"WORK AMONG THE HEATHEN"
The chuck wagon had gone, followed by the bed wagon and the cavet, the
last made up of one hundred and forty saddle horses, stringing along
the road, a solid column of horse flesh. In a day the round-up would be
on. Camp was to be made first far down on Coyote Creek and the country
from Cathedral Tank eastward would first be ridden.
Outwardly the departure was not so different from others of its sort.
There were rifles on saddles, to be sure, but there was banter and fun.
Still, a spirit prevailed which told that the men were not wholly
concerned with the normal business of the range. There were other
things, more grim, more serious, than gathering steers and branding
calves.
H C hands were not the only ones who rode heavily armed. There were
others, skulking on high ridges, watching, waiting. The whole country
knew they were there. The eyes of the whole country were on the
factions. The ears of the country were strained to catch what sounds of
clash might rise. For the coming of that clash was sensed as an
impending crash of thunder will be sensed under cloud banked skies.
"I'll be joinin' them tonight or in the morning," Beck told Jane as the
cavalcade disappeared down creek. "I'm glad there are things to hold me
here a few hours longer because I'll be gone a long time an' I'm
jealous of the days I have to be away from you."
"You'll come to say good-bye?"
"If I have to crawl to you!"--as he gave her one of his lingering
kisses. "When I come back from the ride there's something I'd like to
talk over with you ... which we ain't mentioned yet."
"I'll be waiting to talk it over, dear," she whispered, for she
understood.
Not long after Beck had ridden away the Reverend stumped down from the
corral to the big ranch house and rapped on the door. Jane was at her
desk and looked up in surprise for it was the first time the elder Beal
had ever come to her alone.
"I come to ask for aid, ma'am, in what might be termed work among the
heathen, though, it is in a sense the task of a home missionary."
Jane put down her pen and sat back in her chair, trying to hide her
amusement.
"Yes, Reverend," in her crisp manner--"I'm interested."
He blinked and rattled pens in a side pocket of the rusty coat.
"I trust that you will bear with me, ma'am, until I have finished. I
have been moved to speak to you for long but have hesitated because it
is difficult to present the matter without intruding on privacies.
"An unholy love is being hidden in the solitudes of these hills, a man
who is at heart a serpent seeks to corrupt the white soul of a child.
You possess a knowledge of this man which may hold the only hope of
salvation for the innocent."
A feeling of apprehension swept through the girl; with it was
suspicion, for though her mind easily fastened on Dick Hilton as the
man referred to, she could connect him with no other woman.
"I trust, ma'am, that you will be charitable in your estimate of my
works. It is no more possible for Azariah Beal to go through life with
his eyes closed and his powers of deduction dormant than it is for the
birds to refrain from flight or the fishes from swimming. I try to do
good as I go my way. I realize that it is not in the orthodox manner,
that my methods are strange; but my work is among unusual people and
the old ways of accomplishment will not produce results any more than
the old standards of morality will fit the lives of my people.
"I observed this man, a stranger to the country, in town on my arrival.
When I reached here to tarry with my brother until I am called to move
I observed you, also a stranger to the frontier. I observed other
things which you will not consider prying curiosity, I hope. There was
a connection, a logical connection, between you two strangers: were it
not for subsequent events this observation would have remained in my
heart. So far it has, but now I must reveal it to you.
"You are the only individual who stands between Dick Hilton and the
ruin of Bobby Cole!"
He stopped talking and rattled his pens again. The apprehension which
had possessed Jane passed and she experienced a sharp abhorrence.
"You mean that he ..." she began and let the question trail off.
The Reverend nodded.
"Exactly. He has charmed her. He speaks with the cunning of a serpent
and she, under his influence, is as guileless as a quail.
"He cannot be driven off by threats because he is not that sort. The
girl cannot be convinced of his wicked purpose because she trusts no
man but him. If the affair proceeds she will pay the price of a broken
heart because, in spirit, she is pure gold.
