Deveril went back to his horse, mounting listlessly like a very
tired man. The spring had gone out of his step and something of the
elasticity out of that ever-young spirit which had always been his no
matter from what quarter blew the variable winds of chance. Lynette
was gone and he could not hold back his thoughts from winging back
along the trail he and she had trod together; there had been the time,
and now he knew it, when all things were possible; the time before
Bruce Standing came into her life, when Babe Deveril, had he then
understood both himself and her, might have won a thing more golden
than any man's mere gold. In his blindness he had judged her the light
adventuress which she seemed; now that it was given him to understand
that in Lynette Brooke he had found a pure-hearted girl whose inherited
adventuresome blood had led her into tangled paths, he understood that
in her there had come that one girl who comes once to all men ... and
that she had passed on and out of his life.
He caught up the reins of the horse she had left behind. His face grew
grim; he still had Jim Taggart to deal with and, therefore, it was as
well to take this horse and the others back to Big Pine and leave them
there for Taggart. For the first thing which would suggest itself to
the enraged sheriff would be to press a charge against him of horse
stealing, and in this country horse thieves were treated with no gentle
consideration.
"I'll leave the horses there ... and go."
Where? It did not matter. There was nothing left for him in these
mountains; Bruce Standing had the gold and the girl was on the stage.
But in his bleak broodings there remained one gleam of gloating
satisfaction: he had tricked Standing out of the girl! That Lynette
already loved his kinsman or at the least stood upon the very brink
of giving her heart unreservedly into his keeping, Deveril's keen
eyes, the eyes of jealous love, had been quick to read. It did not
once suggest itself to him that Standing could by any possibility have
failed to love Lynette. The two had been for days together, alone in
the mountains; why should Standing have kept her and have been gentle
with her, as he must have been, save for the one reason that he loved
her? Further, what man could have lived so long with Lynette of the
daring eyes and not love her? And he, Babe Deveril, had stolen her away
from Bruce Standing, had tricked him with a pencil scrawl, had lost
Lynette to him for all time. The stage carrying her away now was as
inevitable an instrument in the hand of fate as death itself.
He turned back for the other horses which he had tethered by the
roadside and led them on toward Big Pine.
"What the devil is love, anyway?" he muttered once.
It was not for a man such as Babe Deveril to know clearly; for love is
winged with unselfishness and self-sacrifice. And yet, after his own
fashion, he loved her and would love her always, though other pretty
faces came and went and he laughed into other eyes. She was lost to
him; there was the one great certainty like a rock wall across his
path. And she had said at the parting ... her last words to him were to
ring in his memory for many a long day ... that there was both good and
bad in him; and she chose to remember the good! He tried to laugh at
that; what did he care for good and bad? He, a man who went his way and
made reckoning to none?
And she had said that she knew him for _a man_; one who, whatever else
he might have done, had never stooped to a mean, contemptible act; she
thought of him and would always think of him as a man who, though he
struck unrighteous blows, dealt them in the open, man-style.... And yet
... the one deed of a significance so profound that it had directed the
currents of three lives, that writing of seven words, that signing of
her name under them....
"I am glad that I did that!" he triumphed. And gladdest of all, in his
heart, was he that Lynette did not know ... would never know.
Thus Babe Deveril, riding with drooping head, found certain living
fires among the ashes of dead hopes: A row to come with Taggart? He
could look forward to it with fierce eagerness. Standing and Lynette
separated; vindictive satisfaction there. He'd got his knife in
Standing's heart at last! He'd like to wait a year or a dozen until
some time Lynette forgot and another man came despite her sweeping
avowal and she married; he would like then to come back to Bruce
Standing and tell him the fool he had been and how it had been none
other than Baby Devil who had knifed him.
... And yet, all the while, Lynette's farewell words were in his mind.
And he saw before him, wherever he looked, her face as he had seen it
last, her eyes blurred with her tears. And he fought stubbornly with
himself against the insistent admission: It was Babe Deveril and none
other who, saying that he loved her, had put those tears there. Good
and bad? What the devil had he to do with sticking those labelling tags
upon what he or others did?
Bruce Standing was still in his office. He was a man who had won
another victory and yet one who had the taste of despair in his mouth.
Gallup's town was doomed; it was one of those little mountain towns
which had already outlived its period of usefulness and now with a man
like Timber-Wolf waging merciless war against it, Big Pine had its back
broken almost at the first savage blow struck. But Standing strode up
and down restlessly like a man broken by defeat rather than one whose
standards went flying on triumphantly; he knew that a new rival town,
his own town, was springing into being in a few hours; he had the brief
satisfaction of knowing that he was keeping an ancient promise and
striking a body blow from which there would be no recovery, making Big
Pine take the count and drop out of all men's consideration; he knew,
from having seen it many times, that pitiful spectacle which a dead and
deserted town presents; so, briefly, just as his kinsman was doing at
the same moment, he extracted what satisfaction he could from the hour.
