THE COURTING
Jane Hunter was in work up to her trim elbows. She had little time for
anything else. Twice again Dick Hilton came to see her, riding a horse
in the second visit, but his stays were not lengthy ... and not
satisfactory, because the girl had little thought for anything but
ranch affairs.
For long hours she sat at the desk which she had placed in a bay window
that commanded a superb view of far ridges and pored over records she
had found. She discovered a detailed diary of events for the past ten
years, a voluminous chronicle kept more for the sake of giving
self-expression to the old colonel than for an efficient record, but it
served her well as a key to the fortunes of the property.
From time to time she sent for one of her men and quizzed him rigidly
on some phase of the work with which he was particularly familiar,
never satisfied until she had learned all that he could teach her.
Every evening Hepburn sat with her and discussed ranch affairs at
length, Jane forcing him into argument to defend his statements.
While with the girl Dad maintained his paternal, patronizing attitude,
yet he was not content, as was evident from the moroseness which he
displayed before the men. He had been stripped of initiative until his
authority was reduced to executing orders; this, despite the fact that
Jane depended on him for most of her information.
Beck watched the foreman's attitude carefully. Hepburn was chagrined,
yet dogged, as though staying on and accepting the situation for
definite purpose. It had been decided after Jane had argued away
Hepburn's objections that Beck was to have a free hand with the horses,
gathering the saddle stock and getting it in shape for the summer's
work, breaking young horses, watching the mares and colts. This made it
unnecessary for Beck to look to the older man for detailed orders and
delayed the clashes which were bound to come between them.
Jane's approach to her responsibilities was considered admirable by the
men, but it occasioned little comment. Their judgment of her was still
suspended; that is, with the exception of Two-Bits. Her first look had
won him without reservation.
"She's smart!" he declared at frequent intervals. "She's the smartest
girl I've ever seen ... an' the loveliest!" The last with a drop in the
voice which provoked laughter.
Once he said to Beck:
"My gosh, Tommy, how'd you like to have wife like her?"
The other smiled cryptically.
"Now you're gettin' into a profound subject," he said. "It ain't wise
to pick out a wife like you'd pick out a horse. There ain't much can
fool a man who knows horses when he looks one over careful-like, but
there's a lot about women that you can't know by lookin' 'em over and
watching 'em step."
He was watching Jane "step" and though he still was the first to listen
when others spoke of her qualities his manner toward her was the least
flattering of any.
After she had ridden the sorrel twice, each time accompanied by Beck or
Hepburn she sent Two-Bits to saddle him.
"What you doing with that horse?" Beck asked, looking up from the hoof
of a colt which he pared gently to reveal some hidden infection.
"She wants him to ride," the cowboy explained.
"Goin' alone?"
"Guess so."
"Then take that saddle off and put it on the little pinto."
"But she said to--"
"Makes no difference. You take it off or I'll make you look like two
bits, Mex!"
On finding her order miscarried Jane demanded explanation.
"Tommy, he told me," Two-Bits said, uneasily.
"But I ordered the sorrel--"
"And I told Two-Bits to give you this paint, ma'am," Beck said, the
foot of the colt still between his knees.
"And why?"--with a show of spirit.
"Because you ain't up to him yet and he ain't down to you. If somebody
was with you, it'd be different. You can't ride him alone, ma'am."
She gave her head an indignant toss and was about to demand the
execution of her plan but he turned back to his work, talking gently to
the animal. Then with a grudgingly resigned sigh she walked toward the
pinto, for there was something about Beck that precluded argument.
Again she told him of a contemplated visit to the ranches further down
the creek.
"Why, ma'am?" he asked.
"There are many things to talk over, plans for the summer's work and
the like. Besides, I want to become acquainted."
He smiled and said:
"That last is fine, but I guess you'd better wait for the rest."
"Wait? What for?"