"He might protest his sincerity to men of this country and force them
into belief, but with you it is different. There is in every man, no
matter how far he may have fallen, a sense of shame. He can bury it
deeply from those who do not know him but to his own kind it is ever
near the surface.
"I beg of you, ma'am, to join me in this holy cause and dissuade him
from his black purpose, if not by an appeal to honor, then by an appeal
to his shame."
Jane rose.
"You mean that he has been making ... making love to this girl? And
that you think I can save her?"
"It's the only way. She will not listen to men, she will not listen to
you because she considers you her enemy. He may be so far sunk in sin
that he will not heed the advice of one he has known and respected and,
excuse me, loved ... after his manner of loving." Jane flushed but he
gave no notice. "But unless I attempt to bring your influence to bear
upon him I will feel that I have not answered the call to duty."
He blinked again and looked at her with an appeal that wiped out any
impression of charlatanry, of preposterousness that she might have had;
he was wholly sincere.
"Why ... I don't know what I could say ... what I could do."
"Nor I. But you know Hilton; you know the girl; I have made you
familiar with the situation. I rely on your resourcefulness. May I
bring him to you?"
"Why, he wouldn't come here!"
The Reverend rattled his pens and said:
"I think I might persuade him. Have I, as your employee, your
permission, I might say, your _order_, to bring him here?"
"Of course. If there is anything I can do.... Ugh!" She shuddered and
pressed a wrist against her eyes. "It's beastly! Beastly!"
The Reverend departed and throughout the day Jane Hunter could think of
little other than the situation which he had outlined to her. Her wrath
was roused, replacing the disgust she had felt at first, and her heart
went out to Bobby Cole with a tenderness that only woman can know for
woman.
She tried to think ahead, to consider what she could say or do, to
speculate on what the results of this next meeting with Dick Hilton
might be.
Evening was well into dusk with the first stars pricking through the
failing daylight when two riders came through the HC gate. Dick Hilton
rode first and behind him, one hand in a deep pocket of his frock coat,
rode the Reverend.
"You can get down and open the gate," the Reverend said and Hilton,
sulkily obeying, led his horse through.
"Now what?" he asked in surly submission.
"Now I'll finish my errand by escorting you to the owner of this
establishment."
Hilton led his horse across to the dooryard. The Reverend dismounted
and the two walked down the cottonwoods to the big veranda, the
Easterner still in the lead, the other with his hand in his side pocket.
Jane saw them; she was at the door.
"Good evening!" said Hilton with bitterness.
"In accordance with your orders, ma'am, I persuaded this gentleman to
call," said Beal, almost humbly. "I'll feed his horse and return later."
He turned and hurried up the path.
Hilton pulled down his coat sleeves irritably and looked at Jane with a
bitter smile.
"To what do I owe the ... the honor of such a summons?"
"Come in, Dick. I want to talk to you,"--keeping her voice and
expression steady. She held the door open to him and he entered, his
mouth drawn down in a sardonic grimace. A single shaded lamp was
lighted and as she turned to him she could see his eyes glittering
balefully in the semi-darkness.
"Rather different from our last meeting," he said testily. "Then you
were concerned with my going; now you seem determined to have me here."
"Let's not discuss the past, Dick. I called you here for a definite
purpose. Can you guess what it is?"
He eyed her in hostile speculation.
"I don't see where anything that concerns me could concern you now.
That is, unless you've changed your mind."
She gave him a wry smile and a shake of her head.
"I shall never change, Dick. It was no interest in you that made me
send for you. It was interest in the well-being of another woman."
"Oh, another woman! And who, pray, may she be?"--frigidly, face
darkening.
"Can't you guess? Have there been so many out here?"
"You know there's only one woman for me," he said bitterly, "and she
drove me off like a thief and has called me back as though I were a
thief!"
"Perhaps you are."
"What do you mean by that?"
There was that about him which made her think of a man cornered.
"I have called you here because I have reason to believe that you are
trying to steal the heart of a young girl--of Bobby Cole."
He laughed unpleasantly, but there was in the laugh a queer relief, as
though he had anticipated other things.