He even had word sent to Gallup: "I am killing your town very much as
a man may kill an ugly snake. I shall see to it that goods are sold
cheaper here than at your store; there will be a better hotel here,
with a better shorter road leading to it. And I will build cabins as
fast as they are called for, to house deserters from your dying town.
And I will see to it that men from my town never set foot in your town.
This from me, Young Gallup: 'For the last time I have set foot upon
your dung heap. I'm through with you and the world is through with you.
You're dead and buried.'"
During the day, word came to him that several men and one girl had been
seen hastily occupied at the foot of the Red Cliffs; the girl Lynette;
one of the men, Deveril. And it seemed very clear to Standing that
Lynette had led Deveril and the others in hot haste to the Red Cliffs
only because she had misunderstood Mexicali Joe's directions, confused
by his mention of these cliffs where he had prospected last year.
"I'll go get them." Standing told himself a score of times. "Just as
soon as I know how to handle them. When I know how I can hurt him most
and her...."
Mexicali Joe swelled about the landscape all day like a bursting
balloon, a man swept up in a moment from a condition of less than
mediocrity to one, as Mexicali regarded it, of monumental magnificence
and the highest degree of earthly joy. Graham could not keep him out
of Standing's office; the second time he came in Timber-Wolf lifted
him upon his boot hurling him out through the door and promising him
seven kinds of ugly death if he ever came back. Whereupon Mexicali Joe,
shaking his head, went away without grumbling; for in the sky of his
adoration stood just two: God and Bruce Standing.
Graham was still laughing, when another man rode up to the door, and
Graham on the instant became alert and concerned. He hastened to
Standing, saying quickly:
"Mr. Deveril to see you. He has ridden his horse nearly to death. And I
don't like the look on his face."
"Show him in!" shouted Standing. "You fool ... don't you know he's the
one man in the world...."
Graham hurried out. Deveril, his face pale and hard, his eyes burning
as though the man were fever-ridden, came into the room. The door
closed after him.
"Well?" snapped Standing.
"Not so well, thanks," retorted Deveril with an attempt at his
characteristic inconsequential insolence. "Here's hoping the same to
you ... damn you!"
"If you've got anything to say, get it done with," commanded Standing
angrily.
"I'll say it," Deveril muttered. "But first I'll say this, though I
fancy it goes without saying: there is no man on earth I hate as I hate
you. As far as you and I are concerned I'd rather see you dead than
any other sight I'll ever see. And now, in spite of all that, I've come
to do you a good turn."
Standing scoffed at him, crying out: "I want none of your good turns; I
am satisfied to have your hate."
Deveril, with eyes which puzzled Timber-Wolf, was staring at him
curiously.
"Tell me, Bruce Standing," he demanded, "do you love her?"
"Love her?" cried Standing. "Rather I hate the ground she walks on!
She is your kind, Baby Devil; not mine." And he laughed his scorn of
her. But now there was no chiming of golden bells in that great volume
of laughter but rather a sinister ring like the angry clash of iron.
All the while Babe Deveril looked him straight in the eye ... and
understood!
"For once _you lie_! You love her and what is more ... and worse!...
she loves you! And that is why...."
"_Loves me?_ Are you drunk, man, or crazy? Loves me and leaves me for
you; leads you and your crowd to the Gulch, trying to stake on Joe's
claim, trying to...."
"She did not leave you for me! I took Taggart and Gallup to her, and
Taggart put her under arrest ... for shooting you! And she did not lead
us to the spot where she knew Joe's claim was; she made fools of us and
led us to the Red Cliffs, miles away!"
Standing's face was suddenly as tense as Deveril's, almost as white.
"She left a note; saying that she was going back to you...."
Deveril strode by him to a table on which lay some letter paper and
wrote slowly and with great care, laboring over each letter:
I am going back to Babe Deveril.
LYNETTE.
And then he threw the pencil down and stood looking at Standing. And he
saw an expression of bewilderment, and then one of amazement wiping it
out, and then a great light leaping into Standing's eyes.
"You made her go! You dragged her away! And you wrote that!"
Deveril turned toward the door.
"I have told you that she loves you. So it is for her happiness,
much as I hate you, that I have told you.... She, thinking that you
preferred gold to her, has just gone out on the down stage...."
"By the Lord, man," and now Standing's voice rang out joyously, clear
and golden once more, "you've done a wonderful thing to-day! I wonder
if I could have done what you are doing? By thunder, Babe Deveril, you
should be killed for the thing you did ... but you've wiped it out.
After this ... need there be hatred between us?"
