THE NESTER--AND ANOTHER
"Now about the men, Miss Hunter," said Hepburn. When he reached this
subject he looked through the deep window far down the creek and had
Jane known him better she might have seen hesitancy with his
deliberation, as though he approached the subject reluctantly.
"How many will you need?" she asked.
"Not many yet. Four besides myself. There's seven here now. That is,
there'll be six, because one is pullin' out this mornin' of his own
accord. We'll need more when the round-up starts, but until then--about
June--we can get along. The fewer the better."
"That will be largely up to you. Of course, I will be consulted."
"I guess we'll keep Curtis and Oliver. Then there's Two-Bits--"
"Oh, keep Two-Bits by all means!" she laughed. "I'm in love with him
already!"
"All right, we'll keep Two-Bits. As for the other, there's a chance to
choose because--"
"Beck; how about him?"
Her manner was a bit too casual and she folded a sheet of memoranda
with minute care before her foreman, who eyed her sharply, replied:
"He's settled that for himself, I guess. He was packin' his war bag
when I come down here. I told him to come to the house for his time."
"You mean he's leaving?"
Hepburn nodded.
"Why?"
"Well, I guess his nose is out of joint at not bein' picked for
foreman."
"But he wouldn't even draw. Said he wouldn't take a chance!"
"I know. He appeared not to give a hang for the job, but he's a funny
man. He an' I never got along any too well. We don't hitch."
"Is he a good worker?"
"If he wants to be. He don't say much, but he always.... Why, he always
seems to be laughin' at everybody and everything."
"I think _I_ could persuade him to want to work for me."
"Perhaps. But then, too, he's hot tempered. In kind of bad with some of
the boys over trouble he's had."
"What trouble?"
"Why, principally because he beat up a man--Sam McKee--on the beef ride
last fall."
"What for?"
"Well.... He thought this man was a little rough with his horse."
"And he whipped him because he had abused a horse? That, it seems to
me, isn't much against him."
"No; maybe not. He beat him a sight worse than he beat his horse," he
explained, moving uneasily. "Anyhow, he's settled that. Here he comes
now, after his time."
Jane stepped nearer the window. Beck approached, whistling softly. He
wore leather chaps with a leather fringe and great, silver conchos. A
revolver swung at his hip. His movements were easy and graceful. She
opened the door and, seeing her, he removed his hat.
"I've come for my time, ma'am," he explained.
"Won't you come in? Maybe you're not going to go just yet."
He entered and she thought that as he glanced at Hepburn, who did not
look up, his eyes danced with a flicker of delight.
"I don't know as I can stay, ma'am. I told your foreman a little while
ago that I'd be going. Somebody's got to go, and it may as well be one
as another."
"Don't you think my wishes should be consulted?" she asked.
He twirled his hat, looking at her with a half smile.
"This is your outfit, ma'am. I should think your wishes ought to go,
but it won't do for you to start in with more trouble than's necessary."
"But if I want you and Mr. Hepburn wants you, where is the chance for
trouble? You _do_ want him, don't you, Mr. Hepburn?"
The older man looked up with a forced grin.
"Bless you, Miss Hunter, yes! Why, Tom, the only reason I thought we
might as well part was because I figured you'd be discontented here."
"Now! You see, your employer wants you and your foreman wants you. What
more can you ask?" the girl exclaimed, facing Beck.
"Nothin' much, of course, unless what I think about it might matter."
Her enthusiasm ebbed and she looked at him, clearly troubled.
"I am not urging you to stay because I need one more man. It is
essential to have men I can trust. I can trust you. I need you. I ...
I'm quite alone, you know, and I have decided to stay ... if I
_can_ stay."
She flushed ever so slightly at the indefinable change in his eyes.
"You told me last night some of the things I must do, which I can't do
wholly alone. I should like very much to have you stay,"--ending with a
girlish simplicity quite unlike her usual manner.
"Maybe my advice and help ain't what you'd call good," he said.
"I thought it over when you had gone," she said, "and I came to the
conclusion that it was good advice." Her eyes remained on his,
splendidly frank.