"Now who's been tattling to you?"
"My men have seen you come and go, they have seen you with the girl.
One of them came to me and begged that I send for you and try to talk
you out of this. They know, Dick. These men understand men ... like
you."
"Because they see me with her and because I'm not considered fit by you
to stay beneath your roof, even when it is night and storming, they
think I'm damned beyond hope, do they? They think I'm menacing her
happiness, do they?"
"But aren't you?" she countered. "I know her. I have talked to her and
watched her. Dick, she is a lonely, pathetic little creature with the
world against her. There have been just two things left in her life:
her own splendid self respect and her devotion to her father. Why, she
hasn't even had the respect of the people about her!
"And now she is facing loss of the biggest thing she possesses: the
loss of her belief in herself, for you will destroy that just as surely
as you force her to listen to your ... to what I suppose you still call
your love-making."
He eyed her a moment before saying:
"You used, at least, to be fair, Jane; you used to go slowly in judging
people and their motives and usually you were more or less right. Have
you put all that behind you? Does the fact that a man is charged with
some irregularity convince you of his guilt now?"
"Why no. But knowing you and knowing her..."
"Don't you think it possible for a man, even, for the sake of the
argument, a blackguard like me,"--bowing slightly--"to change a trifle?"
He put the question with so much confidence, with so much of his old
certainty that it checked Jane.
"Why, we all may change," she said slowly.
"I am glad you will grant that much,"--ironically. "Think back, just a
few weeks, and you may recall one somewhat theatrical statement you
made to me about finding yourself among these people. I thought it
preposterous then but I have lived and learned; I know now that you
could mean what you said then.... Jane, I, too, have found my people
... at least my woman."
She stared hard at him.
"Do you mean that, Dick Hilton?"--very lowly.
"As much as I have ever meant anything in my life!"
"Sit down," she said, more to give her time to think than in
consideration of his comfort. Then, after a moment: "It isn't much of a
boast, to mean this as much as you have ever meant anything."
"Then need we talk further? You ask questions; I answer; you do not
believe. Why continue?"
She sat down in a chair before him.
"This is the reason: That I think you have lied to me again. I don't
believe you are sincere. No, no, you must listen to me, now!"--as he
started forward with an enraged exclamation. "I brought you here to
make what is left of the Dick Hilton I once liked see this thing as I
see it."
And try she did. She talked rapidly, almost hurriedly, carried along by
her own conviction, made dominant by it, sweeping aside his early
protests, forcing him to listen to her. She put her best into that
effort for as he sat there with his cruel, cynical smile on her she
realized that this was a task worthy of her best mettle.
She sketched Bobby Cole's life as she knew it, she argued in detail to
show him how the girl had never had a chance to taste the things which
are sweetest to girlhood. She touched on the incident in town where, in
desperation, Bobby had tried to force the respect of men and she told
him of the defiance with which her own advances of friendship had been
met.
Jane was eloquent. For the better part of an hour she talked steadily,
occasionally interrupted by a skeptical laugh or a sneering retort, but
she persisted. Hilton listened and watched, eyes hard, mouth drawn into
forbidding lines, a manner of suspicious caution about him, as though
there were much that he wanted to conceal.
Finally her sincerity had an effect and she could see his cold
assurance melting. His gaze left hers and a flush crept into his
cheeks. She moved quickly to sit beside him.
"Dick! Dick! For the sake of what you once were, for the sake of what
you still can be, go away! If you won't go for the sake of the girl, go
for your own salvation!"
"It's not what you think," he protested feebly, without looking at her.
"I'm not philandering. I--"
"No, Dick, not philandering, because that is too gentle a word. It is
something worse, something darker, which will bring more shame to you
and to all who once knew and trusted you.
"Don't you see that you're playing with something as delicate as a
mountain flower? Don't you see you will crush it? Because this girl is
strong of body and thoroughly able to contend for her own position with
muscles and weapons, don't think that her heart can be treated roughly.