He put out his hand. Deveril drew back and went out through the door.
His horse, wet with sweat and flecked with foam, was waiting for him.
As he set foot into the stirrup he called back in a voice which rang
queerly in Standing's ears:
"She doesn't know I wrote that. Unless it's necessary ... You see, I'd
like her to think as well...." He didn't finish, but rode away. And as
long as he was in sight he sat very erect in the saddle and sent back
for any listening ears a light and lively whistled tune.
The stage, carrying its one passenger came rocking and clattering about
the last bend in the grade where the road crosses that other road which
comes down from the mountains farther to the east, from the region
of Bruce Standing's holdings. The girl's figure drooped listlessly;
her eyes were dry and tired and blank with utter hopelessness. Long
ago the garrulous driver had given over trying to talk with her. Now
she was stooping forward, so that she saw nothing in all the dreary
world but the dusty dashboard before her ... and in her fancy, moving
across this like pictures on a screen, the images of faces ... Bruce
Standing's face when he had chained her; when he had cried out that he
loved her....
The driver slammed on his brakes, muttering; the wheels dragged; the
stage came to an abrupt halt. She looked up, without interest. And
there in the road, so close to the wheel that she could have put out a
hand and touched him, was Bruce Standing.
"Lynette!" he called to her.
She saw that he had a rifle in his hand; that a buckboard with a
restive span of colts was at the side of the road. The driver was
cursing; he understood that Standing, taking no chances, had meant to
stop him in any case.
"What's this?" he demanded. "Hold up?"
Standing ignored him. His arms were out; there was the gladdest look in
his eyes Lynette had ever seen in any man's; when he called to her he
sent a thrill like a shiver through her. He had come for her; he wanted
her....
"No!" she cried, remembering. "No! Drive on!"
"You bet your sweet life I'll drive on!" the driver burst out. And to
Standing: "Stand aside."
Then Standing put his hands out suddenly, dropping his rifle in the
road, and caught Lynette to him, lifting her out of her seat despite
her efforts to cling to the stage, and took up his rifle again, saying
sternly to the stage-driver:
"Now drive on!"
"No!" screamed Lynette, struggling against the one hand restraining
her ... and against herself! "He can't do this ... don't let him...."
But in the end she knew how it would be. The stage-driver was no man to
stand out against Bruce Standing ... she wondered if anywhere on earth
there lived a man to gainsay him when that light was in his eyes and
that tone vibrated in his voice.
"He's got the drop on me ... he'd drop me dead soon as not.... I'll go,
Miss; but I'll send back word...." And Lynette and Bruce Standing, in
the gathering dusk, were alone again in the quiet lands at the bases of
the mountains.
"Girl ... I did not know how I loved you until to-day!"
She whipped away from him, her eyes scornful.
"Love! You talk of love! And you leave me in the hands of those men
while you go looking for gold!"
"No," he said, "it wasn't that. I thought that you had no further use
for me; that you loved Deveril; that you had gone back to him; that you
were trying to lead him and the rest to Joe's gold; that...."
There was now no sign of weariness in a pair of gray eyes which flashed
in hot anger.
"What right had you to think that of me?" she challenged him. "That I
was a liar, breaking a promise I had made; and worse than a liar, to
betray a confidence? What right have you to think a thing like that,
Bruce Standing ... and talk to me of love!"
He could have told her; he could have quoted to her that message which
had been left behind, signed with her name. But, after all, in the end
he had Babe Deveril to think of, a man who had shown himself a man, who
had done his part for love of her, whose one reward if Bruce Standing
himself were a man, must lie in the meagre consolation that Lynette
held him above so petty an act as that one which he had committed. So
for a moment Standing was silent; and then he could only say earnestly:
"I am sorry, Lynette. I wronged you and I was a fool and worse. But
there were reasons why I thought that.... And after all we have
misunderstood each other; that is all. Joe's gold is still Joe's gold;
I have made it safe for him and not one cent of it is mine or will ever
be mine...."
"Nor do I believe that!" she cried. "Nor any other thing you may ever
tell me!"
"That, at least, I can make you believe." He was very stern-faced now
and began wondering if Deveril had been mad when he had told him that
Lynette loved him. How could Deveril know that? There was little enough
of the light of love in her eyes now. And yet....
"Are you willing to come back to headquarters with me?" he asked
gently. "There, at least, you can learn that I have told you the truth
about Mexicali Joe's gold. No matter how things go, girl, I don't want
you to think of me that I did a trick like that ... forgetting you to
go money-grabbing...."
"You can make me come," she said bitterly. "You have put a chain on me
before now. But you can never make me love you, Bruce Standing."
Now she saw in his face a look which stirred her to the depths; a look
of profound sadness.
