Blanche’s News
“I’ve got to get Jim right away.”
Blanche had just stepped on to the verandah, and the startled Larry
Manford leapt out of his chair. He had been dozing prior to his final
evening round of the bunk-houses, and had failed to observe her
approach.
Blanche had hurried up from the barn, where her horse had already been
stabled, and urgency was the keynote of her greeting. Larry recognised
the situation in a flash. But he gave no sign. He dragged his chair, so
deep and capacious, so inviting, farther back into the shade, shook up
the cushions, and stood smiling indicating it.
“You’ve had enough, Blanche,” he said solicitously. “Come and sit right
here and tell me about it. Jim’s away.”
But Blanche made no move to avail herself of his invitation. She
remained where she was, regarding the freckled face and flaming head of
the man she intended to marry. “Where is he? Dan’s?”
Larry nodded.
“Surely.”
“He didn’t say a word to me.”
“He didn’t know.”
“Tell me, Larry. You’re a most provoking creature.”
“Not while you’re standing, Blanche.” The man laughed to hide his
concern. “You’re all in. You’ve had a long day. You’re just tired to
death. Sit; and I’ll talk all you want.”
Blanche took the proffered chair and spread herself out in it, while
Larry propped himself against a verandah post the better to observe the
face he was never tired of gazing upon. He bit off the end of a cigar
and lit it.
“Shall _I_ talk first?” he inquired, with that smiling calm of which he
was a master under any provocation.
“Of course. I want Jim--in a hurry.”
Blanche understood the red-headed creature. His smile had no power to
deceive her. She knew there was something unusual lying behind his
bald inquiry. And more than likely there was something unpleasant.
She thankfully rested herself. She was hot and saddle-weary. She was
yearning to change out of the riding-suit she was wearing.
“We got an ‘express’ from Dan,” Larry began quietly. “The boy got in
right after you’d started for the Marton farm. There’s things doing
between his place and this valley. It looks like there’s some sort
of bunch chasing up the trail we pass our cattle over. There’s folk
getting around looking for things that don’t concern ’em.” He shrugged.
“We didn’t get the details. Only an ‘express’ asking Jim to go right
along over. The boy who brought it didn’t know more than Dan was
getting worried because folk were nosing around.”
He laughed, and his laugh was calculated to allay Blanche’s possible
alarm.
“It was one of his crazy neche brothers-in-law. Jim set out right
away,” he added.
“Did he go by the Gateway?”
Larry shook his head.
“Passed out south, over the cattle-trail. It’s out of the way, but he
reckoned it best so.”
Blanche looked out down the valley in the direction indicated. She was
thinking rapidly.
Larry, watching her, realised the seriousness of her preoccupation. He
interpreted the slight pucker of her brows unerringly. He knew she was
more, much more than saddle-weary, and wondered what news he had yet
to obtain from her. He felt that events were crowding rather rapidly
and something unpleasantly. He felt that something of that which he had
always foreseen was disturbing the peace which he had never failed to
regard as artificial. He had things of his own still to tell, and he
wondered if he were justified in imparting them. Finally he decided he
was. Blanche was no silly girl. She was keen, unusually quick, and full
of an immense courage.
“There’s a flutter in the dovecotes down there,” he laughed, with a
jerk of the head in the direction of the ranch buildings. “The boys are
worried to death. You know, Blanche, I’m not really bright, and I’ve no
sort of gift looking through stone walls and things. Still, I guess I
can see most all the way if there’s nothing in between. The thing that
beats me is the sort of wireless these crooks seem to know about, and
use. Will you tell me how it is the boys have got wise there’s someone
chasing up their hiding-hole?” He shook his head. “It beats me. That
‘express’ came straight up to this house. He only spoke to Jim and
me. And Jim rode straight back with him. He didn’t have a chance to
spread the gospel to a soul. But the boys know there’s trouble around,
and they’re restless, and worried to death, and talking ugly--some of
them. One guy figgered to me they were a bunch of rats in an elegant
proposition of a trap. One or two are guessing half the Police are
knocking at our doors. I had a bunch come to me at dinner-time. They
wanted to know the thing we were doing, and what we knew. They talked
getting out, and I surely told them they could beat it just as fast as
hell would let ’em if they fancied it. We weren’t holding them, and
only handed them shelter. We sent two of them off south, across the
border. And when the others saw them go they weakened right away, and
remained. I showed them, in passing those boys out, we were holding
dead to our contract. But I’ll surely be glad to have Jim along back,
and get his story.”
As the man talked, the knitting of Blanche’s brow smoothed out, and the
old familiar smile returned to her eyes. It deepened and culminated in
a low laugh. But the laugh passed at once, and Larry saw the shadow of
trouble lying behind it.
“Then Jim won’t get back till to-morrow,” she said. “He can’t make the
double journey in the day. What is it by the cattle-trail? Sixty miles?”
Larry shook his head, and replied without removing the cigar from his
mouth.
“Fifty, I guess. Maybe if he reckons there’s need, and he rode in the
night, he could make back about breakfast to-morrow. Beelzebub would do
it without a worry. But I don’t figger he’ll be along till to-morrow
evening.”
“Which way will he come? The cattle-trail again?”
“No. He expressly told me he’d come by the Gateway. He reckons no one
could locate us that way. He guesses there isn’t a police boy, or
anyone else, who could read the riddle of Three-Way Creek, or a soul
but those who know it who would attempt the tunnel of the gorge. And I
guess he’s right.”
Blanche sighed.
“I’m glad. The cattle-trail’s our weakness,” she said. Then she started
up in her chair, and her eyes warned her lover that he was about to
hear her worst news.
She gazed at him for some moments. His calm amused the girl. But it
irritated her as well.
“You’re the most outrageous creature, Larry,” she cried at last. “Do
you know the way I feel? Why, you set me crazy to get you by your two
big, foolish shoulders and shake you up into a hurry. I’m going to tell
you the reason I want Jim. And it’s a reason that ought to set you
worried to death. But it won’t. I’m going to tell you that that boy
Andrew McFardell Jim encountered awhile back is Molly Marton’s beau.
Does that fix you? No. I’m going to tell you that ever since he located
Jim, and recognised him, he’s lit right out from his homestead--sold
it up--and taken to the trail. Well? Does that set you in a hurry? No.
It doesn’t. Do you know what the sense of that is? It’s easy to me,
anyway. Andy McFardell hasn’t shown up in three months, and now Dan’s
worried someone’s trailing the hills around his place. Someone’s hit on
the connection between Dan’s place and Jim. And I only need one guess
who that is.”
Outwardly Larry’s display was of frank admiration. Of anxiety there was
never a sign.
“I’d never have thought that way, Blanche,” he said, with an
appreciative smile. “Sure. That’s Dan’s trouble right enough. And, come
to think of it, I guess Jim must have thought that way, too. I remember
when that boy told us Dan’s worry, and said there were ‘folks’ getting
around, Jim shook his head. He said, ‘No, only one.’ But I don’t see
you need Jim in such a hurry.”
Blanche stood up. She smiled into his face, and laid her hands upon his
shoulders.
“I do, Larry,” she said. “And I’m going to ride out to-morrow morning
to meet him. You wouldn’t see it my way. Jim’s not your brother.”
In a moment the man’s cigar was flung from his mouth, and his arms
caught up the slim figure.
“Sure he’s not,” he cried, holding her close to him. “But you’re Jim’s
sister.”
And somehow the argument seemed to satisfy them both.