A NEIGHBORLY CALL
The mountains which had been brown and saffron when Jane Hunter came to
take possession of her ranch grew tinted with green as grasses sprouted
under the coaxing sun. Pinons were edged with lighter tints,
contrasting sharply with the deep color of older growth. Service bushes
turned cream color with bloom and sage put out new growth; calves,
high-tailed and venturesome, frolicked between frequent meals from
swollen udders, birds nested and shy mountain flowers completed their
scant cycle.
No life remained arrested and with the rest the girl developed. She
took on a more robust color, her eyes which had always been clear and
cool, possessed a different look and a thin sprinkling of tiny freckles
appeared across her nose. She had taken to the ways of the mountains
easily. Her modish clothing was discarded and she wore brightly colored
shirts, a brimmed hat, drab riding skirt and the smallest pair of boots
that had ever been manufactured in that country.
Two-Bits was wide-eyed in his enthusiasm.
"My gosh, Reverend!" he whispered, "look at them boots! Ain't they th'
grandest little things you ever seen?... Gosh, they're too little for
any spurs she can buy, ain't they? _Gosh_ ..."--in helpless
admiration.
Two-Bits and the Reverend had something on. This was evident from the
manner in which they kept apart from the others. Each evening they
would sit on a wagon seat or perch on a corral or Azariah would stand
near while his brother groomed his little horse, Nigger, and they would
talk, low and confidently, the Reverend gesticulating and Two-Bits
looking far away and talking laboriously as though he were memorizing
something.
The homely fellow took several mysterious trips to town and once he
borrowed ten dollars from Beck and offered a buckskin bridle as
security, which the other waved away with affectionate curses.
Hepburn had been commissioned to talk with Cole, the nester, and
determine his plans as they might affect the HC. This took him away
from the ranch repeatedly ... so many times, in fact, that it gave Beck
one more thing to wonder about. Also, there was a letter for Hepburn,
arriving a day or two after his return with the stolen horses, which
sent him suddenly to Ute Crossing; thereafter he went frequently.
There seemed no way around the potential difficulty which the nester
presented and, as one of her last resorts, Jane sent Tom to the
Crossing to look up the record of the filing himself and to confer with
the one remaining attorney in the town. He announced his going and
Two-Bits, hearing, asked him to bring back a package which would be
waiting there. When Tom returned that night he handed the gawky lad a
small parcel which he immediately stuffed into his shirt and carried to
the supper table.
"Them your jooles?" Oliver asked.
"None of your gol-darned business!"
"Ah, come on, old timer, an' let us in on it," the other pleaded. "I'll
bet it's a present for your best girl."
"If you got to know, it's corn plasters for th' corns on your brains,
Jimmy," Two-Bits countered.
He hurried through his meal and from the table and, with the Reverend,
walked down toward the creek where they went through their usual
performance, this time, however, with less prompting from the
clergyman. Then, brushing the dust from his shirt, adjusting his scarf,
Two-Bits walked nervously toward the ranch house.
Jane answered his knock with a call to enter. He stepped in with the
package in his hand, but as he removed his hat the parcel dropped to
the floor and when he regained an erect position after recovering it
his face was fiery red.
"What's your trouble tonight, Two-Bits?" Jane asked, approaching him.
"In," he began and stopped to clear his throat. He swallowed with great
difficulty. "In--In recognition of your--your God--" He coughed and
swallowed once more.
_"What?"_--in amazement.
"In recognition of your God--your God given beauty, an'
estim--estimable qualifications--"
He ran a finger inside his collar and dropped his hat. Perspiration
stood on his lip in beads and his dismayed eyes roved the room. He
moved his feet nervously.
"In recognition of your God--" he began again, but broke short:
"Hell, ma'am," he exploded, "my brother taught me a fine speech--
"Here!"--holding the package toward her with an unsteady hand and a
great relief coming into his eyes. "I found this in th' road an'
thought mebby you might want 'em."
Controlling her desire to laugh at his confusion Jane took the package
and turned it over in her hands.
