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diff --git a/14334-h/14334-h.htm b/14334-h/14334-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ab8abb --- /dev/null +++ b/14334-h/14334-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4585 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Range Dwellers, by B. M. Bower</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + .img {border: none;} + hr.full { width: 100%; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + pre {font-size: 8pt;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14334 ***</div> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Range Dwellers, by B. M. Bower, +Illustrated by Charles M. Russell</h1> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<h1>THE RANGE DWELLERS</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>B. M. BOWER</h2> +<h3>(B. M. SINCLAIR)</h3> + +<p class="center">AUTHOR OF +<i>CHIP OF THE FLYING U</i>, <i>THE LONESOME TRAIL</i>, +<i>HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT</i>, <i>THE LURE OF THE DIM +TRAILS</i>, <i>THE HAPPY FAMILY</i>, <i>THE +LONG SHADOW</i>, ETC.</p> + +<h2>llustrated by CHARLES M. RUSSELL</h2> + +<h6>New York; Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers</h6> + +<h4>1906</h4> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/1.jpg"><img src="./images/1-thumbnail.jpg" alt="She turned her back on me" title=""She turned her back on me, and went imperturbably on with +her sketching."" /></a></p><p class="figcenter">"She turned her back on me, and went imperturbably on with +her sketching."</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> +<div class="centered"><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TABLE OF CONTENTS"> +<tr><th align='right'>Chapter</th><th align='right'></th></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I</a></td><td align='left'>The Reward of Folly</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II</a></td><td align='left'>The White Divide</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III</a></td><td align='left'>The Quarrel Renewed</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV</a></td><td align='left'>Through King's Highway</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V</a></td><td align='left'>Into the Lion's Mouth</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI</a></td><td align='left'>I ask Beryl King to Dance</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII</a></td><td align='left'>One Day Too Late</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII</a></td><td align='left'>A Fight and a Race for Life</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX</a></td><td align='left'>The Old Life and the New</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X</a></td><td align='left'>I Shake Hands with Old Man King</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI</a></td><td align='left'>A Cable Snaps</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII</a></td><td align='left'>I Begin to Realize</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII</a></td><td align='left'>We Meet Once More</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV</a></td><td align='left'>Frosty Disappears</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV</a></td><td align='left'>The Broken Motor-car</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI</a></td><td align='left'>One More Race</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII</a></td><td align='left'>The Final Reckoning</td></tr> + +</table></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE RANGE DWELLERS.</h2> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I" />CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3><i>The Reward of Folly.</i></h3> + + +<p>I'm something like the old maid you read about—the one who always knows +all about babies and just how to bring them up to righteous maturity; I've +got a mighty strong conviction that I know heaps that my dad never thought +of about the proper training for a healthy male human. I don't suppose +I'll ever have a chance to demonstrate my wisdom, but, if I do, there are +a few things that won't happen to my boy.</p> + +<p>If I've got a comfortable wad of my own, the boy shall have his fun +without any nagging, so long as he keeps clean and honest. He shall go to +any college he may choose—and right here is where my wisdom will sit up +and get busy. If I'm fool enough to let that kid have more money than is +healthy for him, and if I go to sleep while he's wising up to the art of +making it fade away without leaving anything behind to tell the tale, and +learning a lot of habits that aren't doing him any good, I won't come down +on him with both feet and tell him all the different brands of fool he's +been, and mourn because the Lord in His mercy laid upon me this burden of +an unregenerate son. I shall try and remember that he's the son of his +father, and not expect too much of him. It's long odds I shall find points +of resemblance a-plenty between us—and the more cussedness he develops, +the more I shall see myself in him reflected.</p> + +<p>I don't mean to be hard on dad. He was always good to me, in his way. He's +got more things than a son to look after, and as that son is supposed to +have a normal allowance of gray matter and is no physical weakling, he +probably took it for granted that the son could look after himself—which +the mines and railroads and ranches that represent his millions can't.</p> + +<p>But it wasn't giving me a square deal. He gave me an allowance and paid my +debts besides, and let me amble through school at my own gait—which +wasn't exactly slow—and afterward let me go. If I do say it, I had lived +a fairly decent sort of life. I belonged to some good clubs—athletic, +mostly—and trained regularly, and was called a fair boxer among the +amateurs. I could tell to a glass—after a lot of practise—just how much +of 'steen different brands I could take without getting foolish, and I +could play poker and win once in awhile. I had a steam-yacht and a motor +of my own, and it was generally stripped to racing trim. And I wasn't +tangled up with any women; actress-worship had never appealed to me. My +tastes all went to the sporting side of life and left women to the fellows +with less nerve and more sentiment.</p> + +<p>So I had lived for twenty-five years—just having the best time a fellow +with an unlimited resource can have, if he is healthy.</p> + +<p>It was then, on my twenty-fifth birthday, that I walked into dad's private +library with a sonly smile, ready for the good wishes and the check that +I was in the habit of getting—I'd been unlucky, and Lord knows I needed +it!—and what does the dear man do?</p> + +<p>Instead of one check, he handed me a sheaf of them, each stamped in divers +places by divers banks. I flipped the ends and looked them over a bit, +because I saw that was what he expected of me; but the truth is, checks +don't interest me much after they've been messed up with red and green +stamps. They're about as enticing as a last year's popular song.</p> + +<p>Dad crossed his legs, matched his finger-tips together, and looked at me +over his glasses. Many a man knows that attitude and that look, and so +many a man has been as uncomfortable as I began to be, and has felt as +keen a sense of impending trouble. I began immediately searching my memory +for some especial brand of devilment that I'd been sampling, but there was +nothing doing. I had been losing some at poker lately, and I'd been away +to the bad out at Ingleside; still, I looked him innocently in the eye +and wondered what was coming.</p> + +<p>"That last check is worthy of particular attention," he said dryly. "The +others are remarkable only for their size and continuity of numbers; but +that last one should be framed and hung upon the wall at the foot of your +bed, though you would not see it often. I consider it a diploma of your +qualification as Master Jackanapes." (Dad's vocabulary, when he is angry, +contains some rather strengthy words of the old-fashioned type.)</p> + +<p>I looked at the check and began to see light. I <i>had</i> been a bit rollicky +that time. It wasn't drawn for very much, that check; I've lost more on +one jack-pot, many a time, and thought nothing of it. And, though the +events leading up to it were a bit rapid and undignified, perhaps, I +couldn't see anything to get excited over, as I could see dad plainly was.</p> + +<p>"For a young man twenty-five years old and with brains +enough—supposedly—to keep out of the feeble-minded class, it strikes me +you indulge in some damned poor pastimes," went on dad disagreeably. +"Cracking champagne-bottles in front of the Cliff House—on a Sunday at +that—may be diverting to the bystanders, but it can hardly be called +dignified, and I fail to see how it is going to fit a man for any useful +business."</p> + +<p>Business? Lord! dad never had mentioned a useful business to me before. I +felt my eyelids fly up; this was springing birthday surprises with a +vengeance.</p> + +<p>"Driving an automobile on forbidden roads, being arrested and fined—on +Sunday, at that—"</p> + +<p>"Now, look here, dad," I cut in, getting a bit hot under the collar +myself, "by all the laws of nature, there must have been a time when <i>you</i> +were twenty-five years old and cut a little swath of your own. And, seeing +you're as big as your offspring—six-foot-one, and you can't deny it—and +fairly husky for a man of your age, I'll bet all you dare that said swath +was not of the narrow-gage variety. I've never heard of your teaching a +class in any Sunday-school, and if you never drove your machine beyond +the dead-line and cracked champagne-bottles on the wheels in front of the +Cliff House, it's because automobiles weren't invented and Cliff House +wasn't built. Begging your pardon, dad—I'll bet you were a pretty +rollicky young blade, yourself."</p> + +<p>Now dad is very old-fashioned in some of his notions; one of them is that +a parent may hand out a roast that will frizzle the foliage for blocks +around, and, guilty or innocent, the son must take it, as he'd take +cod-liver oil—it's-nasty-but-good-for-what-ails-you. He snapped his mouth +shut, and, being his son and having that habit myself, I recognized the +symptoms and judged that things would presently grow interesting.</p> + +<p>I was betting on a full-house. The atmosphere grew tense. I heard a lot of +things in the next five minutes that no one but my dad could say without +me trying mighty hard to make him swallow them. And I just sat there and +looked at him and took it.</p> + +<p>I couldn't agree with him that I'd committed a grievous crime. It wasn't +much of a lark, as larks go: just an incident at the close of a rather +full afternoon. Coming around up the beach front Ingleside House a few +days before, in the <i>Yellow Peril</i>—my machine—we got to badgering each +other about doing things not orthodox. At last Barney MacTague dared me to +drive the <i>Yellow Peril</i> past the dead-line—down by the Pavilion—and on +up the hill to Sutro Baths. Naturally, I couldn't take a dare like that, +and went him one better; I told him I'd not only drive to the very top of +the hill, but I'd stop at the Gift House and crack a bottle of champagne +on each wheel of the <i>Yellow Peril,</i> in honor of the occasion; that would +make a bottle apiece, for there were four of us along.</p> + +<p>It was done, to the delight of the usual Sunday crowd of brides, grooms, +tourists, and kids. A mounted policeman interviewed us, to the further +delight of the crowd, and invited us to call upon a certain judge whom +none of us knew. We did so, and dad was good enough to pay the fine, +which, as I said before, was not much. I've had less fun for more money, +often.</p> + +<p>Dad didn't say anything at the time, so I was not looking for the roast I +was getting. It appeared, from his view-point, that I was about as +useless, imbecile, and utterly no-account a son as a man ever had, and if +there was anything good in me it was not visible except under a strong +magnifying-glass.</p> + +<p>He said, among other things too painful to mention, that he was getting +old—dad is about fifty-six—and that if I didn't buck up and amount to +something soon, he didn't know what was to become of the business.</p> + +<p>Then he delivered the knockout blow that he'd been working up to. He was +going to see what there was in me, he said. He would pay my bills, and, as +a birthday gift, he would present me with a through ticket to Osage, in +Montana—where he owned a ranch called the Bay State—and a stock-saddle, +spurs, chaps, and a hundred dollars. After that I must work out my own +salvation—or the other thing. If I wanted more money inside a year or +two, I would have to work for it just as if I were an orphan without a dad +who writes checks on demand. He said that there was always something to +do on the Bay State Ranch—which is one of dad's places. I could do as I +pleased, he said, but he'd advise me to buckle down and learn something +about cattle. It was plain I never would amount to anything in an office. +He laid a yard or two of ticket on the table at my elbow, and on top of +that a check for one hundred dollars, payable to one Ellis Carleton.</p> + +<p>I took up the check and read every word on it twice—not because I needed +to; I was playing for time to think. Then I twisted it up in a taper, held +it to the blaze in the fireplace, and lighted a cigarette with it. Dad +kept his finger-tips together and watched me without any expression +whatsoever in his face. I took three deliberate puffs, picked up the +ticket, and glanced along down its dirty green length. Dad never moved a +muscle, and I remember the clock got to ticking louder than I'd ever heard +it in my life before. I may as well be perfectly honest! That ticket did +not appeal to me a little bit. I think he expected to see that go up in +smoke, also. But, though I'm pretty much of a fool at times, I believe +there are lucid intervals when I recognize certain objects—such as +justice. I knew that, in the main, dad was right. I <i>had</i> been leading a +rather reckless existence, and I was getting pretty old for such kid +foolishness. He had measured out the dose, and I meant to swallow it +without whining—but it was exceeding bitter to the palate!</p> + +<p>"I see the ticket is dated twenty-four hours ahead," I said as calmly as I +knew how, "which gives me time to have Rankin pack a few duds. I hope the +outfit you furnish includes a red silk handkerchief and a Colt's .44 +revolver, and a key to the proper method of slaying acquaintances in the +West. I hate to start in with all white chips."</p> + +<p>"You probably mean a Colt's .45," said dad, with a more convincing +calmness than I could show. "It shall be provided. As to the key, you will +no doubt find that on the ground when you arrive."</p> + +<p>"Very well," I replied, getting up and stretching my arms up as high as I +could reach—which was beastly manners, of course, but a safe vent for my +feelings, which cried out for something or somebody to punch. "You've +called the turn, and I'll go. It may be many moons ere we two meet +again—and when we do, the crime of cracking my own champagne—for I paid +for it, you know—on my own automobile wheels may not seem the heinous +thing it looks now. See you later, dad."</p> + +<p>I walked out with my head high in the air and my spirits rather low, if +the truth must be told. Dad was generally kind and wise and generous, but +he certainly did break out in unexpected places sometimes. Going to the +Bay State Ranch, just at that time, was not a cheerful prospect. San +Francisco and Seattle were just starting a series of ballgames that +promised to be rather swift, and I'd got a lot up on the result. I hated +to go just then. And Montana has the reputation of being rather beastly in +early March—I knew that much.</p> + +<p>I caught a car down to the Olympic, hunted up Barney MacTague, and played +poker with him till two o'clock that night, and never once mentioned the +trip I was contemplating. Then I went home, routed up my man, and told him +what to pack, and went to bed for a few hours; if there was anything +pleasant in my surroundings that I failed to think of as I lay there, it +must be very trivial indeed. I even went so far as to regret leaving Ethel +Mapleton, whom I cared nothing for.</p> + +<p>And above all and beneath all, hanging in the background of my mind and +dodging forward insistently in spite of myself, was a deep resentment—a +soreness against dad for the way he had served me. Granted I was wild and +a useless cumberer of civilization; I was only what my environments had +made me. Dad had let me run, and he had never kicked on the price of my +folly, or tried to pull me up at the start. He had given his time to his +mines and his cattle-ranches and railroads, and had left his only son to +go to the devil if he chose and at his own pace. Then, because the son had +come near making a thorough job of it, he had done—<i>this</i>. I felt hardly +used and at odds with life, during those last few hours in the little old +burgh.</p> + +<p>All the next day I went the pace as usual with the gang, and at seven, +after an early dinner, caught a down-town car and set off alone to the +ferry. I had not seen dad since I left him in the library, and I did not +particularly wish to see him, either. Possibly I had some unfilial notion +of making him ashamed and sorry. It is even possible that I half-expected +him to come and apologize, and offer to let things go on in the old way. +In that event I was prepared to be chesty. I would look at him coldly and +say: "You have seen fit to buy me a ticket to Osage, Montana. So be it; to +Osage, Montana, am I bound." Oh, I had it all fixed!</p> + +<p>Dad came into the ferry waiting-room just as the passengers were pouring +off the boat, and sat down beside me as if nothing had happened. He did +not look sad, or contrite, or ashamed—not, at least, enough to notice. He +glanced at his watch, and then handed me a letter.</p> + +<p>"There," he began briskly, "that is to Perry Potter, the Bay State +foreman. I have wired him that you are on the way."</p> + +<p>The gate went up at that moment, and he stood up and held out his hand. +"Sorry I can't go over with you," he said. "I've an important meeting to +attend. Take care of yourself, Ellie boy."</p> + +<p>I gripped his hand warmly, though I had intended to give him a dead-fish +sort of shake. After all, he was my dad, and there were just us two. I +picked up my suit-case and started for the gate. I looked back once, and +saw dad standing there gazing after me—and he did not look particularly +brisk. Perhaps, after all, dad cared more than he let on. It's a way the +Carletons have, I have heard.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II" />CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3><i>The White Divide.</i></h3> + + +<p>If a phrenologist should undertake to "read" my head, he would undoubtedly +find my love of home—if that is what it is called—a sharply defined +welt. I know that I watched the lights of old Frisco slip behind me with +as virulent a case of the deeps as often comes to a man when his digestion +is good. It wasn't that I could not bear the thought of hardship; I've +taken hunting trips up into the mountains more times than I can remember, +and ate ungodly messes of my own invention, and waded waist-deep in snow +and slept under the stars, and enjoyed nearly every minute. So it wasn't +the hardships that I had every reason to expect that got me down. I think +it was the feeling that dad had turned me down; that I was in exile, +and—in his eyes, at least—disgraced, it was knowing that he thought me +pretty poor truck, without giving me a chance to be anything better. I +humped over the rail at the stern, and watched the waves slap at us +viciously, like an ill-tempered poodle, and felt for all the world like a +dog that's been kicked out into the rain. Maybe the medicine was good for +me, but it wasn't pleasant. It never occurred to me, that night, to wonder +how dad felt about it; but I've often thought of it since.</p> + +<p>I had a section to myself, so I could sulk undisturbed; dad was not small, +at any rate, and, though he hadn't let me have his car, he meant me to be +decently comfortable. That first night I slept without a break; the second +I sat in the smoker till a most unrighteous hour, cultivating the +acquaintance of a drummer for a rubber-goods outfit. I thought that, +seeing I was about to mingle with the working classes, I couldn't begin +too soon to study them. He was a pretty good sort, too.</p> + +<p>The rubber-goods man left me at Seattle, and from there on I was at the +tender mercies of my own thoughts and an elderly lady with a startlingly +blond daughter, who sat directly opposite me and was frankly disposed to +friendliness. I had never given much time to the study of women, and so +had no alternative but to answer questions and smile fatuously upon the +blond daughter, and wonder if I ought to warn the mother that "clothes do +not make the man," and that I was a black sheep and not a desirable +acquaintance. Before I had quite settled that point, they left the train. +I am afraid I am not distinctly a chivalrous person; I hummed the Doxology +after their retreating forms and retired into myself, with a feeling that +my own society is at times desirable and greatly to be chosen.</p> + +<p>After that I was shy, and nothing happened except that on the last evening +of the trip, I gave up my sole remaining five dollars in the diner, and +walked out whistling softly. I was utterly and unequivocally strapped. I +went into the smoker to think it over; I knew I had started out with a +hundred or so, and that I had considered that sufficient to see me +through. Plainly, it was not sufficient; but it is a fact that I looked +upon it as a joke, and went to sleep grinning idiotically at the thought +of me, Ellis Carleton, heir to almost as many millions as I was years +old, without the price of a breakfast in his pocket. It seemed novel and +interesting, and I rather enjoyed the situation. I wasn't hungry, then!