THE ULTIMATE CAUSE
It is easy to find a probable cause for any given act, but when one
seeks the Ultimate Cause--the reason behind it all--that calls for
deep thinking, and finesse. Human conduct is not so variable in many
of its phases as to call for extended scrutiny, but the problem before
Meshackatee was both so baffling and so disquieting that it left his
brains in a whirl. That a girl as modest as Allifair Randolph, a woman
who for months had received the attentions of scores of cowboys without
one answering smile, should suddenly and for no reason throw aside
all decorum and rush into the arms of a stranger--that was beyond the
bounds of reason. It was so unreasonable it was foolish, and the great
Cause must be sought for somewhere else. Then, surely, they had met
before. Yes, met and learned to love and this was the reunion of two
souls that had drifted far apart Allifair was that "certain party" for
whom Hall had been seeking, and he had found her in the kitchen of the
Scarboroughs.
Yet this comforting conclusion, plain and obvious as it was, merely
opened up new fields of thought. Who was Allifair Randolph and who
was this man Hall, and why did they make concealment of their love;
and what would he do now, since he had discovered his beloved in the
house of the man he despised? Would he cast aside his scruples against
feuds and cattle wars and join the gang to be near her, or would he
go his way and devise other means of winning the woman of his heart?
Meshackatee thought it over and then his scheming mind began to turn
the facts to his own purpose; and when the morning came he beckoned to
his prisoner and led him across the creek to the mound. Here, beneath
a gnarled oak which had grown up near the summit, drawing its strength
from the dust of ancient dead, Meshackatee took out his field glasses
and gazed long to the east before he broached the matter on his mind.
To the east lay Turkey Creek and the log fort of the Bassetts--and
Grimes and his Mexicans as well--and it was to them fully as much as to
the winning over of this stranger that his thoughts were turned that
day. He had a dual mind, one part taking cognizance of the facts and
the other busily using them to work his will; and when he spoke it was
all to fit his program, though disguised in the mock-solemnity of a
jest.
"Mr. Hall," he began, "I make it a principle never to interfere in the
private affairs of any gentleman; but I saw something last night which
pained me very much and I jest want to ask a few questions. Now in the
first place, Mr. Hall, I want you to understand that Miss Allifair
holds a high place in my regard; and I jest want to ask--as a friend,
you understand--if your intentions are perfectly honorable?"
"My intentions!" faltered Hall, and then he went white and turned his
face away. "Don't tell anybody!" he pleaded, clutching Meshackatee by
the leg, "it would ruin our happiness forever. Oh, I was mad--insane--I
should never have done it! But Meshackatee--she had thought I was dead!"
"Oh, dead, eh?" rumbled Meshackatee, squinting his calculating eyes
and regarding him from beneath his long hair, "well, that makes a
difference, of course. She'd heard about that shooting, and the
bullet-hole under your heart and----"
"That's it--they told her I was dead!"
"'They'?"
"Yes. Her folks, and Mrs. Scarborough. She was a Randolph, you know,
before her marriage; and she told Allifair I was dead."
"I--see!" observed Meshackatee, nodding his head and spitting wisely,
"and was you young folks engaged to git married?"
"That was it--that's what caused it. We were engaged to be married, but
we belonged to opposing clans. She was a Randolph, you see, and I'm a
McIvor----"
"Ah!" exclaimed Meshackatee, "I'm beginning to savvy. The
Randolph-McIvor feud--back in Kaintuck!"
"Yes, that's it," went on McIvor feverishly, "but let me explain it to
you. Our families have been at war for over twenty years, and each
year the feud becomes worse. It's cost the Randolph faction over four
hundred dead and the McIvors over three hundred that we know of. Men
are found dead in the woods, just as I was left for dead, and others
are never found. All our relatives are engaged in it, and hundreds of
outsiders who hardly know what they're fighting for. All they think of
is free whiskey and midnight raids and a chance to get revenge on some
enemy; and so it goes until the mountains are a battle-ground and men
have turned to brutes. And there's no power that can stop it, neither
the courts nor the militia, because we live far back in the hills; but
if I could marry Allifair, then the blood-feud would be ended and the
Randolphs and McIvors would be friends."