"What is it, Two-Bits? Why do you bring it to me?"
"I can't use it--'em. I thought ... I ..." he began, backing rapidly
toward the door, moving with accelerated speed as he put distance
between them.
"Two-Bits, you wait!" she commanded. "I'm going to find out what this
is before you go."
He looked about in a fresh agony of embarrassment but her order had
rendered him unable to move. Jane broke the string, took off the
wrapping and opened a paper box. Within reposed a pair of spurs, as
small spurs as her boots were small boots. They were beautiful products
of some mountain forge, one-piece steel, heavily engraved by hand,
silver plated. Small silver chains and hand-tooled straps were attached
and as she held them up the delicate rowels jingled like tiny bells.
"Two-Bits!" she cried. "Aren't they beautiful?"
"Yes, ma'am," he said, and made for the door again.
She caught him by the arm that time, else he would have fled, and she
made him look at her.
"Two-Bits, you lied to me! You didn't find these on the road, now, did
you?"
"Well, that is.... Not exactly, ma'am,"--weakly.
"Where did they come from?"
"A fella, he made 'em an' give 'em to me an' they was too small for
me--"
"Don't you tell me another single lie! _Where_ did you get them?"
"Well ... I had 'em made,"--swallowing again, and _very_ weakly.
"Two-Bits!"--seizing his rough, cold hand while a suggestion of tears
came into her eyes. "You had these made for me? Why, bless your heart,
I've never had a finer gift before. And to think--
"You're a dear!"
"Oh, my gosh!" he whimpered, and despite her detaining hand, fled the
disquieting presence.
* * * * *
Of all men in that country, Two-Bits was the only one who openly
accepted Jane Hunter and his devotion was caused by an awed
appreciation of her beauty. The others, even her own riders, remained
stolidly skeptical of her ability to measure up to the task she had
undertaken and when men talked of the business of the country they
unconsciously spoke of the prestige of the HC as a thing of the past.
Hepburn had brought back some of her property that was being driven off
but he had not halted attempts to make away with her horses and cattle.
There were rumors, vague but persistent, of other depredations and
those who best knew the ways of the cattle country awaited that time
when the situation must reach a crisis, when Jane Hunter must be put to
the ordeal that would test her mettle.
She was yet unconscious of much of this for her urge to make a place
for herself centered on penetrating the callousness of the one man she
wanted to impress most of all. He remained aloof, watching her either
with that tantalizing amusement or a subtle challenge to win his open
friendship. There were moments when, as on that night after their drive
to Ute Crossing, she wanted to throw herself on him, to beg, to plead
that he lower his reserve and give her a place ... a place in his heart.
But that, reason told her, would be the last thing to win him. She must
trust to the force of her personality to drive her way into his life....
Occasionally he would talk, for she offered a sympathetic audience to
the things he had to say but never did their conversation become
intimate; the subjects he discussed were invariably abstract and
impersonal. While listening she studied the man, striving to define
that quality about him which lay behind his reserve and drew her on.
She could not seize and analyze it.... He was, aside from obvious minor
qualities, a closed book.
Still she saw him at night patrolling the cottonwoods before he slept!
She could not know what went on in the heart of that man, of the fight
he waged with himself, of the struggle he made to stick to his creed:
never to take a chance. He did not know that she was aware of those
nightly vigils. The first had been on that night after he had played
with her pride and her high spirits. Returned to the bunk house he had
suddenly seen her not a smart, capable stranger but as a girl, alone,
facing a new life, surrounded by strange people and unfriendly
influences. He sensed a pity for her and walked back to look about the
place and see that all was well, as he might have watched over a
sleeping child.
And then, the day that the sorrel threw her, he had felt her body and
the man in him had been stirred and when next he paced those shadows it
was not as a protector of some defenseless life, but as one who quite
tenderly lays siege to the heart of a woman.
He did not admit that even to himself. He reasoned that he was
protecting her because she was a stranger in a strange land and that
the impulse was only kindness. But his reason in that was a conscious
lie for as he stood under the stars with the cool, quiet night all
about him he could hear her voice in the murmur of the creek, hear her
limbs rustling her skirts in the soft sigh of wind in the trees, could
feel her presence there ... when he was stark alone....
