IF THIS BE LOVE
Shortly after five o’clock that same day, Johnny and Tony emerged
from the lava beds to the east of the Diamond-Bar stronghold. Below
them, its fringe of poplars glistening in the sunlight, stood the
comfortable old house and its outbuildings.
The trail from town led across miles of uninteresting flats, alkali
patches and finally by means of much tortuous winding through the
lava beds. A haze, as of smoke, hung in the sky. The air was warm.
At midday it had been hot in the open. Sage hen and mountain quail
rose before them, the old cocks and hens so heavy that the frantic
flapping of their wings as they got into the air made the horses
throw up their heads every time they flushed a covey.
Sleeping in a saddle is a little trick the rangeman soon acquires.
Many times on this same trail Johnny and the Basque had ridden with
closed eyes, their minds in dreamland. Not so today! And wherever
men toiled north of the Humboldt this exception held true. This day
was one of the awaited ones—one of those few, brief days of Indian
summer when the desert smiles and relents. Perhaps because the time
is so short, God pours the wine of life with a lavish hand. Mexican
_peon_, Basque _pellado_, argonaut, prospector, cowman, herder—not
one but answers to the spell of this magic which the red gods long
ago gave to the tribes.
And yet this marvelous day found a peculiar sadness in Johnny’s
heart. Restless, untalkative, he had ridden the long miles, little
understanding the misery which was in him. The sight of the old
Diamond-Bar house seemed to furnish him with an answer, for he
squinted his eyes to blot out some sudden emotion. Was he homesick?
Was it the knowledge that he would not be riding this trail again
that was setting so heavily upon him?
Johnny need not have wondered longer. He had discovered the truth.
And this day of days had only accentuated his unhappiness.
This was _his_ country. He knew every mesa, draw and coulee as a
city boy knows his own block. Far horizons, towering peaks—they were
landmarks to him; things of life, with personalities. There were
things here that he loved because they were beautiful—colors
unequaled, vistas beyond comparison.
To say that he ever referred to it in these or similar terms would
be more than the truth. But he felt it; answered to the tug of it.
And Johnny Dice was not an emotional person.
And yet men called his chosen land a desert. Passing strange it is
that so ill a name suffices.
When they reached the house they found it seemingly as lazy as the
day. Charlie Sam, the Chinese cook, lay sprawled upon a bench in the
sun. He did not so much as move as Johnny rode past him. Little
Hughie High, who combined the duties of ranch blacksmith, filer, and
man of all work, had been tinkering with the windmill. He waved a
careless hand from his perch above them, but made no word of
greeting, fearing to break the undisturbed comfort which so rarely
came his way.
A wide hall led through the ranch-house, in back of which stood the
bunk-house. Beyond that, at some distance, were the barns and
corrals. On the side of the house facing the men’s quarters, with a
door opening to the hallway, the old man had his office, a big
square-shaped room.
On stated occasions, when it pleased old Jackson to unbend, he
escorted whichever of his men he had invited into his sanctum, down
that long, wide hall to the front door. Only at such times did the
Diamond-Bar hands tread those precincts.
Tony went on to the bunk-house, but Johnny stopped and whistled a
call. It went unanswered. His roving eyes searched the yard and
windows, but Molly Kent was not to be seen. Walking around to the
front of the house, Johnny peered through open doors. Tony had gone
around to the rear of the place by now, and Johnny saw him as he
stepped into the bunk-house.
Left alone with his thoughts, the boy stopped and listened. Only the
penetrating sound of Charlie Sam’s snoring broke the stillness.
Cautiously, Johnny whistled again. His embarrassment grew as he
waited. Minutes passed, and a boldness he had never known in his
days as a Diamond-Bar man took possession of him. Crossing the
threshold he tapped on the door of Molly Kent’s room.
Light as his tap had been the unlatched door moved back an inch or
two. The delicate perfume which he had always associated with Molly
reached his nostrils. Unknown to himself, he trembled.
She was not here; his good-bye would have to go unsaid. He extracted
some slight degree of comfort from that. Good-byes did not come
easily to his lips.
An overwhelming desire to push back that door and to stand for just
one minute in the room which she had sanctified with her presence
all these years took possession of him. There in her room he’d say
his farewell to her.
From his pocket he brought forth a mysterious little package—a mouth
organ. This was in answer to Molly’s often expressed desire for one.
