THE NIGHT WIND'S MYSTERY
After the departure of Lawler on the night of Gary Warden's visit to the
Hamlin cabin, silence, vast and deep reigned inside. The last golden
shadows from the sinking sun were turning somber shades of twilight as
Ruth came to the door and peered outward, to see Lawler riding away.
For a long time the girl watched Lawler, her face burning with shame
over what had happened, her senses revolting from the realization of the
things Lawler knew concerning her father. Then she seated herself on the
threshold of the doorway, watching the long shadows steal over the
plains.
She loved Lawler; she never had attempted to deny it, not even to
herself. And she had found it hard to restrain herself when he had stood
outside the door of her room gravely pleading with her. Only pride had
kept her from yielding--the humiliating conviction that she was not good
enough for him--or rather that her father's crimes had made it
impossible for her to accept him upon a basis of equality.
She felt that Lawler would take her upon any terms--indeed, his manner
while in the cabin shortly before convinced her of that; but she did not
want to go to him under those conditions. She would have felt, always,
as though pity for her had influenced him. She felt that she would
always be searching his eyes, looking for signs which would indicate
that he was thinking of her father. And he was certain to think of
him--those thoughts would come in spite of his efforts to forget; they
would be back of every glance he threw at her; they would be lurking
always near, to humiliate her. The conviction sent a shudder over her.
The girl's mental processes were not involved; they went directly,
unwaveringly, to the truth--the truth as her heart revealed it, as she
knew it must be. If there was any subconscious emotion in her heart or
mind from which might spring chaotic impulses that would cloud her
mental vision, she was not aware of it. Her thoughts ran straight and
true to the one outstanding, vivid, and overwhelming fact that she could
not marry Kane Lawler because to marry him would mean added humiliation.
Greatness, Ruth knew, was hedged about by simplicity. Lawler was as
direct in his attitude toward life--and to herself--as she. There was
about him no wavering, no indecision, no mulling over in his mind the
tangled threads of thought that would bring confusion. The steel fiber
of his being was unelastic. He met the big questions of life with an
eagerness to solve them instantly.
He wanted her--she knew. But she assured herself that she could not
bring upon him the shame and ignominy of a relationship with a cattle
thief, no matter how intensely he wanted her. That would be doing him an
injustice, and she would never agree to it.
But it hurt, this knowledge that she could not marry Lawler; that she
must put away from her the happiness that might be hers for the taking;
that she must crush the eager impulses that surged through her; that she
must repulse the one man who could make her heart beat faster; the man
for whom she longed with an intensity that sometimes appalled her.
She got up after a while and lighted an oil-lamp, placing it upon the
table in the big room. She closed the door and then dropped listlessly
into a chair beside the table, her eyes glistening, her lips quivering.
The future was somber in aspect, almost hopeless, it seemed. And yet
into her mind as she sat there crept a determination--a resolution to
tell her father what she knew; to tell him that she could no longer
endure the disgrace of his crimes.
That meant of course that she would have to leave him, for she knew he
was weak, and that he had been drawn into crime and had not the moral
strength to redeem himself.
When about midnight she heard the beating of hoofs near the cabin she
sat very quiet, rigid, still determined, her eyes flashing with
resolution.
She was standing near the door of her room when her father entered, and
as he stood for an instant blinking at the light, trying to accustom his
eyes to it after riding for some time through the darkness; she watched
him, noting--as she had noted many times before--the weakness of his
mouth and the furtive gleam of his eyes.
He had not always been like that. Before the death of her mother she had
always admired him, aware of the sturdiness of his character, of his
rugged manliness, and of his devotion to her mother.
Adversity had changed him, had weakened him. And now, watching him,
noting the glow in his eyes when he saw her--the pathetic worship in
them--her heart protested the decision that her cold judgment had made,
and she ran to him with a little, quavering, pitying cry and buried her
face on his shoulder, shuddering, murmuring sobbingly:
"O Daddy; O Daddy, what have you done!"
He stood rigid, his eyes wide with astonishment, looking down at her as
she clung to him as though wondering over a sudden miracle. For he knew
she was not an emotional girl, and this evidence of emotion almost
stunned him.
"Why, Honey!" He patted her hair and her cheeks and hugged her tightly
to him. And presently he gently disengaged himself and held her at arm's
length, peering into her face.
And then, when her clear eyes met his--her gaze direct and searching
even though her cheeks had paled, his eyes drooped, and his arms fell to
his sides.
"I've done enough, Ruth," he said, soberly.
"Why, Daddy--why did you do it? Oh, you have made it so hard for me!"
"There, there, Honey," he consoled, reaching out and patting her
shoulders again. "I've been a heap ornery, but it ain't goin' to happen
again." His eyes shone through a mist that had come into them.
"I've been talkin' with Kane Lawler, an' he opened my eyes. I've been
blind, Ruth--blind to what it all meant to you. An' from now on I'm
goin' straight--straight as a die!"
"Ruth," he went on, when he saw incredulity in her gaze; "I wasn't to
tell you. I reckon Lawler would half kill me if he know'd I was tellin'
you. But there ain't no use, I've got----"
"Did you give your word to Lawler, Daddy?"
"I sure did. But I've got to tell you, Ruth. Mebbe you knowin' will sort
of help me to go through with it.
"Kane Lawler was here this mornin'--he come here to see me about a
Circle L cow that I was runnin' my brand on the night before. He talked
mighty plain to me--an' earnest. He offered me a job over to the Circle
L, an' I took it. I rode over there this afternoon an' Lawler's straw
boss put me to work. Then tonight Lawler rode in an' took me out by the
corral. He gave it to me straight there. He's goin' to restock my place
an' give me a chance to get on my feet. He's goin' to put his shoulder
behind me, he says, an' make me run a straight trail--takin' a mortgage
on the place to secure him. He give me a letter to his mother, sayin' I
was to have what stock I wanted. An' I'm to repay him when I get around
to it. Honey, I've got a chance, an' I'm never goin' to slip again!"
Ruth walked to the door and threw it open, standing on the threshold and
gazing out into the dull moonlight, across the vast sweep of plain from
which came the low moaning of the night wind, laden with mystery.
For a long time, as she stood there, pride fought a savage battle with
duty. Her face was pallid, her lips tight-clenched, and shame
unutterable gripped her. To be sure, Lawler had enjoined her father to
silence, and it was evident that she was not to know. Still, she did
know; and Lawler had added an obligation, a debt, to the already high
barrier that was between them. Yet she dared not evade the obligation,
for that would be robbing her father of a chance over which he seemed to
exult, a chance which promised the reformation, for which she had
prayed.
Her heart was like lead within her--a dull weight that threatened to
drag her down. And yet she felt a pulse of thankfulness. For if her
father really meant to try--if he should succeed in redeeming himself in
Lawler's eyes and in her own, she might one day be able to go to Lawler
with no shame in her eyes, with the comforting assurance that her father
had earned the right to hold his head up among men. To be sure, there
always would be the shadow of the past mistake lurking behind; but it
would be the shadow of a mistake corrected, of a black gulf bridged.
Her father was waiting when she finally turned to him--waiting, his chin
on his chest, his face crimson with shame.
"Ruth, girl--you ain't goin' to judge me too harsh, are you?" he begged.
Once more she yielded to the pathetic appeal in his eyes. She ran to him
again, holding him tightly to her. A cool gust swept in through the open
doorway--the night wind, laden with mystery. But the girl laughed and
snuggled closer to the man; and the man laughed hoarsely, vibrantly, in
a voice that threatened to break.