And he fought it off, fought stubbornly, coldly because he did not
know, he did not know love, did not know the ground into which he was
being carried.
Women? He had had many but the experiences had been casual, mere
surface rifflings, and he had never been stirred as this woman stirred
him. It was new, entirely new, and Tom Beck feared that which he did
not know.
He was accustomed to talk to his horses as men will who love them and
while he rode the gulches alone he would in later days reason aloud
with his own roan or the HC black or bay he used.
"Why, old stager, we can't take a chance like that!" he said time after
time. "We've kept our heels out of trouble by playing a close game, not
gettin' out on a limb, but up to now everything that come along has
been boy's play ... compared to this.
"If an _hombre_ took a chance with his love that'd be the limit,
wouldn't it? He'd have his stack on the table, an' the deal wouldn't be
more than started!"
He talked over the loves of other men with those horses, earnestly,
soberly. He recalled the marriages he had known between men and women
who were from the same stocks, who knew none but the same life; so many
were failures! And this girl, this girl of whom he dreamed at night and
thought by day, scarcely yet spoke his language!
But he could not argue away the disturbing impulse. He could cover it,
hide it from others, hide it from himself at times, but drive it out?
Never!
* * * * *
Tom's report to Jane after his trip to town offered no encouragement.
The filing had been legally accomplished and its significance was
further impressed on the girl when he said:
"It's a mighty popular subject in town, ma'am. Everybody's interested."
"I suppose they all think it will mean trouble for me?"
"Yes, an' they're likely to be right."
She shook her head sharply.
"We don't want trouble, but if it does come we must meet it half way!"
She leaned forward determinedly and Beck stirred in his chair. It was a
gesture of delight for those were almost his very words to Hepburn when
they cleared their relationships of pretense; but he said only:
"That's the easiest way to take trouble on."
Just then Hepburn came in with his report on his visit to the Hole.
"The old fellow seems reasonable, Miss Hunter," he said ponderously.
"He don't look like he's a permanent neighbor even if he has bought
some cows from Webb, which I found out today. He's poor as a church
mouse to begin with--"
"And buyin' more cattle?" put in Beck.
"Oh, they were old stock an' I guess Webb was glad to get rid of 'em,"
the foreman said with a wave of his hand, yet he did not return Beck's
searching gaze.
"Cole told me he didn't have any intention of fencin' up the water so I
guess there ain't anything to fret you, Miss Hunter. I sounded him out
on buyin' but didn't get far. He's a shiftless old cuss, from th' look
of things, so I don't anticipate any trouble at all. He may not even
last the summer out."
Tom left and afterward Hepburn talked at length of the situation,
minimizing the menace the others saw, urging Jane to put the matter out
of her mind. But the girl was not satisfied and the next day, with Tom,
rode off toward the Hole.
They made an early start, riding out of the ranch just as the sun
topped the heights to the eastward. Dew hung heavily on the sage from
which fresh, clean fragrance rose as their horses stirred the brush.
Their shadows were thrown far in advance as they followed a narrow
gulch and the sunlight was caught and concentrated and scattered again
as the drops flew from leaf and twig.
The girl breathed deeply of the light, sweet air and looked at Beck
with a little laugh as of relief.
"When I sit at that desk, I feel like a prosaic business woman whose
interest is in ledgers," she said, "but when I ride in this country I
feel like a character in some romantic story."
Tom scratched his chin thoughtfully.
"That's too bad, 'ma'am," he said.
"Which?"
"Both."
"I can see disadvantages to the first, but why the other?"
"I guess I ain't struck much with stories. Used to read 'em, used to
get real interested in some but that was before I commenced to get
interested in folks."
"Yes?" she encouraged after a moment.
"You see, I think the folks I see and hear and live with and get to
know are a lot more interestin' than the folks somebody's thought up
out of his head.
"A man in a book talks and acts like a man in a book an' nothing else.
