A MILLION GALLOPS OFF
Joan was returning to camp, weighed down by a somber cloud. Dad Frazer
had carried word to her early that morning of Mackenzie's condition,
the old man divided in his opinion as to whether man or beast had
mauled the shepherd and left him in such melancholy plight.
"Both man and beast," Rabbit had told Joan, having no division of mind
in the case at all. And so Joan believed it to be, also, after sitting
for hours in the hot sheep-wagon beside the mangled, unconscious
schoolmaster, who did not move in pain, nor murmur in delirium, nor
drop one word from his clenched, still lips to tell whose hand had
inflicted this terrible punishment.
And the range seemed bent on making a secret of it, also. Dad had gone
hot-foot on Joan's horse to seek Earl Reid and learn the truth of it,
only to ride in vain over the range where Mackenzie's flock grazed.
Reid was not in camp; the sheep were running unshepherded upon the
hills. Now, Joan, heading back to her camp at dusk of the longest,
heaviest, darkest day she ever had known, met Reid as she rode away
from Dad Frazer's wagon, and started out of her brooding to hasten
forward and question him.
"How did it happen--who did it?" she inquired, riding up breathlessly
where Reid lounged on his horse at the top of the hill waiting for her
to come to him.
"Happen? What happen?" said Reid, affecting surprise.
"Mr. Mackenzie--surely you must know something about it--he's nearly
killed!"
"Oh, Mackenzie." Reid spoke indifferently, tossing away his cigarette,
laughing a little as he shaped the shepherd's name. "Mackenzie had a
little trouble with Swan Carlson, but this time he didn't land his
lucky blow."
"I thought you knew all about it," Joan said, sweeping him a scornful,
accusing look. "I had you sized up about that way!"
"Sure, I know all about it, Joan," Reid said, but with a gentle
sadness in his soft voice that seemed to express his pity for the
unlucky man. "I happened to be away when it started, but I got
there--well, I got there, anyhow."
Joan's eyes were still severe, but a question grew in them as she
faced him, looking at him searchingly, as if to read what it was he
hid.
"Where have you been all day? Dad's been looking high and low for
you."
"I guess I was over at Carlson's when the old snoozer came," Reid told
her, easy and careless, confident and open, in his manner.
"Carlson's? What business could you----"
"Didn't he tell you about it, Joan?"
"Who, Dad?"
"Mackenzie."
"He hasn't spoken since he stumbled into Dad's camp last night. He's
going to die!"
"Oh, not that bad, Joan?" Reid jerked his horse about with quick hand
as he spoke, making as if to start down at once to the camp where the
wounded schoolmaster lay. "Why, he walked off yesterday afternoon like
he wasn't hurt much. Unconscious?"
Joan nodded, a feeling in her throat as if she choked on cold tears.
"I didn't think he got much of a jolt when Swan took his gun away from
him and soaked him over the head with it," said Reid, regretfully.
"You were there, and you let him do it!" Joan felt that she disparaged
Mackenzie with the accusation as soon as the hasty words fell from her
tongue, but biting the lips would not bring them back.
"He needs _somebody_ around with him, but I can't be right beside him
all the time, Joan."
"Oh, I don't mean--I didn't--I guess he's able to take care of himself
if they give him a show. If you saw it, you can tell me how it
happened."
"I'll ride along with you," Reid offered; "I can't do him any good by
going down to see him. Anybody gone for a doctor?"
"Rabbit's the only doctor. I suppose she can do him as much good as
anybody--he'll die, anyhow."
"He's not cut out for a sheepman," said Reid, ruminatively, shaking
his head in depreciation.
"I should _hope_ not!" said Joan, expressing in the emphasis, as well
as in the look of superior scorn that she gave him, the difference
that she felt lay between Mackenzie and a clod who might qualify for a
sheepman and no questions asked.
"I'll ride on over to camp with you," Reid proposed again, facing his
horse to accompany her.
"No, you mustn't leave the sheep alone at night--it's bad enough to do
it in the day. What was the trouble between him and Swan--who started
it?"
"Some of Swan's sheep got over with ours--I don't know how it
happened, or whose fault it was. I'd been skirmishin' around a little,
gettin' the lay of the country mapped out in my mind. Swan and
Mackenzie were mixin' it up when I got there."
"Carlson set his dogs on him!" Joan's voice trembled with her high
scorn of such unmanly dealing, such unworthy help.