"Some of us are apt to be disconcerted when we listen to new things;
and, again, when we know that they come sincerely and our pride quits
hurting we're inclined, perhaps, to take a new point of view. I have,
on some things."
His face sobered in the rare way it had and he said:
"I'm mighty glad."
Hepburn had watched them closely, not understanding, and in his usually
amiable face was a cunning speculation.
"I wouldn't ask you to take a chance against your better judgment. If
you must move on, I'm sorry. But ... I need you."
With those three words she had ended: I need you. But in them was a
plea, frank, unabashed, and her eyes were filled with it and as he
stood looking down at his hat, evidently undecided, she lifted one hand
in appeal and spoke again in a tone that was low and sweet:
"Won't you, please?"
He nodded and said:
"I'll stay."
"I'm so glad!" she cried. "And you're glad, aren't you, Mr. Hepburn?"
The foreman had watched closely, trying to determine just what this all
meant, but not knowing what had gone before, he was mystified. At her
question he forced a show of heavy enthusiasm and said:
"Bet your life!" Then looking up to see the tall cowboy eyeing him with
that half humorous smile, he rose and said:
"Now we can start doing business. Tom, Miss Hunter wants a horse, says
she can ride and wants the best we've got, right off, to-day. There's
that bunch that's been ranging in Little Pinon all winter. Guess we'd
better bring 'em down this forenoon and let her pick one."
They departed. They had little to say to one another in the hours it
required to gather the horses and bring them down, but when they were
within sight of the corrals Hepburn began to speak as though what he
had to say was the result of careful deliberation.
"I don't want us to have any misunderstandin', Tom. This mornin' I
figured you wanted to move and I don't want any man in the outfit who'd
rather be somewhere else, so long as I'm runnin' it." He shifted his
weight in the saddle and glanced at Beck, who rode looking straight
ahead. "'Course, you and I ain't been pals. I've thought sometimes you
didn't just like me--"
"I s'pose she'll want a gentle horse," the other broke in.
"Prob'ly....
"You and I can be friends, I know. We can get along--"
"Look at this outfit!" Beck interrupted again, this time with better
reason.
Around the bend in the road appeared a queer cavalcade. It was headed
by a pair of ancient mules drawing a covered wagon, on the seat of
which sat a scrawny, discouraged man with drooping lids, mustache and
shoulders. To the wagon were tied three old mares and behind them
trailed a half dozen colts, ranging from one only a few weeks old to a
runty three-year-old.
These were followed by a score of cattle, mostly cows and yearling
calves, and the rear was brought up by a girl, riding a big brown horse.
She was young, and yet her face was strangely mature. She wore a hat,
the worse for wear, a red shirt, open at the throat, a riding skirt and
dusty boots. She was slouched easily in the saddle, as one who has
ridden much.
Tom spurred ahead to prevent their horses from entering a draw which
opened on the road just where they must pass and as he slowed to a walk
and looked back he saw Hepburn making a movement of one hand. That hand
was just dropping to the fork of his saddle but--and he knew that this
may have been purely a product of his imagination--he thought that it
had been lifted in a gesture of warning.
The foreman halted and the wagon stopped with a creak, as of relief.
"Just foller on down and swing to the left. Keep right on. You'll pass
the state boundry," Beck heard Hepburn say.
The wagon started again and Dad joined him.
"Goin' some place?" Tom asked.
"Utah. He was askin' the way."
Just then the girl came within easy talking distance.
"Goin' far?" Tom asked.
"Not so very fur," the other replied sullenly and swung a worn quirt
against her boot.
They rode on after their horses.
"Nesters," Beck commented grimly. "They're a bad lot to see comin' in."
"Thank God, they're headed for Utah," Dad replied.
"Yeah. Utah's a long ways, though. The girl didn't seem to think they
was going so very far."
The other made no answer and after a moment Beck said:
"Notice the brand on them cattle? THO? That ain't a good neighbor for
the HC to have.... Unless it's an honest neighbor."
"Well, they're goin' into Utah," Dad said doggedly.
