“THERE’S MYSTERY HERE----”
“Dear Pat:--
“In God’s name, what were you thinking of when you sent this fellow
Hawkins over here with a five years’ contract? Couldn’t you see the
man’s a crook? Are the lawyers in Los Angeles all _dead_, that you
couldn’t call one up on the ’phone and ask a question or two about
letting places on shares? Of course you’d want to write the contract
yourself. Perfect Patricia is the little lady that invented brains!
If she doesn’t know all there is to know in the world, she’ll go as
far as she does know and fake the rest.
“Permit me to congratulate you, Miss Connolly, upon the artistic
manner in which you handed over to James Blaine Hawkins the best
imitation of a legacy that I ever saw! Of course you’d have to
invent a new way of having your pocket picked. Two thirds and found!
My word!
“Any ordinary, peanut-headed man would have given the usual one half
of increase in stock, and the old stock made good at the end of the
term of contract. And _not_ found, Pat! No one but you would ever
dream of doing a thing like that. And he says you agreed to buy his
gas and oil. Pat, if ever a girl needed some one to look after her,
you’re that small person. And he bragged about it--the dirty whelp.
Laughed at the way you met his terms and thought they were all
right!
“He never came nearer a licking in his life and missed it, Pat. But
I had another scheme, and I didn’t want to gum it up by letting on I
knew you. I had to sit pretty and let him brag, and register
admiration for the rotter. He’s gone now--it worked. But he’ll come
back--to-morrow, when the sun is shining and his blood thaws out
again. I may have to lick him yet. If he were a white man, with the
intelligence of a hen turkey, I could play the joker and make him
lay down his hand. But I’ll probably have to take a few falls out of
him before I can convince him he’s whipped from the start.
“You know, Pat, you’ve made an ungodly mess of things. In the whole
sorry assortment of blunders you did just one thing that gives me a
chance to save you. Before I left the city I made it a point to find
out what kind of power runs a Power of Attorney, anyway. I happen to
know a darned good lawyer, and I had a talk with him.
“Pat, you did something when you gave me that Power of Attorney. You
gave me more right over the disposal of this place than if I were
your husband. I came over here to use this right and sell
Johnnywater. I think even James Blaine Hawkins will stop, look and
listen when I tell him how come to-morrow.
“He’ll come back. A good, strong dose of sunlight will bring him
back--on the rampage, I’m guessing--mad to think how scared he was
when he left. I played a dirty trick on him, Pat. I made him think
the psychic cat was a spook.
“He thought it all right! But you see, I didn’t know.
“I wonder if he really did see something. I think he did--or at any
rate he kidded himself into thinking he did. I never dreamed he’d
see.
“Pat, you called me flabby souled. That hurt--and it wasn’t my vanity
you hit. I’ve wanted you to respect me, Pat, in spite of my
profession. And when you flung that at me, I saw you didn’t
understand. Lord knows I hate a whiner, and I won’t try to explain
just why I called you unjust.
“But after I got over here, Pat, I began to see the way I must have
looked to you. You took at face value all the slams you’ve heard
about the movies. You lumped us all together and called us cheap and
weak and vain. Just puppets strutting around before the camera like
damned peacocks. You couldn’t see that maybe it takes quite as much
character for a man to make good in the movies and live clean and
honest, as it does to drive cows to water.
“But after all these hills and the desert out here beyond the cañon
are mighty big and clean--my God, Pat, they’d shame the biggest man
that ever lived! When you get out here and measure yourself
alongside them you feel like a buffalo gnat on an elephant. And
there’s things in this cañon it takes a man to meet.
“There’s mystery here; the kind you can’t put your finger on. The
kind the movies can’t feature on the screen. Until James Blaine
Hawkins drove into the scene, I’d have sworn a man could live here
for forty years in the wilderness like the children of Israel--or
maybe it was Noah and the ark--and never meet a villain who’s out to
make you either the goat or a corpse--both, maybe, if the story runs
that way.
“But I’ve learned something I never knew before. I’ve learned there
are things a man can fight that’s worse than crooks. Dad was kind of
religious, and he used to quote Bible at me. One of his favorite
lines was about ‘He that is master of himself is greater than he
that taketh a city.’ It sounded like the bunk to me when I was a
kid. Now I kind of see what the old man was driving at. This country
puts it right up to you, Pat.
“So, I’m going to find out something before I leave here, Pat. I
want to know who’s going to lick: Gary Marshall, or Johnnywater
Cañon. It sort of dawned on me gradually that if I leave here now,
I’ll leave here licked. Licked by something that’s never laid a
finger on me! Scared out--like Waddell. Pat, my dear, I never could
go back and face you if I had that to remember. Every time you
looked at me I’d feel that you were calling me flabby souled in your
heart--and I’d know I had it coming.
“Of course, I don’t need to be hit with an axe in order to take a
hint. I got the slap you sent me, Pat--along with James Blaine
Hawkins. _You_ know I’m over here. You know it as well as you know
anything. Even if I didn’t say I was coming--even though I _did_ say
I wasn’t coming--you knew I came. You’d call up the studio, and Mills
would tell you I was out of town on business. So you’d know; there’s
nothing else could take me out.
“So I got the slam you handed me, when you let the place to Hawkins
for five years. You couldn’t go into court, Pat, and swear that you
didn’t offer me the management of Johnnywater. The very fact that I
have all the documents pertaining to the deal, plus the Power of
Attorney, will prove that anywhere. Then Monty Girard knows it--a
valuable witness, Monty. So I can save you from your own
foolishness, and I’ll do it, young lady, if I have to fight you in
court. Hawkins is not going to get his two thirds and _found_! The
two hundred he grafted off you I may not be able to save. But I’ll
keep the rest out of his clutches, make no mistake.
“I’ve got the glooms to-night, Pat. Feel sort of blue and sick at
heart. It hit me pretty hard, reading that contract you drew up for
Hawkins to brag about. It hurt to see him take that paper out of his
pocket--paper that you had handled, Pat, words that you had typed.
He’s not fit to touch it. He left it here--lying on the table when he
beat it, scared silly. You were stubborn when you signed your
name--you did that to spite Gary. Own up now, Pat; didn’t you do it
just for spite--because I left without saying good-by? I wonder if it
hurt you like it hurt me. I reckon not. Girls are so damned
self-righteous--but then, they have the right. God knows, the best of
men don’t amount to much.
“There’s something I want to do for you; if I don’t do it before I
leave here, it won’t be for want of trying. You’ll never make one
dollar off this investment, just hanging on to it as it stands. This
country’s full of loco, for one thing. The percentage of loss is
higher than my dad would ever have stood for. Practically every
horse you own has got a touch of loco. And Monty says the calf crop
is never up to normal. It’s a losing game, in dollars and cents. A
man could stay with it and make a bare living, I suppose. He could
raise his own vegetables, put up enough hay to keep a horse or two,
and manage to exist. But that would be the extent of it. And I don’t
want to see you lose--you won’t, if I can help it. Having Hawkins in
the deal may complicate matters--unless he quits. And, honey, I’ll
make the quitting as good as possible for him.
“I was sore when I started to write. But now I’m just sorry--and I
love you, Pat. I wouldn’t have you different if I could.
“Gary.”