"He must have; one of the dogs was shot, and I noticed Mackenzie's
hand was chewed up a little. They were scuffling to get hold of
Mackenzie's gun when I got there--he'd dropped it, why, you can search
me! Swan got it. He hit him once with it before I could--oh well, I
guess it don't make any difference, Mackenzie wouldn't thank me for
it. He's a surly devil!"
Joan touched his arm, as if to call him from his abstraction, leaning
to reach him, her face eager.
"You stopped Swan, you took the gun away from him, didn't you, Earl?"
"He's welcome to it--I owed him something."
Joan drew a deep breath, which seemed to reach her stifling soul and
revive it; a softness came into her face, a light of appreciative
thankfulness into her eyes. She reined closer to Reid, eager now to
hear the rest of the melancholy story.
"You took the gun away from Swan; I saw it in his scabbard down
there. Did you have to--did you have to--do anything to Carlson,
Earl?"
Reid laughed, shortly, harshly, a sound so old to come from young
lips. He did not meet Joan's eager eyes, but sat straight, head up,
looking off over the darkening hills.
"No, I didn't do anything to him--more than jam my gun in his neck. He
got away with thirty sheep more than belonged to him, though--I found
it out when I counted ours. I guess I was over there after them when
Dad was lookin' for me today."
"You brought them back?" Joan leaned again, her hand on his arm, where
it remained a little spell, as she looked her admiration into his
face.
"Nothing to it," said Reid, modestly, laughing again in his grating
harsh way of vast experience, and scorn for the things which move the
heart.
"It's a good deal, I think," said she. "But," thoughtfully, "I don't
see what made him drop his gun."
"You can search me," said Reid, in his careless, unsympathetic way.
"It might have happened to anybody, though, a dog and a man against
him."
"Yes, even a better man."
"A better man don't live," said Joan, with calm decision.
Reid bent his eyes to the pommel of his saddle, and sat so a few
moments, in the way of a man who turns something in his thoughts.
Then:
"I guess I'll go on back to the sheep."
"He may never get well to thank you for what you did, Earl," and
Joan's voice threatened tears in its low, earnest tremolo, "but
I----"
"Oh, that's all right, Joan." Reid waved gratitude, especially
vicarious gratitude, aside, smiling lightly. "He's not booked to go
yet; wait till he's well and let him do his own talking. Somebody
ought to sneak that gun away from him, though, and slip a twenty-two
in his scabbard. They can't hurt him so bad with that when they take
it away from him."
"It might have happened to you!" she reproached.
"Well, it might," Reid allowed, after some reflection. "Sure, it
might," brightening, looking at her frankly, his ingenuous smile
softening the crafty lines of his thin face. "Well, leave him to
Rabbit and Dad; they'll fix him up."
"If he isn't better tomorrow I'm going for a doctor, if nobody else
will."
"You're not goin' to hang around there all the time, are you, Joan?"
Reid's face flushed as he spoke, his eyes made small, as if he looked
in at a furnace door.
Joan did not answer this, only lifted her face with a quick start,
looking at him with brows lifted, widening her great, luminous, tender
eyes. Reid stroked her horse's mane, his stirrup close to her foot,
his look downcast, as if ashamed of the jealousy he had betrayed.
"I don't mind the lessons, and that kind of stuff," said he, looking
up suddenly, "but I don't want the girl--oh well, you know as well as
I do what kind of a deal the old folks have fixed up for you and me,
Joan."
"Of course. I'm going to marry you to save you from work."
"I thought it was a raw deal when they sprung it on me, but that was
before I saw you, Joan. But it's all right; I'm for it now."
"You're easy, Earl; dad's workin' you for three good years without
pay. As far as I'm concerned, you'd just as well hit the breeze out of
this country right now. Dad can't deliver the goods."
"I'm soft, but I'm not that soft, Joan. I could leave here tomorrow;
what's to hold me? And as far as the old man's cutting me out of his
will goes, I could beat it in law, and then have a pile big enough
left to break my neck if I was to jump off the top of it. They're not
putting anything over on me, Joan. I'm sticking to this little old
range because it suits me to stick. I would go tomorrow if it wasn't
for you."
Reid added this in a low voice, his words a sigh, doing it well, even
convincingly well.
"I'm sorry," Joan said, moved by his apparent sincerity, "but there's
not a bit of use in your throwing away three years, or even three more
months, of your life here, Earl."