"I understand," murmured Meshackatee, and sat smiling benevolently as
the young man gazed off into space.
"We met by accident," he went on at last, "while I was scouting in
their country. But she spared my life, she did not report me, and the
next time we met we were friends. She's such a gentle creature--and I
had turned rough, from living out and fighting for years--but somehow
she learned to love me and the dream came to both of us to marry and
end the feud. I was building a cabin, far up in the hills where no one
would ever find us, when a dirty little spy discovered our meeting
place and the Randolphs became aware of our plans. They watched
us--and the next time I went to our tree there was no one there, she
was gone. They reported her dead--shot down by the McIvors, for our
womenfolks make war among themselves--but I asked all our women and
none of them had done it, though many of them would gladly have done so.
"Can you imagine such conditions--gentle women, well-educated, going
out like wild animals to strike down a woman like Allifair? I must have
gone mad, for I went back to our meeting place, and there this dirty
spy shot me. He shot me clean through the heart, or so it appeared,
but the bullet went low and after they had left me I came to life and
crept to a cave. There I lived on pure water for eleven days and as my
body became purified I had visions and dreams, such as no man ever had
before. And when I was well I crept up by night and listened at a camp
of the Randolphs. That was where I heard that Allifair still lived and
had been sent out to her aunt in Arizona.
"But what her aunt's name was, or where her husband lived, was
something I never could learn; so I left and came out here, determined
to find her if it took the rest of my life."
"Well, you've found her," observed Meshackatee, apparently unruffled by
the harrowing tale of his friend, "so what's the next thing now?"
"They'll kill her!" he groaned, "they'll actually kill her before
they'll consent to her marrying a McIvor. So if you want to kill me
too and ruin both our lives, just tell who I am to the Scarboroughs."
"Oh, no! Oh, no!" replied Meshackatee reassuringly, "that won't be
necessary at all. Of course I'm working for Isham, and when I take a
man's money, I aim to give him my best; but it won't be necessary--that
is, always provided you're willing to help _me_ out?"
"I'll do anything!" promised McIvor, "if you'll just keep our secret
and help me to meet her again. Oh, since I have seen her and learned
she still loves me I feel I could do anything--anything!"
"Hm, a meeting ain't so easy," said Meshackatee after a silence. "Miz
Zoolah sure keeps a close watch. But you leave it to me, boy, and
meanwhile stay away from her--I ain't the only man that has eyes. Them
Texas toughs are jealous--they see you go in there yesterday--so keep
plumb out of that kitchen. And the look in that gal's eyes when she see
you at the well gave the whole business away, to _me_. You're kind of
daffy now, don't notice where you're going or answer when other people
speak to you, so the best thing for you is to go away a few days and
let this excitement die down. Now I've got a little job, if you think
you can do it----"
"Oh, I can't leave her, now!" protested McIvor broken-heartedly, but
Meshackatee tapped him sharply on the knee.
"You're going to leave, see? Right now and no danged fooling. You're
going over to hunt up them sheep."
"The sheep?" repeated McIvor, and Meshackatee smiled grimly as he took
him gently by the arm.
"Take my advice," he warned, "and git away from Zoolah--she came
almighty close to recognizing you. Now about this sheepman, Grimes, he
knows these boys by sight and they can't any of 'em git near him; but
that saddle of yours will tell any one you're no Texan and I believe
you can ride plumb up to him. You're a stranger, see, and you can cuss
out the Scarboroughs and tell him all the things they done to you; and
after you've got next to him and found out all his plans--_you come
back here and tell me_. Do that, and you'll git to see Allifair."
"Well, it's treacherous," observed McIvor at last, "but I've been that,
and worse, before now. And if this man is coming in to stir up a war
perhaps I can turn him back."
