THE LITTLE DEVILS OF DOUBT
Wolverine canyon, with the sun shining down aslant into its depths, was
a picturesque gash in the hills, wild enough in all conscience, but to
the normal person not in the least degree gloomy. The jutting crags
were sunlit and warm. The cherry thickets whispered in a light breeze
and sheltered birds that sang in perfect content. The service berries
were ripening and hung heavy-laden branches down over the trail to
tempt a rider into loitering. The creek leaped over rocks, slid thin
blades of swift current between the higher bowlders, and crept
stealthily down into shady pools, where speckled trout lay motionless
except for the gently-moving tail and fins that held them stationary in
some deeper shadow. Not a gloomy place, surely, when the peace of a
sunny morning laid its spell upon the land.
Billy Louise, however, did not respond to the canyon's enticements.
She brooded over her own discouragements and the tantalizing little
puzzles which somehow would not lend themselves to any convincing
solution. She was in that condition of nervous depression where she
saw her finest cows dead of bloat in the alfalfa meadows--and how would
she pay that machinery note, then? She saw John Pringle calling
unexpectedly and insistently for his "time"--and where would she find
another man whom she could trust out of her sight? John Pringle was
slow, and he was stupid and growled at poor Phoebe till Billy Louise
wanted to shake him, but he was "steady," and that one virtue covers
many a man's faults and keeps him drawing wages regularly.
Her mother had been more and more inclined to worry as the hot weather
came on; lately her anxiety over small things had rather gotten upon
the nerves of Billy Louise. She felt ill-used and down-hearted and as
if nothing mattered much, anyway. She passed her cave with a mere
glance and scowl for the memories of golden days in her lonely
childhood that clung around it. She passed Minervy's cave, and her
lips quivered with self-pity because that childhood was gone, and she
must not waste time or energy upon romantic "pretends," but must
measure haystacks and allow so much for "settling," and then add and
multiply and divide all over two sheets of tablet paper to find out how
much hay she had to winter the stock on. She must hold herself rigidly
to facts, and tend fences and watch irrigating ditches, and pay
interest on notes three or four years old, and ride the hills and work
her way through rocky canyons, keeping watch over the cattle that meant
so much. She had meant to talk over things with Ward and ask his
advice about certain details that required experienced judgment. But
Ward had precipitated her thoughts into strange channels and so had
unconsciously thwarted her counsel-seeking intentions. She had wanted
to talk things over with Marthy, and Marthy had also unconsciously
prevented her doing so and had filled Billy Louise with uneasiness and
doubt which in no way concerned herself.
These doubts persisted, and so did the tantalizing little puzzles.
They weaned Billy Louise's thoughts from her own ranch worries and
nagged at her with the persistence of a swarm of buffalo gnats.
"Well, if he doesn't use poison, for goodness' sake, what does he use?"
she asked indignantly aloud, after a period of deep thought. "I don't
see why he wants to be so terribly secretive. He might be human enough
to tell a person what he means. I'm sure I'd tell him, all right. I
don't believe it's wolves at all. I don't see how--and still--I don't
believe Ward would really lie to me."
She was in this particularly dissatisfied mood when she rode out of the
canyon at its upper end, where the hills folded softly down into grassy
valleys where her cattle loved best to graze. Since the grass had
started in the spring, she had kept her little herd up here among the
lower hills; and by riding along the higher ridges every day or so and
turning back a wandering animal now and then, she had held them in a
comparatively small area, where they would be easily gathered in the
fall. A few head of Seabeck's stock had wandered in amongst hers, and
some of Marthy's. And there was a big, roan steer that bore the brand
of Johnson, over on Snake River. Billy Louise knew them all, as a
housewife knows her flock of chickens, and if she missed seeing certain
leaders in the scattered groups, she rode until she found them. Two
old cows and one big, red steer that seemed always to have a following
wore bells that tinkled pleasant little sounds in the alder thickets
along the creek, as she passed by.
She rode up the long ridge which gave her a wide view of the
surrounding hills and stopped Blue, while she stared moodily at the
familiar, shadow-splotched expanse of high-piled ridges, with deep
green valleys and deeper-hued canyons between. She loved them, every
one; but to-day they failed to steep her senses in that deep content
with life which only the great outdoors can give to one who has learned
how satisfying is the draught and how soothing.
