THE PASSING OF A CLOUD
But that was a week ago and now she was riding homeward with him in the
moonlight. She had the notebook in the inside pocket of her riding
jacket, having decided to return it to him in person, and this had been
her first opportunity, he having been away for the whole of the previous
week on some range matter requiring his personal attention.
He had evidently dropped the book from his shirt pocket during his
struggle with the refractory gate, and on his return had interrogated
everyone on the ranch about it except the actual finder, that worthy
being absent at the time of his return on some errand for Miss Carter.
He was very anxious for its recovery for more reasons than one. It
contained some valuable memoranda about his range work; and then, again,
he had private reasons why none of the men should chance to fall afoul
of his metrical effusion. He was familiar with the coarse badinage of
the camp, a humor that respects no personage, however high his official
position, and the possibilities worried him.
He felt a great chagrin that he had as yet not been able to locate
Matlock. In his supersensitiveness he was obsessed with an entirely
unfounded impression that he was losing prestige among his men because
of the unavoidable delay. If they were to learn that he had been
farther guilty of the inexcusable weakness of writing verse of that
sentimental character, his cup of bitterness would be running over!
Imagine his unbounded relief when she handed it to him with the simple
remark: "I have something here belonging to you, I think." But almost
instantly he was filled with consternation. Had she by any miserable
chance read that verse! Intuitively she felt what was passing in his
mind and demurely fibbed for his reassurance: "Mamma recovered it--I
think she said it was found at the gate--and brought it to me. I knew it
was yours from the memoranda on the first page, but forgot to return it
before. I sincerely hope I have not caused you any inconvenience?"
He was almost vehement in his eagerness to assure her that it was
altogether a matter of no moment, but her eyes twinkled mischievously as
she noted the care with which he bestowed it in a safe place. "After
all, men are only boys grown up," she thought, and her regard for him
was ludicrously maternal. She felt an almost irresistible desire to
lecture him on the folly of his ways and the dangerous possibilities
attendant on the writing of erotic verse; she actually began a homily on
the uncertainty of life and one's logical duty of the enjoyment of
things actually in possession rather than the pitiable craving for the
unattainable. She had cleverly led up to it by enthusiastically admiring
the beauty of the perfect night and the understandable attraction that
these glorious surroundings had for everyone who came into intimate
contact with them.
Once, in the emphasizing of some vital point in issue, she impulsively
laid her gloved hand on his arm; the man started as if he had been stung
and she recoiled from the hunger in his eyes. The mothering of a lion
cub has its disadvantages, and thereafter her milk of human kindness
overflowed no more.
There was an evident suspicion evinced in the keen attention he was
paying to her words as she trenched on the delicate topic of logical
content with one's militant blessings, and she ingeniously proceeded to
disarm it.
"Why is it that among the thousands of susceptible and impressionable
souls that have reveled in these delights, not one has had the moral
courage to depict them in print? The labor would surely be one of love
and the inspiration never lacks."
"Possibly," he suggested, "it is a matter of sheer mental and literary
inability. But few have been endowed with the gift of Genius. And then,
again, authorship is necessarily an affair of leisure, and life is apt
to be strenuous in these hills." He turned in his saddle and laughingly
asked her: "How much time could your cowpunchers afford to devote to the
Muses, Miss Grace?"
"Genius knows no paltry restrictions of time and place," she said, with
some acerbity, "and I know of at least one of the men you mention who
has the ability if not the courage."
He winced a little at that and the cloud of suspicion grew denser. But
it was partly dissipated at her earnest inquiry: "Why do not you, a man
of keen discernment and liberal education, essay the task? I am certain
that you would achieve a great success."
"I have other work to do," he said, gruffly. "And I am not sure that I
find your suggestion at all complimentary. Am I to infer that in your
estimation I am blessed with an inordinate amount of leisure time?"
She shrugged her shoulders with wrathful impatience; he was a bigger
baby than she had thought. "That was gratuitous," she said, with a fine
show of indignation; "and you are not at all nice when you are
insolent." To her disgust he chuckled audibly, leaning over his pommel
in simulated humility.