You never hear men talk out here in the bunk house or ridin' the
country like a writer would make 'em talk on the page of a book; take
my word for that....
"Folks are mighty interestin'. The best fun I get is watching folks,
studying them. It's a lot more fun than reading about some man or woman
you know ain't real, ma'am.
"Life is mighty interesting if you look at it right. If you try to
glorify and lie about it you cheapen the whole works. It's either
damned serious or a joke. There's no in between. I don't know which it
is, yet, but I do know that most of the books I ever read was th'
in-between kind, neither one thing nor the other.
"I've been around considerable among men but I never seen things happen
in life like writers make things happen in books. Everything works out
so lovely in books, folks never make mistakes in anything ... that is,
the heroes don't. Why, love even works out right in books!"
He spoke the last in a lowered voice as if he talked of a sacred thing
that had been mistreated. Unconsciously he had voiced the fear that had
grown in his own soul and when he turned to look at her his eyes
reflected a queer mental conflict, almost fright!
She caught something of his mood and waited a moment to summon the
courage to ask very gently:
"And doesn't it ... doesn't love work out in life?"
He shook his head.
"Seldom, ma'am. In books folks gamble with it like it was ... why,
ma'am, like their love was a white chip!"
Again he spoke as of a sacrilege and his earnestness, though he did not
appear to be thinking of her, confused the girl. The wordless interval
which followed was distressing to her so she said:
"And the other forms of expression? Music? Poetry? Painting?"
"You've got me on music," he confessed with a laugh. "I've heard
greasers playin' fandangoes on busted old guitars that sounded a lot
sweeter to me than any band I ever heard.
"As for poetry ... I don't know,"--shaking his head. "I read some;
tried to understand it, but it seems all messed up with words as if
poets liked to take the long, painful way of telling things.
"I expect poets want to tell something that's sort of ... delicate an'
beautiful.... Now and then I've got a funny feel out of poetry, but it
ain't anything to me like, say, seeing a bunch of little quail run
along under the brush, heads up, lookin' back at you, whistlin' to each
other. That's the most delicate thing I've ever seen or heard....
"I've seen some paintings, in Los and San Francisco; once in Chicago
and once in Denver. I don't know. They don't get my idea of it. I never
want to see anything more beautiful than sunrise over the Grand Canyon,
or sunsets over these hills, dust storm on the desert, snow blowin'
before a norther off the ridges, and things like that. God, who's such
a close friend to the Reverend, and who I don't know much about, is as
good a painter as any I've ever seen."
He said no more but rode apparently thinking of much more that might be
said and Jane watched him carefully, a hungry look coming into her
eyes. His words had partly analyzed him for her:
He was _real_.
He was the most real human being she had ever known, real because he
lived a real life, because he appreciated realities; he was sufficient
to himself, finding such an interest in life about him that his own
impressions and reactions occupied the foreground of his consciousness.
All her life she had been fed on the artificial, living on a soft pad
of unrealities which softened and hid the bed-rock foundation of
existence from her. Within the last weeks she had had her first taste
of the real, was face to face with life and with herself; it had been
sweet and inspiring; she felt a great urge for more of that experience
and her mind sped ahead into the vague future, the future which her
imagination could not even conjure because the new foundation beneath
her feet was as yet unfamiliar. But for all that vagueness she thrilled
and as she peered forward eagerly she saw this man, this clean, frank
man ever at her side....
And yet he had spoken of love as a gamble which did not work itself out
in life! A sharp stab of shame shot through her heart, for she had once
handled her love as though it had been a white chip, she had been
willing to chance it as a thing of little value and she knew that to
him that would be the outraging of a sacred thing.
And again she heard the pronouncement of Hilton: You cannot stand
alone! You will fail! A knave, she now knew, but he knew her as she had
been. And could he be right? Could she measure up to where a real man's
love would not be wasted upon her? She did not know; she dared not
think further, so driving back these doubts, she said:
"There's one question I want to ask and I want your honest answer. What
is your opinion of Hepburn?"