</p> + +<p>Osage, Montana, failed to rouse any enthusiasm in me when I saw the place +next day, except that it offered possibilities in the way of eating—at +least, I fancied it did, until I stepped down upon the narrow platform and +looked about me. It was two o'clock in the afternoon, and I had fasted +since dinner the evening before. I was not happy.</p> + +<p>I began to see where I might have economized a bit, and so have gone on +eating regularly to the end of the journey. I reflected that stewed +terrapin, for instance, might possibly be considered an extravagance under +the circumstances; and a fellow sentenced to honest toil and exiled to the +wilderness should not, it seemed to me then, cause his table to be +sprinkled, quite so liberally as I had done, with tall glasses—nor need +he tip the porter quite so often or so generously. A dollar looked bigger +to me, just then, than a wheel of the <i>Yellow Peril</i>. I began to feel +unkindly toward that porter! he had looked so abominably well-fed and +sleek, and he had tips that I would be glad to feel in my own pocket +again. I stood alone upon the platform and gazed wistfully after the +retreating train; many people have done that before me, if one may believe +those who write novels, and for once in my life I felt a bond of sympathy +between us. It's safe betting that I did more solid thinking on frenzied +finance in the five minutes I stood there watching that train slid off +beyond the sky-line than I'd done in all my life before. I'd heard, of +course, about fellows getting right down to cases, but I'd never +personally experienced the sensation. I'd always had money—or, if I +hadn't, I knew where to go. And dad had caught me when I'd all but +overdrawn my account at the bank. I was always doing that, for dad paid +the bills. That last night with Barney MacTague hadn't been my night to +win, and I'd dropped quite a lot there. And—oh, what's the use? I was +broke, all right enough, and I was hungry enough to eat the proverbial +crust.</p> + +<p>It seemed to me it might be a good idea to hunt up the gentleman named +Perry Potter, whom dad called his foreman. I turned around and caught a +tall, brown-faced native studying my back with grave interest. He didn't +blush when I looked him in the eye, but smiled a tired smile and said he +reckoned I was the chap he'd been sent to meet. There was no welcome in +his voice, I noticed. I looked him over critically.</p> + +<p>"Are you the gentleman with the alliterative cognomen?" I asked him +airily, hoping he would be puzzled.</p> + +<p>He was not, evidently. "Perry Potter? He's at the ranch." He was damnably +tolerant, and I said nothing. I hate to make the same sort of fool of +myself twice. So when he proposed that we "hit the trail," I followed +meekly in his wake. He did not offer to take my suit-case, and I was about +to remind him of the oversight when it occurred to me that possibly he was +not a servant—he certainly didn't act like one. I carried my own +suitcase—which was, I have thought since, the only wise move I had made +since I left home.</p> + +<p>A strong but unsightly spring-wagon, with mud six inches deep on the +wheels, seemed the goal, and we trailed out to it, picking up layers of +soil as we went. The ground did not <i>look</i> muddy, but it was; I have since +learned that that particular phase of nature's hypocrisy is called "doby." +I don't admire it, myself. I stopped by the wagon and scraped my shoes on +the cleanest spoke I could find, and swore. My guide untied the horses, +gathered up the reins, and sought a spoke on his side of the wagon; he +looked across at me with a gleam of humanity in his eyes—the first I had +seen there.</p> + +<p>"It sure beats hell the way it hangs on," he remarked, and from that +minute I liked him. It was the first crumb of sympathy that had fallen to +me for days, and you can bet I appreciated it.</p> + +<p>We got in, and he pulled a blanket over our knees and picked up the whip. +It wasn't a stylish turnout—I had seen farmers driving along the +railroad-track in rigs like it, and I was surprised at dad for keeping +such a layout. Fact is, I didn't think much of dad, anyway, about that +time.</p> + +<p>"How far is it to the Bay State Ranch?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"One hundred and forty miles, air-line," said he casually. "The train was +late, so I reckon we better stop over till morning. There's a town over +the hill, and a hotel that beats nothing a long way."</p> + +<p>A hundred and forty miles from the station, "air-line," sounded to me like +a pretty stiff proposition to go up against; also, how was a fellow going +to put up at a hotel when he hadn't the coin? Would my mysterious guide be +shocked to learn that John A. Carleton's son and heir had landed in a +strange land without two-bits to his name? Jerusalem! I couldn't have paid +street-car fare down-town; I couldn't even have bought a paper on the +street. While I was remembering all the things a millionaire's son can't +do if he happens to be without a nickel in his pocket, we pulled up before +a place that, for the sake of propriety, I am willing to call a hotel; at +the time, I remember, I had another name for it.</p> + +<p>"In case I might get lost in this strange city," I said to my companion as +I jumped out, "I'd like to know what people call you when they're in a +good humor."</p> + +<p>He grinned down at me. "Frosty Miller would hit me, all right," he +informed me, and drove off somewhere down the street. So I went in and +asked for a room, and got it.</p> + +<p>This sounds sordid, I know, but the truth must be told, though the +artistic sense be shocked. Barred from the track as I was, sent out to +grass in disgrace while the little old world kept moving without me to +help push, my mind passed up all the things I might naturally be supposed +to dwell upon and stuck to three little no-account grievances that I hate +to tell about now. They look small, for a fact, now that they're away out +of sight, almost, in the past; but they were quite big enough at the time +to give me a bad hour or two. The biggest one was the state of my +appetite; next, and not more than a nose behind, was the state of my +pockets; and the last was, had Rankin packed the gray tweed trousers that +I had a liking for, or had he not? I tried to remember whether I had +spoken to him about them, and I sat down on the edge of the bed in that +little box of a room, took my head between my fists, and called Rankin +several names he sometimes deserved and had frequently heard from my lips. +I'd have given a good deal to have Rankin at my elbow just then.</p> + +<p>They were not in the suit-case—or, if they were, I had not run across +them. Rankin had a way of stowing things away so that even he had to do +some tall searching, and he had another way of filling up my suit-cases +with truck I'd no immediate use for. I yanked the case toward me, unlocked +it, and turned it out on the bed, just to prove Rankin's general +incapacity as valet to a fastidious fellow like me.</p> + +<p>There was the suit I had worn on that memorable excursion to the Cliff +House—I had told Rankin to pitch it into the street, for I had +discovered Teddy Van Greve in one almost exactly like it, and—Hello! +Rankin had certainly overlooked a bet. I never caught him at it before, +that's certain. He had a way of coming to my left elbow, and, in a +particularly virtuous tone, calling my attention to the fact that I had +left several loose bills in my pockets. Rankin was that honest I often +told him he would land behind the bars as an embezzler some day. But +Rankin had done it this time, for fair; tucked away in a pocket of the +waistcoat was money—real, legal, lawful tender—m-o-n-e-y! I don't +suppose the time will ever come when it will look as good to me as it did +right then. I held those bank-notes—there were two of them, double +XX's—to my face and sniffed them like I'd never seen the like before and +never expected to again. And the funny part was that I forgot all about +wanting the gray trousers, and all about the faults of Rankin. My feet +were on bottom again, and my head on top. I marched down-stairs, +whistling, with my hands in my pockets and my chin in the air, and told +the landlord to serve dinner an hour earlier than usual, and to make it a +good one.</p> + +<p>He looked at me with a curious mixture of wonder and amusement. "Dinner," +he drawled calmly, "has been over for three hours; but I guess we can give +yuh some supper any time after five."</p> + +<p>I suppose he looked upon me as the rankest kind of a tenderfoot. I +calculated the time of my torture till I might, without embarrassing +explanations, partake of a much-needed repast, and went to the door; +waiting was never my long suit, and I had thoughts of getting outside and +taking a look around. At the second step I changed my mind—there was that +deceptive mud to reckon with.</p> + +<p>So from the doorway I surveyed all of Montana that lay between me and the +sky-line, and decided that my bets would remain on California. The sky was +a dull slate, tumbled into what looked like rain-clouds and depressing to +the eye. The land was a dull yellowish-brown, with a purple line of hills +off to the south, and with untidy snow-drifts crouching in the hollows. +That was all, so far as I could see, and if dulness and an unpeopled +wilderness make for the reformation of man, it struck me that I was in a +fair way to become a saint if I stayed here long. I had heard the +cattle-range called picturesque; I couldn't see the joke.</p> + +<p>Frosty Miller sat opposite me at table when, in the course of human +events, I ate again, and the way I made the biscuit and ham and boiled +potatoes vanish filled him with astonishment, if one may judge a man's +feelings by the size of his eyes. I told him that the ozone of the plains +had given me an appetite, and he did not contradict me; he looked at my +plate, and then smiled at his own, and said nothing—which was polite of +him.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever skip two meals and try to make it up on the third?" I asked +him when we went out, and he said "Sure," and rolled a cigarette. In those +first hours of our acquaintance Frosty was not what I'd call loquacious.</p> + +<p>That night I took out the letter addressed to one Perry Potter, which dad +had given me and which I had not had time to seal in his presence, and +read it cold-bloodedly. I don't do such things as a rule, but I was +getting a suspicion that I was being queered; that I'd got to start my +exile under a handicap of the contempt of the natives. If dad had stacked +the deck on me, I wanted to know it. But I misjudged him—or, perhaps, he +knew I'd read it. All he had written wouldn't hurt the reputation of any +one. It was:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The bearer, Ellis H. Carleton, is my son. He will probably be + with you for some time, and will not try to assume any authority + or usurp your position as foreman and overseer. You will treat + him as you do the other boys, and if he wants to work, pay him + the same wages—if he earns them.</p></div> + +<p>It wasn't exactly throwing flowers in the path my young feet should tread, +but it might have been worse. At least, he did not give Perry Potter his +unbiased opinion of me, and it left me with a free hand to warp their +judgment somewhat in my favor. But—"If he wants to work, pay him the same +wages—if he earns them." Whew!</p> + +<p>I might have saved him the trouble of writing that, if I had only known +it. Dad could go too far in this thing, I told myself chestily. I had +come, seeing that he insisted upon it, but I'd be damned if I'd work for +any man with a circus-poster name, and have him lord it over me. I hadn't +been brought up to appreciate that kind of joke. I meant to earn my +living, but I did not mean to get out and slave for Perry Potter. There +must be something respectable for a man to do in this country besides +ranch work.</p> + +<p>In the morning we started off, with my trunks in the wagon, toward the +line of purple hills in the south. Frosty Miller told me, when I asked +him, that they were forty-eight miles away, that they marked the Missouri +River, and that we would stop there overnight. That, if I remember, was +about the extent of our conversation that day. We smoked +cigarettes—Frosty Miller made his, one by one, as he needed them—and +thought our own thoughts. I rather suspect our thoughts were a good many +miles apart, though our shoulders touched. When you think of it, people +may rub elbows and still have an ocean or two between them. I don't know +where Frosty was, all through that long day's ride; for me, I was back in +little old Frisco, with Barney MacTague and the rest of the crowd; and +part of the time, I know, I was telling dad what a mess he'd made of +bringing up his only son.</p> + +<p>That night we slept in a shack at the river—"Pochette Crossing" was the +name it answered to—and shared the same bed. It was not remarkable for +its comfort—that bed. I think the mattress was stuffed with potatoes; it +felt that way.</p> + +<p>Next morning we were off again, over the same bare, brown, unpeopled +wilderness. Once we saw a badger zigzagging along a side-hill, and Frosty +whipped out a big revolver—one of those "Colt 45's," I suppose—and shot +it; he said in extenuation that they play the very devil with the range, +digging holes for cow-punchers to break their necks over.</p> + +<p>I was surprised at Frosty; there he had been armed, all the time, and I +never guessed it. Even when we went to bed the night before, I had not +glimpsed a weapon. Clearly, he could not be a cowboy, I reflected, else +he would have worn a cartridge-belt sagging picturesquely down over one +hip, and his gun dangling from it. He put the gun away, and I don't know +where; somewhere out of sight it went, and Frosty turned off the trail and +went driving wild across the prairie. I asked him why, and he said, "Short +cut."</p> + +<p>Then a wind crept out of the north, and with it the snow. We were climbing +low ridges and dodging into hollows, and when the snow spread a white veil +over the land, I looked at Frosty out of the tail of my eye, wondering if +he did not wish he had kept to the road—trail, it is called in the +rangeland.</p> + +<p>If he did, he certainly kept it to himself; he went on climbing hills and +setting the brake at the top, to slide into a hollow, and his face kept +its inscrutable calm; whatever he thought was beyond guessing at.</p> + +<p>When he had watered the horses at a little creek that was already skimmed +with ice, and unwrapped a package of sandwiches on his knee and offered +me one, I broke loose. Silence may be golden, but even old King Midas got +too big a dose of gold, once upon a time, if one may believe tradition.</p> + +<p>"I hate to butt into a man's meditations," I said, looking him straight in +the eye, "but there's a limit to everything, and you've played right up to +it. You've had time, my friend, to remember all your sins and plan enough +more to keep you hustling the allotted span; you've been given an +opportunity to reconstruct the universe and breed a new philosophy of +life. For Heaven's sake, <i>say</i> something!"</p> + +<p>Frosty eyed me for a minute, and the muscles at the corners of his mouth +twitched. "Sure," he responded cheerfully. "I'm something like you; I hate +to break into a man's meditations. It looks like snow."</p> + +<p>"Do you think it's going to storm?" I retorted in the same tone; it had +been snowing great guns for the last three hours. We both laughed, and +Frosty unbent and told me a lot about Bay State Ranch and the country +around it.</p> + +<p>Part of the information was an eye-opener; I wished I had known it when +dad was handing out that roast to me—I rather think I could have made him +cry enough. I tagged the information and laid it away for future +reference.</p> + +<p>As I got the country mapped out in my mind, we were in a huge capital H. +The eastern line, toward which we were angling, was a river they call the +Midas—though I'll never tell you why, unless it's a term ironical. The +western line is another river, the Joliette, and the cross-bar is a range +of hills—they might almost be called mountains—which I had been facing +all that morning till the snow came between and shut them off; White +Divide, it is called, and we were creeping around the end, between them +and the Midas. It seemed queer that there was no way of crossing, for the +Bay State lies almost in a direct line south from Osage, Frosty told me, +and the country we were traversing was rough as White Divide could be, and +I said so to Frosty. Right here is where I got my first jolt.</p> + +<p>"There's a fine pass cut through White Divide by old Mama Nature," Frosty +said, in the sort of tone a man takes when he could say a lot more, but +refrains.</p> + +<p>"Then why in Heaven's name don't you travel it?"</p> + +<p>"Because it isn't healthy for Ragged H folks to travel that way," he said, +in the same eloquent tone.</p> + +<p>"Who are the Ragged H folks, and what's the matter with them?" I wanted to +know—for I smelled a mystery.</p> + +<p>He looked at me sidelong. "If you didn't look just like the old man," he +said, "I'd think yuh were a fake; the Ragged H is the brand your ranch is +known by—the Bay State outfit. And it isn't healthy to travel King's +Highway, because there's a large-sized feud between your father and old +King. How does it happen yuh aren't wise to the family history?"</p> + +<p>"Dad never unbosomed himself to me, that's why," I told him. "He has +labored for twenty-five years under the impression that I was a kid just +able to toddle alone. He didn't think he needed to tell me things; I know +we've got a place called the Bay State Ranch somewhere in this part of the +world, and I have reason to think I'm headed for it. That's about the +extent of my knowledge of our interest here. I never heard of the White +Divide before, or of this particular King. I'm thirsting for information."</p> + +<p>"Well, it strikes me you've got it coming," said Frosty. "I always had +your father sized up as being closed-mouthed, but I didn't think he made +such a thorough job of it as all that. Old King has sure got it in for the +Ragged H—or Bay State, if yuh'd rather call us that; and the Ragged H +boys don't sit up nights thinking kind and loving thoughts about him, +either. Thirty years ago your father and old King started jangling over +water-rights, and I guess they burned powder a-plenty; King goes lame to +this day from a bullet your old man planted in his left leg."</p> + +<p>I dropped the flag and started him off again. "It's news to me," I put in, +"and you can't tell me too much about it."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "your old man was in the right of it; he owns all the +land along Honey Creek, right up to White Divide, where it heads; uh +course, he overlooked a bet there; he should have got a cinch on that +pass, and on the head uh the creek. But he let her slide, and first he +knew old King had come in and staked a claim and built him a shack right +in our end of the pass, and camped down to stay. Your dad wasn't joyful. +The Bay State had used that pass to trail herds through and as the easiest +and shortest trail to the railroad; and then old King takes it up, strings +a five-wired fence across at both ends of his place, and warns us off. +I've heard Potter tell what warm times there were. Your father stayed +right here and had it out with him. The Bay State was all he had, then, +and he ran it himself. Perry Potter worked for him, and knows all about +it. Neither old King nor your dad was married, and it's a wonder they +didn't kill each other off—Potter says they sure tried. The time King got +it in the leg your father and his punchers were coming home from a breed +dance, and they were feeling pretty nifty, I guess; Potter told me they +started out with six bottles, and when they got to White Divide there +wasn't enough left to talk about. They cut King's fence at the north end, +and went right through, hell-bent-for-election. King and his men boiled +out, and they mixed good and plenty. Your father went home with a hole in +his shoulder, and old King had one in his leg to match, and since then +it's been war. They tried to fight it out in court, and King got the best +of it there. Then they got married and kind o' cooled off, and pretty soon +they both got so much stuff to look after that they didn't have much time +to take pot-shots at each other, and now we're enjoying what yuh might +call armed peace. We go round about sixty miles, and King's Highway is bad +medicine.</p> + +<p>"King owns the stage-line from Osage to Laurel, where the Bay State gets +its mail, and he owns Kenmore, a mining-camp in the west half uh White +Divide. We can go around by Kenmore, if we want to—but King's Highway? +Nit!"</p> + +<p>I chuckled to myself to think of all the things I could twit dad about if +ever he went after me again. It struck me that I hadn't been a +circumstance, so far, to what dad must have been in his youth. At my +worst, I'd never shot a man.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III" />CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3><i>The Quarrel Renewed.</i></h3> + + +<p>That night, by a close scratch, we made a little place Frosty said was one +of the Bay State line-camps. I didn't know what a line-camp was, and it +wasn't much for style, but it looked good to me, after riding nearly all +day in a snow-storm. Frosty cooked dinner and I made the coffee, and we +didn't have such a bad time of it, although the storm held us there for +two days.</p> + +<p>We sat by the little cook-stove and told yarns, and I pumped Frosty just +about dry of all he'd ever heard about dad.</p> + +<p>I hadn't intended to write to dad, but, after hearing all I did, I +couldn't help handing out a gentle hint that I was on. When I'd been at +the Bay State Ranch for a week, I wrote him a letter that, I felt, squared +my account with him. It was so short that I can repeat every word now. I +said:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>DEAR DAD: I am here. Though you sent me out here to reform me, I + find the opportunities for unadulterated deviltry away ahead of + Frisco. I saw our old neighbor, King, whom you may possibly + remember. He still walks with a limp. By the way, dad, it seems + to me that when you were about twenty-five you "indulged in some + damned poor pastimes," yourself. Your dutiful son, ELLIS.