HERVEY TAKES A TRICK
The night before, when Perris rode off from the ranchhouse after
defying Hervey and his men, his hoofbeats had no sooner faded to
nothing than the cowpunchers swarmed out from the patio and into the
open; as though they wished to put their heads together and plan the
battle which the command of Hervey, to-night, had postponed. All of
that was perfectly clear to Marianne. Her call brought Hervey back to
her and she led him at once off the veranda and to the living room
where she could talk secure of interruption or of being overheard.
There he slumped uninvited into the first easy chair and sat twirling
his sombrero on his finger-tips, obviously well satisfied with
himself and the events of the evening. She herself remained standing,
carefully turning her back to the light so that her face might, as
much as possible, be in shadow. For she knew it was pale and the eyes
unnaturally large.
Hervey must not see. He must not guess at the torment in her mind and
all the self-revelations which had been pouring into her consciousness
during the past few moments. Greatest of all was one overshadowing
fact: she loved Red Jim Perris! What did it matter that she had seen
him so few times, and spoke to him so few words? A word might be a
thunderclap; a glance might carry into the very soul of a man. And
indeed she felt that she had seen that proud, gay, impatient soul in
Jim. What he thought of her was another matter. That he found a bar
between them was plain. But on the night of his first arrival at the
ranch, when she sang to him, had she not felt him, once, twice and
again, leaning towards her, into her life. And if they met once more,
might he not come all the way? But no matter. The thing now was to use
all her cunning of mind, all her strength of body, to save him from
imminent danger; and the satisfied glint of Hervey's eye convinced
her that the danger was imminent indeed. Why he should hate Jim
so bitterly was not clear; that he did so hate the stranger was
self-evident. The more she studied her foreman the more her terror
grew, the more her lonely sense of weakness increased.
"Mr. Hervey," she said suddenly. "What's to be done?"
Her heart fell. He had avoided her eyes.
"I dunno," said Hervey. "You seen to-night that I treated him plumb
white. I put my cards on the table. I warned him fair and square. And
that after I'd given him a week's grace. A gent couldn't do any more
than that, I guess!"
He was right, in a way. At least, the whole populace of the mountains
would agree that he had given Red Jim every chance to leave the ranch
peaceably. And if he would not go peaceably, who could raise a finger
against Hervey for throwing the man off by force?
"But something more _has_ to be done," she said eagerly. "It _has_ to
be done!"
Hervey frowned at her.
"Look here," he said, in a more dictatorial manner than he had ever
used before. "Why you so interested in this Perris?"
She hesitated, but only for an instant. What did such a thing as shame
matter when the life of Perris might be saved by a confession? And
certainly Hervey would not dare to proceed against Perris if she made
such a confession.
"I'm interested," she said steadily, "because he--he means more to me
than any other man in the world."
She saw the head of the foreman jerk back as though he had received a
blow in the face.
"More'n your father?"
"In a different way--yes, more than Dad!"
Hervey rose and stretched an accusing arm towards her.
"You're in love with Red Perris!"
And she answered him fiercely: "Yes, yes, yes! In love with Red
Perris! Go tell every one of your men. Shame me as far as you wish!
But--Mr. Hervey, you won't dare lead a gang against him now!"
He drew back from her, thrust away by her half-hysteria of emotion.
"Won't I?" growled Hervey, regarding her from beneath sternly gathered
brows. "I seen something of this to-night. I guessed it all. Won't I
lay a hand on a sneaking hound that comes grinning and talking soft
and saying things he don't half mean? Why, it's a better reason for
throwing him off the ranch than I ever had before, seems to me!"
"You don't mean that!" she breathed. "Say you don't mean that!"
"Your Dad ain't here. If he was, he'd say the same as me. I got to
act in his place. You think you like Perris. Why, you'd be throwing
yourself away. You'd break Oliver Jordan's heart. That's what you'd
do!"
Her brain was whirling. She grasped at the first thought that came to
her.
"Then wait till he comes back before you touch Jim Perris."
"And let Perris raise the devil in the meantime?"
He laughed in her face.
"At least," she cried, her voice shrill with anger and fear, "let me
know where he is. Let me send for him myself."
"Dunno that I'm exactly sure about where he is myself," fenced Lew
Hervey.
"Ah," moaned the girl, half-breaking down under the strain. "Why do
you hate me so? What have I done to you?"
"Nothing," said Hervey grimly. "Made me the laughing stock of the
mountains--that's all. Made me a joke--that's all you've done to me.
'Lew Hervey and his boss--the girl.' That's what they been saying
about me. But I ain't been taking that to heart. What I'm doing now is
for your own good, only you don't know it! You'll see it later on."
"Mr. Hervey," she pleaded, "if it will change you, I'll give you my
oath to stop bothering with the management of the ranch. You can run
it your own way. I'll leave if you say the word, but----"
"I know," said Hervey. "I know what you'd say. But Lord above, Miss
Jordan, I ain't doing this for my own sake. I'm doing it for yours
and your father's. He'll thank me if you don't! Far as Perris goes,
I'd----"
He halted. She had sunk into a chair--collapsed into it, rather, and
lay there half fainting with one arm thrown across her face. Hervey
glowered down on her a moment and then turned on his heel and left the
house.
He went straight to the bunkhouse, gathered the men about him, and
told them the news.