Far over to the eastward a black dot moved up a green slope and slid
out of sight beyond. That might be Ward, taking a short-cut across the
hill to his claim beyond the pine-dotted ridge that looked purple in
the distance. Billy Louise sighed with a vague disquiet and turned to
look away to the north, where the jumble of high hills grew more
rugged, with the valleys narrower and deeper.
Here came two other dots, larger and more clearly defined as horsemen.
From mere objects that stood higher than any animal and moved with a
purposeful directness, they presently became men who rode with the easy
swing of habit which has become a second nature. They must have seen
her sitting still upon her horse in the midst of that high, sunny
plateau, for they turned and rode up the slope toward her.
Billy Louise waited, too depressed to wonder greatly who they were.
Seabeck riders, probably; and so they proved. At least one of them was
a Seabeck man--Floyd Carson, who had talked with her at her own gate
and had told her of the suspected cattle-stealing. The other man was a
stranger whom Floyd introduced as Mr. Birken.
They had been "prowling around," according to Floyd, trying to see what
they could see. Floyd was one of these round-faced, round-eyed, young
fellows who does not believe much in secrecy and therefore talks freely
whenever and wherever he dares. He said that Seabeck had turned them
loose to keep cases and see if they couldn't pick up the trail of these
rustlers who were trying to get rich off a running iron and a long
rope. (If you are of the West, you know what that means; and if you
are not, you ought to guess that it means stealing cattle and let it go
at that.) It was not until he had talked for ten minutes or so that
Billy Louise became more than mildly interested in the conversation.
"Say, Miss MacDonald," Floyd asked, by way of beginning a new
paragraph, "how about that fellow over on Mill Creek? He worked for
you folks a year or so ago, didn't he? What does he do?"
"He has a ranch," said Billy Louise with careful calm. "He's been
working on it this summer, I believe."
"Uh-huh--we were over there this morning. Them Y6 cattle up above his
place are his, I reckon?"
"Yes," said Billy Louise. "He's been putting his wages into cattle for
a year or so. He worked for Junkins last winter. Why?"
"Oh, nothing, I guess! Only he's the only stranger in the country, and
his prosperity ain't accounted for--"
"Oh, but it is!" laughed Billy Louise. "I only wish I had half as
clear a ticket. When he isn't working out, he's wolfing; and every
dollar he gets hold of he puts into that ranch. We've known him a long
time. He doesn't blow his money, you see, like most fellows do."
Floyd found occasion to have a slight argument with his horse, just
then. He happened to be one of the "most" fellows, and the occasion of
his last "blow-out" was fresh in his mind.
"Well, of course, if you know he's all straight, that settles it. But
it sure seems queer--"
"That fellow is straight as a string. Don't you suppose it's some gang
over on the river, Floyd? I'd look around over there, I believe, and
try to get a line on the unaccountables. There's a lot of new settlers
come in, just in the last year or two, and there might be some tough
ones scattered through the bunch. Better see if there has been any
cattle shipped or driven through that way, don't you think?"
"We can try," Floyd assented without eagerness. "But as near as we can
figure, it's too much of a drib-drab proposition for that. A cow and
calf here and there, and so on. We got wind of it first when we went
out to bring in a gentle cow that the deacon wanted on the ranch. We
knew where she was, only she wasn't there when we went after her. We
hunted the hills for a week and couldn't find a sign of her or her
calf. And she had stuck down in the creek bottom all the spring, so it
looked kinda funny." He twisted in the saddle and looked back at the
pine-clotted ridge.
"There's a Y6 calf up there that's a dead ringer for the one we've been
hunting," he observed. "But it's running with a cow that carries
Junkins' old brand, So--" He looked apologetically into the calm eyes
of Billy Louise. "Of course, I don't mean to say there's anything
wrong up there," he hastily assured her. "But that's the reason I
thought I'd ask you about that fellow."
"Oh, it's perfectly right to make sure of everybody," smiled Billy
Louise. "I'd do the same thing myself. But you'll find everything's
all straight up there. We know all about him, and how and where he got
his few head of stock, and everything. But of course you could ask
Junkins, if you have any doubt--"
"Oh, we'll take your word for it. I just wanted to know; he's a
stranger to our outfit. I've seen him a few times; what's his name?