</p></div> + +<p>Dad never answered that letter.</p> + +<p>Montana, as viewed from the Bay State Ranch in March, struck me as being +an unholy mixture of brown, sodden hills and valleys, chill winds that +never condescended to blow less than a gale, and dull, scurrying clouds, +with sometimes a day of sunshine that was bright as our own sun at home. +(You can't make me believe that our California sun bothers with any other +country.)</p> + +<p>I'd been used to a green world; I never would go to New York in the +winter, because I hate the cold—and here I was, with the cold of New York +and with none of the ameliorations in the way of clubs and theaters and +the like. There were the hills along Midas River shutting off the East, +and hills to the south that Frosty told me went on for miles and miles, +and on the north stretched White Divide—only it was brown, and bleak, and +several other undesirable things. When I looked at it, I used to wonder at +men fighting over it. I did a heap of wondering, those first few days.</p> + +<p>Taken in a lump, it wasn't my style, and I wasn't particular to keep my +opinions a secret. For the ranch itself, it looked to me like a village of +corrals and sheds and stables, evidently built with an eye to usefulness, +and with the idea that harmony of outline is a sin and not to be +tolerated. The house was put up on the same plan, gave shelter to Perry +Potter and the cook, had a big, bare dining-room where the men all ate +together without napkins or other accessories of civilization, and a +couple of bedrooms that were colder, if I remember correctly, than +outdoors. I know that the water froze in my pitcher the first night, and +that afterward I performed my ablutions in the kitchen, and dipped hot +water out of a tank with a blue dipper.</p> + +<p>That first week I spent adjusting myself to the simple life, and trying to +form an unprejudiced opinion of my companions in exile. As for the said +companions, they sort of stood back and sized up my points, good and +bad—and I've a notion they laid heavy odds against me, and had me down in +the Also Ran bunch. I overheard one of them remark, when I was coming up +from the stables: "Here's the son and heir—come, let's kill him!" Another +one drawled: "What's the use? The bounty's run out."</p> + +<p>I was convinced that they regarded me as a frost.</p> + +<p>The same with Perry Potter, a grizzled little man with long, ragged beard +and gray eyes that looked through you and away beyond. I had a feeling +that dad had told him to keep an eye on me and report any incipient growth +of horse-sense. I may have wronged him and dad, but that is how I felt, +and I didn't like him any better for it. He left me alone, and I raised +the bet and left him alone so hard that I scarcely exchanged three +sentences with him in a week. The first night he asked after dad's health, +and I told him the doctor wasn't making regular calls at the house. A day +or so after he said: "How do you like the country?" I said: "Damn the +country!" and closed <i>that</i> conversation. I don't remember that we had any +more for awhile.</p> + +<p>The cowboys were breaking horses to the saddle most of the time, for it +was too early for round-up, I gathered. When I sat on the corral fence and +watched the fun, I observed that I usually had my rail all to myself and +that the rest of the audience roosted somewhere else. Frosty Miller talked +with me sometimes, without appearing to suffer any great pain, but Frosty +was always the star actor when the curtain rose on a bronco-breaking act. +As for the rest, they made it plain that I did <i>not</i> belong to their set, +and I wasn't sending them my At Home cards, either. We were as haughty +with each other as two society matrons when each aspires to be called +leader.</p> + +<p>Then a blizzard that lasted five days came ripping down over that +desolation, and everybody stuck close to shelter, and amused themselves as +they could. The cowboys played cards most of the time—seven-up, or +pitch, or poker; they didn't ask me to take a hand, though; I fancy they +were under the impression that I didn't know how to play.</p> + +<p>I never was much for reading; it's too slow and tame. I'd much rather get +out and <i>live</i> the story I like best. And there was nothing to read, +anyway. I went rummaging in my trunks, and in the bottom of one I came +across a punching-bag and a set of gloves. Right there I took off my hat +to Rankin, and begged his pardon for the unflattering names he'd been in +the habit of hearing from me. I carried the things down and put up the bag +in an empty room at one end of the bunk-house, and got busy.</p> + +<p>Frosty Miller came first to see what was up, and I got him to put on the +gloves for awhile; he knew something of the manly art, I discovered, and +we went at it fast and furious. I think I broke up a game in the next +room. The boys came to the door, one by one, and stood watching, until we +had the full dozen for audience. Before any one realized what was +happening, we were playing together real pretty, with the chilly shoulder +barred and the social ice gone the way of a dew-drop in the sun.</p> + +<p>We boxed and wrestled, with much scientific discussion of "full Nelsons" +and the like, and even fenced with sticks. I had them going there, and +could teach them things; and they were the willingest pupils a man ever +had—docile and filled with a deep respect for their teacher who knew all +there was to know—or, if he didn't, he never let on. Before night we had +smashed three window-panes, trimmed several faces down considerably, and +got pretty well acquainted. I found out that they weren't so far behind +the old gang at home for wanting all there is in the way of fun, and I +believe they discovered that I was harmless. Before that storm let up they +were dealing cards to me, and allowing me to get rid of the rest of the +forty dollars Rankin had overlooked. I got some of it back.</p> + +<p>I went down and bunked with them, because they had a stove and I didn't, +and it was more sociable; Perry Potter and the cook were welcome to the +house, I told them, except at meal-times. And, more than all the rest, I +could keep out of range of Perry Potter's eyes. I never could get used to +that watch-Willie-grow way he had, or rid myself of the notion that he was +sending dad a daily report of my behavior.</p> + +<p>The next thing, when the weather quit sifting snow and turned on the balmy +breezes and the sunshine, I was down in the corrals in my chaps and spurs, +learning things about horses that I never suspected before. When I did +something unusually foolish, the boys were good enough to remember my +boxing and fencing and such little accomplishments, and did not withdraw +their favor; so I went on, butting into every new game that came up, and +taking all bets regardless, and actually began to wise up a little and to +forget a few of my grievances.</p> + +<p>I was down in the corral one day, saddling Shylock—so named because he +tried to exact a pound of flesh every time I turned my back or in other +ways seemed off my guard—and when I was looping up the latigo I +discovered that the alliterative Mr. Potter was roosting on the fence, +watching me with those needle-pointed eyes of his. I wondered if he was +about to prepare another report for dad.</p> + +<p>"Do yuh want to be put on the pay-roll?" he asked, without any preamble, +when he caught my glance.</p> + +<p>"Yes, if I'm <i>earning</i> wages. 'The laborer is worthy of his hire,' I +believe," I retorted loftily. The fact was, I was strapped again—and, +though one did not need money on the Bay State Ranch, it's a good thing to +have around.</p> + +<p>He grinned into his collar. "Well," he said, "you've been pretty busy the +last three weeks, but I ain't had any orders to hire a boxing-master for +the boys. I don't know as that'd rightly come under the head of legitimate +expenses; boxing-masters come high, I've heard. Are yuh going on +round-up?"</p> + +<p>"Sure!" I answered, in an exact copy—as near as I could make it—of +Frosty Miller's intonation. I was making Frosty my model those days.</p> + +<p>He said: "All right—your pay starts on the fifteenth of next +month"—which was April. Then he got down from the fence and went off, and +I mounted Shylock and rode away to Laurel, after the mail. Not that I +expected any, for no one but dad knew where I was, and I hadn't heard a +word from him, though I knew he wrote to Perry Potter—or his secretary +did—every week or so. Really, I don't think a father ought to be so +chesty with the only son he's got, even if the son is a no-account young +cub.</p> + +<p>I was standing in the post-office, which was a store and saloon as well, +when an old fellow with stubby whiskers and a jaw that looked as though it +had been trimmed square with a rule, and a limp that made me know at once +who he was, came in. He was standing at the little square window, talking +to the postmaster and waving his pipe to emphasize what he said, when a +horse went past the door on the dead run, with bridle-reins flying. A +fellow rushed out past us—it was his horse—and hit old King's elbow a +clip as he went by. The pipe went about ten feet and landed in a +pickle-keg. I went after it and fished it out for the old fellow—not so +much because I'm filled with a natural courtesy, as because I was curious +to know the man that had got the best of dad.</p> + +<p>He thanked me, and asked me across to the saloon side of the room to drink +with him. "I don't know as I've met you before, young man," he said, eying +me puzzled. "Your face is familiar, though; been in this country long?"</p> + +<p>"No," I said; "a little over a month is all."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you ever happen around my way—King's Highway, they call my +place—stop and see me. Going to stay long out here?"</p> + +<p>"I think so," I replied, motioning the waiter—"bar-slave," they call them +in Montana—to refill our glasses. "And I'll be glad to call some day, +when I happen in your neighborhood. And if you ever ride over toward the +Bay State, be sure you stop."</p> + +<p>Well, say! old King turned the color of a ripe prune; every hair in that +stubble of beard stood straight out from his chin, and he looked as if +murder would be a pleasant thing. He took the glass and deliberately +emptied the whisky on the floor. "John Carleton's son, eh? I might 'a' +known it—yuh look enough like him. Me drink with a son of John Carleton? +That breed uh wolves had better not come howling around <i>my</i> door. I asked +yuh to come t' King's Highway, young man, and I don't take it back. You +can come, but you'll get the same sort uh welcome I'd give that—"</p> + +<p>Right there I got my hand on his throttle. He was an old man, +comparatively, and I didn't want to hurt him; but no man under heaven can +call my dad the names he did, and I told him so. "I don't want to dig up +that old quarrel, King," I said, shaking him a bit with one hand, just to +emphasize my words, "but you've got to speak civilly of dad, or, by the +Lord! I'll turn you across my knee and administer a stinging rebuke."</p> + +<p>He tried to squirm loose, and to reach behind him with that suggestive +movement that breeds trouble among men of the plains; but I held his arms +so he couldn't move, the while I told him a lot of things about true +politeness—things that I wasn't living up to worth mentioning. He yelled +to the postmaster to grab me, and the fellow tried it. I backed into a +corner and held old King in front of me as a bulwark, warranted bullet +proof, and wondered what kind of a hornet's-nest I'd got into. The waiter +and the postmaster were both looking for an opening, and I remembered that +I was on old King's territory, and that they were after holding their +jobs.</p> + +<p>I don't know how it would have ended—I suppose they'd have got me, +eventually—but Perry Potter walked in, and it didn't seem to take him all +day to savvy the situation. He whipped out a gun and leveled it at the +enemy, and told me to scoot and get on my horse.</p> + +<p>"Scoot nothing!" I yelled back. "What about you in the meantime? Do you +think I'm going to leave them to clean you up?"</p> + +<p>He smiled sourly at me. "I've held my own with this bunch uh +trouble-hunters for thirty years," he said dryly. "I guess yuh ain't got +any reason t' be alarmed. Come out uh that corner and let 'em alone."</p> + +<p>I don't, to this day, know why I did it, but I quit hugging old King, and +the other two fell back and gave me a clear path to the door. "King was +blackguarding dad, and I couldn't stand for it," I explained to Perry +Potter as I went by. "If you're not going, I won't."</p> + +<p>"I've got a letter to mail," he said, calm as if he were in his own +corral. "You went off before I got a chance to give it to yuh. I'll be out +in a minute."</p> + +<p>He went and slipped the letter into the mail-box, turned his back on the +three, and walked out as if nothing had happened; perhaps he knew that I +was watching them, in a mood to do things if they offered to touch him. +But they didn't, and we mounted our horses and rode away, and Perry Potter +never mentioned the affair to me, then or after. I don't think we spoke on +the way to the ranch; I was busy wishing I'd been around in that part of +the world thirty years before, and thinking what a lot of fun I had +missed by not being as old as dad. A quarrel thirty years old is either +mighty stale and unprofitable, or else, like wine, it improves with age. I +meant to ride over to King's Highway some day, and see how he would have +welcomed dad thirty years before.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV" />CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3><i>Through King's Highway.</i></h3> + + +<p>It was a long time before I was in a position to gratify my curiosity, +though; between the son and heir, with nothing to do but amuse himself, +and a cowboy working for his daily wage, there is a great gulf fixed. +After being put on the pay-roll, I couldn't do just as my fancy prompted. +I had to get up at an ungodly hour, and eat breakfast in about two +minutes, and saddle a horse and "ride circle" with the rest of them—which +same is exceeding wearisome to man and beast. For the first time since I +left school, I was under orders; and the foreman certainly tried to obey +dad's mandate and treat me just as he would have treated any other +stranger. I could give it up, of course—but I hope never to see the day +when I can be justly called a quitter.</p> + +<p>First, we were rounding up horses—saddlers that were to be ridden in the +round-up proper. We were not more than two or three weeks at that, though +we covered a good deal of country. Before it was over I knew a lot more +than when we started out, and had got hard as nails; riding on round-up +beats a gym for putting wire muscles under a man's skin, in my opinion. We +worked all around White Divide—which was turning a pale, dainty green +except where the sandstone cliffs stood up in all the shades of yellow and +red. Montana, as viewed on "horse round-up," looks better than in the +first bleak days of March, and I could gaze upon it without profanity. I +even got to like tearing over the newborn grass on a good horse, with a +cowboy or two galloping, keen-faced and calm, beside me. It was almost +better than slithering along a hard road with a motor-car stripped to the +running-gear.</p> + +<p>When the real thing happened—the "calf round-up"—and thirty riders in +white felt hats, chaps, spurs a-jingle, and handkerchief ends flying out +in the wind, lined up of a morning for orders, the blood of me went +a-jump, and my nerves were all tingly with the pure joy of being alive and +atop a horse as eager as hounds in the leash and with the wind of the +plains in my face and the grass-land lying all around, yelling come on, +and the meadowlarks singing fit to split their throats. There's nothing +like it—and I've tried nearly everything in the way of blood-tinglers. +Skimming through the waves, alean to the wind in a racing-yacht, comes +nearest, and even that takes second money when circle-riding on round-up +is entered in the race. But this is getting away from my story.</p> + +<p>We were working the country just north of White Divide, when the foreman +started me home with a message for Perry Potter—and I was to get back as +soon as possible with the answer. Now, here's where I got gay.</p> + +<p>As I said, we were north of White Divide, and the home ranch was south, +and to go around either end of that string of hills meant an extra sixty +miles to cover each way—a hundred and twenty for the round trip. Directly +in the way of the proverbial crow's flight lay King's Highway, which—if I +got through—would put me at the ranch the first day, and back at camp +the second; and I rather guessed that would surprise our worthy foreman +not a little. I didn't see why it couldn't be done; surely old King +wouldn't murder a man just for riding through that pass—that would be +bloody-minded indeed!</p> + +<p>And if I failed—why, I could go around, and no one would be wise to the +fact that I had tried it. I headed straight for the pass, which yawned +invitingly, with two bare peaks for the jaws, not over six miles away. It +was against orders, for Perry Potter had given the boys to understand that +they were not to go that way, and that they were to leave King and his +stronghold strictly alone; but I didn't worry about that. When I was +fairly in the mouth of the pass, I got down and looked to the cinch, and +then rode boldly forward, like a soldier riding up to the cannon's mouth +with a smile on his face. Oh, I wasted plenty of admiration on one Ellis +Carleton about that time, and rehearsed the bold, biting speech I meant to +deliver at old King's very door.</p> + +<p>So far it was easy sailing. There was a hard-beaten road, and the hills +seemed standing back and holding aside their skirts for a free passing. +The sun lay warm on their green slopes, and one could fairly smell the +grass growing. In the hollows were worlds of blue flowers, with patches +here and there a royal purple. I stopped and gathered a handful and stuck +them in my buttonhole and under my hatband. I don't know when I have felt +so thoroughly satisfied with said Ellis Carleton—of whom I am overfond of +speaking—I even mimicked the meadow-larks, until they watched me with +heads tilted, not knowing what to make of such an impertinent fellow.</p> + +<p>King's Highway was glorious; I didn't wonder that dad thought it worth +fighting over, and as I went on, farther and farther down this lane made +by nature for easy passing, I could see what an immense advantage it would +be to take herds through that way. I could see why the Bay State men +cursed King when they took the rough trail around the end of White +Divide.</p> + +<p>After an hour of undisputed riding on this forbidden trail, the pass +narrowed rather abruptly till it was not more than a furlong in width; the +hills stretched their heads still higher, as if they wanted to see the +fun, and the shadow of the eastern rim laid clear across the narrow valley +and touched the foot of the opposite slope. I hope I am not going to be +called nervous if I tell the truth about things; when I rode into the +shadow I stopped whistling a bad imitation of meadow-lark notes. A bit +farther and I pulled up, looked all around, and got off and tightened the +cinch a bit more. Shylock—I always rode him when I could—threw his head +around and nearly took a chunk out of my arm, and in reproving him I +forgot, for a minute, the ticklish game I was playing. Then I loosened my +gun—I had learned to carry it inconspicuously under my coat, as did the +other boys—made sure it could be pulled without embarrassing delay, and +went on. Around the next turn a five-wired fence stretched across the +trail, with a gate fastened by a chain and padlock. I whistled under my +breath, and eyed the lock with extreme disfavor.</p> + +<p>But I had learned a trick of the cowboys. I pulled the wire off a couple +of posts at one side of the gate, laid them flat on the ground, and led +Shylock over them. Then I found a rock, pounded the staples back in place, +and went on; only for the tracks, one could not notice that any had passed +that way. Still, it was a bit ticklish, riding down King's Highway alone +and with no idea of what lay farther on. But dad had dared go that way, +and to fight at the far end; and what dad had not been afraid to tackle, +it did not behoove his son to back down from. I made Shylock walk the next +half-mile, with some notion of saving his wind for an emergency run.</p> + +<p>Of a sudden I rounded a sharp nose of hill and came plump on the palace of +the King. It looked a good deal like the Bay State Ranch—big corrals and +sheds and stables, and little place for man to dwell. The house, though, +was bigger than ours, and looked more comfortable to live in. And the +thing that struck me most was the head which King displayed for strategy. +The trail wound between those same sheds and corrals, a gantlet two +hundred yards long that one must run or turn back. On either side the +bluffs rose sheer, with the buildings crowding close against their base. I +didn't wonder Frosty called King's Highway "bad medicine." It certainly +did look like it.</p> + +<p>I went softly along that trail, turning sharp corners around a shed here, +circling a corral there, with my hand within an inch of my gun, and my +heart within an inch of my teeth, and you may laugh all you like.</p> + +<p>No one seemed to be about; the sheds were deserted, and a few horses dozed +in a corral that I passed; but human being I saw none. It was evident that +King did not consider his enemy worth watching. I passed the last shed and +found myself headed straight for the house; I had still to get through its +very dooryard before I was in any position to crow, and beyond the house +was another fence; I hoped the gate was not locked. Shylock pricked up +his ears, then laid them back along his neck as if he did not approve the +layout, either. But we ambled right along, like a deacon headed for +prayer-meeting, and I tried to look in four different directions at one +and the same time.