"Lesson number three. I'm getting that 'liberal education' fast," he
murmured; "by and by I'll know enough to put into a book."
For the life of her she could not resist the temptation. "If you do,
don't write it in verse."
Instantly she regretted her temerity. "There are so few people who write
verse acceptably," she explained hurriedly, "and there are too many
ambitious things that die 'abornin',' as Abbie would say, from that very
reason. Prose has much more potentiality and is more acceptable to the
masses. Of course"--the tone was that of innocence personified--"if you
can do verse, that would be another matter. The essential thing is that
you do write the book. Will you? Please."
The voice was almost tenderly imploring; his brow cleared. He was almost
ashamed of his momentary distrust of her. In polite society people do
not read private documents; evidently this young woman had come
dangerously close to his rash misjudgment and he was properly penitent.
Still he was tormented by an insistent doubt. Why had she particularized
that first page of memoranda? With a fatuous attempt at diplomacy he put
his foot into it.
"Why should you assume so flatteringly that I have any literary
ability?" He thought the question almost Machiavelian in its adroitness.
She had her cue, now. "Well, your aptness at quotation from obscure
sources presupposes a wide range of reading, a retentive memory, and a
love for literature. Then, again, you have rare constructiveness
and--and--" her simulation of modest distress would have deceived even a
wiser man--"a horribly clever knack of impromptu rhyme, as I have
regretful reasons for knowing."
Poor Machiavelli! He was at her feet figuratively in an instant. "That
Buffo business! It was abominable of me! Don't judge me by a thing like
that. I can do better things. Will you let bygones be bygones, if I
plead guilty to the gentle impeachment and promise to let you criticise
my future efforts?"
She took his extended hand frankly. "Everything begins right here." She
gave thanks for a timely cloud's momentary obscuration of the moon as he
laid his lips on the tiny gauntlet. Then she impulsively urged her horse
into a gallop, and before the moon had emerged from behind the cloud,
they had crossed the ridge and the ranch lights twinkled in view though
still a good five miles away.
Up on the hillside above, behind a bowlder which commanded in easy range
the point where their compact had been sealed, a man lay fumbling a
rifle and fluently cursing the cloud which had so inopportunely spoiled
his aim. His vicious face was distorted with rage and fury, his mouth
foaming with passion.
"Damn you," he raved, shaking his clenched fist at the offending white
billow; "I'd got him if you had waited a second longer or crossed a
second sooner. Everything goes against me, and he's got all the luck.
I'll get him yet." And with hideous blasphemies trickling from his thick
lips, he again shook his fist impotently at the derisively smiling face
of the moon and slunk away to the horse tied in the shadows behind him.
In blissful ignorance of that narrowly averted calamity, the pair on the
other side of the ridge rode silently along in the restored moonlight.
The woman was very happy and loth to break the spell; the man whirling
in the maelstrom of a jumbled introspection. The victim of strongly
opposed currents, he drifted aimlessly in the sea of troubled thought,
seeing no shore and seeking none. Content to leave much to Chance and
more to Opportunity, he had hitherto let his destiny shape itself,
satisfied with merely aiding fate to the best of his physical ability as
the occasion offered; but now he was conscious of a growing incitement
to dictate his own future. The temptation to try and dominate things
was very strong. He had compelled the smaller ones to come his way when
he had so chosen, why not the greater ones. He glanced covertly at the
woman riding by his side; in the soft moonlight she was very fair.
It was she who first broke the silence, her words unconsciously
pandering to his suddenly-formed resolution.
"How splendidly you ride, Mr. Douglass!" Her admiration was frank and
sincere. "You have that horse under perfect control, and yet, if I am
not mistaken, he is the worst of the three 'outlaws' which all the other
boys have declared unridable. Abbie told me this morning that everybody
is afraid of them."