"No," he said, "I'll never put chain on you again, girl; I'll never
lift my hand to make you do anything on earth; I would rather die than
force you to anything. But I shall go on loving you always. And now,"
and for the first time she heard him pleading! "is it so great a thing
that I ask? If you will not love me, at least I want you to think as
well of me as you can. That is only justice, girl; and you are very
just. If you will only come with me and learn from Mexicali Joe himself
that I have touched and shall touch no single ounce of his gold."
She knew that he was speaking truth; and yet she could not admit it
to him ... since she would not admit it to herself! And she wanted to
believe, and yet told herself that she would never believe. She was
glad that he was not dragging her back with him as she had been so
certain that he would ... and she did not know that she was not sorry.
"Will you do that one thing? I shall not try to hold you...."
"Yes," she said stiffly. And then she laughed nervously, saying in a
hard, suppressed voice: "What choice have I, after all? The stage has
gone and I have to go somewhere and find a stage again or a horse...."
"No. That is not necessary. If you will not come with me freely, I will
take you now where you wish; to overtake the stage."
And thus, when already it was hard enough for her, he unwittingly made
it harder. She wanted to go ... she did not want to go ... most of all
she did not want him to know what she wanted or did not want. She cried
out quickly:
"Let us go then! I don't believe you! And, if you dare let me talk
alone with Mexicali Joe, I shall know you for what you are!"
Lynette was in Bruce Standing's study. He had gone for Mexicali Joe.
She looked about her, seeing on all hands as she had seen during their
racing drive, an expression of the man himself. Here was a vital centre
of enormous activities; Standing was its very heart. The biggest man
she had ever known or dreamed of knowing; one who did big things;
one who was himself untrammelled by the dictates and conventions of
others. And in her heart she did believe every word that he spoke; and
thus she knew that he, this man among men, loved her!... And she loved
him! She knew that; she had known it ... how long? Perhaps with clear
definiteness for the first time while she spoke of him with Deveril,
yearning for his coming; certainly when she had started at the sight of
him at the stage wheel. So she held at last that it was for no selfish
mercenary gain that he had been so long coming to her, but rather
because he had lost faith in her, thinking ill of her. That was what
hurt; that was what held her back from his arms, since she would not
admit that he could love her truly and misdoubt her at the same time.
For certainly where one loved as she herself could love, one gave all,
even unto the last dregs of loyal, confident faith. How confident all
day she had been that he would come to her!
Lynette, restless, walked up and down, back and forth through the big
rooms, waiting. Her wandering eyes were everywhere ... upon only one
of the shining table tops was a scrap of paper. In her abstraction she
glanced at it. Her own name! Written as though signed to a note.
In a flash her quickened fancies pictured much of all that had
happened: Deveril to-day had told Standing she was going out on the
stage; Deveril had told Standing all that had happened ... because
Deveril, too, loved her and knew that she loved his kinsman. She
recalled now how Deveril had stopped a little while in camp after
Taggart had dragged her away. So Deveril had left this note behind? And
Standing knew now; he had said there were reasons why he had been so
sure she had gone to Deveril. She understood how now it would be with
him; Deveril had told him everything and he, accepting a rich, free
gift from the hand of a man he hated was not the man in turn to speak
ill of one who had striven to make restitution, though by speaking
the truth he might gain everything! These were men, these two; and to
be loved by two such men was like having the tribute of kings.... She
heard Standing at the door, bringing Mexicali Joe. There was a little
fire in the fireplace; she ran to it and dropped the paper into the
flames behind the big log. The door opened to Standing's hand. At his
heels she saw Mexicali Joe.
"No!" she cried, and he saw and marvelled at the new, shining look in
her eyes; a look which made him stop, his heart leaping as he cried out
wonderingly:
"Girl! oh, girl ... at last?"
"Don't bring Joe in! I don't want to talk with him; I want your word,
just yours alone, on everything!"
Now it was Mexicali Joe who was set wondering. For Standing, with a
sudden vigorous sweep of his arm, slammed the door in Joe's perplexed
face and came with swift eager strides to Lynette.
"It is I who have been of little faith and disloyal," she said softly.
"I was ungrateful enough to forget how you were big enough to take my
unproven word that it was not I who shot you, a thing I could never
prove! And yet I asked proof of you! I should have known all the time
that ... 'though it were ten thousand mile....'"
She was smiling now and yet her eyes were wet. She lifted them to his
that he might look down into them, through them into her heart.
"Let me say this ... first ..." she ran on hastily. "Babe Deveril saved
me the second time to-day from Taggart. And he told you where to find
me. I think that he has made amends."
"He wiped his slate clean," said Standing heartily. "Henceforth I am
no enemy of his. But it is not of Deveril now that we must talk. Girl,
can't you see...."
"Am I blind?" laughed Lynette happily.