"You know, Hepburn, one of the first things I'd do if I was foreman of
this outfit?" Beck asked.
"What's that?"
"Take up the water in Devil's Hole. That's the best early feed this
outfit has got, but without water it's worthless. Nesters are comin'
in, which would worry me, if I was foreman. The Colonel had somebody
file on it once, planning to buy when he'd patented the claim. This
party didn't make good, and the matter dropped."
The other did not reply for a moment, but looked hard at his horse's
ears, as if struggling to control himself.
"I've already took that up with her," he said sulkily, and stirred in
his saddle.
"If I wasn't foreman of an outfit, do you know what I'd do? I'd let the
foreman do the worryin'."
Beck scratched his chin with a concern which surely could not have been
genuine, for he said:
"Yeah. That's the best way. Only..."
"Well, you had your chance to be foreman; why didn't you take it?"
Beck pondered a moment.
"In the first place I wasn't crazy wild to stay with this outfit,
'cause when I lift my nose in the air and sniff real careful, I can
smell a lot of hell coming this way, and I'm a mighty meek and peaceful
citizen.
"In the second place, I don't care much about drawing the best job in
the country like I'd draw a prize cake at a church social."
Hepburn sniffed.
"You passed it up, though. Now, why don't you pass up worryin' about my
job?"
Beck did not reply at once, but turned on the other a taunting,
maddening smile.
"You're right. I passed it up, but there's something that won't let me
pass up the worry.
"You know what that is,"--nodding toward the distant ranch house. "You
know she's in a jack pot. You heard her tell me she needed good men,
men she could trust, and the good Lord knows that's so. You know I
stayed on because she asked me like she meant it and not because I
fancied the job.
"I've got a notion that makin' good out here means more to her than
making money; I like her style, and I like to help her sort if I can.
That's why I may do more 'n an ordinary hand's share of worryin'.
"You know, somebody's got to,"--significantly.
"What's meant by that, Beck?" Dad asked after a moment and the grit in
his tone told that the insinuation had not missed its mark.
"If it was so awful hard for you to guess, Hepburn, I don't think you'd
get on the peck so easy. I mean that since she's asked me to stay and
work for her, I'm on the job. Not only with both hands and feet and
what head I've got, but with my eyes and my ears and my heart.
"I don't want trouble, but if I've got to take trouble on, I'll do it
on the run; you can tie to that! I don't like you, Hepburn; I don't
trust you. Your way ain't my way--No, no, you listen to _me!_" as
the other attempted to interrupt. "A while back you was trying to talk
friendship to me when I'm about as popular with you as fever. I don't
do things in that style. I ain't got a thing on you, but if this was my
ranch I wouldn't want you for my foreman."
"You mean you think I'd double cross her an--"
"I don't recall bein' that specific. I just mentioned that I don't
trust you. There's no use in your getting so wrought up over it. I may
be wrong. If I am you'll win. I may be takin' a chance, which is
against my religion, but I'm here to work for this Hunter girl and her
only and it won't be healthy for anybody who is working against her to
bring himself to my notice.
"I guess we understand each other. Maybe you can get me fired. If so,
that's satisfactory to me. So long as I'm here and working for you,
I'll be the best hand you've got. If you're lookin' for good hands I'll
satisfy you. If you ain't ... we may not get along so well."
There was a seriousness in his eyes, but behind it was again the
flicker of mockery as though this might not be such a serious matter
after all.
"We'll see, Beck," Hepburn said with a slow nodding. "We understand
each other. You've covered a lot of territory. Your cards are on the
table. Bet!"
Tom stroked his horse's withers thoughtfully. He continued to smile,
but the smile was not pleasant.
When they entered the big gate an automobile was standing before the
bunkhouse and after turning the horses into a corral they dismounted
and walked towards it.
"Hello, Larry!" exclaimed Hepburn. "What brings you out?"
"Nothin' much, judgin' by his conversation," replied the man who had
driven the car.
"Visitor?"