It would wither if she gave it to you and found that you held it of
little value."
"I tell you I'm on the level with her."
"Would you marry her?"--leaning closer to him as his manner told of the
effect her pleas were having.
"Of course."
"You'd take her east, to your friends?"
"Why, why not?"--shifting uneasily.
"Dick, look at me!" Tears in her eyes, she put her hands on his
shoulders and forced him to turn his face. "You can't mean that? I can
see you don't. Dick, oh, Dick! For the sake of all that is good and
fine in life, for the sake of the manhood you can regain, don't do this
thing!
"I'm asking it of you. Perhaps I have little right to make any requests
of you but in the name of the love you say you once bore for me try to
look into my, a woman's heart, and see what this thing means. I'm not
trying to make it difficult for you; I'm not trying to interfere and be
mean. I'm begging you, Dick, to give her up and if nothing else will
appeal to you, do it for my sake!"
She shook him gently as he turned his head from her, humiliated,
shamed, beaten. He was convinced: she knew that his sham was broken
down, that his purpose was clear to her and the conscience that
remained in his soul tortured him.
Jane held so a long moment, fingers gripping his shoulders, appeal in
every tense line of her body.
And close outside the window another figure held tense, watching,
holding breath in futile attempt to catch the low words they spoke. It
was a slender figure and had ridden up on a soft-stepping horse,
dismounted, slipped over the fence, ran stealthily along the creek,
halted in the shadow of the cottonwoods and then crept slowly forward
until it stood close to the shaft of yellow light which streamed from
the window. There it stood spying....
"You have said that you loved me, Dick. Do this for me in the name of
that love! I am asking it with a sincerity that was never in any other
request I have made of you."
She shook him again and slowly he turned his face to hers, showing an
expression of weakness, of helplessness, as one who turns to ask
humbly, almost desperately for aid.
The figure out there started forward as though it would leap through
the window, making a sharp sound of breath hissing through teeth, in
fright or in hatred. The movement was checked, for the gate creaked
open, the scuffling boots of a man were heard on the path. The figure
skulked swiftly along the house, ducking along the cottonwoods, out
toward the road where a horse stood waiting.
It was the Reverend coming and he whistled "_Yield not to
Temptation_," as he neared the house, as if to give warning of his
approach. Hilton heard and looked up sharply and a glitter of rage
appeared in his eyes. He shook Jane Hunter off savagely and rose.
"I'd let you make an ass of me!" he cried savagely. "You won't believe
when I tell you the truth....
"But what the devil should I care?" he broke off shortly. "Whatever I
do and where and why is my own affair; none of yours, though you try to
make it yours, try to judge me as you judge your own, new friends,
probably.
"You talk of the man I once was. Well, if I've changed in your eyes, it
is not my fault; it's yours, Jane Hunter, yours! You'd drive me on,
lead me on, and when finally cornered you'd be perfectly frank to tell
me that you'd only toyed with me, that you tolerated me because you
thought you might have to use the things I owned!"
"Not that, Dick! You're putting it all wrong...."
"Listen to me!" he shouted, quivering with rage. "If I've changed it is
you who have changed me! If life means nothing to me, it is you who
have made it so!" He was towering in his anger and, seeking to shift
responsibility for his own rottenness to the shoulders of the woman
before him, he aroused a sense of injury and genuine indignation. "You
played me as your last straw as long as you dared and now, by God, when
I go my way, the only way open to me, when I try to redeem a little
happiness, you hound me, try to shame me with your sham morals!"
"Dick, that's not true."
"It is true. Why, you haven't a leg to stand on, you--"
His storming was interrupted by a rap on the door and he turned to see
the Reverend standing there, battered derby in his hands.
"Excuse me," he said mildly, "but the gentleman's horse is fed."
It was his way of letting Jane Hunter--and Dick Hilton--know that she
was not alone; but if the Reverend had intended to stop the tirade
which he had heard from outside he did not succeed for the Easterner
was further enraged at sight of him.