"Abbie tells you a great many funny things, I reckon," he said, with an
evasive grin, and she laughed reminiscently. "Well, old Highball here
isn't just what you might call love-inspiring, and the boys have kind o'
passed him up; they have too many other good gentle horses in their
strings to justify my letting them take any chances. But as to their
being 'afraid' of him, why that's all bosh. Cowpunchers who are afraid
of any horse don't hold their jobs long, Miss Carter."
"Yet you, yourself, take the very chances that you shield your men
from." The tone was severe and distinctly reproachful, albeit her heart
beat with an understanding pride. He shrugged his shoulders
deprecatingly.
"Well, the brutes have got to earn their keep, and hay is high this
year."
"Yes, about two inches, on that part of the public domain where this
particular brute ranges," she said scornfully. "He has not been in the
corrals for over two years, as I happen to know. I believe you overheard
what Abbie said, and are riding him out of sheer perversity. You don't
like to be thought afraid, do you?"
"No, ma'am," he said, so humbly that she laughed despite her resolve.
Then, with a sudden burst of confidence, "You see, he threw me last week
and kind o' upset my conceit, and it's been on my conscience ever since.
We just had to come to some definite conclusion as to who is bossing
this job. He's going to be a good horse now."
"Now, as to hating being thought afraid," he went on after a short
silence, "I guess every man thinks that way. And yet there is something
that every man fears, that he is more or less afraid of, if he is only
honest enough to admit it."
"And what are you afraid of?" There was much of incredulity and more of
curiosity in her audacious question.
"Myself." He answered quietly; she was very sorry she had asked.
Just as they reached the main gate they were joined by Red McVey; who
rode up from the opposite direction. He was riding another of the
"outlaws" and Douglass noted that fact with a certain displeasure; his
orders had been explicit about those horses. Red nonchalantly drawled an
explanation:
"We didn't expect yuh back to-night; Miss Willi'ms said yuh would stay
oveh in Tin Cup. Bud Vaughan was oveh to-day and said as how Miss
Nellie was sick, so Miss Willi'ms allows she'd go oveh an' sit with her
to-night. I'll tell yuh about the hoss lateh," he concluded in an
undertone to Douglass, whose look of keen inquiry changed to one of
concern at Grace's irrepressible exclamation.
"What is it?" His words were sharp and imperative. She was pale, but
perfectly composed. Then, for the first time in her life she
deliberately lied: "The horse crushed my hand against the gate; a mere
trifle, but it startled me."
"What are we going to do for something to eat?" she said in pretended
dismay. "I'm as hungry as a--a--"
"Tom-tit?" suggested Red drolly; she had, much to his abashment, once
caught him feeding one with crumbs of cake, embellishing his service
with profanely quaint ejaculations of delight.
"As a wolf," she averred decidedly, "and I haven't tried to cook since I
was a little girl."
"Oh, that'll be all right," said Douglass cheerfully. "Red, here, is a
wonder at making angel cake, and I can boil water without burning it, at
a pinch. If you can stand camp chuck for once we'll make out to take the
wire edge off your appetite, anyway."
"Oh, I've et," said Red hurriedly, the reference to that angel cake
filling him with apprehension. "Had supper oveh to Vaughan's. You two go
to wras'lin' yuh grub an' I'll take keer o' yuah hosses."
"Doan't yuh let him scoach thet wateh, Miss Cahteh," he volleyed as he
retreated in good order, much relieved at his narrow escape. "He's a
powahful wahm baby."
While she was changing her dress, Douglass got a fire going in the big
Charter Oak stove and filled the kettle with fresh water from the
spring. He brought over from the meat dive a generously big and tender
steak and fossicked about in the pantry until he found the egg basket.
There were a couple of tempting broilers lying on a platter, but he
concluded that Abbie had prepared these with a view to Miss Carter's
breakfast. He was grinding the coffee when she came in and she sniffed
the grateful aroma rapturously.
She was very simply attired in a loose-fitting white dress with short
sleeves, and about her slender waist was tied one of Abbie's huge
gingham aprons. Her riding Hessians had been replaced with a pair of
diminutive sandals which made a clicking little patter as she walked. He
had unconsciously rolled up his sleeves, camp-cook fashion, the better
to mix and mold the biscuit he contemplated making; the sight of her
bare arms reminded him of his own and he hurriedly lowered the sleeves
and began fumbling at the buttons. She came forward quickly and checked
him with a pretty gesture.
