"Mother!"
"Maybe he stay all time." Her tone was stubborn, as though she expected
and was prepared to resist an attack.
"You don't--you _can't_--mean it!". Susie's thin face flushed scarlet with
shame.
"Sa-ah," the woman nodded, "I mean it;" and Susie, staring at her in a
kind of terror, saw that she did.
"Oh, Mother! Mother!" she cried passionately, dropping on the floor at the
woman's feet and clasping her arms convulsively about the Indian woman's
knees. "Don't--don't say that! We've always been a little different from
the rest. We've always held our heads up. People like us and respect
us--both Injuns and white. We've never been talked about--you and me--and
now you are going to spoil it all!"
"I get tied up to him right," defended the woman sullenly.
"Oh, Mother!" wailed the child.
"We need good white man to run de ranch."
"But _Smith_--do you think _he's_ good? Good! Is a rattlesnake good? Can't
you see what he is, Mother?--you who are smarter than me in seeing through
people? He's mean--onery to the marrow--and some day sure--_sure_--he'll
turn, and strike his fangs into you."
"He no onery," the woman replied, in something like anger.
"It's his nature," Susie went on, without heeding her. "He can't help it.
All his thoughts and talk and schemes are about something crooked. Can't
you tell by the things he lets drop that he ought to be in the 'pen'? He's
treacherous, ungrateful, a born thief. I saw him take Tubbs's halter, and
there was the regular thief look in his eyes when he cut his own name on
it. I saw him kick a dog, and he kicked it like a brute. He kicked it in
the ribs with his toe. Men--decent men--kick a dog with the side of their
foot. I saw his horse fall with him, and he held it down and beat it on
the neck with a chain, where it wouldn't show. He'd hold up a bank or rob
a woman; he'd kill a man or a prairie-dog, and think no more of the one
than the other.
"I tell you, Mother, as sure as I sit here on the floor at your feet,
begging you, he's going to bring us trouble; he's going to deal us misery!
I feel it! I _know_ it!"
"You no like de white man."
"That's right; I don't like the white man. He wants a good place to stay;
he wants your horses and cattle and hay; and--he wants the Schoolmarm.
He's making a fool of you, Mother."
"He no make fool of me," she answered complacently. "He make fool of de
white woman, maybe."
"Look out of the window and see for yourself."
They arose together, and the girl pointed to Smith and Dora, seated side
by side on the cottonwood log.
"Did he ever look at you like that, Mother?"
"He make fool of de white woman," she reiterated stubbornly, but her face
clouded.
"He makes a fool of himself, but not of her," declared Susie. "He's crazy
about her--locoed. Everybody sees it except her. Believe me, Mother,
listen to Susie just this once."
"He like me. I stick to him;" but she went back to her bench. The
unfamiliar softness of Smith's face hurt her.
The tears filled Susie's eyes and ran down her cheeks. Her mother's
passion for this hateful stranger was stronger than her mother-love, that
silent, undemonstrative love in which Susie had believed as she believed
that the sun would rise each morning over there in the Bad Lands, to warm
her when she was cold. She buried her face in her mother's lap and sobbed
aloud.
The woman had not seen Susie cry since she was a tiny child, save when her
father and White Antelope died, and the numbed maternal instinct stirred
in her breast. She laid her dark, ringed fingers upon Susie's hair and
stroked it gently.
"Don't cry," she said slowly. "If he make fool of me, if he lie when he
say he tie up to me right, if he like de white woman better den me, I kill
him. I kill him, Susie." She pointed to a bunch of roots and short dried
stalks which hung from the rafters in one corner of the room. "See--that
is the love-charm of the Sioux. It was gifted to me by Little Coyote's
woman--a Mandan. It bring de love, and too much--it kill. If he make fool
of me, if he not like me better den de white woman, I give him de
love-charm of de Sioux. I fix him! _I fix him right!_"
Out on the cottonwood log Smith and the Schoolmarm had been speaking of
many things; for the man could talk fluently in his peculiar vernacular,
upon any subject which interested him or with which he was familiar.
The best of his nature, whatever of good there was in him, was uppermost
when with Dora. He really believed at such times that he was what she
thought him, and he condemned the shortcomings of others like one speaking
from the lofty pinnacle of unimpeachable virtue.