"Until you know, ma'am. You see, you've only been here a little while;
you've learned a lot, but you don't know enough to talk business with
anybody yet. It won't be good for you to go talking about something you
don't understand."
"I think I am capable of judging that," she said bruskly. "I will go."
But she did not. She had intended to go the next day but as she lay
awake that morning she told herself that he had been right, she did not
know enough about her affairs to discuss her relationships with
neighbors intelligently. She still smarted from his frankness, but the
hurt was leavened by a feeling that behind his presumption had been
thought of her own welfare.
She tired quickly in the first days that she rode and once, remarking
on it, she drew this advice from Beck:
"You'd do a lot better without corsets."
Simply, bluntly, impersonally and with so much assurance that she could
not even reply. His observation had smacked of no disagreeable
intimacy. She had told him that she tired; he had given her his idea of
the cause.
She took off her corsets.
A day of cold rain came on; at noon the downpour abated for a time and
Jane asked Hepburn to ride down the creek with her to look over land
that was to be cleared and irrigated.
"Have you got a slicker, ma'am?" Beck asked when she requested that a
horse be saddled.
She had none.
"There ain't an extra one on the place," he said, "so I guess you'd
better not go."
"But the rain is over. Anyhow, what hurt will a wetting do?"
"I don't guess the rain's all over," he said. "And to get wet and cold
ain't a good thing for anybody; it'd be a mighty bad thing for you.
You're a city woman; you can't do these things yet."
An exasperating sense of inferiority came over her, bringing a helpless
sort of rage. This man was not even her foreman and yet he brought her
up short, time after time. She started to tell him so, but changed her
mind. Also, she changed her plans for the day.
He was not rough, not obtrusive in any of this. Just frank and simple,
and when she bridled under it all she saw that twinkle creep into his
eye, as though she were a child and her spirit amused him!
But she did more than amuse. She could not see, she could not know;
nights he roused from sleep and lay awake trying to fathom the
sensations he experienced; days he rode without sufficient thought for
the work that was before him. At times he was impelled to be irritable
toward her and this because his stronger impulse was to be gentle!
He did not want to care for this woman and he found himself caring in
spite of himself! He rode to town and spent an evening with a waitress
from the hotel, taking her to a picture show, paying her broad
compliments, seeing her pride rise because of his attentions, and he
rode home before daylight, disgusted with himself. His life was being
reshaped, his tastes, his desires. His caution against taking chances
was being beaten down.
She commenced to ride with him regularly and these rides grew longer as
she found her body becoming toughened and her endurance greater until
they were together many hours each day, until, in fact, escorting her
had become Beck's job. The ostensible purpose of this was to learn the
country and the manner of range work but though she did learn rapidly
their talk was largely personal. Beck was not responsive and the more
reserved he became the greater Jane's efforts to force him to talk of
himself.
These efforts netted her little and after a time she gave up,
tentatively, and adopted other means of winning his confidence.
Once she helped him gather a bunch of horses that had not been corraled
for seasons. The way led down a steep point and Jane was ahead, holding
up the bunch while Beck crowded them from behind. She took the descent
with a degree of hesitation for the going--so steep that she was forced
to clamp a hand behind her cantle to retain a seat--chilled her with
fear. On the level she fanned the sorrel and kept ahead of the horses
until she could lead them safely into a corral.
The gate closed, Jane looked at Beck with sparkling eyes, expecting a
word of reward, but he only said:
"You've got to keep goin' with horses. The country's all got to look
level to you. You slowed up bustin' off that point."
The rebuke hurt her ... and stimulated her ambition.
He taught her to use a rifle and she brought down her first deer, a
yearling buck, at long range.
"I told you to hold just behind his shoulder; see where you hit," he
said, indicating the wound, a hand's breadth too far back.
She shot with his revolver and he told her that she would never learn
to use the weapon. She bade him teach her the rudiments of roping and
he decried the woman movements of arms and body.