"Put them up again! Men always work better with their sleeves rolled up,
I have noticed, and all good cooks have them so. That's why I am wearing
this waist; I am going to help." She looked complacently at her round,
dimpled arms, then at the corded brawn of his. An irresistible impulse
sent her close to his side. "Why," she said, with a fine assumption of
wonder at the portentous discovery, "my arms are tanned as brown as
yours." And she coquettishly held hers so close to his in comparison
that they momentarily touched.
Through his veins there leaped a sudden fire as though his blood had
turned to molten lava; he trembled. Stricken with a sudden terror she
shrank away slightly, but her eyes never left his. The man was trying
for self-control, and she wisely waited. The best time to play with fire
is not when the coals are hottest.
"You, too, hate to be thought afraid." It was hardly more than a
whisper. "And your arms are very beautiful." Holding her wrists very
carefully, yet with a grip of steel, he bent forward and deliberately
kissed each arm in the dimpling hollows. Then he gently released them,
and turned once more to his coffee grinding.
So wise a man as Solomon declared, centuries ago, that the way of a man
with a maid was beyond even his great understanding; but the composite
intelligence of all the wise men that ever were or ever will be created
cannot elucidate the greater mystery of the ways of a maid with a man.
By all accepted rules and conventions, Miss Carter should have
ostentatiously wiped her arms with a lace handkerchief, extravagantly
casting it aside later with an air of loathing and disgust, and stalked
out of the room with superior dignity without deigning him even a
contemptuous glance. She did nothing of the kind. She merely laughed, a
silvery, tinkling, infectious little ripple whose contagion was
irresistible, and at his responsive grin the atmosphere cleared
instantly.
Her eyes fell upon the basket of eggs and she had a sudden inspiration:
"I am going to make waffles. Now if we could only achieve the regulation
fried chicken to go with it we should dine ideally."
"There are two in the pantry, ready to your hand," he replied eagerly.
She ran out excitedly, as if to verify the good news; but once in the
seclusion of the pantry her interest in the broilers moderated
unaccountably. She seemed more concerned with the hollows of her arms
and in her rapt inspection of them held them singularly close to her
face. Her cheeks were engagingly flushed and her lips moist when she
bore the fowls into the kitchen.
Douglass was inclined to be patronizing as she sat about her
waffle-building; what could this pampered society pet possibly know
about the plebeian craft of cookery? But his indulgence quickly changed
to surprised admiration as he watched her deft manipulations.
"How long has it been since you were a little girl?" She smiled her
quick delight at the implied compliment. "Oh, waffles are easy; Dad
always insisted on my making them for him and I had considerable
experience, and one does not exactly forget little things like that. How
long has it been since you were a little boy?"
"I am one to-night," he averred, dextrously filching the first
golden-brown disc as she laid it on the plate; as he danced about
trying to bolt the hot dainty she rapped him on the head reprovingly
with the huge spoon and they laughed with all the light-heartedness of
the foolish children they really were.
It was a memorable meal that they finally sat down to, and neither of
them ever forgot it. Sitting opposite to her in that comfortable old
kitchen--he had begged the privilege of eating there instead of in the
more formal dining-room--the man's heart was filling with a subtle
consciousness that it would be very pleasant to have her sit so always
throughout the days to come. It came to him with a certain shock,
nevertheless; in all his former associations with women, his emotions
had been of a distinctly different nature, and somehow the recollection
of them was not pleasing. He even felt a certain angry resentment of the
insidious charm of the comforting domesticity of his surroundings. What
right had an indigent pauper of a cowpuncher to aspire to a heaven like
this? It was only to her natural gentleness, her inherent graciousness,
possibly only to a passing indulgent whim, that he was indebted for the
favor she was showing. What had he, who would be penniless in another
month--for he still stubbornly adhered to his determination to recoup
his employer--to offer the mistress of the C Bar with its broad acres
and "cattle on a thousand hills"? All incredible as it may seem he
actually forgot for the moment that he had, unreproved, kissed her arms
a short half-hour before. It simply strengthened his resolution to get
away from an environment provocative of such disturbing reflections.