"Dude. Regular dude from N'Yawk, b' Gosh!" He spat and grinned. "Come
in yesterday and was busier 'n hell all day buzzin' around town. First
thing this a. m. he wants to come here. Great attraction you've got, it
seems."
"The new boss?"
"Th' same, indeed! I seen her. Quite a peach, I'll go on record. But
... Th' boys tell me she's going to run this outfit with her own lily
white hands."
"So she says," replied Dad benevolently. "I think she'll do a good job,
too."
"Like so much hell, you do! An' I hear you're foreman, Dad. You
figurin' on marryin' the outfit or gettin' rich by honest endeavor?"
"Sho, Larry! You and your jokes!" the man grumbled good naturedly and
entered the building.
"Well, if any of you waddies are calculatin' marryin' this filly you've
got to build to her. This dude sure means business. He's found out more
about the HC in one day than I ever knew. Besides, what I knew an' he
didn't he got comin' out. Sure's a devil for obtainin' news.
"There he is now; see?"
He gestured toward the ranch house where Jane and the stranger stood on
the veranda, the girl pointing to the great sweep of country which
showed down creek. Then they turned and reentered the house.
"And so this is yours!" the man laughed. "Yours and your business!"
"My business, Dick! For the first time I feel as though I had a real
object in living."
He smiled cynically.
"Jane, Queen of the Range!" he mocked.
She did not smile with him, but said soberly:
"I expect it is funny to you. It must be funny to all the old crowd. I
can hear them, as soon as they know that I have decided to stay here,
the girls at tea, the men in their clubs, talking it over. Jane Hunter,
burying herself in the mountains and _doing_ something, becoming
earnest and serious minded, getting up with the sun and going to bed at
dark! It is strange!"
"It's too strange for life, Jane," he said, pulling up his trousers
gingerly and sitting on the davenport. He leaned back and smoothed his
sleek hair. "It isn't real. You're going to wake up before long and
find that out.
"It was absurd enough for you to come here, but this preposterous
notion that you are going to _stay_.... Why, that's beyond words!
What got into you, anyhow?"
He eyed her closely.
"I don't know, yet. It's a strange impulse but it's real, the first
real thing that's ever gotten into me, I guess. I know only that ...
except that it is a pleasant sensation.
"When I left New York I was desperate. I came here to take something
tangible that was mine and go back with it and now I've found out that
the thing I want is nothing that I can see or touch, that I can't take
it away with me. Not for a long time, anyhow. It isn't waiting
ready-made for me; I must create it from the materials that are in my
hands."
He continued to look at her a thoughtful moment.
"You've told me a lot about yourself and about this ranch and about
these men who are working for you. You've told me about this country
and, rather vaguely, about your plans. I suspect you don't know much
about them yet," he added parenthetically. "You've not asked a question
about New York, nor why I came."
She picked a yellowed leaf from a geranium plant and turned to face him.
"As for New York," she said with a lift of the eyebrows and a quick
tilt of her head, "I don't give a ... damn,"--softly. "As for your
coming, I didn't need ask. When a man has followed a girl wherever she
has gone, to sea, to other countries, for four years, there is nothing
surprising in the fact that he should trail her only two-thirds of the
way across this continent....
"But it's no use, Dick. I made up my mind that I would not marry you
before I came here. I tried to convince you of the honesty of my
purpose in my last letter, but perhaps I failed because I wasn't truly
honest with myself then. I thought I was through, but, in reality, I
was only planning a variation of the old way of doing things.
"Now I'm finished, absolutely, with the rot I've called life!"
She lifted her chin and shook her head in emphasis. The man laughed.
"You amuse as much as you thrill me," he said, looking at her hungrily.
"That's a splendid way to help a fellow: to laugh at the first effort I
make to justify my existence."
"I want to help you, Jane. I've always wanted to help you. I've put
myself and what I have at your disposal. I've not only done that, but
I've begged and pleaded and schemed to make you take them. You'd never
listen when I talked love to you.
"You've always seemed to be a peculiarly material-minded girl and I had
to play on that. But when I've talked ease and comfort and luxury to
you, you know that I've meant more than just those things. It's been
love, Jane ... love in every syllable."