He looked at her with that twinkle in his eye again.
"In just what way, ma'am?"
"At times he seems reluctant to talk to me, as though he knew more than
he wanted to tell and again I've had a notion he didn't want me asking
about certain ranch matters at all.
"I confess to you that with all the talk of thieving I've wondered if
he didn't know more about it than he gave me to understand, but what he
did the other day seems, in all reason, to wipe that suspicion out."
He said: "It seems you've answered your own question. When you've said
that he went a long ways to prove that he's the man you want by what
he's just done, you've said all there was to say."
"But do you mean that? Are you keeping some suspicion of your own from
me?"
He deliberated a moment, then smiled.
"It's easy to suspect but it don't pay very big until you know
somethin'. Then you don't need to."
They climbed out of the gulch, horses breathing loudly as they made the
last steep ascent and gained the ridge they were to follow and there
was little more talk until they stopped and sat looking down across the
great flat-bottomed cavity of Devil's Hole. It was a pear-shaped
depression, perhaps four miles from rim to rim at the widest point and
fully a score of miles in length. Its sides were sprinkled with cedars
which clung to the sheer cliffs determinedly, but its bottom was
blanketed with thrifty sage brush, purple in the sunlight that was just
then slanting across the floor and beneath this sheen they could see
the bright green of new grasses. A dark line marked with the clarity of
a map the course of the creek and half way down toward the neck of the
Hole was a small cabin erected by the man who had filed on the land for
Colonel Hunter and who had drifted on without establishing title.
"There's your neighbor," Beck said.
Jane looked for a moment, then lifted her eyes to the country which
showed through the narrow outlet of the deep valley. Behind her endless
ridges tossed upward to a sharp horizon, but out through that gap the
range lay in a vast basin, rising gently to diminutive lavendar buttes
plastered against the sky many miles away. It seemed soft and vague and
unreal ... like one of the unreal paintings Beck had seen hanging
within walls.
Tom led the way through trees and among upstanding ledges of rock into
the narrow, dangerous trail and as he went down, his big roan picking
the way quickly yet cautiously, he half turned in his saddle to explain
the significance of the descent.
It was the only egress on that side of the Hole. There was one trail on
the far side, so steep and hazardous that a man must lead his horse
either up or down. The only other outlet was through the narrow Gap
where the wash of flood water during storms had made the going easy for
men and stock. Out to the northwest, however, lay miles of desert, the
great basin of which Jane had had a glimpse, well enough to use for
range in three seasons, but in summer it became parched and useless. In
the Hole cattle could feed on the abundant gramma, could drink from the
creek, but getting them out and over the divide to the more plentiful
water of Coyote Creek was an undertaking.
"That's the danger," he told her, "It's a long, hard climb for stock in
good shape, but if anything should happen to prevent your stock from
drinkin' down here and they should get low from lack of water, why then
you'd leave a lot of 'em down there if you tried to bring 'em up."
He pointed over the abrupt drop at his left where a pebble would fall
hundreds of feet before striking again and as he indicated his right
chap scrubbed the face of the cliff, so narrow was the way to which
they clung.
Finally they reached the flat and swung along at a free trot through
the brash sage.
"There's water here now," he explained, as they followed the steep
creek bank, "but that don't last. It's mighty low right this mornin'.
The creek sinks when it don't rain an' its been comin' up in just one
spot for years. That's what makes a nester dangerous for you."
They approached the cabin. A mare and a newly born colt eyed them
suspiciously. An ancient wagon, its top tattered, its tires red with
rust, stood close beside a frail corral. Fire wood was scattered about;
here was an axe with a broken helve, there a rust-eaten shovel, and the
whole place spoke of poverty.
And yet piled against the cabin was spool upon spool of new barbed wire!
"Fence!" muttered Beck.
"But Mr. Hepburn said--"
"Yeah, I recall what he _said!_"
Just then the canvas which served as a door was thrown back and the
girl stepped out. She stood just across the threshold looking at them,
sullen and defiant.
"Good-morning," said Jane.