Us boys call him Noisy. It's like pulling a wisdom tooth to get any
kinda talk out of him."
"He is awful quiet," assented Billy Louise carelessly. "But he's real
steady to work."
"Them quiet fellows generally are," put in Mr. Birken. "You run stock
in here too, do you, Miss MacDonald?"
"The big Ds," answered Billy Louise and smiled faintly. "I've been
range-herding them back here in these foothills this summer. Do you
want to look through the bunch?"
Mr. Birkin blushed. "Oh, no, not at all! I was wondering if you had
lost any."
"Nobody would rustle cattle from a lady, I hope? At any rate, I
haven't missed any yet. The folks down in the Cove have, though."
"Yes, I heard they had. That breed rode over to see if he could get a
line on them. It's hard luck; that Charlie Fox seems a fine,
hard-working boy, don't you think?"
"Yes-s," said Billy Louise shyly, "he seems real nice." She looked
away and bit her lip self-consciously as she spoke.
The two men swallowed the bait like a hungry fish. They glanced at
each other and winked knowingly. Billy Louise saw them from the tail
of her downcast eye, and permitted herself a little sigh of relief.
They would be the more ready now to accept at its face value her
statement concerning Ward, unless they credited her with the feat of
being in love with the two men at the same time.
"Well, I'm sorry Charlie Fox has been tapped off, too. He's a mighty
fine chap," declared Floyd with transparent heartiness, his round eyes
dwelling curiously upon the face of Billy Louise.
"Yes, I must be going," said that young woman self-consciously. "I've
quite a circle to ride yet. I hope you locate the rustlers, and if
there's anything I can do--if I see or hear anything that seems to be a
clew--I'll let you know right away. I've been keeping my eyes open for
some trace of them, and--so has Char--Mr. Fox." Then she blushed and
told them good-by very hastily and loped off up the ridge.
"Bark up that tree for awhile, you two!" she said, with a twist of her
lips, when she was well away from them. "You--you darned idiots! To
go prowling around Ward's place, just as if-- Ward'll take a shot at
them if he catches them nosing through his stock!" She scowled at a
big D cow that thrust her head out of an alder thicket and sent Blue in
after her. Frowning, she watched the animal go lumbering down the hill
toward the Wolverine. "Just because he's a stranger and doesn't mix
with people, and minds his own business and is trying to get a start,
they're suspicious--as if a man has no right to-- Well, I think I
managed to head them off, anyway."
Her satisfaction lasted while she rode to the next ridge. Then the
little devils of doubt came a-swarming and a-whispering. She had said
she knew all about Ward; well, she did, to a greater extent than others
knew. But--she wondered if she did not know too much, or if she knew
enough. There were some things--
She turned, upon the crest of the ridge, and looked away toward the
pine-dotted height locally known as the Big Hill, beyond which Ward's
claim lay snuggled out of sight in its little valley. "I've a good
mind to ride over there right now, and make him tell me," she said to
herself. She stopped Blue and sat there undecided, while the wind
lifted a lock of hair and flipped it across her cheek. "If he
cares--like he says he cares--he'll tell me," she murmured. "I don't
believe it's wolves. And of course it isn't--what those fellows seemed
to think. But--where did he get the money for all that?" She sighed
distressfully. "I hate to ask him; he'd think I didn't trust him, and
I do. I do trust him!" There was the little head-devil of doubt, and
she fought him fiercely. "I do! I do!" She thrust the declaration of
faith like a sword through the doubt-devil that clung and whispered.
"Dear Ward! I do trust you!" She blinked back tears and bit her lips
to stop their quivering. "But, darn it, I don't see why you didn't
tell me!" There it was: a perfectly human, woman-resentment toward a
nagging mystery.
She headed Blue down the slope and as straight for the Big Hill as she
could go. She would go and make Ward tell her what he had been doing;
not that she had any doubt herself that it was perfectly all right,
whatever it was, but she felt that she had a right to demand facts, so
that she could feel more sure of her ground. And there would be more
questions; Billy Louise was bright enough to see thus far into the
future. Unless the rustlers were caught, there would be questions
asked about this silent stranger who kept his trail apart from his
fellows and whose prosperity was out of proportion with his
opportunities. Why, even Billy Louise herself had been curious over
that prosperity, without being in the slightest degree suspicious.