He rose and walked to stand before her.
"That hurt," she said, with a sharp little laugh. "That ...
materialism. But I believe it was only too true. It had to be, you see.
It was the only thing I could see to live for. There was the one thing
I missed, the thing I had expected to find. It was the thing you talked
about: Love. I wanted love, tried to find love and at twenty-five gave
it up. That's a horrible thing, Dick. Giving that up at twenty-five!"
"But I have offered you love, continually, for four years."
"Dick ... oh, Dick! You don't know what that means. You showed that
when you selected your tactics: trying to give me things that I could
taste and touch and see.
"If it had been love, the real thing, that you felt, you'd have
overwhelmed me with it, you would not have allowed another
consideration to enter, you'd have swept me off my feet with making me
understand that it was love. You wouldn't have talked places and
motors, luxury and aimlessness."
Her voice shook. She was hurt, bordering on anger.
"You pass the buck," he retorted evenly. "You've told me, time after
time, that love didn't matter to you."
"Not the sort you offered. It never could."
"There's another kind, then?"
"Somewhere,"--with an emphatic nod.
"You think you can find the sort you're looking for here?"
"I don't know. I haven't thought of that yet, but I know there is
something else I can find."
"And that?"
"Myself!"--stoutly.
He threw back his head with a hearty laugh.
"You talk like a convert, Jane!"
"I am, Dick. Just that. I've seen the evil of my ways, I have seen the
light; I'm going to try to justify my existence, going to try to stand
for something, to be something, not just a girl with looks or with ...
money.
"I may miss love entirely, but I have realized, all of a sudden, that
as yet I'm not fit for the love I wanted. Why, I have nothing to give
to a man; I would take all and give nothing. A woman doesn't win a true
love by such a transaction. If I can stand alone, if I can fight my own
battles, if I can overcome obstacles that are as real as the love I
have wanted, then I will be justified in seeking that love....
"And there's another consideration: If this thing I have wanted never
does come I have the opportunity of gaining all that you say you could
give me by my own efforts: the comforts, the material things. I
wouldn't be trading myself for them, you see; I'll be winning them with
my hands and what intelligence I may possess."
"Are you sure of that, Jane? Are you sure that a girl who has never
done a tap of work in her life, who has not even talked business with
business men can come out here and beat this game? Oh, I know what I'm
talking about and you don't. I spent all yesterday in town looking up
this place because your letter was convincing in at least one thing. I
know your enthusiasm, when it's aroused. I know that you'd rush in
where a business prince wouldn't even chance a peek!
"When men talk about you in town they grin. The bartender grinned when
he told me about you. The banker grinned. The man who drove me out
thought it was a fine joke! These men know; they're not skeptical
because they know you or your past, but they know the job and that
you're a stranger. That's enough. You can't beat another man's game."
"I can try, can't I?"
"But what's the use?"--with a gesture of impatience and a set of the
mouth that was far from pleasant. "You're doomed to fail and even if
you should hit on the one chance in a thousand of pulling through, what
would you get? Less than I can give you in the time it takes to sign my
name. You won't let me talk love and you don't seem to have much hope
that you ever will find the love you think you want, so let's put love
aside once more. Come with me, Jane. I'll give you all you could ever
hope to get here and without the cost of the awful effort anything like
success would require.
"You've been bored, perhaps, and discouraged. You've taken this thing
as a ... a last straw. Won't you listen to reason?"
"The last straw," she repeated. "Yes, I guess that is it. Dick, do you
know how close I came to letting you do the thing you want to do?" She
put the question sharply. "I'll tell you: Within three hundred dollars!
That's how close.
"Oh, you don't know the game I've played. No one knows it. You all have
just seen the exterior, the show. You've never been behind the scenes
with me.
"I never knew my mother. I never knew my father well. I don't know that
he cared much for me after she went; perhaps, though, he was only
afraid to bring up a girl alone. First, it was boarding school, then
finishing school, then a woman companion of the smart sort. Then he
died, and we discovered that his fortune was not what it had been, that
it was a miserable thing for a girl to depend on who had been trained
as I had been trained.