</p> + +<p>For that reason, I didn't see her till she stood right in front of me; and +when I did, I stared like an idiot. It was a girl, and she was coming down +a path to the trail, with her hands full of flowers, for all the world +like a Duchess novel. Another minute, and I'd have run over her, I guess. +She stopped and looked at me from under lashes so thick and heavy they +seemed almost pulling her lids shut, and there was something in her eyes +that made me go hot and cold, like I was coming down with grippe; when she +spoke my symptoms grew worse.</p> + +<p>"Did you wish to see father?" she asked, as if she were telling me to +leave the place.</p> + +<p>"I believe," I rallied enough to answer, "that 'father' would give a good +deal to see <i>me</i>." Then that seemed to shut off our conversation too +abruptly to suit me; there are occasions when prickly chills have a +horrible fascination for a fellow; this was one of the times.</p> + +<p>"He's not at home, I'm very sorry to say," she retorted in the same +liquid-air voice as before, and turned to go back to the house.</p> + +<p>I thanked the Lord for that, in a whisper, and kept pace with her. It was +plain she hated the sight of me, but I counted on her being enough like +her dad not to run away.</p> + +<p>"May I trouble you for a drink of water?" I asked, in the orthodox tone of +humility.</p> + +<p>"There is no need to trouble me; there is the creek, beyond the house; you +are welcome to all you want."</p> + +<p>"Thanks." I watched the pink curve of her cheek, and knew she was dying +for a chance to snub me still more maliciously. We were at the steps of +the veranda now, but still she would not hurry; she seemed to hate even +the semblance of running away.</p> + +<p>"Can you direct me to the Bay State Ranch?" I hazarded. It was my last +card, and I let it go with a sigh.</p> + +<p>She pointed a slim, scornful finger at the brand on Shylock's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"If you are in doubt of the way, Mr. Carleton, your horse will take you +home—if you give him his head."</p> + +<p>That put a crimp in me worse than the look of her eyes, even. I stared at +her a minute, and then laughed right out. "The game's yours, Miss King, +and I take off my hat to you for hitting straight and hard," I said. "Must +the feud descend even to the second generation? Is it a fight to the +finish, and no quarter asked or given?"</p> + +<p>I had her going then. She blushed—and when I saw the red creep into her +cheeks my heart was hardened to repentance. I'd have done it again for the +pleasure of seeing her that way.</p> + +<p>"You are taking a good deal for granted, sir," she said, in her loftiest +tone. "We Kings scarcely consider the Carletons worthy our weapons."</p> + +<p>"You don't, eh? Then, why did you begin it?" I wanted to know. "If you +permit me, you started the row before I spoke, even."</p> + +<p>"I do <i>not</i> permit you." Clearly, my lady could be haughty enough to +satisfy the most fastidious.</p> + +<p>"Well," I sighed, "I will go my way. I'm a lover of peace, myself; but +since you proclaim war, war it must be. I'm not so ungallant as to oppose +a lady's wishes. Is that gate down there locked?"</p> + +<p>"Figuratively, it's <i>always</i> locked against the Carletons," she said.</p> + +<p>"But I want to go through it <i>literally</i>," I retorted. And she just looked +at me from under those lashes, and never answered.</p> + +<p>"Well, the air grows chill in King's Highway," I shivered mockingly. "If +ever I find you on Bay State soil, Miss King, I shall take much pleasure +in teaching you the proper way to treat an enemy."</p> + +<p>"I shall be greatly diverted, no doubt," was the scornful reply of +her—and just then an old lady came to the door, and I lifted my hand +grandly in a precise military salute and rode away, wondering which of us +had had the best of it.</p> + +<p>The gate wasn't locked, and as for taking a drink at the creek, I forgot +that I was thirsty. I jogged along toward home, and wondered why Frosty +had not told me that King had a daughter. Also, I wondered at her +animosity. It never occurred to me that her father, unlike my dad, had +probably harped on the Carletons until she had come to think we were in +league with the Old Boy himself. Her dad's game leg would no doubt argue +strongly against us, and keep the feud green in her heart—supposing she +had one.</p> + +<p>On the whole, I was glad I had traveled King's Highway. I had discovered a +brand-new enemy—and so far in my life enemies had been so scarce as to be +a positive diversion. And it was novel and interesting to be so thoroughly +hated by a girl. No reason to dodge <i>her</i> net. I rather congratulated +myself on knowing one girl who positively refused to smile on demand. She +hadn't, once. I got to wondering, that night, if she had dimples. I meant +to find out.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V" />CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3><i>Into the Lion's Mouth.</i></h3> + + +<p>Perry Potter, when he had read the foreman's note, asked how long since I +left camp; when I told him that I was there at daylight, he looked at me +queerly and walked off without a word. I didn't say anything, either.</p> + +<p>I stayed at the ranch overnight, intending to start back the next morning. +The round-up would be west of where I had left them, according to the +foreman—or wagon-boss, as he is called. Logically, then, I should take +the trail that led through Kenmore, the mining-camp owned by King, and +which lay in the heart of White Divide ten miles west of King's Highway. +That, I say, was the logical route—but I wasn't going to take it. I +wasn't a bit stuck on that huddle of corrals and sheds, with the trail +winding blindly between, and I wasn't in love with the girl or with old +King; but, all the same, I meant to go back the way I came, just for my +own private satisfaction.</p> + +<p>While I was saddling Shylock, in the opal-tinted sunrise, Potter came down +and gave me the letter to the wagon-boss, an answer to the one I had +brought.</p> + +<p>"Here's some chuck the cook put up for yuh," he remarked, handing me a +bundle tied up in a flour-sack. "You'll need it 'fore yuh get through to +camp; you'll likely be longer going than yuh was comin'."</p> + +<p>"Think so?" I smiled knowingly to myself and left him staring +disapprovingly after me. I could easily give a straight guess at what he +was thinking.</p> + +<p>I jogged along as leisurely as I could without fretting Shylock, and, once +clear of the home field, headed straight for King's Highway. It wasn't the +wisest course I could take, perhaps, but it was like to prove the most +exciting, and I never was remarkable for my wisdom. It seemed to me that +it was necessary to my self-respect to return the way I came—and I may as +well confess that I hoped Miss King was an early riser. As it was, I +killed what time I could, and so spent a couple of hours where one would +have sufficed.</p> + +<p>Half a mile out from the mouth of the pass, I observed a human form +crowning the peak of a sharp-pointed little butte that rose up out of the +prairie; since the form seemed to be in skirts, I made for the spot. +Shylock puffed up the steep slope, and at last stopped still and looked +back at me in utter disgust; so I took the hint and got off, and led him +up the rest of the way.</p> + +<p>"Good morning. We meet on neutral ground," I greeted when I was close +behind her. "I propose a truce."</p> + +<p>She jumped a bit, and looked very much astonished to see me there so +close. If it had been some other girl—say Ethel Mapleton—I'd have +suspected the genuineness of that surprise; as it was, I could only think +she had been very much absorbed not to hear me scrambling up there.</p> + +<p>"You're an early bird," she said dryly, "to be so far from home." She +glanced toward the pass, as though she would like to cut and run, but +hated to give me the satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"Well," I told her with inane complacency, "you will remember that 'it's +the early bird that catches the worm.'"</p> + +<p>"What a pretty speech!" she commented, and I saw what I'd done, and felt +myself turn a beautiful purple. Compare her to a worm!</p> + +<p>But she laughed when she saw how uncomfortable I was, and after that I was +almost glad I'd said it; she <i>did</i> have dimples—two of them—and—</p> + +<p>The laugh, however, was no sign of incipient amiability, as I very soon +discovered. She turned her back on me and went imperturbably on with her +sketching; she was trying to put on paper the lights and shades of White +Divide—and even a desire to be chivalrous will not permit me to lie and +say that she was making any great success of it. I don't believe the Lord +ever intended her for an artist.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you giving King's Highway a much wider mouth than it's entitled +to?" I asked mildly, after watching her for a minute.</p> + +<p>"I should not be surprised," she told me haughtily, "if you some day +wished it still wider."</p> + +<p>"There wouldn't be the chance for fighting, if it was; and I take great +pleasure in keeping the feud going."</p> + +<p>"I thought you were anxious for a truce," she said recklessly, shading a +slope so that it looked like the peak of a roof.</p> + +<p>"I am," I retorted shamelessly. "I'm anxious for anything under the sun +that will keep you talking to me. People might call that a flirtatious +remark, but I plead not guilty; I wouldn't know how to flirt, even if I +wanted to do so."</p> + +<p>She turned her head and looked at me in a way that I could not +misunderstand; it was plain, unvarnished scorn, and a ladylike anger, and +a few other unpleasant things.</p> + +<p>It made me think of a certain star in "The Taming of the Shrew."</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Fie, fie! unknit that threatening, unkind brow,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To wound thy neighbor and thine enemy,"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>I declaimed, with rather a free adaptation to my own need.</p> + +<p>Her brow positively refused to unknit. "Have you nothing to do but spout +bad quotations from Shakespeare on a hilltop?" she wanted to know, in a +particularly disagreeable tone.</p> + +<p>"Plenty; I have yet to win that narrow pass," I said.</p> + +<p>"Hardly to-day," she told me, with more than a shade of triumph. "Father +is at home, and he heard of your trip yesterday."</p> + +<p>If she expected to scare me by that! "Must our feud include your father? +When I met him a month ago, he gave me a cordial invitation to stop, if I +ever happened this way."</p> + +<p>She lifted those heavy lashes, and her eyes plainly spoke unbelief.</p> + +<p>"It's a fact," I assured her calmly. "I met him one day in Laurel, and was +fortunate enough to perform a service which earned his gratitude. As I +say, he invited me to come and see him; I told him I should be glad to +have him visit me at the Bay State Ranch, and we embraced each other with +much fervor."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!" I could see that she persisted in doubting my veracity.</p> + +<p>"Ask your father if we didn't," I said, much injured. I knew she wouldn't, +though.</p> + +<p>A scrambling behind us made me turn, and there was Perry Potter climbing +up to us, his eyes sharper than ever, and his face so absolutely devoid of +expression that it told me a good deal. I'll lay all I own he was a good +bit astonished at what he saw! As for me, I could have kicked him back to +the bottom of the hill—and I probably looked it.</p> + +<p>"There was something I forgot to put in that note," he said evenly, just +touching the brim of his hat in acknowledgment of the girl's presence. "I +wrote another one. I'd like Ballard to get it as soon as you can make +camp—conveniently." His eyes looked through me almost as if I weren't +there.</p> + +<p>My desire to kick him grew almost into mania. I took the note, saw at a +glance that it was addressed to me, and said: "All right," in a tone quite +different from the one I had been using to tease Miss King.</p> + +<p>He gave me another sharp look, and went back the way he had come, leaving +me standing there glaring after him. Miss King, I noticed, was sketching +for dear life, and her cheeks were crimson.</p> + +<p>When Potter had got to the bottom and was riding away, I unfolded the note +and read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Don't be a fool. For God's sake, have some sense and keep away + from King's Highway.</p></div> + +<p>I laughed, and Miss King looked up inquiringly. Following an impulse I've +never yet been able to classify, I showed her the note.</p> + +<p>She read it calmly—I might say indifferently. "He is quite right," she +said coldly. "I, too—if I cared enough—would advise you to keep away +from King's Highway."</p> + +<p>"But you don't care enough to advise me, and so I shall go," I said—and I +had the satisfaction of seeing her teeth come down sharply on her lower +lip. I waited a minute, watching her.</p> + +<p>"You're very foolish," she said icily, and went at her sketching again.</p> + +<p>I waited another minute; during that time she succeeded in making the pass +look weird indeed, and a fearsome place to enter. I got reckless.</p> + +<p>"You've spoiled that sketch," I said, stooping and taking it gently from +her. "Give it to me, and it shall be a flag of truce with which I shall +win my way through unscathed."</p> + +<p>She started to her feet then, and her anger was worth facing for the glow +it brought to eyes and cheeks, and the tremble that came to her lips.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Carleton, you are perfectly detestable!" she cried.</p> + +<p>"Miss King, you are perfectly adorable!" I returned, folding the sketch +very carefully, so that it would slip easily into my pocket. "With so +authentic a map of the enemy's stronghold, what need I fear? I go—but, +on my honor, I shall shortly return."</p> + +<p>She stood with her fingers clasped tightly in front of her, and watched me +lead Shylock down that butte—on the side toward the pass, if you are +still in doubt of my intentions. When I say she watched me, I am making a +guess; but I felt that she was, and it would be hard to disabuse my mind +of that belief. And when I started, her fingers had been clinging tightly +together. At the bottom I turned and waved my hat—and I know she saw +that, for she immediately whirled and took to studying the southern +sky-line. So I left her and galloped straight into the lion's den—to use +an old simile.</p> + +<p>I passed through the gate and up to the house, Shylock pacing easily along +as though we both felt assured of a welcome. Old King met me at his door +as I was going by; I pulled up and gave him my very cheeriest good +morning. He looked at me from under shaggy, gray eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"You've got your gall, young man, to come this way twice in twenty-four +hours," he said grimly.</p> + +<p>"You can turn around and go back the way you came in."</p> + +<p>"You asked me to call," I reminded him mildly. "You were not at home +yesterday, so I came again."</p> + +<p>He glanced uneasily over his shoulder, and drew the door shut between +himself and whoever was within. "You damn' cur," he growled, "yuh know yuh +ain't no friend uh the Kings."</p> + +<p>"I know you're all mighty unneighborly," I said, making me a cigarette in +the way that cowboys do. "I asked a young lady—your daughter, I +suppose—for a drink of water. She told me to go to the creek."</p> + +<p>He laughed at that; evidently he approved of his daughter's attitude. +"Beryl knows how to deal with the likes uh you," he muttered relishfully. +"And she hates the Carletons bad as I do. Get off my place, young man, and +do it quick!"</p> + +<p>"Sure!" I assented cheerfully, and jabbed the spurs into Shylock—taking +good care that he was beaded north instead of south. And it's a fact that, +ticklish as was the situation, my first thought was: "So her name's +Beryl, is it? Mighty pretty name, and fits her, too."</p> + +<p>King wasn't thinking anything so sentimental, I'll wager. He yelled to two +or three fellows, as I shot by them near the first corral: "Round up that +thus-and-how"—I hate to say the words right out—"and bring him back +here!" Then he sent a bullet zipping past my ear, and from the house came +a high, nasal squawk which, I gathered, came from the old party I had seen +the day before.</p> + +<p>I went clippety-clip around those sheds and corrals, till I like to have +snapped my head off; I knew Shylock could take first money over any +ordinary cayuse, and I let him out; but, for all that, I heard them +coming, and it sounded as if they were about to ride all over me, they +were so close.</p> + +<p>Past the last shed I went streaking it, and my heart remembered what it +was made for, and went to work. I don't feel that, under the +circumstances, it's any disgrace to own that I was scared. I didn't hear +any more little singing birds fly past, so I straightened up enough to +look around and see what was doing in the way of pursuit.</p> + +<p>One glance convinced me that my pursuers weren't going to sleep in their +saddles. One of them, on a little buckskin that was running with his ears +laid so flat it looked as if he hadn't any, was widening the loop in his +rope, and yelling unfriendly things as he spurred after me; the others +were a length behind, and I mentally put them out of the race. The +gentleman with the businesslike air was all I wanted to see, and I laid +low as I could and slapped Shylock along the neck, and told him to bestir +himself.</p> + +<p>He did. We skimmed up that trail like a winner on the home—stretch, and +before I had time to think of what lay ahead, I saw that fence with the +high, board gate that was padlocked. Right there I swore abominably—but +it didn't loosen the gate. I looked back and decided that this was no +occasion for pulling wires loose and leading my horse over them. It was no +occasion for anything that required more than a second; my friend of the +rope was not more than five long jumps behind, and he was swinging that +loop suggestively over his head.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/96.jpg"><img src="./images/96-thumbnail.jpg" alt="His hind feet caught the top wire and snapped it like +thread." title=""His hind feet caught the top wire and snapped it like +thread."" /></a></p><p class="figcenter">"His hind feet caught the top wire and snapped it like +thread."</p> + +<p>I reined Shylock sharply out of the trail, saw a place where the fence +looked a bit lower than the average, and put him straight at it with quirt +and spurs. He would have swung off, but I've ridden to hounds, and I had +seen hunters go over worse places; I held him to it without mercy. He laid +back his ears, then, and went over—and his hind feet caught the top wire +and snapped it like thread. I heard it hum through the air, and I heard +those behind me shout as though something unlooked-for had happened. I +turned, saw them gathered on the other side looking after me blankly, and +I waved my hat airily in farewell and went on about my business.</p> + +<p>I felt that they would scarcely chase me the whole twelve or fifteen miles +of the pass, and I was right; after I turned the first bend I saw them no +more.</p> + +<p>At camp I was received with much astonishment, particularly when Ballard +saw that I had brought an answer to his note.</p> + +<p>"Yuh must 'a' rode King's Highway," he said, looking at me much as Perry +Potter had done the night before.</p> + +<p>I told him I did, and the boys gathered round and wanted to know how I did +it. I told them about jumping the fence, and my conceit got a hard blow +there; with one accord they made it plain that I had done a very foolish +thing. Range horses, they assured me, are not much at jumping, as a rule; +and wire-fences are their special abhorrence. Frosty Miller told me, in +confidence, that he didn't know which was the bigger fool, Shylock or me, +and he hoped I'd never be guilty of another trick like that.</p> + +<p>That rather took the bloom off my adventure, and I decided, after much +thought, that I agreed with Frosty: King's Highway was bad medicine. I +amended that a bit, and excepted Beryl King; I did not think she was "bad +medicine," however acid might be her flavor.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI" />CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3><i>I ask Beryl King to Dance.</i></h3> + + +<p>If I were just yarning for the fun there is in it, I should say that I was +back in King's Highway, helping Beryl King gather posies and brush up her +repartee, the very next morning—or the second, at the very latest. As a +matter of fact, though, I steered clear of that pass, and behaved myself +and stuck to work for six long weeks; that isn't saying I never thought +about her, though.</p> + +<p>On the very last day of June, as nearly as I could estimate, Frosty rode +into Kenmore for something, and came back with that in his eyes that boded +mischief; his words, however, were innocent enough for the most +straight-laced.</p> + +<p>"There's things doing in Kenmore," he remarked to a lot of us. "Old King +has a party of aristocrats out from New York, visiting—Terence Weaver, +half-owner in the mines, and some women; they're fixing to celebrate the +Fourth with a dance. The women, it seems, are crazy to see a real Montana +dance, and watch the cowboys <i>chasse</i> around the room in their chaps and +spurs and big hats, and with two or three six-guns festooned around their +middles, the way you see them in pictures. They think, as near as I could +find out, that cowboys always go to dances in full war-paint like +that—and they'll be disappointed if said cowboys don't punctuate the +performance by shooting out the lights, every so often." He looked across +at me, and then is when I observed the mischief brewing in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"We'll have to take it in," I said promptly. "I'm anxious to see a Montana +dance, myself."