In all this he was quick to criticise, niggardly of praise; ready to
teach, reluctant to grant progress.
She was resentful but her resentment was no match for her
determination. Now and then his rebukes whipped flushes to her cheeks
and more than once she left him with tears standing in her eyes, only
to tell herself aloud that she _would_ make him acknowledge her
accomplishments....
Once, riding on alone after Jane had turned back toward the ranch Beck
encountered Sam McKee. The man had dismounted and was recinching when
Tom passed him. He looked up with that baleful expression, as though he
was impelled to do the HC rider great harm and held back only by his
cowardice. When Tom had passed McKee mounted and before he started on
his way he turned to shout over his shoulder:
"Chaperone!"
In it he put all that contempt which small, timid boys put into their
shouted taunts.
Beck was not angered but that gave him something to think about.
Another time as, on his roan, he led the sorrel toward the gate to the
houseyard he saw Hepburn smiling at him with scornful humour and when
the foreman saw that Beck had seen he said:
"A regular chaperone, ain't you?"
Tom did not reply though it roiled him. He thought about the remark at
length but the thing which interested him was that Hepburn had used the
same word that McKee had used.... Was that, he asked himself, mere
chance?
They had ridden far to the eastward one afternoon and returning long
after dark Jane made a meal herself and they ate together at her table.
Beck was noticeably restrained and when finished hastened to leave.
"Can't you sit and talk with me a while?" she asked.
"I could, ma'am, but is it necessary?"
"Not necessary to the business, perhaps, but it might mean a pleasant
evening for me."
He gave her steady gaze for steady gaze and then said:
"Anybody would think you were courtin' me, ma'am."
She laughed easily, yet her gaze wavered. She asked:
"And what if I should be?"
This disconcerted him but he replied:
"It's likely I'd quit."
"I'm ... wholly distasteful to you, then?"
"If I was to say yes, it'd hurt your feelings, needless. So I won't. I
don't mind tellin' you, though, that the country is calling me your
chaperone."
"And does what people say worry you?"
"Not when they talk about something that I'm responsible for. I didn't
hire out as a ... a companion, ma'am."
She stepped closer, hands behind her and said:
"The first time you talked to me at any length you had a great deal to
say about respect. No one had ever talked to me as you did. I took it
because it was true ... and I respected you.
"Since that time I have been trying to be worthy of the respect of you
men; of yours particularly because you are the only one with whom I
have talked so frankly about myself. But at every turn you repulse me,
drive me back. Nothing that I do seems to be pleasing to you. You pick
on me, Tom Beck! Why do you do it?"
He eyed her calculatingly.
"What would you think if I told you that it was because I don't like
you?"
"I would think it was not the truth."
He flushed and this time his eyes fell from hers.
"I would think just that, but I might be wrong." She breathed rapidly,
one hand on a gold locket that was at her throat. "I might think that
you fear that becoming my friend would be taking a chance ... but I
might not want to think that.
"You were the first man who ever dared tell me just how little I have
amounted to. You are the first individual that ever made me feel
ashamed of myself. You did those things; you opened my eyes, you showed
me what real achievement is.
"Now I'm fighting for a place. I have won one thing: my self respect.
Now I'm going to win another: the respect of other people and if I can
win their respect I can win their friendship.
"I may be overconfident. Time will prove that. But there is one thing I
want, Tom Beck, and that is your friendship. Before I get through, and
if I succeed, you are going to be glad to be my ... friend!"
There was challenge in her tone, which, withal its assurance, was sweet
and gentle, almost appealing; and that combination of qualities
indicated that her words did not express her whole thought. It steeled
him and with that mocking twinkle again he said:
"You seem quite sure, ma'am."
"As sure as I have ever been of anything in my life!"
But her assurance did not compare with her desire, for when he had gone
she was seized with the fear that she had said too much, had gone too
far. And that which she had boasted would be hers was to Jane Hunter a
precious possession.