"You met me soon after I was alone. I fell in with your crowd and they
picked me up. I didn't like them particularly and certainly I didn't
like their life, but it was the only one open for me. We lived hard,
heartless lives, made up of week-ends and dances and cocktails and
greed!
"Materialism is the right charge! I was steeped in it; all those girls
were. It was the only thing any of us lived for. Girls sold themselves
for material advantage; they loathed it, most of them, but they lied to
themselves and tried to make the rest of us believe it was happiness.
They knew, and we knew what it was and we knew, too, that they were
helpless to do otherwise.
"Then you came and made love to me on the same crass basis. I liked
you, Dick. I didn't love you. I cared no more for you than I did for
three or four men so I kept putting you off, never actually
discouraging you to a point where you would give up. I was simply
closing my eyes to the inevitable.
"Now and then we met women, to us strange creatures, who did things. I
never can make anyone understand how inferior I felt beside them. Why,
I remember one little decorator who, because she was young and cheap,
came to do my apartment over. I had her stay for dinner and she was
quite overwhelmed with many things.
"When she went away I cried from sheer envy ... and she was going down
somewhere into Greenwich Village to sleep in a stuffy little studio.
But she was _doing_ something. I used to feel guilty before my
dressmaker and even my maid. I didn't understand why that was, then; it
was not a sensation produced by reason; by intuition, rather.
"And then I had to look at things as they were. I paid up everything
and totaled my bank balance. Every source of income I had ever had was
gone and I had left ... three hundred and two dollars. That was on a
Friday, the Friday of our last week-end party at the Hollisters' in
Westchester.
"You talked to me again that night after we had been playing billiards.
Dick, I had made up my mind to take you up. The words were on my lips;
I was within a breath of telling you that it was a bargain, that I'd
sell myself to you for the things you could buy me....
"I don't know why I didn't. Maybe it was this part of me I had never
known until I came here, this part which enthuses so over what lies
before me now, the part that used to envy the girls who did things. We
went back to town and there was a letter for me from this little
frontier law office, telling me I had inherited this ranch. I didn't
sleep a minute. I was sole owner of a big business....
"I never can make you understand the relief I experienced! It meant
money and money meant that I could go on in the old way, putting off
the inevitable, blinding myself to what I actually was.
"That was my motive in coming here: to turn this property into money.
And no sooner had I made the acquaintance of these people than I began
to learn that my point of view had been radically different from
theirs. I had thought that money would give me the thing I wanted,
independence and prestige; but I found that with them, with the best of
them, anyhow, that sort of standing was not considered.
"The thing that counts out here is being yourself, Dick, in making a
place by your determination, your wits, by impressing people with the
best that is in you. Material things don't count in the mountains; that
is, they don't count primarily. They are nice things to possess but the
possession of them alone does not bring respect ... the respect of
others or self respect. That, I think, is what I want: respect. That is
what I am going to win. The only way I can win it is to establish a
place for myself by my own efforts. These men doubt that I can do it.
You are right, I believe, when you picture the whole country expecting
me to fail. Well, that's an incentive, isn't it, to do my best? That is
what I am here to do!
"There, there's Book One." Then looking out into the country....
"There's the rest of the story."
The man did not reply for an instant but stood frowning at the floor.
"And when you fail? What then?"
She laughed almost merrily.
"Don't say _when_ so positively! But if I should fail, Dick, I
might have to take you up! It might break my faith in myself because
it's a young, immature faith, but it will give me a chance, a few
months of seeing whether I'm of any account. It gives me a hope."
As she spoke of her alternative a glimmer as of hope passed across the
man's thin, finely moulded face but he did not let her see. He shook
his head and said:
"After this the first thing I need is a drink."
"On the sideboard," she answered, "is my stock."
He walked down the room and examined the bottles, then poured out two
drinks and returned with them.
"Anyhow, we'll drink to your future, whatever and wherever it may be,"
he said, cynical again.