</p> + +<p>"We aren't in their set," gloomed Frosty, with diplomatic caution. "I +won't swear they're sending out engraved invitations, but, all the same, +we won't be expected."</p> + +<p>"We'll go, anyhow," I answered boldly. "If they want to see cow-punchers, +it seems to me the Ragged H can enter a bunch that will take first +prize."</p> + +<p>Frosty looked at me, and permitted himself to smile. "Uh course, if you're +bound to go, Ellis, I guess there's no stopping yuh—and some of us will +naturally have to go along to see yuh through. King's minions would sure +do things to yuh if yuh went without a body-guard." He shook his head, and +cupped his hands around a match-blaze and a cigarette, so that no one +could tell much about his expression.</p> + +<p>"I'm bound to go," I declared, taking the cue. "And I think I do need some +of you to back me up. I think," I added judicially, "I shall need the +whole bunch."</p> + +<p>The "bunch" looked at one another gravely and sighed. "We'll have t' go, I +reckon," they said, just as though they weren't dying to play the +unexpected guest. So that was decided, and there was much whispering among +groups when they thought the wagon-boss was near, and much unobtrusive +preparation.</p> + +<p>It happened that the wagons pulled in close to the ranch the day before +the Fourth, intending to lay over for a day or so. We were mighty glad of +it, and hurried through our work. I don't know why the rest were so +anxious to attend that dance, but for me, I'm willing to own that I wanted +to see Beryl King. I knew she'd be there—and if I didn't manage, by fair +means or foul, to make her dance with me, I should be very much surprised +and disappointed. I couldn't remember ever giving so much thought to a +girl; but I suppose it was because she was so frankly antagonistic that +there was nothing tame about our intercourse. I can't like girls who +invariably say just what you expect them to say.</p> + +<p>When we came to get ready, there was a dress-discussion that a lot of +women would find it hard to beat. Some of the boys wanted to play up to, +the aristocrats' expectations, and wear their gaudiest neckerchiefs, their +chaps, spurs, and all the guns they could get their hands on; but I had an +idea I thought beat theirs, and proselyted for all I was worth. Rankin +had packed a lot of dress suits in one of my trunks—evidently he thought +Montana was some sort of house-party—and I wanted to build a surprise for +the good people at King's. I wanted the boys to use those suits to the +best advantage.</p> + +<p>At first they hung back. They didn't much like the idea of wearing +borrowed clothes—which attitude I respected, but felt bound to overrule. +I told them it was no worse than borrowing guns, which a lot of them were +doing. In the end my oratory was rewarded as it deserved; it was decided +that, as even my capacious trunks couldn't be expected to hold thirty +dress suits, part of the crowd should ride in full regalia. I might "tog +up" as many as possible, and said "togged" men must lend their guns to the +others; for every man of the "reals" insisted on wearing a gun dangling +over each hip.</p> + +<p>So I went down into my trunks, and disinterred four dress suits and three +Tuxedos, together with all the appurtenances thereto. Oh, Rankin was +certainly a wonder! There was a gay-colored smoking-jacket and cap that +one of the boys took a fancy to and insisted on wearing, but I drew the +line at that. We nearly had a fight over it, right there.</p> + +<p>When we were dressed—and I had to valet the whole lot of them, except +Frosty, who seemed wise to polite apparel—we were certainly a bunch of +winners. Modesty forbids explaining just how <i>I</i> appear in a dress suit. I +will only say that my tailor knew his business—but the others were +fearful and wonderful to look upon. To begin with, not all of them stand +six-feet-one in their stocking-feet, or tip the scales at a hundred and +eighty odd; likewise their shoulders lacked the breadth that goes with the +other measurements. Hence my tailor would doubtless have wept at the +sight; shoulders drooping spiritlessly, and sleeves turned up, and +trousers likewise. Frosty Miller, though, was like a man with his mask +off; he stood there looking the gentleman born, and I couldn't help +staring at him.</p> + +<p>"You've been broken to society harness, old man, and are bridle-wise," I +said, slapping him on the shoulder. He whirled on me savagely, and his +face was paler than I'd ever seen it.</p> + +<p>"And if I have—what the hell is it to you?" he asked unpleasantly, and I +stammered out some kind of apology. Far be it from me to pry into a man's +past.</p> + +<p>I straightened Sandy Johnson's tie, turned up his sleeves another inch, +and we started out. And I will say we were a quaint-looking outfit. +Perhaps my meaning will be clearer when I say that every one of us wore +the soft, white "Stetson" of the range-land, and a silk handkerchief +knotted loosely around the throat, and spurs and riding-gloves. I've often +wondered if the range has ever seen just that wedding of the East and the +West before in man's apparel.</p> + +<p>We'd scarcely got started when the wind caught Frosty's coat-tails and +slapped them down along the flanks of his horse—an incident that the +horse met with stern disapproval. He went straight up into the air, and +then bucked as long as his wind held out, the while Frosty's quirt kept +time with the tails of his coat.</p> + +<p>When the two had calmed down a bit, the other boys profited by Frosty's +experience, and tucked the coat-tails snugly under them—and those who +wore the Tuxedos congratulated themselves on their foresight. We were a +merry party, and we were willing to publish the fact.</p> + +<p>When we had overtaken the others we were still merrier, for the +spectacular contingent plumed themselves like peacocks on their +fearsomeness, and guyed us conventionally garbed fellows unmercifully.</p> + +<p>When the thirty of us filed into the long, barn-like hall where they were +having the dance, I believe I can truthfully say that we created a +sensation. That "ripple of excitement" which we read about so often in +connection with belles and balls went round the room. Frosty and I led the +way, and the rest of the "biscuit-shooter brigade," as the others called +us, followed two by two. Then came the real Wild West show, with their +hats tilted far back on their heads and brazen faces which it pained me +to contemplate. We arrived during that humming hash which comes just after +a number, and every one stared impolitely, and some of them not +overcordially. I began to wonder if we hadn't done a rather ill-bred +thing, to hurl ourselves so unceremoniously into the merrymakings of the +enemy; but I comforted myself with the thought that the dance was given as +a public affair, so that we were acting within our technical +rights—though I own that, as I looked around upon our crowd, ranged +solemnly along the wall, it struck me that we <i>were</i> a bit spectacular.</p> + +<p>She was there, chatting with some other women, at the far end of the hall, +and if she saw me enter the room she did not show any disquietude; from +where I stood, she seemed perfectly at ease, and unconscious of anything +unusual having occurred. Old King I could not see.</p> + +<p>A waltz was announced—rather, bellowed—and the boys drifted away from +me. It was evident that they did not intend to become wall flowers. For +myself, it occurred to me that, except my somewhat debatable acquaintance +with Miss King, I did not know a woman in the room. I called up all my +courage and fortitude, and started toward her. I was determined to ask her +to dance, and I got some chilly comfort out of the reflection that she +couldn't do any worse than refuse; still, that would be quite bad enough, +and I will not say that I crossed that room, with three or four hundred +eyes upon me, in any oh-be-joyful frame of mind. I rather suspect that my +face resembled that plebeian and oft-mentioned vegetable, the beet. I was +within ten feet of her, and I was thinking that she couldn't possibly hold +that cool, unconscious look much longer, when a hand feminine was extended +from the row of silent watchers and caught at my sleeve.</p> + +<p>"Ellie Carleton, it's never you!" chirped a familiar voice.</p> + +<p>I turned, a bit dazed with the unexpected interruption, and saw that it +was Edith Loroman, whom I had last seen in the East the summer before, +when I was gyrating through Newport and all those places, with Barney +MacTague for chaperon, and whom I had known for long. Edith had chosen to +be very friendly always, and I liked her—only, I suspected her of being a +bit too worldly to suit me.</p> + +<p>"And why isn't it I? I can't see that my identity is more surprising than +yours," I retorted, pulling myself together. It did certainly give me a +start to see her there, and looking so exactly as she had always looked. I +couldn't think of anything more to say, so, as the music had started, I +asked her if she had any dances saved for me. I couldn't decently leave +her and carry out my original plan, you see.</p> + +<p>She laughed at my ignorance, and told me that this was a "frontier" dance, +and there were no programs.</p> + +<p>"You just promise one or two dances ahead," she explained. "As many as you +can remember. Beryl told me all about how they do here; Beryl King is my +cousin, you know."</p> + +<p>I didn't know, but I was content to take her word for it, and asked her +for that dance and got it, and she chattered on about everything under the +sun, and told all about how they happened to be in Montana, and how long +they were going to stay, and that Mr. Weaver had brought his auto, and +another fellow—I forget his name—had intended to bring his, but didn't, +and that they were going to tour through to Helena, on their way home, and +it would be such fun, and that if I didn't come over right away to call +upon her, she would never forgive me.</p> + +<p>"There's a drawback," I told her. "I'm not on your cousin's visiting-list; +I've never even been introduced to her."</p> + +<p>"That," said Miss Edith complacently, "is easily remedied. You know mama +well enough, I should think. Aunt Lodema—funny name, isn't it?—is +stopping here all summer, with Beryl. Beryl has the strangest tastes. She +<i>will</i> spend every summer out here with her father, and if any of us poor +mortals want a glimpse of her between seasons, we must come where she is. +She's a dear, and you must know her, even if you do hold yourself +superior to us women. She's almost as much a crank on athletics as you +are; you ought to see her on the links, once! That's why I can't +understand her running away off here every summer. And, by the way, Ellie, +what are <i>you</i> doing here—a stranger?"</p> + +<p>"I'm earning my bread by the sweat of my brow," I told her plainly. "I'm a +cowboy—a would-be, I suppose I should say."</p> + +<p>She looked up at me horrified. "Have you—lost—your millions?" she wanted +to know. Edith Loroman was always a straightforward questioner, at any +rate.</p> + +<p>"The millions," I told her, laughing, "are all right, I believe. Dad has a +cattle-ranch in this part of the world, and he sent me out here to reform +me. He meant it as a punishment, but at present I'm getting rather the +best of the deal, I think."</p> + +<p>"And where's Barney?" she asked. "One reason I came near not recognizing +you was because you hadn't your shadow along."</p> + +<p>"Barney is luxuriating in idleness somewhere," I answered lightly. "One +couldn't expect <i>him</i> to turn savage, just because I did. I can't imagine +Barney working for his daily bread."</p> + +<p>"I can," retorted Miss Edith, "every bit as easily as I can imagine you! +And, if you'll pardon me, I don't believe a word of it, either."</p> + +<p>On the whole, I could hardly blame her. As she had always known me, I must +have appeared to her somewhat like Solomon's lilies. But I did not try to +convince her; there were other things more important.</p> + +<p>I went and made my bow to Mrs. Loroman, and answered sundry +questions—more conventional, I may say, than were those of her daughter. +Mrs. Loroman was one of the best type of society dames, and I will own +that I was a bit surprised to find that she was Beryl King's aunt. In +spite of that indefinable little air of breeding that I had felt in my two +meetings with Miss King, I had thought of her as distinctly a daughter of +the range-land.</p> + +<p>"I'll introduce you to my cousin and aunt now, if you like," Edith offered +generously, in an undertone—for the two were not ten feet from us, +although Miss King had not yet seen fit to know that I was in the room. +How a woman can act so deuced innocent, beats me.</p> + +<p>Miss King lowered her chin as much as half an inch, and looked at me as if +I were an exceeding commonplace, inanimate object that could not possibly +interest her. Her aunt, Lodema King, was almost as bad, I think; I didn't +notice particularly. But Miss King's I-do-not-know-you-sir air could not +save her; I hadn't schemed like a villain for a week, and ridden +twenty-five miles at a good fast clip after a stiff day's work, just to be +presented and walk away. I asked her for the next waltz.</p> + +<p>"The next waltz is promised to Mr. Weaver," she told me freezingly.</p> + +<p>I asked for the next two-step.</p> + +<p>"The next two-step is also promised—to Mr. Weaver."</p> + +<p>I began to have unfriendly feelings toward Mr. Weaver. "Will you be good +enough to inform what dance is <i>not</i> promised?" I almost finished "to Mr. +Weaver," but I'm not quite a cad, I hope.</p> + +<p>"Really, we haven't programs here to-night," she parried.</p> + +<p>I played a reckless lead. "I wonder," I said, looking straight down into +those eyes of hers, and hoping she couldn't suspect the prickles chasing +over me at the very look of them—"I wonder if it's because you're +<i>afraid</i> to dance with me?"</p> + +<p>"Are you so—fearsome?" she retorted evenly, and I got back instantly:</p> + +<p>"It would almost seem so."</p> + +<p>I had the satisfaction of seeing her lip go in between her teeth. (I +should like to say something about those teeth—only it would sound like +the advertisement of a dentifrice, for I should be bound to mention pearls +once or twice.)</p> + +<p>"You are flattering yourself, Mr. Carleton; I am not at all afraid to +dance with you," she said—and, oh, the tone of her!</p> + +<p>"I shall expect you to prove that instantly," I retorted, still looking +straight into her face.</p> + +<p>A quadrille—the old-fashioned kind—was called, and she looked up at me +and put out her hand. Only an idiot would wonder whether I took it.</p> + +<p>"This isn't a fair test," I told her, after leading her out in position. +"You won't be dancing with me a quarter of the time, you know. Only the +closest observer may tell, after we once get going, whom you are dancing +with."</p> + +<p>"That," she retorted, with a gleam in her eyes I couldn't—being no lady's +man—interpret—"that is a mere quibble, and would not hold in court."</p> + +<p>"It's going to hold in <i>this</i> court," I answered boldly, and wished I had +not so systematically wasted my opportunities in the past—that I had +spent more time drinking tea and studying the "infernal feminine."</p> + +<p>She gave me a quick, puzzling glance, and as we were commanded at that +instant to salute our partners, she swept me a half-curtsy that made me +grit my teeth, though I tried to make my own bow quite as elaborate and +mocking. I couldn't make her out at all during that dance. Whenever we +came together there was that little air of mockery in every move she +made, and yet something in her eyes seemed to invite and to challenge. The +first time we were privileged, by the old-fashioned "caller," to "swing +our partners," milady would have given me her finger-tips—only I wouldn't +have it that way. I held her as close as I dared, and—I don't know but +I'm a fool—she didn't seem in any great rage over it. Lord, how I did +wish I was wise to the ways of women!</p> + +<p>The next waltz I couldn't have, because she was to dance it with Mr. +Weaver. So I had the fun of sitting there watching them fly around the +room, and getting a good-sized dislike of the fellow over it. I don't +pretend to be one of those large-minded men who are always painfully +unprejudiced. Weaver looked like a pretty good sort, and under other +circumstances I should probably have liked him, but as it was I +emphatically did not.</p> + +<p>However, I got a waltz, after a heart-breaking delay, and it was worth +waiting for. I had felt all along that we could hit it off pretty well +together, and we did. We didn't say much—we just floated off into +another world—or I did—and there was nothing I wanted to say that I +dared say. I call that a good excuse for silence.</p> + +<p>Afterward I asked her for another, and she looked at me curiously.</p> + +<p>"You're a very hard man to convince, Mr. Carleton," she told me, with that +same queer look in her eyes. I was beginning to get drunk—intoxicated, if +you like the word better—on those same eyes; they always affected me, +somehow, as if I'd never seen them before; always that same little tingle +of surprise went over me when she lifted those heavy fringes of lashes. +I'm not psychologist enough to explain this, and I'm strictly no good at +introspection; it was that way with me, and that will have to do.</p> + +<p>I told her she probably would never meet another who required so much +convincing, and, after wrangling over the matter politely for a minute, +got her to promise me another waltz, said promise to be redeemed after +supper.</p> + +<p>I tried to talk to "Aunt Lodema," but she would have none of me, and she +seemed to think I had more than my share of effrontery to attempt such a +thing. Mrs. Loroman was better, and I filled in fifteen minutes or so very +pleasantly with her. After that I went over to Edith and got her to sit +out a dance with me.</p> + +<p>The first thing she asked me was about Frosty. Who was he? and why was he +here? and how long had he been here? I told her all I knew about him, and +then turned frank and asked her why she wanted to know.</p> + +<p>"Mama hasn't recognized him—yet," she said confidentially, "but I was +sure he was the same. He has shaved his mustache, and he's much browner +and heavier, but he's Fred Miller—and why doesn't he come and speak to +me?"</p> + +<p>Out of much words, I gathered that she and Frosty were, to put it mildly, +old friends. She didn't just say there was an engagement between them, but +she hinted it; his father had "had trouble"—the vagueness of women!—and +Edith's mama had turned Frosty down, to put it bluntly. Frosty had, +ostensibly, gone to South Africa, and that was the last of him. Miss Edith +seemed quite disturbed over seeing him there in Kenmore. I told her that +if Frosty wanted to stay in the background, that was his privilege and my +gain, and she smiled at me vaguely and said of course it didn't really +matter.</p> + +<p>At supper-time our crowd got the storekeeper intimidated sufficiently to +open his store and sell us something to eat. The King faction had looked +upon us blackly, though there were too many of us to make it safe +meddling, and none of us were minded to break bread with them. Instead, we +sat around on the counter and on boxes in the store, and ate crackers and +sardines and things like that. I couldn't help remembering my last Fourth, +and the banquet I had given on board the <i>Molly Stark</i>—my yacht, named +after the lady known to history, whom dad claims for an ancestress—and I +laughed out loud. The boys wanted to know the cause of my mirth, and so, +with a sardine laid out decently between two crackers in one hand, and a +blue "granite" cup of plebeian beer in the other, I told them all about +that banquet, and some of the things we had to eat and drink—whereat they +laughed, too. The contrast was certainly amusing. But, somehow, I wouldn't +have changed, just then, if I could have done so. That, also, is something +I'm not psychologist enough to explain.</p> + +<p>That last waltz with Miss King was like to prove disastrous, for we +swished uncomfortably close to her father, standing scowling at Frosty and +some of the others of our crowd near the door. Luckily, he didn't see us, +and at the far end Miss King stopped abruptly. Her cheeks were pink, and +her eyes looked up at me—wistfully, I could almost say.</p> + +<p>"I think, Mr. Carleton, we had better stop," she said hesitatingly. "I +don't believe your enmity is so ungenerous as to wish to cause me +unpleasantness. You surely are convinced now that I am not afraid of you, +so the truce is over."</p> + +<p>I did not pretend to misunderstand. "I'm going home at once," I told her +gently, "and I shall take my spectacular crowd along with me; but I'm not +sorry I came, and I hope you are not."</p> + +<p>She looked at me soberly, and then away. "There is one thing I should like +to say," she said, in so low a tone I had to lean to catch the words. +"Please don't try to ride through King's Highway again; father hates you +quite enough as it is, and it is scarcely the part of a gentleman to +needlessly provoke an old man."</p> + +<p>I could feel myself grow red. What a cad I must seem to her! "King's +Highway shall be safe from my vandal feet hereafter," I told her, and +meant it.</p> + +<p>"So long as you keep that promise," she said, smiling a bit, "I shall try +to remember mine enemy with respect."</p> + +<p>"And I hope that mine enemy shall sometimes view the beauties of White +Divide from a little distance—say half a mile or so," I answered +daringly.</p> + +<p>She heard me, but at that minute that Weaver chap came up, and she began +talking to him as though he was her long-lost friend. I was clearly out of +it, so I told Edith and her mother good night, bowed to "Aunt Lodema" and +got the stony stare for my reward, and rounded up my crowd.