The woman was thinking how big and brave and strong he was, and how
integral a part of--how entirely he belonged in the plan of her
cogitations. She could imagine him always sitting there, a bulwark
between her and the evils of life, and she was very happy. She realized
how it would take time and diplomacy to leash this untamed tiger, to
bring into leading-strings this unbound Sampson who foolishly deemed
that the sum of Life was Delilah; but she was the daughter of "the
bravest man God ever made," and this was her Man. She knew it now beyond
the peradventure of a doubt, and looking at him as he sat there in all
his manly beauty, she thanked God for it.
His hand, outstretched toward the waffles, encountered hers, and he
paled.
It was very still and quiet in the room; even the little alarm clock on
the mantelpiece, unwound for once, lacking Abbie's careful hand, was
silent. He arose with cruel deliberation and walked around the table
toward her; she met him half way, all composure now, her hand extended.
The antelope kid, with a comical yawn, came and stood between them.
"I am so grateful for your many kindnesses to me to-day," she said
steadily, her eyes calm and unwavering. "I am more fatigued than I
thought. Good night--and pleasant dreams."
The kid butted him playfully as though to recall him to earth again; he
had stood such an unconscionable time holding her hand. The woman smiled
on him kindly again, and instantly he relinquished it.
"Good night," he said dully, his face the color of copper. He went to
the sofa where he had left his hat and holster and fumbled a while
uncertainly. He took up the Stetson, leaving the weapon untouched. At
the door he turned mechanically.
"Good night," he mumbled; "good night. And may you have no dreams at
all."
The antelope butted him again, scornfully, as he passed out.
Grace Carter stood for a moment in silent meditation. Then she went to
the sofa and drew the Colt from its sheath. With the weapon in her hand
she extinguished the light and went into her bedroom, locking the door
behind her.
When she had finished disrobing she laid the weapon on her reading stand
within reach of her hand when abed. For a while she lay very quiet,
open-eyed; then she arose, unlocked her door and replaced the revolver
in its sheath, leaving both lying where he had tossed them.
Over at the bunkhouse Douglass stood glaring at the imperturbable Red.
"I thought," said he ominously, "that my orders were that nobody should
ride those outlaws."
McVey, having finished the cigarette he was rolling, gave it a final
lick with his tongue, twisted the ends adroitly, struck a match, and
between tentative puffs, remarked:
"When they's nothing left in thu corral but one hoss I reckon it's ride
thet er go afoot. When I got back from Vaughan's this evenin' I found
thu pastur' bars down an' everything stompeded but thet buckskin
outlaw. Reckon he were too or'nary to trail with thu bunch an' cut
hisself out; ketched him in thu cow paddock."
Douglass carefully selected a cigarette paper and reached for the
tobacco pouch. The hand that held the lighting match was very steady.
"How do you size it up, Red?"
"Matlock," said the other, tersely. "Thu bars were not only down, but
dragged away more'n a rod. It were one man thet done it--his hoss shod
all around 'ceptin' left hind foot. 'Twere too dark to track after I
lost him in thu timber, but the whole cavvy is scattered to hell an'
gone. Say, Ken, I'm goin' to rue back on that promise; an' I don't see
as it's eggsactly fair on the other boys, either. S'posen sum of us was
to meet up with that skunk accidental: are we to let him slip jest
because yuh don't happen to be cavortin' around conteegious? I, fer one,
_won't_, an' right here I gives yuh notice."
"Besides," he drawled softly, "I've got a privut grutch agin him of my
own, an' I'm goin' to beat yuh to it if I kin."
The other shook his head deprecatingly. "Don't do anything rash, Red. I
preempted that right first. And my claim's been bearing interest ever
since."