"You'll like me better when you begin to know me, Joan. I've stood off
because I didn't want to interfere with your studies, but maybe now,
since you've got a vacation, I can come over once in a while and get
acquainted."
"Earl, it wouldn't be a bit of use." Joan spoke earnestly, pitying him
a little, now that she began to believe him.
"Why, we're already engaged," he said; "they've disposed of us like
they do princes and princesses."
"I don't know how they marry them off, but if that's the way, it won't
work on the sheep range," said Joan.
"We've been engaged, officially, ever since I struck the range, and
I've never once, never even--" He hesitated, constrained by
bashfulness, it seemed, from his manner of bending his head and
plucking at her horse's mane.
"We're not even officially engaged," she denied, coldly, not pitying
his bashfulness at all, nor bent to assist him in delivering what lay
on the end of his tongue. "You can't pick up a sheepwoman and marry
her off--like some old fool king's daughter."
Reid placed his hand over hers where it lay idly on the saddle-horn,
the reins loosely held. He leaned closer, his eyes burning, his face
near her own, so near that she shrank back, and drew on her hand to
come free.
"I don't see why we need to wait three years to get married, Joan," he
argued, his persuasive voice very soft and tender. "If the old man saw
I meant business----"
"Business!" scorned Joan.
"Sheep business, I mean, Joan," chidingly, a tincture of injury in his
tone.
"Oh, sheep business," said Joan, leaning far over to look at the
knotting of her cinch.
"Sure, to settle down to it here and take it as it comes, the way he
got his start, he'd come across with all the money we'd want to take a
run out of here once in a while and light things up. We ought to be
gettin' the good out of it while we've got an edge on us, Joan."
Joan swung to the ground, threw a stirrup across the saddle, and began
to tighten her cinch. Reid alighted with a word of protest, offering
his hand for the work. Joan ignored his proffer, with a little
independent, altogether scornful, toss of the head.
"You can find plenty of them ready to take you up," she said. "What's
the reason you have to stay right here for three years, and then marry
me, to make a million dollars? Can't you go anywhere else?"
"The old man's picked on this country because he knows your dad, and
he settled on you for the girl because you got into his eye, just the
way you've got into mine, Joan. I was sore enough about it at first to
throw the money and all that went with it to the pigs, and blow out of
here. But that was before I saw you."
"Oh!" said Joan, in her pettish, discounting way.
"I mean every word of it, Joan. I can't talk like--like--some men--my
heart gets in the way, I guess, and chokes me off. But I never saw a
girl that I ever lost sleep over till I saw you."
Joan did not look at him as he drew nearer with his words. She pulled
the stirrup down, lifted her foot to it, and stood so a second, hand
on the pommel to mount. And so she glanced round at him, standing near
her shoulder, his face flushed, a brightness in his eyes.
Quicker than thought Reid threw his arm about her shoulders, drawing
her to him, his hot cheek against her own, his hot breath on her lips.
Surging with indignation of the mean advantage he had taken of her,
Joan freed her foot from the stirrup, twisting away from the
impending salute, her hand to Reid's shoulder in a shove that sent him
back staggering.
"I thought you were more of a man than that!" she said.
"I beg your pardon, Joan; it rushed over me--I couldn't help it."
Reid's voice shook as he spoke; he stood with downcast eyes, the
expression of contrition.
"You're too fresh to keep!" Joan said, brushing her face savagely with
her hand where his cheek had pressed it for a breath.
"I'll ask you next time," he promised, looking up between what
seemed hope and contrition. But there was a mocking light in his
sophisticated face, a greedy sneer in his lustful eyes, which Joan
could feel and see, although she could not read to the last shameful
depths.
"Don't try it any more," she warned, in the cool, even voice of one
sure of herself.
"I ought to have a right to kiss my future wife," he defended, a
shadow of a smile on his thin lips.
"There's not a bit of use to go on harping on that, Earl," she said,
in a way of friendly counsel, the incident already past and trampled
under foot, it seemed. "If you want to stay here and work for dad,
three years or thirty years, I don't care, but don't count on me. I
guess if you go straight and prove you deserve it, you'll not need any
girl to help you get the money."
"It's got to be you--nobody else, Joan."
"Then kiss your old million--or whatever it is--good-bye!"
Joan lifted to the saddle as if swept into it by a wave, and drew her
reins tight, and galloped away.