"That's kind of you, but I'm afraid you'll have to drink alone."
She put the glass he had handed her on the table.
"It's the first time I've ever seen you refuse a drink."
"A record broken! That, like the rest of the old life, all belongs in
Book One."
"You ... you never thought you used enough to hurt?"
"No. I'm sure I never used enough to hurt my body. I never thought I
used enough to hurt anything about me ... until last night."
"What made you change your mind?"
She was half impelled to pass the question off, then said resolutely:
"A man came here to talk to me, one of my cowpunchers. I made a
cocktail. He threw it away."
"Well, that was a devil of a thing to do. Did you fire him, as he
deserved?"
"No,"--deliberately, tracing a line on a rug with her toe and watching
it critically--"I took his advice. You see, the men out here expect
things from women that no one has ever expected from me before."
He sneered: "Turned Puritan, Jane? A sweet thing to face, trying to be
other than yourself, confining yourself to the morals of the crowd."
"Not just that, Dick. There's a sweetness about it, yes. As for morals:
we didn't discuss them at all....
"This man said that he supposed some people thought it was smart to
drink. That hit me rather on the head. We were, the smartest people in
New York, weren't we?"
"Rot!"
"Perhaps. It interested me, though, when I'd gotten over the first
shock. He said another thing that interested me; he said that I was the
first _good_ white woman he'd ever seen smoke."
He laughed harshly.
"At least he did you the honor to think you good."
"Yes,"--still deliberately,--"and it was a novel sensation. It was the
first time any man had ever appealed to the commonplace thing in me
that we call womanhood. He wasn't preaching. It was a practical matter
with him....
"I don't think you'd understand this man, Dick. He takes little things
quite seriously and yet he appears to be laughing at the whole scheme
all the time."
He put his glass down slowly.
"Do you mean that one of these roughnecks has been making love to you?"
"Oh, by no means. I don't think he even likes me and I want him to!
Why, this morning he was going away, was not even going to work for me,
and I had to beg him to stay.
"Dick, you don't understand! This man is so different from you, from
me, from all of us. Rough, yes, but I don't think he'd try to buy a
woman. And if he should I'm sure he'd be most frank about it; he
wouldn't hide behind words."
She looked hard at him and though she smiled her words stung him, but
before he could break in she went on:
"When I sat here having him talk to me last night I had that dreadful
inferior feeling again, felt as though I weren't up to the standard of
good women that these roughnecks hold. I can't explain it to you
because you wouldn't let yourself understand. I was furious for a time,
but he was right, according to his way of thinking.
"That way is going to be my way,"--with growing firmness. "I'm playing
a new game and I must play it according to the rules. I did more than
make up my mind to leave the drinks and cigarettes alone. I resolved
that I'd try to be worthy in every way of the respect I want these men
to have for me!"
"Because this Westerner doesn't approve of the way you have lived?"
"Yes. He knows the rules of the new game."
"Jane, I'm going to stop this foolishness!" He advanced to her and
caught her hands in his. "I love you, I love you! I'm not going to see
you losing your head this way!"
She struggled to withdraw her hands.
"No, I'm going to hold you, going to keep you. I'm--" He drew her to
him roughly, but she slipped from the clasp of his arm and backed
across the room, her hands still imprisoned in his.
"Dick!"
It was not her cry which caused him to halt. It was a step outside the
door and, standing there, her hands in his, he met the level, amused
gaze of Tom Beck.
Jane turned from him and he let her go without attempt to restrain her
further.
"Ma'am, the horses are here. Your foreman said to tell you."
His face lost a measure of its lightness as he stood hat in hand,
looking from the man whose face was lined with passion to the girl,
flushed and a bit breathless.
"Very well.... And thank you. I'll be out soon."
He stood a moment irresolute, as though he thought his presence might
be needed there. Then turned and walked away.
"Your help seems rather unceremonious," Hilton remarked.
"Thanks for that! What if he had seen more? Dick, are you beside
yourself? You call this love?"