</p> + +<p>We passed old King in a body, and he growled something I could not hear; +one of the boys told me, afterward, that it was just as well I didn't. We +rode away under the stars, and I wished that night had been four times as +long, and that Beryl King would be as nice to me as was Edith Loroman.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII" />CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3><i>One Day Too Late!</i></h3> + + +<p>I suppose there is always a time when a fellow passes quite suddenly out +of the cub-stage and feels himself a man—or, at least, a very great +desire to be one. Until that Fourth of July life had been to me a +playground, with an interruption or two to the game. When dad took such +heroic measures to instil some sense into my head, he interrupted the game +for ten days or so—and then I went back to my play, satisfied with new +toys. At least, that is the way it seemed to me. But after that night, +things were somehow different. I wanted to amount to something; I was +absolutely ashamed of my general uselessness, and I came near writing to +dad and telling him so.</p> + +<p>The worst of it was that I didn't know just what it was I wanted to do, +except ride over to that little pinnacle just out from King's Highway, and +watch for Beryl King; that, of course, was out of the question, and +maudlin, anyway.</p> + +<p>On the third day after, as Frosty and I were riding circle quite silently +and moodily together, we rode up into a little coulée on the southwestern +side of White Divide, and came quite unexpectedly upon a little +picnic-party camped comfortably down by the spring where we had meant to +slake our own thirst. Of course, it was the Kings' house-party; they were +the only luxuriously idle crowd in the country.</p> + +<p>Edith and her mother greeted me with much apparent joy, but, really, I +felt sorry for Frosty; all that saved him from recognition then was the +providential near-sightedness of Mrs. Loroman. I observed that he was +careful not to come close enough to the lady to run any risk.</p> + +<p>Aunt Lodema tilted her chin at me, and Beryl—to tell the truth, I +couldn't make up my mind about Beryl. When I first rode up to them, and +she looked at me, I fancied there was a welcome in her eyes; after that +there was anything else you like to name. I looked several times at her +to make sure, but I couldn't tell any more what she was thinking than one +can read the face of a Chinaman. (That isn't a pretty comparison, I know, +but it gives my meaning, for, of all humans, Chinks are about the hardest +to understand or read.) I was willing, however, to spend a good deal of +time studying the subject of her thoughts, and got off my horse almost as +soon as Mrs. Loroman and Edith invited me to stop and eat lunch with them. +That Weaver fellow was not present, but another man, whom they introduced +as Mr. Tenbrooke, was sitting dolefully on a rock, watching a maid +unpacking eatables. Edith told me that "Uncle Homer"—which was old man +King—and Mr. Weaver would be along presently. They had driven over to +Kenmore first, on a matter of business.</p> + +<p>Frosty, I could see, was not going to stay, even though Edith, in a polite +little voice that made me wonder at her, invited him to do so. Edith was +not the hostess, and had really no right to do that.</p> + +<p>I tried to get a word with Miss Beryl, found myself having a good many +words with Edith, instead, and in fifteen minutes I became as thoroughly +disgusted with unkind fate as ever I've been in my life, and suddenly +remembered that duty made further delay absolutely impossible. We rode +away, with Edith protesting prettily at what she was pleased to call my +bad manners.</p> + +<p>For the rest of the way up that coulée Frosty and I were even more silent +and moody than we had been before. The only time we spoke was when Frosty +asked me gruffly how long those people expected to stay out here. I told +him a week, and he grunted something under his breath about female +fortune-hunters. I couldn't see what he was driving at, for I certainly +should never think of accusing Edith and her mother of being that especial +brand of abhorrence, but he was in a bitter mood, and I wouldn't argue +with him then—I had troubles of my own to think of. I was beginning to +call myself several kinds of a fool for letting a girl—however wonderful +her eyes—give me bad half-hours quite so frequently; the thing had never +happened to me before, and I had known hundreds of nice +girls—approximately. When a fellow goes through a co-ed course, and has a +dad whom the papers call financier, he gets a speaking-acquaintance with a +few girls. The trouble with me was, I never gave the whole bunch as much +thought as I was giving to Beryl King—and the more I thought about her, +the less satisfaction there was in the thinking.</p> + +<p>I waited a day or two, and then practically ran away from my work and rode +over to that little butte. Some one was sitting on the same flat rock, and +I climbed up to the place with more haste than grace, I imagine. When I +reached the top, panting like the purr of the <i>Yellow Peril</i>—my +automobile—when it gets warmed up and going smoothly, I discovered that +it was Edith Loroman sitting placidly, with a camera on her knees, doing +things to the internal organs of the thing. I don't know much about +cameras, so I can't be more explicit.</p> + +<p>"If it isn't Ellie, looking for all the world like the <i>Virginian</i> just +stepped down from behind the footlights!" was her greeting. "Where in the +world have you been, that you haven't been over to see us?"</p> + +<p>"You must know that the palace of the King is closed against the +Carletons," I said, and I'm afraid I said it a bit crossly; I hadn't +climbed that unmerciful butte just to bandy commonplaces with Edith +Loroman, even if we were old friends. There are times when new enemies are +more diverting than the oldest of old friends.</p> + +<p>"Well, you could come when Uncle Homer is away—which he often is," she +pouted. "Every Sunday he drives over to Kenmore and pokes around his +miners and mines, and often Terence and Beryl go with him, so you could +come—"</p> + +<p>"No, thank you." I put on the dignity three deep there. "If I can't come +when your uncle is at home, I won't sneak in when he's gone. I—how does +it happen you are away out here by yourself?"</p> + +<p>"Well," she explained, still doing things to the camera, "Beryl came out +here yesterday, and made a sketch of the divide; I just happened to see +her putting it away. So I made her tell me where she got that view-point, +and I wanted her to come with me, so I could get a snap shot; it <i>is</i> +pretty, from here. But she went over to the mines with Mr. Weaver, and I +had to come alone. Beryl likes to be around those dirty mines—but I can't +bear it. And, now I'm here, something's gone wrong with the thing, so I +can't wind the film. Do you know how to fix it, Ellie?"</p> + +<p>I didn't, and I told her so, in a word. Edith pouted again—she has a +pretty mouth that looks well all tied up in a knot, and I have a slight +suspicion that she knows it—and said that a fellow who could take an +automobile all to pieces and put it together again ought to be able to fix +a kodak. That's the way some women reason, I believe—just as though cars +and kodaks are twin brothers.</p> + +<p>Our conversation, as I remember it now, was decidedly flat and dull. I +kept thinking of Beryl being there the day before—and I never knew; of +her being off somewhere to-day with that Weaver fellow—and I knew it and +couldn't do a thing. I hardly know which was the more unpleasant to dwell +upon, but I do know that it made me mighty poor company for Edith. I sat +there on a near-by rock and lighted cigarettes, only to let them go out, +and glowered at King's Highway, off across the flat, as if it were the +mouth of the bottomless pit. I can't wonder that Edith called me a bear, +and asked me repeatedly if I had toothache, or anything.</p> + +<p>By and by she had her kodak in working order again, and took two or three +pictures of the divide. Edith is very pretty, I believe, and looks her +best in short walking-costume. I wondered why she had not ridden out to +the butte; Beryl had, the time I met her there, I remembered. She had a +deep-chested blue roan that looked as if he could run, and I had noticed +that she wore the divided skirt, which is so popular among women who ride. +I don't, as a rule, notice much what women have on—but Beryl King's feet +are altogether too small for the least observant man to pass over. Edith's +feet were well shod, but commonplace.</p> + +<p>"I wish you'd let me have one of those pictures when they're done," I +told her, as amiably as I could.</p> + +<p>She pushed back a lock of hair. "I'll send you one, if you like, when I +get home. What address do you claim, in this wilderness?"</p> + +<p>I wrote it down for her and went my way, feeling a badly used young man, +with a strong inclination to quarrel with fate. Edith had managed, during +her well-meant efforts at entertaining me, to couple Mr. Weaver's name all +too frequently with that of her cousin. I found it very depressing—a good +many things, in fact, were depressing that day.</p> + +<p>I went back to camp and stuck to work for the rest of that week—until +some of the boys told me that they had seen the Kings' guests scooting +across the prairie in the big touring-car of Weaver's, evidently headed +for Helena.</p> + +<p>After that I got restless again, and every mile the round-up moved south I +took as a special grievance; it put that much greater distance between me +and King's Highway—and I had got to that unhealthy stage where every +mile wore on my nerves, and all I wanted was to moon around that little +butte. I believe I should even have taken a morbid pleasure in watching +the light in her window o' nights, if it had been at all practicable.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII" />CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3><i>A Fight and a Race for Life.</i></h3> + + +<p>It was between the spring round-up and the fall, while the boys were +employed in desultory fashion at the home ranch, breaking in new horses +and the like, and while I was indefatigably wearing a trail straight +across country to that little butte—and getting mighty little out of it +save the exercise and much heart-burnings—that the message came.</p> + +<p>A man rode up to the corrals on a lather-gray horse, coming from Kenmore, +where was a telephone-station connected from Osage. I read the message +incredulously. Dad sick unto death? Such a thing had never +happened—<i>couldn't</i> happen, it seemed to me. It was unbelievable; not to +be thought of or tolerated. But all the while I was planning and scheming +to shave off every superfluous minute, and get to where he was.</p> + +<p>I held out the paper to Perry Potter, "Have some one saddle up Shylock," +I ordered, quite as if he had been Rankin. "And Frosty will have to go +with me as far as Osage. We can make it by to-morrow noon—through King's +Highway. I mean to get that early afternoon train."</p> + +<p>The last sentence I sent back over my shoulder, on my way to the house. +Dad sick—dying? I cursed the miles between us. Frisco was a long, a +terribly long, way off; it seemed in another world.</p> + +<p>By then I was on my way back to the corral, with a decent suit of clothes +on and a few things stuffed into a bag, and with a roll of money—money +that I had earned—in my pocket. I couldn't have been ten minutes, but it +seemed more. And Frisco was a long way off!</p> + +<p>"You'd better take the rest of the boys part way," Potter greeted dryly as +I came up.</p> + +<p>I brushed past him and swung up into the saddle, feeling that if I stopped +to answer I might be too late. I had a foolish notion that even a long +breath would conspire to delay me. Frosty was already on his horse, and I +noticed, without thinking about it at the time, that he was riding a +long-legged sorrel, "Spikes," that could match Shylock on a long chase—as +this was like to be.</p> + +<p>We were off at a run, without once looking back or saying good-by to a man +of them; for farewells take minutes in the saying, and minutes meant—more +than I cared to think about just then. They were good fellows, those +cowboys, but I left them standing awkwardly, as men do in the face of +calamity they may not hinder, without a thought of whether I should ever +see one of them again. With Frosty galloping at my right, elbow to elbow, +we faced the dim, purple outline of White Divide.</p> + +<p>Already the dusk was creeping over the prairie-land, and little sleepy +birds started out of the grasses and flew protesting away from our rush +past their nesting-places. Frosty spoke when we had passed out of the +home-field, even in our haste stopping to close and tie fast the gate +behind us.</p> + +<p>"You don't want to run your horse down in the first ten miles, Ellis; +we'll make time by taking it easy at first, and you'll get there just as +soon." I knew he was right about it, and pulled Shylock down to the +steady lope that was his natural gait. It was hard, though, to just +"mosey" along as if we were starting out to kill time and earn our daily +wage in the easiest possible manner. One's nerves demanded an unusual +pace—a pace that would soothe fear by its very headlong race against +misfortune.</p> + +<p>Once or twice it occurred to me to wonder, just for a minute, how we +should fare in King's Highway; but mostly my thoughts stuck to dad, and +how it happened that he was "critically ill," as the message had put it. +Crawford had sent that message; I knew from the precise way it was +worded—Crawford never said <i>sick</i>—and Crawford was about as conservative +a man as one could well be, and be human. He was as unemotional as a +properly trained footman; Jenks, our butler, showed more feeling. But +Crawford, if he was conservative, was also conscientious. Dad had had him +for ten years, and trusted him a million miles farther than he would trust +anybody else—for Crawford could no more lie than could the +multiplication-table; if he said dad was "critically ill," that settled +it; dad was. I used to tell Barney MacTague, when he thought it queer that +I knew so little about dad's affairs, that dad was a fireproof safe, and +Crawford was the combination lock. But perhaps it was the other way +around; at any rate, they understood each other perfectly, and no other +living man understood either.</p> + +<p>The darkness flowed down over the land and hid the farther hills; the +sky-line crept closer until White Divide seemed the boundary of the world, +and all beyond its tumbled shade was untried mystery. Frosty, a shadowy +figure rising and falling regularly beside me, turned his face and spoke +again:</p> + +<p>"We ought to make Pochette's Crossing by daylight, or a little after—with +luck," he said. "We'll have to get horses from him to go on with; these +will be all in, when we get that far."</p> + +<p>"We'll try and sneak through the pass," I answered, putting unpleasant +thoughts resolutely behind me. "We can't take time to argue the point out +with old King."</p> + +<p>"Sneak nothing," Frosty retorted grimly. "You don't know King, if you're +counting on that."</p> + +<p>I came near asking how he expected to get through, then; when I remembered +my own spectacular flight, on a certain occasion, I felt that Frosty was +calmly disowning our only hope.</p> + +<p>We rode quietly into the mouth of King's Highway, our horses stepping +softly in the deep sand of the trail as if they, too, realized the +exigencies of the situation. We crossed the little stream that is the +first baby beginning of Honey Creek—which flows through our ranch—with +scarce a splash to betray our passing, and stopped before the closed gate. +Frosty got down to swing it open, and his fingers touched a padlock doing +business with bulldog pertinacity. Clearly, King was minded to protect +himself from unwelcome evening callers.</p> + +<p>"We'll have to take down the wires," Frosty murmured, coming back to where +I waited. "Got your gun handy? Yuh might need it before long." Frosty was +not warlike by nature, and when he advised having a gun handy I knew the +situation to be critical.</p> + +<p>We took down a panel of fence without interruption or sign of life at the +house, not more than fifty yards away; Frosty whispered that they were +probably at supper, and that it was our best time. I was foolish enough to +regret going by without chance of a word with Beryl, great as was my +haste. I had not seen her since that day Frosty and I had ridden into +their picnic—though I made efforts enough, the Lord knows—and I was not +at all happy over my many failures.</p> + +<p>Whether it was good luck or bad, I saw her rise up from a hammock on the +porch as we went by—for, as I said before, King's house was much closer +to the trail than was decent; I could have leaned from the saddle and +touched her with my quirt.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Carleton"—I was fool enough to gloat over her instant recognition, +in the dark like that—"what are you doing here—at this hour? Don't you +know the risk? And your promise—" She spoke in an undertone, as if she +were afraid of being overheard—which I don't doubt she was.</p> + +<p>But if she had been a Delilah she couldn't have betrayed me more +completely. Frosty motioned imperatively for me to go on, but I had pulled +up at her first word, and there I stood, waiting for her to finish, that I +might explain that I had not lightly broken my promise; that I was +compelled to cut off that extra sixty miles which would have made me, +perhaps, too late. But I didn't tell her anything; there wasn't time. +Frosty, waiting disapprovingly a length ahead, looked back and beckoned +again insistently. At the same instant a door behind the girl opened with +a jerk, and King himself bulked large and angry in the lamplight. Beryl +shrank backward with a little cry—and I knew she had not meant to do me a +hurt.</p> + +<p>"Come on, you fool!" cried Frosty, and struck his horse savagely. I jabbed +in my spurs, and Shylock leaped his length and fled down that familiar +trail to the "gantlet," as I had always called it mentally after that +second passing. But King, behind us, fired three shots quickly, one after +another—and, as the bullets sang past, I knew them for a signal.</p> + +<p>A dozen men, as it seemed to me, swarmed out from divers places to dispute +our passing, and shots were being fired in the dark, their starting-point +betrayed by vicious little spurts of flame. Shylock winced cruelly, as we +whipped around the first shed, and I called out sharply to Frosty, still a +length ahead. He turned just as my horse went down to his knees.</p> + +<p>I jerked my feet from the stirrups and landed free and upright, which was +a blessing. And it was then that I swung morally far back to the +primitive, and wanted to kill, and kill, with never a thought for parley +or retreat. Frosty, like the stanch old pal he was, pulled up and came +back to me, though the bullets were flying fast and thick—and not wide +enough for derision on our part.</p> + +<p>"Jump up behind," he commanded, shooting as he spoke. "We'll get out of +this damned trap."</p> + +<p>I had my doubts, and fired away without paying him much attention. I +wanted, more than anything, to get the man who had shot down Shylock. That +isn't a pretty confession, but it has the virtue of being the truth. So, +while Frosty fired at the spurts of red and cursed me for stopping there, +I crouched behind my dead horse and fought back with evil in my heart and +a mighty poor aim.</p> + +<p>Then, just as the first excitement was hardening into deliberate +malevolence, came a clatter from beyond the house, and a chorus of +familiar yells and the spiteful snapping of pistols. It was our +boys—thirty of the biggest-hearted, bravest fellows that ever wore spurs, +and, as they came thundering down to us, I could make out the bent, wiry +figure of old Perry Potter in the lead, yelling and shooting wickeder than +any one else in the crowd.</p> + +<p>"Ellis!" he shouted, and I lifted up my voice and let him know that, like +Webster, "I still lived." They came on with a rush that the King faction +could not stay, to where I was ambushed between the solid walls of two +sheds, with Shylock's bulk before me and Frosty swearing at my back.</p> + +<p>"Horse hit?" snapped Perry Potter breathlessly. "I knowed it. Just like +yuh. Get onto this'n uh mine—he's the best in the bunch—and light +out—if yuh still want t' catch that train."</p> + +<p>I came back from the primitive with a rush. I no longer wanted to kill and +kill. Dad was lying "critically ill" in Frisco—and Frisco was a long way +off! The miles between bulked big and black before me, so that I shivered +and forgot my quarrel with King. I must catch that train.</p> + +<p>I went with one leap up into the saddle as Perry Potter slid down, thought +vaguely that I never could ride with the stirrups so short, but that there +was not time to lengthen them; took my feet peevishly out of them +altogether, and dashed down, that winding way between King's sheds and +corrals while the Ragged H boys kept King's men at bay, and the unmusical +medley of shots and yells followed us far in the darkness of the pass. At +the last fence, where we perforce drew rein to make a free passage for +our horses, I looked back, like one Mrs. Lot. A red glare lit the whole +sky behind us with starry sparks, shooting up higher into the low-hanging +crimson smoke-clouds. I stared, uncomprehending for a moment; then the +thought of her stabbed through my brain, and I felt a sudden horror. "And +Beryl's back among those devils!" I cried aloud, as I pulled my horse +around.</p> + +<p>"<i>Beryl</i>"—Frosty laid peculiar stress upon the name I had let +slip—"isn't likely to be down among the sheds, where that fire is. Our +boys are collecting damages for Shylock, I guess; hope they make a good +job of it."