Kent jerked open the stable door, led in his horses, turned them into their
stalls, and removed the saddles with quick, nervous movements which told
plainly how angry he was.
“I'll get myself all excited trying to do her a favor again--I don't
think!” he growled in the ear of Michael, his gray gelding. “Think of me
getting let down on my face like that! By a woman!”
He felt along the wall in the intense darkness until his fingers touched
a lantern, took it down from the nail where it hung, and lighted it. He
carried it farther down the rude passage between the stalls, hung it high
upon another nail, and turned to the great oats box, from within which came
a vigorous thumping and the sound of muttered cursing.
Kent was not in the mood to see the humor of anything in particular. Had he
known anything about Pandora's box he might have drawn a comparison very
neatly while he stood scowling down at the oats box, for certainly he was
likely to release trouble in plenty when he unfastened that lid. He felt of
the gun swinging at his hip, just to assure himself that it was there
and ready for business in case Fred wanted to shoot, and rapped with his
knuckles upon the box, producing instant silence within.
“Don't make so much noise in there,” he advised grimly, “not unless you
want the whole town to know where you are, and have 'em give you the laugh.
And, listen here: I ain't apologizing for what I done, but, all the same,
I'm sorry I did it. It wasn't any use. I'd rather be shut up in an oats box
all night than get let down like I was--and I'm telling you this so as to
start us off even. If you want to fight about it when you come out, all
right; you're the doctor. But I'm just as sorry as you are it happened.
I lay down my hand right here. I hope you shivaree Man and his wife--and
shivaree 'em good. I hope you bust the town wide open.”
“Why this sudden change of heart?” came muffled from within.
“Ah--that's my own business. Well, I don't like you a little bit, and you
know it; but I'll tell you, just to give you a fair show. I wanted to keep
Man sober, and I tried to get him and his wife out of town before that
shivaree of yours was pulled off. But the lady wouldn't have it that way.
I got let right down on my face, and I'm done. Now you know just where I
stand. Maybe I'm a fool for telling you, but I seem to be in the business
to-night. Come on out.”
He unfastened the big iron hasp, which was showing signs of the strain put
upon it, and stepped back watchfully. The thick, oaken lid was pushed up,
and Fred De Garmo, rather dusty and disheveled and purple from the
close atmosphere of the box and from anger as well, came up like a
jack-in-the-box and glared at Kent. When he had stepped out upon the stable
floor, however, he smiled rather unpleasantly.
[Illustration: He was jeered unmercifully by Fred De Garmo and his crowd]
“If you've told the truth,” he said maliciously, “I guess the lady has
pretty near evened things up. If you haven't--if I don't find them both at
the hotel--well--Anyway,” he added, with an ominous inflection, “there'll
be other days to settle this in!”
“Why, sure. Help yourself, Fred,” Kent retorted cheerfully, and stood where
he was until Fred had gone out. Then he turned and closed the box. “Between
that yellow-eyed dame and the chump that went and left this box wide open
for me to tip Fred into,” he soliloquized, while he took down the lantern,
and so sent the shadows dancing weirdly about him, “I've got a bunch of
trouble mixed up, for fair. I wish the son of a gun would fight it out now,
and be done with it; but no, that ain't Fred. He'd a heap rather wait and
let it draw interest!”
Over in the hotel the “yellow-eyed dame” was doing her unsophisticated best
to meet the situation gracefully, and to realize certain vague and rather
romantic dreams of her life out West. She meant to be very gracious, for
one thing, and to win the chivalrous friendship of every man who came to
participate in the rude congratulations that had been planned. Just how
she meant to do this she did not know--except that the graciousness would
certainly prove a very important factor.
“I'm going to remain downstairs,” she told Manley, when they reached the
hotel. It was the first sentence she had spoken since he overtook her. “I'm
so glad, dear,” she added diplomatically, “that you decided to stay. I want
to see that funny landlady now, please, and get her to serve coffee and
cake to our guests in the parlor. I wish I might have had one of my trunks
brought over here; I should like to wear a pretty gown.” She glanced down
at her tailored suit with true feminine dissatisfaction. “But everything
was so--so confused, with your being late, and sick--is your head better,
dear?”
Manley, in very few words, assured her that it was. Manley was struggling
with his inner self, trying to answer one very important question, and to
answer it truthfully: Could he meet “the boys,” do his part among them, and
still remain sober? That seemed to be the only course open to him now, and
he knew himself just well enough to doubt his own strength. But if Kent
would help him--He felt an immediate necessity to find Kent.