In her presence, new ambitions, new desires, awakened, and sentiments
which he never had suspected he possessed revealed themselves. He was
happy in being near her; content when he felt the touch of her loose cape
on his arm.
It never before had occurred to Smith that the world through which he had
gone his tumultuous way was a beautiful place, or that there was joy in
the simple fact of being strongly alive. When the sage-brush commenced to
turn green and the many brilliant flowers of the desert bloomed, when the
air was stimulating like wine and fragrant with the scents of spring, it
had meant little to Smith beyond the facts that horse-feed would soon be
plentiful and that he could lay aside his Mackinaw coat. The mountains
suggested nothing but that they held big game and were awkward places to
get through on horseback, while the deserts brought no thoughts save of
thirst and loneliness and choking alkali dust. Upon a time a stranger had
mentioned the scenery, and Smith had replied ironically that there was
plenty of it and for him to help himself!
But this spring was different--so different that he asked himself
wonderingly if other springs had been like it; and to-day, as he sat in
the sunshine and looked about him, he saw for the first time grandeur in
the saw-toothed, snow-covered peaks outlined against the dazzling blue of
the western sky. For the first time he saw the awing vastness of the
desert, and the soft pastel shades which made their desolation beautiful.
He breathed deep of the odorous air and stared about him like a blind man
who suddenly sees.
During a silence, Smith looked at Dora with his curiously intent gaze; his
characteristic stare which held nothing of impertinence--only interest,
intense, absorbing interest--and as he looked a thought came to him, a
thought so unexpected, so startling, that he blinked as if some one had
struck him in the face. It sent a bright red rushing over him, coloring
his neck, his ears, his white, broad forehead.
He thought of her as the mother of children--his children--bearing his
name, miniatures of himself and of her. He never had thought of this
before. He never had met a woman who inspired in him any such desire. He
followed the thought further. What if he should have a permanent home--a
ranch that belonged to him exclusively--"Smith's Ranch"--where there were
white curtains at the windows, and little ones who came tumbling through
the door to greet him when he rode into the yard? A place where people
came to visit, people who reckoned him a person of consequence because he
stood for something. He must have seen a place like it somewhere, the
picture was so vivid in his mind.
The thought of living like others never before had entered into the scheme
of his calculations. Since the time when he had "quit the flat" back in
the country where they slept between sheets, the world had been lined up
against him in its own defense. Life had been a constant game of hare and
hounds, with the pack frequently close at his heels. He had been ever on
the move, both for reasons of safety and as a matter of taste. His point
of view was the abnormal one of the professional law-breaker: the world
was his legitimate prey; the business of his life was to do as he pleased
and keep his liberty; to outwit sheriffs and make a clean get-away. To be
known among his kind as "game" and "slick," was the only distinction he
craved. His chiefest ambition had been to live up to his title of "Bad
Man." In this he had found glory which satisfied him.
"Well," Dora asked at last, smiling up at him, "what is it?"
Smith hesitated; then he burst out:
"Girl, do I stack up different to you nor anybody else? Have you any
feelin' for me at all?"
"Why, I think I've shown my interest in trying to teach you," she replied,
a little abashed by his vehemence.
"What do you want to teach me for?" he demanded.
"Because," Dora declared, "you have possibilities."
"Why don't you teach Meeteetse Ed and Tubbs?"
Dora laughed aloud.
"Candidly, I think it would be a waste of time. They could never hope to
be much more than we see them here. And they are content as they are."
"So was I, girl, until our trails crossed. I could ride without grub all
day, and sing. I could sleep on a saddle-blanket like a tired pup, with
only a rock for a wind-break and my saddle for a pillow. Now I can't sleep
in a bed. It's horrible--this mixed up feelin'--half the time wantin' to
holler and laugh and the other half wantin' to cry."
"I don't see why you should feel like that," said Dora gravely. "You are
getting along. It's slow, but you're learning."
"Oh, yes, I'm learnin'," Smith answered grimly--"fast."
He saw her wondering look and went on fiercely.
"Girl, don't you see what I mean? Don't you _sabe_? My feelin' for you is
more nor friendship. I can't tell you how I feel. It's nothin' I ever had
before, but I've heard of it a-plenty. It's love--that's what it is! I've
seen it, too, a-plenty.