"Boys," he said, "the cat's out of the bag. I've found out everything,
and it's what I been fearing. She started begging me to keep off Red
Jim's trail. Wouldn't hear no reason. I told her there wasn't nothing
for me to gain by throwing him off the ranch. Except that he'd been
ordered off and he had to go. It'd make a joke of me and all of you
boys if the word got around that one gent had laughed at us and stayed
right in the Valley when we told him to get out."
A fierce volley of curses bore him out.
"Well," said Hervey, "then she come right out and told me the truth:
she's in love with Perris. She told me so herself!"
They gaped at him. They were young enough, most of them, and lonely
and romantic enough, to have looked on Marianne with a sort of sad
longing which their sense of humor kept from being anything more
aspiring. But to think that she had given her heart so suddenly and
so freely to this stranger was a shock. Hervey reaped the harvest of
their alarmed glances with a vast inward content. Every look he met
was an incipient gun levelled at the head of Red Jim.
"Didn't make no bones about it," he said, "she plumb begged for him.
Well, boys, she ain't going to get him. I think too much of old man
Jordan to let his girl run off with a man-killing vagabond like this
Perris. He's good looking and he talks dead easy. That's what's turned
the trick. I guess the rest of you would back me up?"
The answer was a growl.
"I'll go bust his neck," said Little Joe furiously. "One of them
heart-breakers, I figure."
"First thing," said the foreman, "is to see that she don't get to him.
If she does, she'll sure run off with him. But she's easy kept from
that. Joe, you and Shorty watch the hoss corrals to-night, will you?
And don't let her get through to a hoss by talking soft to you."
They vowed that they would be adamant. They vowed it with many oaths.
In fact, the rage of the cowpunchers was steadily growing. Red Perris
was more than a mere insolent interloper who had dared to scoff at the
banded powers of the Valley of the Eagles. He was far worse. He was
the most despicable sort of sneak and thief for he was trying to
steal the heart and ruin the life of a girl. They had looked upon
the approaching conflict with Perris as a bitter pill that must be
swallowed for the sake of the Valley of the Eagles outfit. They looked
upon it, from this moment, as a religious duty from which no one with
the name of a man dared to shrink. Little Joe and Shorty at once
started for the corral. The others gathered around the foreman for
further details, but he waved them away and retired to his own bunk.
For he never used the little room at the end of the building which
was set aside for the foreman. He lived and slept and ate among his
cowpunchers and that was one reason for his hold over them.
At his bunk, he produced writing materials scribbled hastily.
"Dear Jordan,
"Hell has busted loose.
"I played Perris with a long rope. I gave him a week because Miss
Jordan asked me to. But at the end of the week he still wasn't ready
to go. Seems that he's crazy to get Alcatraz. Talks about the horse
like a drunk talking about booze. Plumb disgusting. But when I told
him to go to-night, he up and said they wasn't enough men in the
Valley to throw him off the ranch. I would of taken a fall out of him
for that, but Miss Jordan stepped in and kept me away from him.
"Afterwards I had a talk with her. She begged me not to go after
Perris because he would fight and that meant a killing. I told her I
had to do what I'd said I'd do. Then she busted out and told me that
she loved Perris. Seemed to think that would keep me from going after
Perris. She might of knowed that it was the very thing that would
make me hit the trail. I'm not going to stand by and see a skunk like
Perris run away with your girl while you ain't on the ranch.
"I've just given orders to a couple of the boys to see that she don't
get a horse to go out to Perris. Tomorrow or the next day I'll settle
his hash.
"This letter may make you think that you'd better come back to the
ranch. But take my advice and stay off. I can handle this thing better
while you're away. If you're here you'll have to listen to a lot of
begging and crying. Come back in a week and everything will be cleared
up.
"Take it easy and don't worry none. I'm doing my best for you and your
daughter, even if she don't know it.
"Sincerely,
"LEW HERVEY."
This letter, when completed, he surveyed with considerable
complacence. If ever a man were being bound to another by chains of
inseparable gratitude, Oliver Jordan was he! Indeed, the whole affair
was working out so smoothly, so perfectly, that Hervey felt the thrill
of an artist sketching a large and harmonious composition. In the
first place, Red Jim Perris, whom he hated with unutterable fervor
because the younger man filled him with dread, would be turned, as
Hervey expressed it, "into buzzard food." And Hervey would be praised
for the act! Oliver Jordan, owing the preservation of his daughter
from a luckless marriage to the vigilance of his foreman, could
never regret the life-contract which he had drawn up. No doubt that
contract, as it stood, could never hold water in the law. But Jordan's
gratitude would make it proof. Last of all, and best of all, when
Perris was disposed of, Marianne would never be able to remain on the
ranch. She would go to forget her sorrow among her school friends in
the East. And Hervey, undisputed lord and master of the ranch, could
bleed it white in half a dozen years and leave it a mere husk,
overladen with mortgages.
No wonder a song was in the heart of the foreman as he sealed the
letter. He gave the message to Slim, and added directions.
"You'll be missing from the party," he said, as he handed over the
letter, "but the party we have with Perris is apt to be pretty much
like a party with a wild-cat. You can thank your stars you'll be on
the road when it comes off!"
And Slim had sense enough to nod in agreement.