“You'll find Mrs. Hawley somewhere around,” he said hurriedly. “I've got to
see Kent--”
“Oh, Manley! Don't have anything to do with that horrid cowboy! He's
not--nice. He--he swore, when he must have known I could hear him; and he
was swearing about _me_, Manley. Didn't you hear him?” She stood in the
doorway and clung to his arm.
“No,” lied Manley. “You must have been mistaken, sweetheart.”
“Oh, I wasn't; I heard him quite plainly.” She must have thought it a
terrible thing, for she almost whispered the last words, and she released
him with much reluctance. It seemed to her that Manley was in danger of
falling among low associates, and that she must protect him in spite of
himself. It failed to occur to her that Manley had been exposed to that
danger for three years, without any protection whatever.
She was thankful, when he came to her later in the parlor, to learn from
him that he had not held any speech with Kent. That was some comfort--and
she felt that she needed a little comforting, just then. Her consultation
with Arline had been rather unsatisfactory. Arline had told her bluntly
that “the bunch” didn't want any coffee and cake. Whisky and cigars, said
Arline, without so much as a blush, was what appealed to them fellows. If
Manley handed it out liberal enough, they wouldn't bother his bride. Very
likely, Arline had assured her, she wouldn't see one of them. That, on the
whole, had been rather discouraging. How was she to show herself a gracious
lady, forsooth, if no one came near her? But she kept these things
jealously tucked away in the remotest corner of her own mind, and managed
to look the relief she did not feel.
And, after all, the _charivari_, as is apt to be the case when the plans
are laid so carefully, proved a very tame affair. Valeria, sitting rather
dismally in the parlor with Mrs. Hawley for company, at midnight heard a
banging of tin cans somewhere outside, a fitful popping of six-shooters,
and an abortive attempt at a procession coming up the street. But the lines
seemed to waver and then break utterly at the first saloon, where drink was
to be had for the asking and Manley Fleetwood was pledged to pay, and the
rattle of cans was all but drowned in the shouts of laughter and talk which
came from the “office,” across the hall. For where is the pleasure or the
profit in _charivaring_ a bridal couple which stays up and waits quite
openly for the clamor?
“Is it always so noisy here at night?” asked Valeria faintly when Mrs.
Hawley had insisted upon her lying down upon the uncomfortable sofa.
“Well, no--unless a round-up pulls in, or there's a dance, or it's
Christmas, or something. It's liable to keep up till two or three o'clock,
so the sooner you git used to it, the better off you'll be. I'm going to
leave you here, and go to bed--unless you want to go upstairs yourself.
Only it'll be noisier than ever up in your room, for it's right over the
office, and the way sound travels up is something fierce. Don't you be
afraid--I'll lock this door, and if your husband wants to come in he can
come through the dining room.” She looked at Valeria and hesitated before
she spoke the next sentence. “And don't you worry a bit over him, neither.
My old man was in the kitchen a minute ago, when I was out there, and he
says Man ain't drinking a drop to-night. He's keeping as straight as--”
Valeria sat up suddenly, quite scandalized. “Oh--why, of course Manley
wouldn't drink with them! Why--who ever heard of such a thing? The idea!”
She stared reproachfully at her hostess.
“Oh, sure! I didn't say such a thing was liable to happen. I just thought
you might be--worrying--they're making so much racket in there,” stammered
Arline.
“Indeed, no. I'm not at all worried, thank you. And please don't let me
keep you up any longer, Mrs. Hawley. I am quite comfortable--mentally and
physically, I assure you. Good night.”
Not even Mrs. Hawley could remain after that. She went out and closed the
door carefully behind her, without even finding voice enough to return
Valeria's sweetly modulated good night.
“She's got a whole lot to learn,” she relieved her feelings somewhat by
muttering as she mounted the stairs.
What it cost Manley Fleetwood to abstain absolutely and without even the
compromise of “soft” drinks that night, who can say? Three years of free
living in Montana had lowered his standard of morality without giving him
that rugged strength of mind which makes a man master of himself first of
all. He had that day lain, drunken and sleeping, when he should have been
at his mental and physical best to meet the girl who would marry him. It
was that very defection, perhaps, which kept him sober in the midst of his
taunting fellows. Now that Valeria was actually here, and was his wife, he
was possessed by the desire to make some sacrifice by which he might prove
his penitence. At any cost he would spare her pain and humiliation, he told
himself.
