MORE PROGRESS
A strange thing was happening to Calumet. His character was in the
process of remaking. Slowly and surely Betty's good influence was
making itself felt. This in spite of his knowledge of her secret
meeting with Neal Taggart. To be sure, so far as his actions were
concerned, he was the Calumet of old, a man of violent temper and
vicious impulses, but there were growing governors that were
continually slowing his passions, strange, new thoughts that were
thrusting themselves insistently before him. He was strangely
uncertain of his attitude toward Betty, disturbed over his feelings
toward her. Despite his knowledge of her secret meeting with Taggart,
with a full consciousness of all the rage against her which that
knowledge aroused in him, he liked her. At the same time, he despised
her. She was not honest. He had no respect for any woman who would
sneak as she had sneaked. She was two-faced; she was trying to cheat
him out of his heritage. She had deceived his father, she was trying
to deceive him. She was unworthy of any admiration whatever, but
whenever he looked at her, whenever she was near him, he was conscious
of a longing that he could not fight down.
And there was Dade. He often watched Dade while they were working
together on the bunkhouse in the days following the incident of the
ambush by Taggart. The feeling that came over him at these times was
indescribable and disquieting, as was his emotion whenever Dade smiled
at him. He had never experienced the deep, stirring spirit of
comradeship, the unselfish affection which sometimes unites the hearts
of men; he had had no "chum" during his youth. But this feeling that
came over him whenever he looked at Dade was strangely like that which
he had for his horse, Blackleg. It was deeper, perhaps, and disturbed
him more, yet it was the same. At the same time, it was different.
But he could not tell why. He liked to have Dade around him, and one
day when the latter went to Lazette on some errand for Betty he felt
queerly depressed and lonesome. That same night when Dade drove into
the ranchhouse yard Calumet had smiled at him, and a little later when
Dade had told Betty about it he had added:
"When I seen him grin at me that cordial, I come near fallin' off my
horse. I was that flustered! Why, Betty, he's comin' around! The
durn cuss likes me!"
"Do you like him?" inquired Betty.
"Sure. Why, shucks! There ain't nothin' wrong with him exceptin' his
grouch. When he works that off so's it won't come back any more he'll
be plumb man, an' don't you forget it!"
There was no mistaking Calumet's feeling toward Bob. He pitied the
youngster. He allowed him to ride Blackleg. He braided him a
half-sized lariat. He carried him long distances on his back and
waited upon him at the table. Bob became his champion; the boy
worshiped him.
Betty was not unaware of all this, and yet she continued to hold
herself aloof from Calumet. She did not treat him indifferently, she
merely kept him at a distance. Several times when he spoke to her
about Neal Taggart she left him without answering, and so he knew that
she resented the implication that he had expressed on the morning
following the night on which he had discovered her talking in the
office.
It was nearly three weeks after the killing of Denver and his
confederate that the details of the story reached Betty's ears, and
Calumet was as indifferent to her expressions of horror--though it was
a horror not unmixed with a queer note of satisfaction, over which he
wondered--as he was to Dade's words of congratulation: "You're sure
livin' up to your reputation of bein' a slick man with the six!"
Nor did Calumet inquire who had brought the news. But when one day a
roaming puncher brought word from the Arrow that "young Taggart is
around ag'in after monkeyin' with the wrong end of a gun," he showed
interest. He was anxious to settle the question which had been in his
mind since the morning of the shooting. It was this: had Betty meant
to hit Taggart when she had shot at him? He thought not; she had
pretended hostility in order to mislead him. But if that had been her
plan she had failed to fool him, for he watched unceasingly, and many
nights when Betty thought him asleep he was secreted in the wood near
the ranchhouse. He increased his vigilance after receiving word that
Taggart had not been badly injured. More, he rarely allowed Betty to
get out of his sight, for he was determined to defeat the plan to rob
him.
However, the days passed and Taggart did not put in an appearance.
Time removes the sting from many hurts and even jealousy's pangs are
assuaged by the flight of days. And so after a while Calumet's
vigilance relaxed, and he began to think that he had scared Taggart
away. He noted with satisfaction that Betty seemed to treat him less
coldly, and he felt a pulse of delight over the thought that perhaps
she had repented and had really tried to hit Taggart that morning.
Once he seized upon this idea he could not dispel it. More, it grew on
him, became a foundation upon which he built a structure of defense for
Betty. Taggart had been trying to deceive her. She had discovered his
intentions and had broken with him. Perhaps she had seen the injustice
of her actions. He began to wish he had treated her a little less
cruelly, a little more civilly, began to wish that he had yielded to
those good impulses which he had felt occasionally of late. His
attitude toward Betty became almost gentle, and there were times when
she watched him with wondering curiosity, as though not quite
understanding the change that had come in him.
But Dade understood. He had "sized" Calumet "up" in those first days
and his judgment had been unerring, as it was now when Betty asked his
opinion.
"He's beginnin' to use his brain box," he told her. "He's been a
little shy an' backward, not knowin' what to expect, an' makin'
friend's bein' a little new to him. But he's the goods at bottom, an'
he's sighted a goal which he's thinkin' to make one of these days."
"A goal?" said she, puzzled.
"Aw, you female critters is deep ones," grinned Dade, "an' all smeared
over with honey an' innocence. You're the goal he's after. An' I'm
bettin' he'll get you."
Her face reddened, and she looked at him plainly indignant.
"He is a brute," she said.
"Most all men is brutes if you scratch them deep enough," drawled Dade.
"The trouble with Calumet is that he's never had a chance to spread on
the soft stuff. He's the plain, unvarnished, dyed-in-the-wool,
original man. There's a word fits him, if I could think of it." He
looked at her inquiringly.
"Primitive, I think you mean," she said.
"That's it--primitive. That's him. He's the rough material; nobody's
ever helped him to get into shape. A lot of folks pride themselves on
what they call culture, forgettin' that it wasn't in them when they
came into the world, that it growed on them after they got here, was
put there by trainin' an' example. Not that I'm ag'in culture; it's a
mighty fine thing to have hangin' around a man. But if a man ain't got
it an' still measures up to man's size, he's goin' to be a humdinger
when he gets all the culture that's comin' to him. Mebbe Calumet'll
never get it. But he's losin' his grouch, an' if you--"
"When do you think you will finish repairing the corral?" interrupted
Betty.
Dade grinned. "Tomorrow, I reckon," he said.