"There's two things in the world a feller'll go through hell for--just
two: love and gold. I don't mean money, but gold--the pure stuff. They'll
waller through snow-drifts, they'll swim rivers with the ice runnin',
they'll crawl through canyons and over trails on their hands and knees,
they'll starve and they'll freeze, they'll work till the blood runs from
their blistered hands, they'll kill their horses and their pardners, for
gold! And they'll do it for love. Yes, I've seen it a-plenty, me--Smith.
"Things I've done, I've done, and they don't worry me none," he went on,
"but lately I've thought of Dutch Joe. I worked him over for singin' a
love-song, and I wisht I hadn't. He'd held up a stage, and was cached in
my camp till things simmered down. It was lonesome, and I'd want to talk;
but he'd sit back in the dark, away from the camp-fire, and sing to
himself about 'ridin' to Annie.' How the miles wasn't long or the trail
rough if only he was 'ridin' to Annie.' Sittin' back there in the brush,
he sounded like a sick coyote a-hollerin'. It hadn't no tune, and I
thought it was the damnedest fool song I ever heard. After he'd sung it
more'n five hundred times, I hit him on the head with a six-shooter, and
we mixed. He quit singin', but he held that gretch against me as long as
he lived.
"I thought it was because he was Dutch, but it wasn't. 'Twas love. Why,
girl, I'd ride as long as my horse could stand up under me, and then I'd
hoof it, just to hear you say, 'Smith, do you think it will rain?'"
"Oh, I never thought of this!" cried Dora, as Smith paused.
Her face was full of distress, and her hands lay tightly clenched in her
lap.
"Do you mean I haven't any show--no show at all?" The color fading from
Smith's face left it a peculiar yellow.
"It never occurred to me that you would misunderstand, or think anything
but that I wanted to help you. I thought that you wanted to learn so that
you would have a better chance in life."
"Did you--honest? Are you as innocent as that, girl?" he asked in savage
scepticism. "Did you believe that I'd set and study them damned verbs just
so I'd have a better chanct in life?"
"You said so."
"Oh, yes, maybe I _said_ so."
"Surely, _surely_, you don't think I would intentionally mislead you?"
"When a woman wants a man to dress or act or talk different, she generally
cares some."
"And I do 'care some'!" Dora cried impulsively. "I believe that you are
not making the best of yourself, of your life; that you are better than
your surroundings; and because I do believe in you, I want to help you.
Don't you understand?"
Her explanation was not convincing to Smith.
"Is it because I don't talk grammar, and you think you'd have to live in a
log-house and hang out your own wash?"
Dora considered.
"Even if I cared for you, those things would have weight," she answered
truthfully. "I am content out here now, and like it because it is novel
and I know it is temporary; but if I were asked to live here always, as
you suggest, in a log-house and hang out my own wash, I should have to
care a great deal."
"It's because I haven't a stake, then," he said bitterly.
"No, not because you haven't a stake. I merely say that extreme poverty
would be an objection."
"But if I should get the _dinero_--me, Smith--plenty of it? Tell me," he
demanded fiercely--"it's the time to talk now--is there any one else? It's
me for the devil straight if you throw me! You'd better take this gun
here, plant it on my heart, and pull the trigger. Because if I live--I'm
talkin' straight--what I have done will be just a kid's play to what I'll
do, if I ever cut loose for fair. Don't throw me, girl! Give me a show--if
there ain't any one else! If there is, I'm quittin' the flat to-day."
Dora was silent, panic-stricken with the responsibility which he seemed
to have thrust upon her, almost terrified by the thought that he was
leaving his future in her hands--a malleable object, to be shaped
according to her will for good or evil.
A certain self-contained, spectacled youth, whose weekly letters arrived
with regularity, rose before her mental vision, and as quickly vanished,
leaving in his stead a man of a different type, a man at once unyielding
and gentle, both shy and bold; a man who seemed to typify in himself the
faults and virtues of the raw but vigorous West. Though she hesitated, she
replied:
"No, there is no one."
And Ralston, fording the stream, lifted his eyes midway and saw Smith
raise Dora's hand to his lips.