Johnny had not spared his money in purchasing it. He had had it sent
all the way from San Francisco. He looked at the package as if
asking it to answer him.
“Yes,” he murmured; “this’ll be best. I’ll just leave it on her
dresser for her. Maybe she’ll guess it’s from me.”
The inside of that room was a revelation to Johnny Dice. Never
before had he been face to face with feminine daintiness of this
sort. From the chintz curtains and colorful cretonnes to the array
of mysterious articles spread about him this room was as different
from the rest of the house as day is from night.
Something sang in Johnny’s heart as he reached out to place his gift
on Molly’s dresser and found himself gazing at his own picture in a
neat little frame hung to one side of the girl’s large mirror.
The picture was an old-fashioned studio photograph portraying the
subject in one of his saddest and most miserable moments. Johnny’s
pride had long since forced him to destroy the copy he had kept for
himself. But there it was in her room!
The world suddenly became a paradise. Even on Johnny the day had not
been wasted. He smiled sheepishly on catching sight of his own
reflection in the glass. He began to ask himself important
questions. Between Molly and him there had never passed a word
beyond the province of friendship. She was a rich man’s daughter,
and forty a month is no inducement to hold out to young ladies of
her means. And then, too, it didn’t lead to steady employment if one
made eyes at owners’ daughters. There were some social barriers even
in Nevada.
Now, that he was leaving, matters matured very rapidly in the boy’s
mind. What sort of a fool had he been all these years not to have
known that he was over his head, that Molly Kent meant more to him
than any other being who had come into his life? An hour ago he had
told himself he was blue because he was leaving the country and the
Diamond-Bar behind. That was a lie! Own up to it, now. It wasn’t the
Diamond-Bar or the purple shadows on the Tuscaroras that he was
going to miss. No! It was Molly Kent!
And Molly? Johnny’s teeth clenched under his tightly pressed lips as
he gazed once more on that picture of himself.
“She don’t hate me, at least,” he murmured half aloud. “Who’d ever
thought she’d ’a’ kept that thing all these years? Why—and there’s
those little silver spurs I brung her when she was just a kid. Real
silver, they was, too.”
Johnny put his hand on them tenderly. He seemed to have difficulty
in breathing. Emotion was welling up in him to a point which made
him reel. The mouth organ was placed on the bureau. He wanted to get
outside, to think, to tell himself that he had not been dreaming,
that life still went on.
Was it because of Molly that the old man had been so short with him?
The thought galloped through Johnny’s mind. Did Jackson Kent see in
him a possible suitor for her hand—an undesirable, financially
irresponsible suitor? Had there been talk, whisperings behind his
back? Had Molly said anything? A dozen questions leaped to his mind.
He shook his head wearily as he turned for the door, anxious to be
away from this house which only a few minutes before he had been
loath to leave. Another step would have taken him to the door, when
he stopped, mouth open, his eyes bulging as if they could not
believe what they beheld. Slowly the foot which he had poised in
mid-air came down; but the accusing finger which he had pointed at
the thing beside the door did not waver.
“Great God!” he groaned. “That’s a copy of the picture I’ve got in
my pocket!”
It was, beyond question. Set in a small gold frame hung beside the
door was an exact duplicate of the photograph he had found in the
dead man’s wallet.
With cold fingers he held up the picture that he drew from his
pocket until it rested beside the one on the wall. They were the
same!
Eyes transfixed, Johnny stared on and on, and as he stood there
spellbound, the door opened. Jackson Kent faced him. Something too
big for words held the two for a brief second. Johnny was the first
to react. Surreptitiously the hand holding the picture moved to his
pocket, but he was too late. The old man had been staring at it.
Fingers of steel caught and held Johnny’s arm. The surprise had died
out of Kent’s eyes. They were flashing now with a madman’s fury. The
boy could feel the man’s hot breath upon his cheek. Johnny heard the
other’s voice break as he fought for speech.
Then, with heaving lungs, old Jackson cried out:
“Give it to me! Give it to me—do you hear?” His voice arose until it
became almost a scream as he demanded: “What are _you_ doin’ with
_that_ picture of my little girl?”
Kent’s hungry fingers lunged for the coveted photograph. Johnny’s
eyes had narrowed to mere slits.
“No!” he exclaimed. “I keep that picture. It belongs to a dead man!”