"I suppose this is part of your plan!" he snapped. "You found out that
it's no use to wheedle me, so you've had your gun-man come to drive me
off as he brought me!"
"Dick, don't be silly! You're absurd. A gun. The idea!"
Hilton laughed tauntingly and said:
"He's standing there now, covering me with a gun! Look at him." He
pointed to the Reverend's pocket. A hand was in it and the garment
bulged sharply as though a revolver, concealed there, was ready for
instant use. "That's how you treat me; that's how you got me here. God
knows I wouldn't have come otherwise if your existence depended on it.
"This man met me on the trail. He said you wanted to see me. I
consigned him to the Hell from which he tries to have sinners and he
covered me from his pocket just as he has me covered now and said it
would be wise for me to answer your summons.
"How else do you think he brought me?" he demanded, wheeling to face
Jane again.
The girl looked quickly to Beal, lips parted in surprise.
"I sent Mr. Beal for you, yes, but I said nothing about using force to
bring you. I wouldn't do that. I'm sure there is some mistake."
"Yes, ma'am, I'm sure there is," said the Reverend, blinking and
withdrawing his hand slowly. "I'm a man of peace. I'm not a man of
force."
He lifted his hand clear, the ominous bulge in his pocket giving way,
and held up one of his pens.
"One dollar," he said rather weakly ... as though frightened, or vastly
amused.
Standing there, looking rather blankly about, holding that pen in his
hand he was in ludicrous contrast to the furious Hilton. It made the
other man seem absurd, his raging like the burlesque of some clowning
actor.
With a helpless, choking oath Hilton turned, livid with rage, and
strode for the doorway.
"For the last time I've been made a fool of!" he cried, and hastened up
the path.
They heard him mount his horse and ride away.
Jane was too busied with more somber thoughts to appreciate the humor
of the situation; she did later. Even had she been able to give
attention to the contrast between Hilton's rage and the chagrin which
followed so closely, the change in the Reverend would have diverted her
attention. He stood looking at her with grief in his eyes and when he
spoke his voice shook.
"I feel that I have done my duty, ma'am, but that is all Azariah Beal
has to say for himself. There has been no result. I may have been too
late in my attempt. Surely, there is nothing more to be done....
"Nothing more, unless you may succeed in ridding yourself of your
enemies."
"Do you think that would have an effect on Bobby Cole?"
He nodded gravely.
"You and she have something in common: an enemy."
"He has been here tonight? You mean that Hilton is my enemy in the
sense that he may imperil the future of the HC?"
"The same, ma'am."
"Reverend, it is likely that you are right. I am beginning to see a
connection between factors which have seemed to be unrelated."
He started to speak but a shout checked him. They listened to a
confusion of voices.
"Something's wrong," Beal said and stepped to the veranda. "Why ...
somebody's hurt!"
Jane ran to the doorway but he had already started up the path. She
followed as she saw a close huddle of men about the lighted doorway of
the bunk house move slowly in, carrying a burden gently and as she
neared the building a rather tragic quiet marked the group.
Nigger, Two-Bits' horse, was standing saddled in the path of light.
Inside a man was lying face down on the floor. The Reverend knelt
beside him, leaning forward, and others stood close, silent and grave.
The prostrate man was Two-Bits and his shoulders dripped blood. As Jane
became a part of the group he stirred and struggled to raise his head.
"What is it, brother?" Azariah asked gently, turning Two-Bits over and
supporting his head. "Tell us. You're not done for. It's ripped your
back open, but that's all. Who was it?"
The other looked about slowly with bewildered eyes.
"From behind," he said weakly. "They got me from behind...." His gaze
wavered from face to face and finally rested on Jane's. He moved feebly.
"A big bunch of your cattle must be in th' Hole, ma'am," he said.
"There ain't ... any water there.... I was keepin' 'em ... out ... an'
somebody got me from behind.... They must of waited ... to get me ...
from behind.... And the only water's ... in fence....
"It looks like ... a lot of trouble, ma'am...."
He stopped talking, exhausted.