He did it, and he did it under difficulty. He was denied the moral support
of Kent Burnett, for Kent was sulking over his slight, and would have
nothing to say to him. He was jeered unmercifully by Fred De Garmo and his
crowd. He was “baptized” by some drunken reveler, so that the stench of
spilled whisky filled his nostrils and tortured him the night through.
He was urged, he was bullied, he was ridiculed. His head throbbed, his
eyeballs burned. But through it all he stayed among them because he feared
that if he left them and went to Val, some drunken fool might follow him
and shock her with his inebriety. He stayed, and he stayed sober. Val was
his wife. She trusted him, and she was ignorant of his sins. If he went to
her staggering and babbling incoherent foolishness, he knew it would break
her heart.
When the sky was at last showing faint dawn tints and the clamor had worn
itself out perforce--because even the leaders were, after all, but men, and
there was a limit to their endurance--Manley entered the parlor, haggard
enough, it is true, and bearing with him the stale odor of cigars long
since smoked, and of the baptism of bad whisky, but also with the air
of conscious rectitude which sits so comically upon a man unused to the
feeling of virtue.
As is so often the case when one fights alone the good fight and manages to
win, he was chagrined to find himself immediately put upon the defensive.
Val, as she speedily demonstrated, declined to look upon him as a hero, or
as being particularly virtuous. She considered herself rather neglected and
abused. She believed that he had stayed away because he was angry with her
on account of her refusal to leave town, and she thought that was rather
brutal of him. Also, her head ached from tears and lack of sleep, and she
hated the town, the hotel--almost she hated Manley himself.
Manley felt the rebuff of her chilling silence when he came in, and when
she twitched herself loose from his embrace he came near regretting his
extreme virtue. He spent ten minutes trying to explain, without telling all
of the truth, and he felt his good opinion of himself slipping from him
before her inexorable disfavor.
“Well, I don't blame you for not liking the town, Val,” he said at last,
rather desperately. “But you mustn't judge the whole country by it. You'll
like the ranch, dear. You'll feel as if you were in another world--”
“I hope so,” Val interrupted quellingly.
“We'll drive out there just as soon as we have breakfast.” He laid his hand
diffidently upon her tumbled hair. “I _had_ to stay out there with those
fellows. I didn't want to--”
“I don't want any breakfast,” said Val, getting up and going over to the
window--it would seem to avoid his caress. “The odor of that dining room is
enough to make one fast forever.” She lifted the grimy lace curtain with
her finger tips and looked disconsolately out upon the street. “It's just a
dirty, squalid little hamlet. I don't suppose the streets have been
cleaned or the garbage removed from the back yards since the place was
first--founded.” She laughed shortly at the idea of “founding” a wretched
village like that, but she had no other word at hand.
“_Arline_,” she remarked, in a tone of drawling recklessness. “Arline
swears. Did you know it? I suppose, of course, you do. She said something
that struck me as being shockingly true. She said I'm 'sure having a hell
of a honeymoon.'” Then she bit her lips hard, because her eyelids were
stinging with the tears she refused to shed in his presence.
“Oh, Val!” From the sofa Manley stared contritely at her back. She must
feel terrible, he thought, to bring herself to repeat that sentence--Val,
so icily pure in her thoughts and her speech.
Val was blinking her tawny eyes--like the eyes of a lion in color--at the
street. Not for the world would she let him see that she wanted to cry! A
figure, blurred to indistinctness, appealed in a doorway nearly opposite,
stood for a moment looking up at the reddened sky, and came across the
street. As the tears were beaten back she saw and recognized him, with a
curl of the lip.
“Here comes your cowboy friend--from a saloon, of course.” Her voice
was lazily contemptuous. “Only his presence in the street was needed to
complete the picture of desolation. He has been in a fight, judging from
his face. It is all bruised and skinned, and one eye is swollen--ugh! My
guide, my adviser--is it possible, Manley, that you couldn't find a _nice_
man to meet me at the train?” She turned from the disagreeable sight of
Kent and faced her husband. “Are all the men like that? And are all the
women like--Arline?”
Manley looked at her dumbly from the sofa. Would Val ever come to
understand the place, and the people, he was wondering.
She laughed suddenly. “I'm beginning to feel very sorry for Walt,” she said
irrelevantly, pointing to the easel and the expressionless crayon portrait
staring out from the gilt frame. “He has to stay in this room always. And
I believe another two hours would drive me hopelessly insane.” The word
caught her attention. “Hope!” she laughed ironically. “What imbecile ever
thought of hope in the same breath with this place? What they really ought
to do is paint that 'Abandon-hope' admonition across the whole front of the
depot!”
