte, where I'll likely meet yore
friend Beaudry and settle an account or two with him. I reckon before
I git through with him he'll yell something besides Cornell."
The girl laughed scornfully. "Last time I saw him he had just beaten a
dozen or so of you. How many friends are you going to take along this
trip?"
Already her horse was taking the trail. She called the insult down to
him over her shoulder. But before she had gone a half-mile her eyes
were blind with tears. Why did she get so angry? Why did she say such
things? Other girls were ladylike and soft-spoken. Was there a streak
of commonness in her that made possible such a scene as she had just
gone through? In her heart she longed to be a lady--gentle, refined,
sweet of spirit. Instead of which she was a bad-tempered tomboy.
"Miss Spitfire" her brothers sometimes called her, and she knew the
name was justified.
Take this quarrel now with Brad. She had had no intention of breaking
with him in that fashion. Why couldn't she dismiss a lover as girls in
books do, in such a way as to keep him for a friend? She had not
meant, anyhow, to bring the matter to issue to-day. One moment they
had been apparently the best of comrades. The next they had been
saying hateful things to each other. What he had said was
unforgivable, but she had begun by accusing him of complicity in the
train robbery. Knowing how arrogant he was, she might have guessed how
angry criticism would make him.
Yet she was conscious of a relief that it was over with at last.
Charlton was proud. He would leave her alone unless she called him to
her side. Her tears were for the humiliating way in which they had
wrenched apart rather than for the fact of the break.
She knew his temper. Nothing on earth could keep him from flying at
the throat of Roy Beaudry now. Well, she had no interest in either of
them, she reminded herself impatiently. It was none of her business
how they settled their differences. Yet, as Blacky followed the stiff
trail to Big Flat Top, her mind was wretchedly troubled.
Beulah had expected to find her columbines in a gulch back of Big Flat
Top, but the flowers were just past their prime here. The petals fell
fluttering at her touch. She hesitated. Of course, she did not have
to get columbines for the preaching service. Sweet-peas would do very
well. But she was a young woman who did not like to be beaten. She
had plenty of time, and she wanted an excuse to be alone all day. Why
not ride over to Del Oro Creek, where the season was later and the
columbines would be just coming on?
The ayes had it, and presently Miss Rutherford was winding deeper into
the great hills that skirted Flat Top. Far in the gulches, dammed by
the small thick timber, she came on patches of snow upon which the sun
never shone. Once a ptarmigan started from the brush at her feet. An
elk sprang up from behind a log, stared at her, and crashed away
through the fallen timber.
Her devious road took Beulah past a hill flaming with goldenrod and
Indian paint-brushes. A wealth of color decorated every draw, for up
here at the roots of the peaks blossoms rioted in great splashes that
ran to the snowbanks.
After all, she had to go lower for her favorite blooms. On Del Oro she
found columbines, but in no great profusion. She wandered from the
stream, leading Blacky by the bridle. On a hillside just above an
aspen grove the girl came upon scattered clumps of them. Tying the
pony loosely to a clump of bushes, she began to gather the delicate
blue wild flowers.
The blossoms enticed her feet to the edge of a prospect hole long since
abandoned. A clump of them grew from the side of the pit about a foot
below the level of the ground. Beulah reached for them, and at the
same moment the ground caved beneath her feet. She clutched at a bush
in vain as she plunged down.
Jarred by the fall, Beulah lay for a minute in a huddle at the bottom
of the pit. She was not quite sure that no bones were broken. Before
she had time to make certain, a sound brought her rigidly to her feet.
It was a light loose sound like the shaking of dried peas in their
pods. No dweller of the outdoors Southwest could have failed to
recognize it, and none but would have been startled by it.
The girl whipped her revolver from its scabbard and stood pressed
against the rock wall while her eyes searched swiftly the prison into
which she had fallen. Again came that light swift rattle with its
sinister menace.
The enemy lay coiled across the pit from her, head and neck raised,
tongue vibrating. Beulah fired--once--twice--a third time. It was
enough. The rattlesnake ceased writhing.
The first thing she did was to examine every inch of her prison to make
sure there were no more rattlers. Satisfied as to this, she leaned
faintly against the wall. The experience had been a shock even to her
sound young nerves.