</p> + +<p>I felt silly enough just then to quarrel with my grandmother; I hate +giving a man cause for thinking me a love-sick lobster, as I'd no doubt +Frosty thought me. I led my horse over the wires he had let down, and we +went on without stopping to put them back on the posts. It was some time +before I spoke again, and, when I did, the subject was quite different; I +was mourning because I hadn't the <i>Yellow Peril</i> to eat up the miles +with.</p> + +<p>"What good would that do yuh?" Frosty asked, with a composure I could only +call unfeeling. "Yuh couldn't get a train, anyway, before the one yuh +<i>will</i> get; motors are all right, in their place—but a horse isn't to be +despised, either. I'd rather be stranded with a tired horse than a +broken-down motor."</p> + +<p>I did not agree with him, partly because I was not at all pleased with my +present mount, and partly because I was not in amiable mood; so we +galloped along in sulky silence, while a washed-out moon sidled over our +heads and dodged behind cloud-banks quite as if she were ashamed to be +seen. The coyotes got to yapping out somewhere in the dark, and, as we +came among the breaks that border the Missouri, a gray wolf howled close +at hand.</p> + +<p>Perry Potter's horse, that had shown unmistakable symptoms of disgust at +the endless gallop he had been called upon to maintain, shied sharply away +from the sound, stumbled from leg-weariness, and fell heavily; for the +second time that night I had need to show my dexterity—but, in this case, +with Perry Potter's stirrups swinging somewhere in the vicinity of my +knees, the danger of getting caught was not so great. I stood there in the +dark loneliness of the silent hills and the howling wolf, and looked down +at the brute with little pity and a good deal of resentment. I applied my +toe tentatively to his ribs, and he just grunted. Frosty got down and led +Spikes closer, and together we surveyed the heavily breathing, gray bulk +in the sand at our feet.</p> + +<p>"If he was the <i>Yellow Peril</i>, instead of one of your much-vaunted +steeds," I remarked tartly, "I could go at him with a wrench and have him +in working order again in five minutes; as it is—" I felt that the +sentence was stronger uncompleted.</p> + +<p>"As it is," finished Frosty calmly, "you'll just step up on Spikes and go +on to Pochette's. It's only about ten miles, now; Spikes is good for it, +if you ease him on the hills now and then. He isn't the <i>Yellow Peril</i>, +maybe, but he's a good little horse, and he'll sure take yuh through the +best he knows."</p> + +<p>I don't know why, but a lump came up in my throat at the tone of him. I +put out my hand and laid it on Spikes' wet, sweat-roughened neck. "Yes, +he's a good little horse, and I beg his pardon for what I said," I owned, +still with the ache just back of my palate. "But he can't carry us both, +Frosty; I'll just have to tinker up this old skate, and make him go on."</p> + +<p>"Yuh can't do it; he's reached his limit. Yuh can't expect a common cayuse +like him to do more than eighty miles in one shift—at the gait we've been +traveling. I'm surprised he's held out so long. Yuh take Spikes and go on; +I'll walk in. Yuh know the way from here, and I can't help yuh out any +more than to let yuh have Spikes. Go on—it's breaking day, and yuh +haven't got any too much time to waste."</p> + +<p>I looked at him, at Spikes standing wearily on three legs but with his +ears perked gamily ahead, and down at the gray, worn-out horse of Perry +Potter's. They have done what they could—and not one seemed to regret the +service. I felt, at that moment, mighty small and unworthy, and tempted +to reject the offer of the last ounce of endurance from either—for which +I was not as deserving as I should have liked to be.</p> + +<p>"You worked all day, and you've ridden all night, and gone without a +mouthful of supper for me," I protested hotly. "And now you want to walk +ten beastly miles of sand and hills. I won't—"</p> + +<p>"Your dad cared enough to send for you—" he began, but I would not let +him finish.</p> + +<p>"You're right, Frosty," and I wrung his hand. "You're the real thing, and +I'd do as much for you, old pal. I'll make that Frenchman rub Spikes down +for an hour, or I'll kill him when I get back."</p> + +<p>"You won't come back," said Frosty bruskly. "See that streak uh yellow, +over there? Get a move on, if yuh don't want to miss that train—but ease +Spikes up the hills!"</p> + +<p>I nodded, pulled my hat down low over my eyes, and rode away; when I did +get courage to glance back, Frosty still stood where I had left him, +looking down at the gray horse.</p> + +<p>An hour after sunrise I slipped off Spikes and watched them lead him away +to the stable; he staggered like a man when he has drunk too long and +deeply. I swallowed a cup of coffee, mounted a little buckskin, and went +on, with Pochette's assurance, "Don't be afraid to put heem through," +ringing in my ears. I was not afraid to put him through. That last +forty-eight miles I rode mercilessly—for the demon of hurry was again +urging me on. At ten o'clock I rolled stiffly off the buckskin at the +Osage station, walked more stiffly into the office, and asked for a +message. The operator handed me two, and looked at me with much +curiosity—but I suppose I was a sight. The first was to tell me that a +special would be ready at ten-thirty, and that the road would be cleared +for it. I had not thought about a special—Osage being so far from Frisco; +but Crawford was a wonder, and he had a long arm. My respect for Crawford +increased amazingly as I read that message, and I began at once to bully +the agent because the special was not ready at that minute to start. The +second message was a laconic statement that dad was still alive; I folded +it hurriedly and put it out of sight, for somehow it seemed to say a good +many nasty things between the words.</p> + +<p>I wired Crawford that I was ready to start and waiting for the special, +and then I fumed and continued my bullying of the man in the office; he +was not to blame for anything, of course, but it was a tremendous relief +to take it out of somebody just then.</p> + +<p>The special came, on time to a second, and I swung on and told the +conductor to put her through for all she was worth—but he had already got +his instructions as to speed, I fancy; we ripped down the track a mile a +minute—and it wasn't long till we bettered that more than I'd have +believed possible. The superintendent's car had been given over to me, I +learned from the porter, and would carry me to Ogden, where dad's own car, +the <i>Shasta</i>, would meet me. There, too, I saw the hand of Crawford; it +was not like dad or him to borrow anything unless the necessity was +absolute.</p> + +<p>I hope I may never be compelled to take another such journey. Not that I +was nervous at the killing pace we went—and it was certainly +hair-raising, in places; but every curve that we whipped around on two +wheels—approximately—told me that dad was in desperate case indeed, and +that Crawford was oiling every joint with gold to get me there in time. At +every division the crack engine of the shops was coupled on in seconds, +rather than minutes, bellowed its challenge to all previous records, and +scuttled away to the west; a new conductor swung up the steps and answered +patiently the questions I hurled at him, and courteously passed over the +invectives when I felt that we were crawling at a snail's pace and wanted +him to hurry a bit.</p> + +<p>At Ogden I hustled into the <i>Shasta</i> and felt a grain of comfort in its +familiar atmosphere, and a sense of companionship in the solemn face of +Cromwell Jones, our porter. I had taken many a jaunt in the old car, with +Crom, and Rankin, and Tony, the best cook that ever fed a hungry man, and +it seemed like coming home just to throw myself into my pet chair again, +with Crom to fetch me something cold and fizzy.</p> + +<p>From him I learned that it was pneumonia, and that if I got there in time +it would be considered a miracle of speed and a triumph of faultless +railroad system. If I had been tempted to take my ease and to sleep a bit, +that settled it for me. The <i>Shasta</i> had no more power to lull my fears or +to minister to my comfort. I refused to be satisfied with less than a +couple of hundred miles an hour, and I was sore at the whole outfit +because they refused to accommodate me.</p> + +<p>Still, we got over the ground at such a clip that on the third day, with +screech of whistle and clang of bell, we slowed at Oakland pier, where a +crowd was cheering like the end of a race—which it was—and kodak fiends +were underfoot as if I'd been somebody.</p> + +<p>A motor-boat was waiting, and the race went on across the bay, where +Crawford met me with the <i>Yellow Peril</i> at the ferry depot. I was told +that I was in time, and when I got my hand on the wheel, and turned the +<i>Peril</i> loose, it seemed, for the first time since leaving home, that fate +was standing back and letting me run things.</p> + +<p>Policemen waved their arms and said things at the way we went up Market +Street, but I only turned it on a bit more and tried not to run over any +humans; a dog got it, though, just as we whipped into Sacramento Street. I +remember wishing that Frosty was with me, to be convinced that motors +aren't so bad after all.</p> + +<p>It was good to come tearing up the hill with the horn bellowing for a +clear track, and to slow down just enough to make the turn between our +bronze mastiffs, and skid up the drive, stopping at just the right instant +to avoid going clear through the stable and trespassing upon our +neighbor's flower-beds. It was good—but I don't believe Crawford +appreciated the fact; imperturbable as he was, I fancied that he looked +relieved when his feet touched the gravel. I was human enough to enjoy +scaring Crawford a bit, and even regretted that I had not shaved closer to +a collision.</p> + +<p>Then I was up-stairs, in an atmosphere of drugs and trained nurses and +funeral quiet, and knew for a certainty that I was still in time, and that +dad knew me and was glad to have me there. I had never seen dad in bed +before, and all my life he had been associated in my mind with calm +self-possession and power and perfect grooming. To see him lying there +like that, so white and weak and so utterly helpless, gave me a shock that +I was quite unprepared for. I came mighty near acting like a woman with +hysterics—and, coming as it did right after that run in the <i>Peril</i>, I +gave Crawford something of a shock, too, I think. I know he got me by the +shoulders and hustled me out of the room, and he was looking pretty shaky +himself; and if his eyes weren't watery, then I saw exceedingly crooked.</p> + +<p>A doctor came and made me swallow something, and told me that there was a +chance for dad, after all, though they had not thought so at first. Then +he sent me off to bed, and Rankin appeared from somewhere, with his +abominably righteous air, and I just escaped making another fool scene. +But Rankin had the sense to take me in hand just as he used to do when I'd +been having no end of a time with the boys, and so got me to bed. The +stuff the doctor made me swallow did the rest, and I was dead to the world +in ten minutes.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX" />CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<h3><i>The Old Life—and the New.</i></h3> + + +<p>Now that I was there, I was no good to anybody. The nurse wouldn't let me +put my nose inside dad's door for a week, and I hadn't the heart to go out +much while he was so sick. Rankin was about all the recreation I had, and +he palled after the first day or two. I told him things about Montana that +made him look painful because he hardly liked to call me a liar to my +face; and the funny part was that I was telling him the truth.</p> + +<p>Then dad got well enough so the nurse had no excuse for keeping me out, +and I spent a lot of time sitting beside his bed and answering questions. +By the time he was sitting up, peevish at the restraint of weakness and +doctor's orders, we began to get really acquainted and to be able to talk +together without a burdensome realization that we were father and son—and +a mighty poor excuse for the son. Dad wasn't such bad company, I +discovered. Before, he had been mostly the man that handled the +carving-knife when I dined at home, and that wrote checks and dictated +letters to Crawford in the privacy of his own den—he called it his study.</p> + +<p>Now I found that he could tell a story that had some point to it, and +could laugh at yours, in his dry way, whether it had any point or not. I +even got to telling him some of the scrapes I had got into, and about +Perry Potter; dad liked to hear about Perry Potter. The beauty of it was, +he could understand everything; he had lived there himself long enough to +get the range view-point. I hate telling a yarn and then going back over +it explaining all the fine points.</p> + +<p>I remember one night when the fog was rolling in from the ocean till you +could hardly see the street-lamps across the way, we sat by the fire—dad +was always great for big, wood fires—and smoked; and somehow I got strung +out and told him about that Kenmore dance, and how the boys rigged up in +my clothes and went. Dad laughed harder than I'd ever heard him before; +you see, he knew the range, and the picture rose up before him all +complete. I told that same yarn afterward to Barney MacTague, and there +was nothing to it, so far as he was concerned. He said: "Lord! they must +have been an out-at-heels lot not to have any clothes of their own." Now, +what do you think of that?</p> + +<p>Well, I went on from that and told dad about my flying trips through +King's Highway, too—with the girl left out. Dad matched his finger-tips +together while I was telling it, and afterward he didn't say much; only: +"I knew you'd play the fool somehow, if you stayed long enough." He didn't +explain, however, just what particular brand of fool I had been, or what +he thought of old King, though I hinted pretty strong. Dad has got a +smooth way of parrying anything he doesn't want to answer straight out, +and it takes a fellow with more nerve than I've got to corner him and just +make him give up an opinion if he doesn't want to. So I didn't find out a +thing about that old row, or how it started—more than what I'd learned at +the Ragged H, that is.</p> + +<p>Frosty had written me, a week or two after I left, that our fellows had +really burned King's sheds, and that Perry Potter had a bullet just scrape +the hair off the top of his head, where he hadn't any to spare. It made +him so mad, Frosty said, that he wanted to go back and kill, slay, and +slaughter—that is Frosty's way of putting it. Another one of the boys had +been hit in the arm, but it was only a flesh wound and nothing serious. So +far as they could find out, King's men had got off without a scratch, +Frosty said; which was another great sorrow to Perry Potter, who went +around saying pointed things about poor markmanship and fellows who +couldn't hit a barn if they were locked inside—that kept the boys stirred +up and undecided whether to feel insulted or to take it as a joke. I +wished that I was back there—until I read, down at the bottom of the last +page, that Beryl King and her Aunt Lodema had gone back to the East.</p> + +<p>The next day I learned the same thing from another source. Edith Loroman +had kept her promise—as I remembered her, she wasn't great at that sort +of thing, either—and sent me a picture of White Divide just before I left +the ranch. Somehow, after that, we drifted into letter-writing. I wrote to +thank her for the picture, and she wrote back to say "don't mention +it"—in effect, at least, though it took three full pages to get that +effect—and asked some questions about the ranch, and the boys, and Frosty +Miller. I had to answer that letter and the questions—and that's how it +began. It was a good deal of a nuisance, for I never did take much to pen +work, and my conscience was hurting me half the time over delayed answers; +Edith was always prompt; she liked to write letters better than I did, +evidently.</p> + +<p>But when she wrote, the day after I got that letter from Frosty, and said +that Beryl and Aunt Lodema had just returned and were going to spend the +winter in New York and join the Giddy Whirl, I will own that I was a much +better—that is, prompt—correspondent. Edith is that kind of girl who +can't write two pages without mentioning every one in her set; like those +Local Items from little country towns; a paragraph for everybody.</p> + +<p>So, having a strange and unwholesome hankering to hear all I could about +Beryl, I encouraged Edith to write long and often by setting her an +example. I didn't consider that I was taking a mean advantage of her, +either, for she's the kind of girl who boasts about the number of her +proposals and correspondents. I knew she'd cut a notch for me on the stick +where she counted her victims, but it was worth the price, and I'm +positive Edith didn't mind.</p> + +<p>The only drawback was the disgusting frequency with which the words "Beryl +and Terence Weaver" appeared; that did rather get on my nerves, and I did +ask Edith once if Terence Weaver was the only man in New York. In fact, I +was at one time on the point of going to New York myself and taking it out +of Mr. Terence Weaver. I just ached to give him a run for his money. But +when I hinted it—going to New York, I mean—dad looked rather hurt.</p> + +<p>"I had expected you'd stay at home until after the holidays, at least," he +remarked. "I'm old-fashioned enough to feel that a family should be +together Christmas week, if at no other time. It doesn't necessarily +follow that because there are only two left—" Dad dropped his glasses +just then, and didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to. I'd have +stayed, then, no matter what string was pulling me to New York. It's so +seldom, you see, that dad lowers his guard and lets you glimpse the real +feeling there is in him. I felt such a cur for even wanting to leave him, +that I stayed in that evening instead of going down to the Olympic, where +was to be a sort of impromptu boxing-match between a couple of our +swiftest amateurs.</p> + +<p>Talking to dad was virtuous, but unexciting. I remember we discussed the +profit, loss, and risk of cattle-raising in Montana, till bedtime came for +dad. Then I went up and roasted Rankin for looking so damned astonished at +my wanting to go to bed at ten-thirty. Rankin is unbearably +righteous-looking, at times. I used often to wish he'd do something +wicked, just to take that moral look off him; but the pedestal of his +solemn virtue was too high for mere human temptations. So I had to content +myself with shying a shoe his way and asking him what there was funny +about me.</p> + +<p>After dad got well enough to go back to watching his millions grow, and +didn't seem to need me to keep him cheered up, life in our house dropped +back to its old level—which means that I saw dad once a day, maybe. He +gave me back my allowance and took to paying my bills again, and I was +free to get into the old pace—which I will confess wasn't slow. The +Montana incident seemed closed for good, and only Frosty's letters and a +rather persistent memory was left of it.</p> + +<p>In a month I had to acknowledge two emotions I hadn't counted on: surprise +and disgust. I couldn't hit the old pace. Somehow, things were +different—or I was different. At first I thought it was because Barney +MacTague was away cruising around the Hawaii Islands, somewhere, with a +party.</p> + +<p>I came near having the <i>Molly Stark</i> put in commission and going after +him; but dad wouldn't hear of that, and told me I'd better keep on dry +land during the stormy months. So I gave in, for I hadn't the heart to go +dead against his wishes, as I used to do. Besides, he'd have had to put up +the coin, which he refused to do.</p> + +<p>So I moped around the clubs, backed the light-weight champion of the hour +for a big match, put up a pile of money on him, and saw it fade away and +take with it my trust in champions. Dad was good about it, and put up what +I'd gone over my allowance without a whimper. Then I chased around the +country in the <i>Yellow Peril</i> and won three races down at Los Angeles, +touring down and back with a fellow who had slathers of money, wore blue +ties, and talked through his nose. I leave my enjoyment of the trip to +your imagination.</p> + +<p>When I got back, I had the <i>Yellow Peril</i> refitted and the tonneau put +back on, and went in for society. I think that spell lasted as long as +three weeks; I quit immensely popular with a certain bunch of widows and +the like, and with a system so permeated with tea and bridge that it took +a stiff course of high-balls and poker to take the taste out of my mouth.</p> + +<p>I think it was in March that Barney came back; but he came back an engaged +young man, so that in less than a week Barney began to pall. His fiancée +had got him to swear off on poker and prize-fighting and smokers and +everything. And I leave it to you if there would be much left of a fellow +like Barney. All he was free to do—or wanted to do—was sit in a retired +corner of the club with <i>Shasta</i> water and cigarettes for refreshments, +and talk about Her, and how It had happened, and the pangs of uncertainty +that shot through his heart till he knew for sure. Barney's full as tall +as I am, and he weighs twenty-five pounds more; and to hear a great, +hulking brute like that talking slush was enough to make a man forswear +love in all forms forever. He'd show me her picture regular, every time I +met him, and expect me to hand out a jolly. She wasn't so much, either. +Her nose was crooked, and she didn't appear to have any eyebrows to speak +of. I'd like to have him see—well, a certain young woman with eyelashes +and—Oh, well, it wasn't Barney's fault that he'd never seen a real +beauty, and so was satisfied with his particular Her. I began to shy at +Barney, and avoided him as systematically as if I owed him money; which I +didn't. I just couldn't stand for so much monologue with a girl with no +eyebrows and a crooked nose for the never-failing subject.