Other people had not her faith in him; and they were not blind. They
would wonder--
There was no trail that way, and the ridges were steep and the canyons
circuitous. But Blue was a good horse, with plenty of stamina and much
experience. He carried his lady safely, and he carried her willingly.
Even her impatience could find no fault with the manner in which he
climbed steep pitches, slid down slopes as steep, jumped narrow
washouts, and picked his way through thickets of quaking aspens or over
wide stretches of shale rock and lava beds. He was wet to his ears
when finally he shuffled into Ward's trail up the creek bottom; but he
breathed evenly, and he carried his head high and perked his ears
knowingly forward when the corral and haystack came into view around a
sharp bend.. He splashed both front feet into the creek just before
the cabin and stopped to drink while Billy Louise stared at the silent
place.
By the tracks along the creek trail she knew that Ward had come home,
and she urged Blue across the ford and up the bank to the cabin. She
slid off and went in boldly to hide her inward embarrassment--and she
found nothing but emptiness there.
Billy Louise did not take long to investigate. The coffee-pot was
still warm on the stove when she laid her palm against it, and she
immediately poured herself a cup of coffee. A plate and a cup on the
table indicated that Ward had eaten a hurried meal and had not taken
time to clear away the litter. Billy Louise ate what was left, and
mechanically she washed the dishes and made everything neat before she
went down to look for Rattler. She had thought that Ward was out
somewhere about the place and would return very soon, probably. Blue
she had left standing in plain sight before the cabin, so that Ward
would see him and know she was there--a fact which she regretted.
While she was washing dishes and sweeping, she had been trying to think
of some excuse for her presence there. It was going to be awkward, her
coming there on his heels, one might say. She remembered for the first
time her statement that she had to help mommie and so could not take
the time to ride even a mile with him! Being a young person whose
chief amusement had always been her "pretends," she began unconsciously
building an imaginary conversation between them, like this:
Ward would come out of the stable--or somewhere--see Blue and hurry up
to the house. Billy Louise would be standing with her back to him,
putting the dishes into neat little piles in the cupboard perhaps;
anyway, doing something like that. Ward would stop in the doorway and
say--well, there were several possible greetings, but Billy Louise
chose his "'Lo, Bill!" as being the most probable. And then he would
come up and take her in his arms. (Oh, she was human, and she was a
woman, and she was twenty. And Ward had established a precedent,
remember, and Billy Louise had not objected to any great extent.)
And--and-- (I'm going to tell on Billy Louise. She wiped a knife for
at least five minutes without knowing what she was doing, and she
stared at a sunny spot on the floor where a sunbeam came in through a
crack in the wall, and she smiled absently, and her cheeks were quite a
bit redder than usual.)
"I didn't expect to see you here, Wilhemina-mine."
"Oh, I was just riding around, and I came over to see how you dig
dollars out of wolf-dens. You said you'd show me."
The trouble with the conversation began right there. Ward would be
sure to remind her of the condition he had made, to tell her how he dug
dollars out of wolf-dens when she was through with wanting to be just
friends. That put it up to Billy Louise to say she would be engaged
and marry him; and Billy Louise was not ready to say that or be that.
Her woman-soul hung back from that decisive point. She would not shut
the door upon her freedom and her girlish dreams and her ideals and all
those evanescent bubbles which we try to carry with us into maturity.
Billy Louise did not put it that way, of course. She only reiterated
again and again: "I like you, but I don't want to marry anybody. I
don't want to be engaged."
Well, that would probably settle Ward's telling her about digging
dollars out of wolf-dens or anything else. He had a wide streak of
stubbornness; no one could see the set of his chin when he was in a
certain mood and doubt that. Billy Louise began to wish she had not
come. She began to feel quite certain that Ward would be surprised and
disgusted when he found her there, and would look at her with that
faint curl of the lip and that fainter lift of the nostril above it,
which made her go hot all over with the scorn in them. She had seen
him look that way once or twice, and in spite of herself she began to
picture his face with that expression.