"Howdy," replied the girl indifferently.
An awkward pause. Surely, she would volunteer no more and Beck asked:
"Your dad around?"
"What do you want with him?"--a demand rather than a question.
"I am Miss Hunter. I own the--"
"Oh, I know who you are!" the girl cut in defiantly.
"I came down to talk to your father. We are neighbors. If we are to be
good neighbors there are things we must discuss."
Jane was unpoised by the attitude of the other but she dismounted and
walked toward the cabin.
"What did you want with him?" the girl asked again.
"I want to ask some things about your plans."
"And what is our business to you?" The girl's eyes snapped and her
vivid color intensified.
"It may be a great deal to me. That is why I am frank in coming here.
For years this place has been range for HC cattle. Recently water has
been short. You have wire and evidently are going to fence.
"I don't come as an enemy. Now that you are here I want to make the
best of it."
"But you don't want us here!"
The simple declaration, voiced with that same defiance, confused Jane;
then she met the other on her own ground.
"No, we don't want you here unless you will work with us as we all try
to work together. I think you will do that because it is the wiser--"
"So you start out workin' with us by lookin' up our claim, the way we
filed it, before you come to talk!"
"Yes, I did that,"--frankly. "I wanted to be sure just what your rights
were before I came to talk business."
"Well, you know now. You know no lawyers can run us off. Ain't that
enough? If you know we've got rights, what do you come here for?" She
stopped, but before Jane could reply went on, her eyes flashing sudden
heat: "You don't want us here but we've come to stay an' from the way
you've started in to talk your business I guess that's all you'll find
out."
Jane eyed her for an interval then said:
"You and I are the only women for miles about in this country. We are
near neighbors as neighbors go in the mountains; do you think this is
the best way to start in being friends?"
"Who said anything about bein' friends?"
"I want to be your friend." The sincerity of this balked the girl and
her eyes became puzzled. "I want to be your friend and want you for my
friend. We can help each other in a good many ways."
"I don't recollect askin' for your help."
"No, but I want to give it to you and I want to ask yours in return. We
are here in a big country. We are all dependent to an extent on those
about us. None of us can get along so well alone as we can by working
together."
"Like turnin' folks out in the rain at night, for instance?"
Jane's cheeks flamed.
"I don't understand," she said.
"Think it over an' maybe you will!"
The girl's eyes blazed uncovered hate, but as they took Jane in again
from hat to boots a curious envy showed in them.
"I've seen how much you big outfits want to help poor folks before,"
she said. "I know all about that,"--bitterly. "Maybe it's a good thing
you come here today so you'll get to understand, first hand, instead of
sendin' your men around to learn things for you.
"We've come a long ways. We've been on th' move ever since I can
recollect. Folks have offered to help us before, an' they have helped
us ... to decide to move. We've come to stay here; we can take care of
ourselves; we don't ask nothin' but to be let alone, an' we're goin' to
be let alone if we have to make it stick with gun play."
She had advanced and, hands on her hips, weight on one foot, spoke the
last with her face close to Jane's, her head nodding in slow emphasis.
"I trust it won't come to that," Jane said evenly. She had not
flinched, but studied the girl carefully, impersonally, though the
color in her cheeks had died; her face was in repose, her bearing
dignified and assured, yet without suggestion of any superficial
superiority. "If it does come to that it will not be because I am
unwilling to do all that is reasonable. I have come down here to talk
to you, which should be evidence of my good faith; I have been frank.
You meet me as though I had come to cheat you or drive you out. I don't
think that is fair."
The other drew back a step, clearly puzzled again. Her face, in spite
of its forbidding expression, was very beautiful.
"That sounds all right," she said at length, "but I've heard it before
and I know how much it's worth. You ain't my kind. You don't belong
here and I do. You don't want to be my friend ... you wouldn't know how.
"All we want is to be let alone. Our business ain't yours an' we won't
try to make yours ours. Have you said all you wanted to say?"