Manley, because he had lifted his head too suddenly and so sent white-hot
irons of pain clashing through his brain, turned sullen. “If you hate it as
bad as all that,” he said, “why, there'll be a train for the East in about
two hours.”
Val stiffened perceptibly, though the petulance in her face changed to
something wistful. “Do you mean--do you want me to go?” she asked very
calmly.
Manley pressed his fingers hard against his temples. “You know I don't. I
want you to stay and like the country, and be happy. But--the way you have
been talking makes it seem--a-ah!” He dropped his tortured head upon his
hands and did not trouble to finish what he had intended to say. Nervous
strain, lack of sleep, and a headache to begin with, were taking heavy toll
of him. He could not argue with her; he could not do anything except wish
he were dead, or that his head would stop aching.
Val took one of her unexpected changes of mood. She went up and laid her
cold fingers lightly upon his temples, where she could see the blood
beating savagely in the swollen veins. “What a little beast I am!” she
murmured contritely. “Shall I get you some coffee, dear? Or some headache
tablets, or--You know a cold cloth helped you last evening. Lie down for a
little while. There's no hurry about starting, is there? I--I don't hate
the place so awfully, Manley. I'm just cross because I couldn't sleep for
the noise. Here's a cushion, dear. I think it's stuffed with scrap iron,
for there doesn't seem to be anything soft about it except the invitation
to 'slumber sweetly,' in red and green silk; but anything is better than
the head of that sofa in its natural state.”
She arranged the cushion to her own liking, if not to his, and when it
was done she bent down impulsively and kissed him on the cheek, blushing
vividly the while.
“I won't be nasty and cross any more,” she promised. “Now, I'm going to
interview Arline. I hear dishes rattling somewhere; perhaps I can get a cup
of real coffee for you.” At the door she shook her finger at him playfully.
“Don't you dare stir off that sofa while I'm gone,” she admonished. “And,
remember, we're not going to leave town until your head stops aching--not
if we stay here a week!”
She insisted upon bringing him coffee and toast upon a tray--a battered old
tray, purloined for that purpose from the saloon, if she had only known
it--and she informed him, with a pretty, domestic pride, that she had made
the toast herself.
“Arline was going to lay slices of bread on top of the stove,” she
explained. “She said she always makes toast that way, and no one could tell
the difference! I never heard of such a thing--did you, Manley? But I've
been attending a cooking school ever since you left Fern Hill. I didn't
tell you--I wanted it for a surprise. I could have done better with the
toast before a wood fire--I think poor Arline was nearly distracted at the
way I poked coals down from the grate; but she didn't say anything. Isn't
it funny, to have cream in cans! I don't suppose it ever saw a cow--do you?
The coffee's pretty bad, isn't it? But wait until we get home! I can make
lovely coffee--if you'll get me a percolator. You will, won't you? And I
learned now to make the most delicious fruit salad, just before I left. A
cousin of Mrs. Forman's taught me how. Could you drink another cup, dear?”
Manley could not, and she deplored the poor quality, although she
generously absolved Arline from blame, because there seemed so much to do
in that kitchen. She refused to take any breakfast herself, telling him
gayly that the odor in the kitchen was both food and drink.
Because he understood a little of her loathing for the place, Manley lied
heroically about his headache, so that within an hour they were leaving
town, with the two great trunks roped securely to the buckboard behind the
seat, and with Val's suitcase placed flat in the front, where she could
rest her feet upon it. Val was so happy at the prospect of getting away
from the town that she actually threw a kiss in the direction of Arline,
standing with her frowsy head, her dough-spotted apron, and her tired face
in the parlor door.
Her mood changed immediately, however, for she had no more than turned from
waving her hand at Arline, when they met Kent, riding slowly up the street
with his hat tilted over the eye most swollen. Without a doubt he had seen
her waving and smiling, and so he must have observed the instant cooling of
her manner. He nodded to Manley and lifted his hat while he looked at her
full; and Val, in the arrogant pride of virtuous young womanhood, let her
golden-brown eyes dwell impersonally upon his face; let her white, round
chin dip half an inch downward, and then looked past him as if he were a
post by the roadside. Afterwards she smiled maliciously when she saw, with
a swift, sidelong glance, how he scowled and spurred unnecessarily his gray
gelding.