XI
THE BEST HORSE
There was a subtle change in Ralston, which Dora was quick to feel. He was
deferential, as always, and as eager to please; but he no longer sought
her company, and she missed the quick exchange of sympathetic glances at
the table. It seemed to her, also, that the grimness in his face was
accentuated of late. She found herself crying one night, and called it
homesickness, yet the small items of news contained in the latest letter
from the spectacled youth had irritated her, and she had realized that she
no longer regarded church fairs, choir practice, and oyster suppers as
"events."
She wondered how she had offended Ralston, if at all; or was it that he
thought her bold, a brazen creature, because she had let him keep her hand
so long upon the memorable occasion of the grasshopper hunt? She blushed
in the darkness at the thought, and the tears slipped down her cheeks
again as she decided that this must be so, since there could be no other
explanation. Before she finally slept, she had fully made up her mind that
she would show him by added reserve and dignity of manner that she was not
the forward hoyden he undoubtedly believed her. And as a result of this
midnight decision, the Schoolmarm's "Good-morning, Mr. Ralston," chilled
that person like a draught from cold storage.
Susie noticed the absence of their former cordiality toward each other;
and the obvious lack of warmth filled Smith with keen satisfaction. He had
no notion of its cause; it was sufficient that it was so.
As their conversation daily became more forced, the estrangement more
marked, Ralston's wretchedness increased in proportion. He brooded
miserably over the scene he had witnessed; troubled, aside from his own
interest in Dora, that she should be misled by a man of Smith's moral
calibre. While he had delighted in her unworldly, childlike belief in
people and things, in this instance he deeply regretted it.
Ralston understood perfectly the part which Smith desired to play in her
eyes. He had heard through Dora the stories Smith had told her of wild
adventures in which he figured to advantage, of reckless deeds which he
hinted would be impossible since falling under her influence. He posed as
a brand snatched from the burning, and conveyed the impression that his
salvation was a duty which had fallen in her path for her to perform. That
she applied herself to the task of elevating Smith with such combined
patience and ardor, was the grievance of which Ralston had most to
complain.
In his darker moments he told himself that she must have a liking for the
man far stronger than he had believed, to have permitted the liberty which
he had witnessed, one which, coming from Smith, seemed little short of
sacrilege. His unhappiness was not lessened by the instances he recalled
where women had married beneath them through this mistaken sense of duty,
pity, or less commendable emotions.
Upon one thing he was determined, and that was never again to force his
attentions upon her, to take advantage of her helplessness as he had when
he had held her hand so tightly and, as he now believed, against her
wishes. Although she did not show it, she must have thought him a bumpkin,
an oaf, an underbred cur. He groaned as he ransacked his vocabulary for
fitting words.
If only something would arise to reveal Smith's character to her in its
true light! But this was too much to hope. In his depression, it seemed to
Ralston that the sun would never shine for him again, that failure was
written on him like an I. D. brand, that sorrow everlasting would eat and
sleep with him. In this mood, after a brief exchange of breakfast
civilities, far worse than none, he walked slowly to the corral to saddle,
cursing Smith for the braggart he knew he was and for the scoundrel he
believed him to be.
Smith, it seemed, was riding that morning also, for when Ralston led his
brown mare saddled and bridled from the stable, Smith was tightening the
cinch on his long-legged gray--the horse he had taken from the Englishman.
The Schoolmarm, in her riding clothes, ran down the trail, calling
impartially:
"Will one of you please get my horse for me? He broke loose last night and
is over there in the pasture."
For reply, both Ralston and Smith swung into their saddles.
"I aims to get that horse. There's no call for you to go, feller."
Above all else, it was odious to Ralston to be addressed by Smith
"feller."
"If you happen to get to him first," he answered curtly. "And I'd like to
suggest that my name is Ralston."
By way of answer, Smith dug the spurs cruelly into the thin-skinned
blooded gray. Ralston loosened the reins on his brown mare, and it was a
run from the jump.
Each realized that the inevitable clash had come, that no pretense of
friendliness would longer be possible between them, that from now on they
would be avowed enemies. As for Ralston, he was glad that the crisis had
arrived; glad of anything which would divert him for ever so short a time
from his own bitter thoughts; glad of the test which he could meet in the
open, like a man.
The corral gate was open, and this led into a lane something like
three-quarters of a mile in length, at the end of which was another gate,
opening into the pasture where the runaway pony had crawled through the
loose wire fence.