Billy Louise was on the point of riding away a good deal more hastily
than she had come, in the hope that Ward would not discover her there.
Then her own stubbornness came uppermost, and she told herself that she
had a perfect right to ride wherever she pleased, and that if Ward
didn't like it, he could do the other thing.
She went to the door and stood looking out for a minute, wondering
where he was. She turned back and stared around the room, which
somehow held the imprint of his personality in spite of its rough
simplicity.
There was a little window behind the bunk, and beside that a shelf
filled with books and smoking material and matches. She knew by the
very arrangement of that shelf and window that Ward liked to lie there
on the bunk and read while the light lasted. Well, he was not there
now, at any rate. She went over and looked at the titles of the books,
though she had examined them with interest only yesterday. There was
Burns; and she knew why it was he could repeat _Tam O'Shanter_ so
readily with never a moment's hesitation. There were two volumes of
Scott--_Lady of the Lake_ and other poems, much thumbed and with a
cigarette burn on the front cover, and _Kenilworth_. There were
several books of Kipling's, mostly verses, and beside it Morgan's
_Ancient Society_, with the corners broken, and a fine-print volume of
Shakespeare's plays. Then there was a pile of magazines and beyond
them a stack of books whose subjects varied from Balzac to strange,
scientific-sounding names. At the other end of the shelf, within easy
reach from one lying upon the bunk, was a cigar-box full of smoking
tobacco, a half-dozen books of cigarette papers, and several blocks of
the small, evil-smelling matches which men of the outdoors carry for
their compact form and slow, steady blaze.
At the head of the bed hung a flour-sack half full of some hard, lumpy
stuff which Billy Louise had not noticed before. She felt the bag
tentatively, could not guess its contents, and finally took it down and
untied it. Within were irregular scraps and strips of stuff hard as
bone--a puzzle still to one unfamiliar with the frontier. Billy Louise
pulled out a little piece, nibbled a corner, and pronounced, "M-mm!
Jerky! I'm going to swipe some of that," which she proceeded to do, to
the extent of filling her pocket. For to those who have learned to
like it, jerked venison is quite as desirable as milk chocolate or any
other nibbly tid-bit.
The opposite wall had sacks of flour stacked against it, and boxes of
staple canned goods, such as corn and tomatoes and milk and peaches. A
box of canned peaches stood at the head of the bed, and upon that a
case of tomatoes. Ward used them for a table and set the lantern there
when he wanted to read in bed. "He's got a pretty good supply of
grub," was the verdict of Billy Louise, sizing up the assortment while
she nibbled at the piece of jerky. "I wonder where he is, anyway?"
And a moment later: "He oughtn't to hang his best clothes up like that;
they'll be all wrinkled when he wants to put them on."
She went over and disposed of the best clothes to her liking, and shook
out the dust. She had to own to herself that for a bachelor Ward was
very orderly, though he did let his trousers hang down over the
flour-sacks in a way to whiten their hems. She hung them in a
different place.
But where was Ward? Billy Louise bethought her that Blue deserved
something to eat after that hard ride, and led him down to the stable.
There was no sign of Rattler, and Billy Louise wondered anew at Ward's
absence. It did not seem consistent with his haste to leave the
Wolverine and his frequent assertion that he must get to work. From
the stable door she could look over practically the whole creek-bottom
within his fence, and she could see the broad sweep of the hills on
either side. On her way back to the cabin, she tried to track Rattler,
but there were several stock-trails leading in different directions,
and the soil was too dry to leave any distinguishing marks.
She waited for an hour or two, sitting in the door-way, nibbling jerky
and trying to read a magazine. Then she found a stub of pencil, tore
out an advertising page which had a wide margin, wrote: "I don't think
you're a bit nice. Why don't you stay home when a fellow comes to see
you?" This she folded neatly and put in the cigar-box of tobacco over
Ward's pillow. It never once occurred to her that Ward, when he found
the note, would believe she had placed it there the day before, and
would never guess by its text that she had made a second trip to his
claim.
She resaddled Blue and rode away more depressed than ever, because her
depression was now mixed with a disappointment keener than she would
have cared to acknowledge, even to herself.