"It proves that it's love," he replied tensely. "You set me wild with
your vagaries, Jane! You--" He checked himself and, with an obvious
effort, smiled. Then went on with voice and manner under control: "You
see, I am much in love with you and losing you for only a little while
puts me a bit off my head.
"I have wanted you for four years and I'm jealous of the months, even
the weeks. I'm sure, but that doesn't help much."
"Sure? Of what?"
"Of you."
"And why?"
"Because I know you. You confessed your weaknesses just a moment ago.
You know as well as I that you're without foundation, without
background in this experience. Why, Jane, if you'd been capable of
fighting your own battles, you'd have forced the issue long before it
was necessary, but you are not. You need help, you need the faith of
other people.
"Why, women like you weren't made to stand alone!"
"Flattering!"
"Yes, it is. You were made to be loved, to be protected, to have the
men take the knocks for you, you and all your kind. You were born to
lean and to make the lives of men worth while by leaning on them, never
to attempt to go your own way. You have always done just this and you
have admitted it, here, this afternoon.
"Your wild wants, your absurd desires.... Everyone has them. That is a
rule of life: wanting to do the thing you are not fitted to do. You can
no more be a business woman than I can fly; you can no more cut
yourself away from your old environment and slip into this than one of
your cowpunchers could fit into my life.
"Don't you see that you're risking disaster? In your old life you had a
belief in yourself; in this you think you have, but you have not, your
eyes will be opened and when you see that you have failed ... then you
will be a failure, and nothing is so hopeless as that realization.
"You are weak, and I thank God for that weakness. You know that it is
either this, or me. You are trying this, trying to refuse me, but you
will come back to me just as surely as we stand together in this room.
You may come back without a shred of faith in yourself, but I have
faith in you, in the old Jane, the one I know and love, and I can bring
that back. The future won't be bad; it will be wholly good."
His words were very gentle, his manner most kindly, but beneath it was
a scarcely detectable hardness, a deliberate, cold determination, and
perhaps it was this which struck a fear into the girl's heart.
Weak? Surely, she was weak! Always had been weak, never had proved
strength by act or decision until now. And she did not know ... she did
not know....
"You are sure that I will come back?" she managed to say naturally
enough. "What if I should fail? Might I not try somewhere else?"
"You might, if you were another sort. But you won't. And you will fail,
in spite of all you can do, Jane."
She sensed clearly the harsh strength beneath his smooth manner; his
pronouncement had not been as an opinion; as a verdict, rather, and
ominous in its assurance.
He picked up his hat and gloves.
"I know; I know. It is of no use to argue with you. You must learn this
lesson by experience. It is going to be bitter, but I will do all I can
to make what waits beyond take away that taste, Jane.
"I am not going away. I'm going to stay in this little town. After four
years of waiting and following I can well do that. Your world is there,
Jane, yours for the asking. There are the things you wanted; there is
the love you want if you only will see it."
He left her then and when he had gone she felt a quick panic come. It
all seemed so absurd, her struggling in the things which held her back;
and his manner left her with a sense that he thought more than he had
spoken, that his assurance was founded well, that he would not be the
tacit waiter he had suggested. She knew his passion for her, she knew
his will and it came to her then that beneath his sleekness he was
ruthless.
She stared down Coyote creek, not following him with her eyes.
"The things I have wanted.... Yes," she thought. "But love: is that
anywhere?"
The sound of the car departing roused her and she watched it go. Then a
commotion in the corral attracted her. She saw horses milling, saw Tom
Beck standing ready, rope in his hand; then, with a dexterous flip of
the loop, a slight, overhand motion, he snared a pinto and braced his
feet against the antics of the animal and held firmly until it had
quieted.
She watched him go down the rope slowly, hand over hand, with caution
and assurance until he rested his fingers on the nose of the frightened
animal. A forefoot shot out in a lightning stroke at him but he did not
flinch. She saw that he was talking to the horse, gently, quietly, with
the born confidence of the master.
"Anywhere?" she asked herself again, this time aloud, still watching
Beck. "Why,"--eyes lighting in surprise that was almost
astonishment--"it might be ... _might_ be!"