The brown mare had responded to Ralston's signal like the loyal, honest
little brute she was. The gravel flew behind them, and the rat-a-tat-tat
of the horses' hoofs on the hard road was like the roll of a drum. They
were running neck and neck, but Ralston had little fear of the result,
unless the gray had phenomenal speed.
Ralston knew that whoever reached the gate first must open it. If he could
get far enough in the lead, he could afford to do so; if not, he meant to
"pull" his horse and leave it to Smith. The real race would be from the
gate to the pony.
The gray horse could run--his build showed that, and his stride bore out
his appearance. Yet Ralston felt no uneasiness, for the mare had still
several links of speed to let out--"and then some," as he phrased it. The
pace was furious even to the gate; they ran neck and neck, like a team,
and the face of each rider was set in lines of determination. Ralston
quickly saw that in the short stretch he would be unable to get
sufficiently in the lead to open the gate in safety. So he pulled his
horse a little, wondering if Smith would do the same. But he did not.
Instead, he spurred viciously, and, to Ralston's amazement, he went at the
gate hard. Lifting the gray horse's head, he went over and on without a
break!
It was a chance, but Smith had taken it! He never had tried the horse, but
it was from the English ranch, where he knew they were bred and trained to
jump. His mocking laugh floated back to Ralston while he tore at the
fastenings of the gate and hurled it from him.
Ralston measured the gap between them and his heart sank. It looked
hopeless. The only thing in his favor was that it was a long run, and the
gray might not have the wind or the endurance. The little mare stood
still, her nose out, her soft eyes shining. As he lifted the reins, he
patted her neck and cried, breathing hard:
"Molly, old girl, if you win, it's oats and a rest all your life!"
He could have sworn the mare shared his humiliation.
The saddle-leathers creaked beneath him at the leap she gave. She lay down
to her work like a hound, running low, her neck outstretched, her tail
lying out on the breeze. Game, graceful, reaching out with her slim legs
and tiny hoofs, she ate up the distance between herself and the gray in a
way that made even Ralston gasp. And still she gained--and gained! Her
muscles seemed like steel springs, and the unfaltering courage in her
brave heart made Ralston choke with pride and tenderness and gratitude.
Even if she lost, the race she was making was something to remember
always. But she was gaining inch by inch. The sage-brush and cactus swam
under her feet. When Ralston thought she had done her best, given all
that was in her, she did a little more.
Smith knew, too, that she was gaining, though he would not turn his head
to look. When her nose was at his horse's rump, he had it in his heart to
turn and shoot her as she ran. She crept up and up, and both Smith and
Ralston knew that the straining, pounding gray had done its best. The work
was too rough for its feet. There was too much thoroughbred in it for
lava-rock and sage-brush hummocks. Blind rage consumed Smith as he felt
the increasing effort of each stride and knew that it was going "dead"
under him. He used his spurs with savage brutality, but the brown mare's
breath was coming hot on his leg. The gray horse stumbled; its breath came
and went in sobs. Now they were neck and neck again. Then it was over, the
little brown mare swept by, and Ralston's rope, cutting the air, dropped
about the neck of the insignificant, white "digger" that had caused it
all.
"I guess you're ridin' the best horse to-day," said Smith, as he dropped
from the saddle to retie his latigo.
He gave the words a peculiar emphasis and inflection which made the other
man look at him.
"Molly and I have a prejudice against taking dust," Ralston answered
quietly.
"It happens frequent that a feller has to get over his prejudices out in
this country."
"That depends a little upon the fellow;" and he turned Molly's head toward
the ranch, with the pony in tow.
Smith said nothing more, but rode off across the hills with all the evil
in his nature showing in his lowering countenance.
Dora's eyes were brilliant as they always were under excitement; and when
Ralston dismounted she stroked Molly's nose, saying in a voice which was
more natural than it had been for days when addressing him, "It was
splendid! _She_ is splendid!" and he glowed, feeling that perhaps he was
included a little in her praise.
"You want to watch out now," said Susie soberly. "Smith'll never rest till
he's 'hunks.'"
Ralston thought the Schoolmarm hesitated, as if she were waiting for him
to join them, or were going to ask him to do so; but she did not, and,
although it was some satisfaction to feel that he had drawn first blood,
he felt his despondency returning as soon as Dora and Susie had ridden
away.