"No, not quite all, but if you won't listen to me, if you won't believe
me, there is only one more thing I can say: You will know where to find
me any time you want to talk to me. I will be ready to work with you,
to do my share, and maybe a little more. I hope there will be no
trouble, for it would force me to make my share of that."
She turned abruptly and walked toward Beck.
The man had purposely held aloof to watch the encounter between the two
women. He had been certain that the meeting would be anything but
amicable and it was like other situations into which he had let Jane
Hunter walk, needlessly and only to see how she would handle herself.
Usually the result only amused him but today he had watched Jane bear
up admirably under difficult circumstances, refusing to be angered or
confused, refusing to plead yet, while retaining dignity, leaving the
door to friendship open.
As Jane mounted Bobby Cole stepped back into the cabin with no word and
the riders turned back on the way they had come.
"I've been wonderin'," Beck said after a time, "how this old codger
rakes up the dust to buy cattle and wire."
Jane did not reply. She wondered at that, too, but there was another
wonder in her mind about another, more human mystery, going back to a
night of storm in the heavens and storm in hearts. How did Bobby Cole
know she had turned Dick Hilton out?
As they went silently each thinking of significant things which had
been revealed the girl threw back the curtain in the doorway and
watched them.
"I hate you!" she whispered at Jane Hunter. "I hate you!... Because you
turned him out ... because you're ... you're _you_."
She stood a long time watching them and with the darkness in her face
another quality finally mingled: that envy again.
After a time Jane said:
"A queer creature, that girl."
"On the peck from the start!" Beck replied.
"And beautiful!"
"Ain't she, though?... Poor kid! I've seen 'em before, kids of movers
like that, not so good lookin', not so smart as she is, but like her
because they was always suspicious, always ready to scrap....
"That's because they've never had a chance to be decent, brought up in
a wagon that way."
"A shame!" Jane whispered.
"I like kids," he said later, as though his mind had been on nothing
else. "I like all kids, but I feel sorry for a lot of 'em ... for most
of 'em.... Every kid that's born ought to have a chance, a fair show
against the world, because the old world don't seem to like kids any
too much.
"That girl didn't have a chance, never will have it. She was marked
from the day she was born.
"Why, ma'am, one winter I worked for a cow man down in the Salt River
valley which is in Arizona. He didn't have a big outfit, he didn't have
much luck; trouble with his water, his cattle got sick and his horses
didn't do well and he had just one dose of trouble after another.
"But he had three kids, all in a row they seemed,"--indicating
progressive heights with his hand. "I think they was the happiest kids
I've ever seen. I always think of 'em when I see kids that've had to
grow up like that girl. I remember those mornin's when we used to start
out for a day's ride, looking back and seeing those kids playing in the
dirt beside the rose bushes. Their clothes was dirty the minute they
stepped outside and their hands an' faces was a sight from the 'dobe,
but there was roses in their cheeks as bright as th' roses on the
bushes and they laughed loud and their eyes always smiled ... like that
Arizona sky, which ain't got a match anywhere....
"This man and his wife just buckled down an' bucked old Mister Hard
Luck from the word Go, for them kids! They sure thought the world of
'em. I guess that was what put the roses in their cheeks an' the smiles
in their eyes....
"I'll never forget those kids by the rose bushes with somebody to care
for 'em, an' work their hearts out for 'em. That's the way kids ought
to grow up; not like that catamount grew up."
He smiled in reminiscence and his smile was tender.
"Roses and kids," he repeated after a while. "They ought to go
together."
He looked at Jane and saw that her eyes were filmed.
She rode closer to him, until her knee touched his chap and said:
"I think that is beautiful: Roses and kids. I shall always remember it;
always...."
She knew, now, the man she loved, the man whose love she would win, the
man behind that exasperating front of caution. His clear eyes and keen
mind were interested only in realities and yet he could display a
tenderness more delicate than she had ever before encountered in men.
He was strong, and as gentle as he was strong; he was generous while a
skeptic; he had poise and personality. And he could liken love to a
poker chip; without using the word make her know that he held love
sacred!
She raised her hand to that locket again and held it tightly in her
small palm.