"This is what will turn him back," returned Meshackatee, patting his
pistol, "and, believe me, nothing else. That _hombre_ is a fighter, he
comes on a-charging, and nothing but a bullet will stop him. But leave
that to me and this bunch of inbred Texans--and by the way, that's
Isham coming."
He pointed to the canyon down which they had come and two horsemen,
riding fast, flashed around a point and came galloping across the
plain.
"You'd better wait," suggested Meshackatee, "you're supposed to be a
prisoner, and maybe he'll have other plans."
"I'm not working for _him_!" declared McIvor, obstinately, "I'm doing
this work for you."
"Fair enough," agreed Meshackatee, "but I'm working for him. So try to
stand in on the play. Come on, we'll go down to the house."
They arrived just as Elmo, the youngest of the Scarboroughs, stepped
out from where he had been sulking. He was short and sandy, with a
slouchy wool hat and two guns hung low on his hips. Each was tied at
the bottom with a buckskin string which held the muzzles close to his
legs, so that the carved ivory handles stuck out at such an angle that
they practically touched his hands. Both holsters were cut away until
they barely held their pistols, and the whole was arranged so that
he could draw and shoot in the shortest possible time. But the boy
himself--for he was hardly a man--had on his face such a look of both
weakness and reckless deviltry that McIvor looked him over again. He
was sullen now, after his defeat by the sheepmen and the tongue-lashing
that Zoolah had given him, but he stepped out to meet his brothers with
such a purposeful swagger that Mrs. Scarborough allowed him to pass.
"Well, they've come, boys," he announced, "Dave Grimes and twenty
Mexicans, and nigh onto ten thousand sheep. They got in behind
us--come across the Reservation--and now they're headed for the Basin!"
"Let 'em come!" challenged Isham, dropping down off his horse, "that
suits me to a hickey--let 'em come! But the first damned Mexican that
puts a sheep across Turkey Crick is going to git killed, that's all!
That's my dead-line--Turkey Crick--and the minute they step across it
the fireworks is going to begin!"
"We thought we'd better wait," explained Elmo hastily, "until you and
Red got home----"
"That's right, kid," praised Isham, "you've got the right idee--leave
it to me, and they won't nobody git hurt. But if you go riding in on
'em when they're down on their knees and shooting----"
Elmo glanced at Miz Zoolah and spit a thin jet of tobacco-juice, while
the Texas gunmen smirked. But Zoolah was not the woman to let this pass
unchallenged and she stepped out and confronted her husband.
"Do you happen to know," she demanded contentiously, "that Elmo and
these cowboys ran away? Well, they did--ran away from those Mexicans
like cowards--and now look at the way they act!"
The cowboys winced but Isham was excited and he paid scant attention to
his helpmeet.
"Now come on, boys," he ordered, "ketch up your horses and git ready
and we'll go out and meet the danged Mexicans. But no shooting, savvy,
until I give the word; unless they shoot at us first."
He paced up and down while they ran to saddle their horses and Miz
Zoolah assailed his ears with complaints; but he only glanced at her
absently, slapping his boot with his quirt and staring off towards the
Bassetts.
"Where are them Sorry Blacks at?" he demanded of Meshackatee. "Have you
seen 'em around this morning? The dirty, half-Injun bastards, they may
be laying in wait for us--better send somebody over to the store."
"I'll go!" volunteered Elmo, making a run to mount his horse, but Isham
motioned him back.
"You look out, kid," he warned, "them Injuns are treacherous. They're
liable to shoot you from the bresh."
He turned to Meshackatee and as they consulted together Hall felt
Isham's eyes fixed upon him. Beneath their bleached, white lashes they
regarded him coldly, as if appraising his worth as a spy; and at last,
as Meshackatee drove his point home and nailed it, the chief of the
Scarboroughs beckoned. But McIvor stood firm, his mouth grimly set, his
eyes far away on the hills, and Meshackatee understood.
"I'll tell him," he said, and half an hour later McIvor rode forth over
towards the store.