</p> + +<p>My next unaccountable notion was manifested in an unreasoning dislike of +Rankin. He got to going to some mission-meetings, somewhere down near the +Barbary Coast; I got out of him that much, and that he sometimes led the +meetings. Rankin can't lie—or won't—so he said right out that he was +doing what little he could to save precious souls. That part was all +right, of course; but he was so beastly solemn and sanctimonious that he +came near sending my soul—maybe it isn't as precious as those he was +laboring with—straight to the bad place.</p> + +<p>Every morning when he appeared like the ghost of a Puritan ancestor's +remorse at my bedside, I swore I'd send him off before night. To look at +him you'd think I had done a murder and he was an eye-witness to the deed. +Still, it's pretty raw to send a man off just because he's the embodiment +of punctiliousness and looks virtuously grieved for your sins. In his +general demeanor, I admit that Rankin was quite irreproachable—and that's +why I hated him so.</p> + +<p>Besides, Montana had spoiled me for wanting to be dressed like a baby, and +I would much rather get my own hat and stick; I never had the chance, +though. I'd turn and find him just back of my elbow, with the things in +his hands and that damned righteous look on his face, and generally I'd +swear he did get on my nerves so.</p> + +<p>I'm afraid I ruined him for a good servant, and taught him habits of +idleness he'll never outgrow; for every morning I'd send him below—I +won't state the exact destination, but I have reasons for thinking he +never got farther than the servants' hall—with strict—and for the most +part profane—orders not to show his face again unless I rang. Even at +that, I always found him waiting up for me when I came home. Oh, there was +no changing the ways of Rankin.</p> + +<p>I think it was about the middle of May when my general discontent with +life in the old burgh took a virulent form. I'd been losing a lot one way +and another, and Barney and I had come together literally and with much +force when we were having a spurt with our cars out toward Ingleside. The +Yellow Peril looked pretty sick when I picked myself out of the mess and +found I wasn't hurt except in my feelings. Barney's car only had the lamps +smashed, and as he had run into me, that made me sore. We said things, and +I caught a street-car back to town. Barney drove in, about as hot as I +was, I guess.</p> + +<p>So, when I got home and found a letter from Frosty, my mind was open for +something new. The letter was short, but it did the business and gave me +a hunger for the old days that nothing but a hard gallop over the +prairie-lands, with the wind blowing the breath out of my nostrils, could +satisfy. He said the round-up would start in about a week. That was about +all, but I got up and did something I'd never done before.</p> + +<p>I took the letter and went straight down to dad's private den and +interrupted him when he was going over his afternoon letters with +Crawford. Dad was very particular not to be interrupted at such times; his +mail-hours were held sacred, and nothing short of a life-or-death matter +would have taken me in there—in any normal state of mind.</p> + +<p>Crawford started out of his chair—if you knew Crawford that one action +would tell you a whole lot—and dad whirled toward me and asked what had +happened. I think they both expected to hear that the house was on fire.</p> + +<p>"The round-up starts next week, dad," I blurted, and then stopped. It just +occurred to me that it might not sound important to them.</p> + +<p>Dad matched his finger-tips together. "Since I first bought a bunch of +cattle," he drawled, "the round-up has never failed to start some time +during this month. Is it vitally important that it should <i>not</i> start?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I've</i> got to start at once, or I can't catch it." I fancied, just then, +that I detected a glimmer of amusement on Crawford's face. I wanted to hit +him with something.</p> + +<p>"Is there any reason why it must be caught?" dad wanted to know, in his +worst tone, which is almost diabolically calm.</p> + +<p>"Yes," I rapped out, growing a bit riled, "there is. I can't stand this +do-nothing existence any longer. You brought me up to it, and never let me +know anything about your business, or how to help you run it—"</p> + +<p>"It never occurred to me," drawled dad, "that I needed help to run my +business."</p> + +<p>"And last spring you rose up, all of a sudden, and started in to cure me +of being a drone. The medicine you used was strong; it did the business +pretty thoroughly. You've no kick coming at the result. I'm going to +start to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Dad looked at me till I began to feel squirmy. I've thought since that he +wasn't as surprised as I imagined, and that, on the whole, he was pleased. +But, if he was, he was mighty careful not to show it.</p> + +<p>"You would better give me a list of your debts, then," he said +laconically. "I shall see that your allowance goes on just the same; you +may want to invest in—er—cattle."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, dad," I said, and turned to go.</p> + +<p>"And I wish to Heaven," he called after me, "that you'd take Rankin along +and turn him loose out there. He might do to herd sheep. I'm sick of that +hark-from-the-tombs face of his. I made a footman of him while you were +gone before, rather than turn him off; but I'm damned if I do it again."</p> + +<p>I stopped just short of the door and grinned back at him. "Rankin," I +said, "is one of the horrors I'm trying to leave behind, dad."</p> + +<p>But dad had gone back to his correspondence. "In regard to that Clark, +Marsden, and Clark affair, I think, Crawford, it would be well—"</p> + +<p>I closed the door quietly and left them. It was dad's way, and I laughed a +little to myself as I was going back to my room to round up Rankin and set +him to packing. I meant to stand over him with a club this time, if +necessary, and see that I got what I wanted packed.</p> + +<p>The next evening I started again for Montana—and I didn't go in dad's +private car, either. Save for the fact that I had no grievance with him, +and that we ate dinner alone together and drank a bottle of extra dry to +the success of my pilgrimage, I went much as I had gone before: humbly and +unheralded except for a telegram for some one to meet me at Osage.</p> + +<p>Rankin, I may say, did not go with me, though I did as dad had suggested +and offered to take him along and get him a job herding sheep. The memory +of Rankin's pained countenance lingers with me yet, and cheers me in many +a dark hour when there's nothing else to laugh over.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X" />CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<h3><i>I Shake Hands with Old Man King.</i></h3> + + +<p>For the second time in my irresponsible career I stood on the station +platform at Osage and watched the train slide off to the East. It's a +blamed fool who never learns anything by experience, and I never have +accused myself of being a fool—except at odd times—so I didn't land +broke. I had money to pay for several meals, and I looked around for +somebody I knew; Frosty, I hoped.</p> + +<p>For the sodden land I had looked upon with such disgust when first I had +seen it, the range lay dimpled in all the enticement of spring. Where +first I had seen dirty snow-banks, the green was bright as our lawn at +home. The hilltops were lighter in shade, and the jagged line of hills in +the far distance was a soft, soft blue, just stopping short of +reddish-purple. I'm not the sort of human that goes wading to his chin in +lights and shades and dim perspectives, and names every tone he can think +of—especially mauve; they do go it strong on mauve—before he's through. +But I did lift my hat to that dimply green reach of prairie, and thanked +God I was there.</p> + +<p>I turned toward the hill that hid the town, and there came Frosty driving +the same disreputable rig that had taken me first to the Bay State. I +dropped my suit-case and gripped his hand almost before he had pulled up +at the platform. Lord! but I was glad to see that thin, brown face of his.</p> + +<p>"Looks like we'd got to be afflicted with your presence another summer," +he grinned. "I hope yuh ain't going to claim I coaxed yuh back, because I +took particular pains not to. And, uh course, the boys are just dreading +the sight of yuh. Where's your war-bag, darn yuh?"</p> + +<p>How was that for a greeting? It suited me, all right. I just thumped +Frosty on the back and called him a name that it would make a lady faint +to hear, and we laughed like a couple of fools.</p> + +<p>I'm not on oath, perhaps, but still I feel somehow bound to tell +all the truth, and not to pass myself off for a saint. So I will say +that Frosty and I had a celebration, that night; an Osage, Montana, +celebration, with all the fixings. Know the brand—because if you don't, +I'd hang before I'd tell just how many shots we put through ceilings, +or how we rent the atmosphere outside. You see, I was glad to get back, +and Frosty was glad to have me back; and since neither of us are +the fall-on-your-neck-and-put-a-ring-on-your-finger kind, we had +to exuberate some other way; and, as Frosty, would put it, "We sure did."</p> + +<p>I can't say we felt quite so exuberant next morning, but we were willing +to take our medicine, and started for the ranch all serene. I won't say a +word about mauves and faint ambers and umbras, but I do want to give that +country a good word, as it looked that morning to me. It was great.</p> + +<p>There are plenty of places can put it all over that Osage country for +straight scenery, but I never saw such a contented-looking place as that +big prairie-land was that morning. I've seen it with the tears running +down its face, and pretty well draggled and seedy; but when we started out +with the sun shining against our cheeks and the hills looking so warm and +lazy and the hollows kind of smiling to themselves over something, and the +prairie-dogs gossiping worse than a ladies' self-culture meeting, I tell +you, it all looked good to me, and I told Frosty so.</p> + +<p>"I'd rather be a forty-dollar puncher in this man's land," I enthused, +"than a lily-of-the-field somewhere in civilization."</p> + +<p>"In other words," Frosty retorted sarcastically, "you <i>think</i> you prefer +the canned vegetables and contentment, as the Bible says, to corn-fed +beefsteak and homesickness thereby. But you wait till yuh get to the ranch +and old Perry Potter puts yuh through your paces. You'll thank the Lord +every Sundown that yuh <i>ain't</i> a forty-dollar man that has got to drill +right along or get fired; you'll pat yourself on the back more than once +that you've got a cinch on your job and can lay off whenever yuh feel like +it. From all the signs and tokens, us Ragged H punchers'll be wise to +trade our beds off for lanterns to ride by. Your dad's bought a lot more +cattle, and they've drifted like hell; we've got to cover mighty near the +whole State uh Montana and part uh South Africa to gather them in."</p> + +<p>"You're a blamed pessimist," I told him, "and you can't give me cold feet +that easy. If you knew how I ache to get a good horse under me—"</p> + +<p>"Thought they had horses out your way," Frosty cut in.</p> + +<p>"A range-horse, you idiot, and a range-saddle. I did ride some on a +fancy-gaited steed with a saddle that resembled a porus plaster and +stirrups like a lady's bracelet; it didn't fill the aching void a little +bit."</p> + +<p>"Well, maybe yuh won't feel any aching void out here," he said, "but if +yuh follow round-up this season you'll sure have plenty of other brands of +ache."</p> + +<p>I told him I'd be right with them at the finish, and he needn't to worry +any about me. Pretty soon I'll show you how well I kept my word. We rode +and rode, and handed out our experiences to each other, and got to +Pochette's that night. I couldn't help remembering the last time I'd been +over that trail, and how rocky I felt about things. Frosty said he wasn't +worried about that walk of his into Pochette's growing dim in his memory, +either.</p> + +<p>Well, then, we got to Pochette's—I think I have remarked the fact. And at +Pochette's, just unharnessing his team, limped my friend of White Divide, +old King. Funny how a man's view-point will change when there's a girl +cached somewhere in the background. Not even the memory of Shylock's +stiffening limbs could bring me to a mood for war. On the contrary, I felt +more like rushing up and asking him how were all the folks, and when did +Beryl expect to come home. But not Frosty; he drove phlegmatically up so +that there was just comfortable space for a man to squeeze between our rig +and King's, hopped out, and began unhooking the traces as if there wasn't +a soul but us around. King was looping up the lines of his team, and he +glared at us across the backs of his horses as if we were—well, +caterpillars at a picnic and he was a girl with nice clothes and a fellow +and a set of nerves. His next logical move would be to let out a squawk +and faint, I thought; in which case I should have started in to do the +comforting, with a dipper of water from the pump. He didn't faint, though.</p> + +<p>I walked around and let down the neck-yoke, and his eyes followed me with +suspicion. "Hello, Mr. King," I sang out in a brazen attempt to hypnotize +him into the belief we were friends. "How's the world using you, these +days?"</p> + +<p>"Huh!" grunted the unhypnotized one, deep in his chest.</p> + +<p>Frosty straightened up and looked at me queerly; he said afterward that he +couldn't make out whether I was trying to pull off a gun fight, or had +gone dippy.</p> + +<p>But I was only in the last throes of exuberance at being in the country at +all, and I didn't give a damn what King thought; I'd made up my mind to be +sociable, and that settled it.</p> + +<p>"Range is looking fine," I remarked, snapping the inside checks back into +the hame-rings. "Stock come through the winter in good shape?" Oh, I had +my nerve right along with me.</p> + +<p>"You go to hell," advised King, bringing out each word fresh-coined and +shiny with feeling.</p> + +<p>"I was headed that way," I smiled across at him, "but at the last minute I +gave Montana first choice; I knew you were still here, you see."</p> + +<p>He let go the bridle of the horse he was about to lead away to the stable, +and limped around so that he stood within two feet of me. "Yuh want to—" +he began, and then his mouth stayed open and silent.</p> + +<p>I had reached out and got him by the hand, and gave him a grip—the grip +that made all the fellows quit offering their paws to me in Frisco.</p> + +<p>"Put it there, King!" I cried idiotically and as heartily as I knew how. +"Glad to see you. Dad's well and busy as usual, and sends regards. How's +your good health?"</p> + +<p>He was squirming good and plenty, by that time, and I let him go. I acted +the fool, all right, and I don't tell it to have any one think I was a +smart young sprig; I'm just putting it out straight as it happened.</p> + +<p>Frosty stood back, and I noticed, out of the tail of my eye, that he was +ready for trouble and expecting it to come in bunches; and I didn't know, +myself, but what I was due for new ventilators in my system.</p> + +<p>But King never did a thing but stand and hold his hand and look at me. I +couldn't even guess at what he thought. In half a minute or less he got +his horse by the bridle again—with his left hand—and went limping off +ahead of us to the stable, saying things in his collar.</p> + +<p>"You blasted fool," Frosty muttered to me. "You've done it real pretty, +this time. That old Siwash'll cut your throat, like as not, to pay for all +those insulting remarks and that hand-shake."</p> + +<p>"First time I ever insulted a man by shaking hands and telling him I was +glad to see him," I retorted. "And I don't think it will be necessary for +you to stand guard over my jugular to-night, either. That old boy will +take a lot of time to study out the situation, if I'm any judge. You won't +hear a peep out of him, and I'll bet money on it."</p> + +<p>"All right," said Frosty, and his tone sounded dubious. "But you're the +first Ragged H man that has ever walked up and shook hands with the old +devil. Perry Potter himself wouldn't have the nerve."</p> + +<p>Now, that was a compliment, but I don't believe I took it just the way +Frosty meant I should. I was proud as thunder to have him call me a +"Ragged H man" so unconsciously. It showed that he really thought of me +simply as one of the boys; that the "son and heir" view-point—oh, that +had always rankled, deep down where we bury unpleasant things in our +memory—had been utterly forgotten. So the tribute to my nerve didn't go +for anything beside that. I was a "Ragged H man," on the same footing as +the rest of them. It's silly owning it, but it gave me a little tingle of +pleasure to have one of dad's men call dad's son and heir "a blasted +fool." I don't believe the Lord made me an aristocrat.</p> + +<p>We didn't see anything more of King till supper was called. At Pochette's +you sit down to a long table covered with dark-red mottled oilcloth and +sprinkled with things to eat, and watch that your elbow doesn't cause your +nearest neighbor to do the sword-swallowing act involuntarily and +disastrously with his knife, or—you don't eat. Frosty and I had walked +down to the ferry-crossing while we waited, and then were late getting +into the game when we heard the summons.</p> + +<p>We went in and sat down just as the Chinaman was handing thick cups of +coffee around rather sloppily. From force of habit I looked for my napkin, +remembered that I was in a napkinless region, and glanced up to see if any +one had noticed.</p> + +<p>Just across from me old King was pushing back his chair and getting +stiffly upon his feet. He met my eyes squarely—friend or enemy, I like a +man to do that—and scowled.</p> + +<p>"Through already?" I reached for the sugar-bowl.</p> + +<p>"What's it to you, damn yuh?" he snapped, but we could see at a glance +that King had not begun his meal.</p> + +<p>I looked at Frosty, and he seemed waiting for me to say something. So I +said: "Too bad—we Ragged H men are such mighty slow eaters. If it's on my +account, sit right down and make yourself comfortable. I don't mind; I +dare say I've eaten in worse company."</p> + +<p>He went off growling, and I leaned back and stirred my coffee as leisurely +as if I were killing time over a bit of crab in the Palace, waiting for my +order to come. Frosty, I observed, had also slowed down perceptibly; and +so we "toyed with the viands" just like a girl in a story—in real life, +I've noticed, girls develop full-grown appetites and aren't ashamed of +them. King went outside to wait, and I'm sure I hope he enjoyed it; I know +we did. We drank three cups of coffee apiece, ate a platter of fried fish, +and took plenty of time over the bones, got into an argument over who was +Lazarus with the fellow at the end of the table, and were too engrossed to +eat a mouthful while it lasted. We had the bad manners to pick our teeth +thoroughly with the wooden toothpicks, and Frosty showed me how to balance +a knife and fork on a toothpick—or, perhaps, it was two—on the edge of +his cup. I tried it several times, but couldn't make it work.</p> + +<p>The others had finished long ago and were sitting around next the wall +watching us while they smoked. About that time King put his head in at the +door, and looked at us.</p> + +<p>"Just a minute," I cheered him. Frosty began cracking his prune-pits and +eating the meats, and I went at it, too. I don't like prune-pits a little +bit.</p> + +<p>The pits finished, Frosty looked anxiously around the table. There was +nothing more except some butter that we hadn't the nerve to tackle +single-handed, and some salt and a bottle of ketchup and the toothpicks. +We went at the toothpicks again; until Frosty got a splinter stuck +between his teeth, and had a deuce of a time getting it out.</p> + +<p>"I've heard," he sighed, when the splinter lay in his palm, "that some +state dinners last three or four hours; blamed if I see how they work it. +I'm through. I lay down my hand right here—unless you're willing to +tackle the ketchup. If you are, I stay with you, and I'll eat half." He +sighed again when he promised.</p> + +<p>For answer I pushed back my chair. Frosty smiled and followed me out. For +the satisfaction of the righteous I will say that we both suffered from +indigestion that night, which I suppose was just and right.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI" />CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<h3><i>A Cable Snaps.</i></h3> + + +<p>Our lazy land smiling and dreaming to itself had disappeared; in its +stead, the wind howled down the river from the west and lashed the water +into what would have looked respectable waves to one who had not been on +the ocean and seen the real thing. The new grass lay flat upon the +prairies, and chunks of dirt rattled down from the roof of Pochette's +primitive abiding-place. It is true the sun shone, but I really wouldn't +have been at all surprised if the wind had blown it out, 'most any time.</p> + +<p>Pochette himself looked worried when we trooped in to breakfast. (By the +way, old King never showed up till we were through; then he limped in and +sat down to the table without a glance our way.) While we were smoking, +over by the fireplace, Pochette came sidling up to us. He was a little +skimpy man with crooked legs, a real French cut of beard, and an +apologetic manner. I think he rather prided himself upon his familiarity +with the English language—especially that part which is censored so +severely by editors that only a half-dozen words are permitted to appear +in cold type, and sometimes even they must hide their faces behind such +flimsy veils as this: d——n. So if I never quote Mr. Pochette verbatim, +you'll know why.</p> + +<p>"I theenk you will not wish for cross on the reever, no?" he began +ingratiatingly. "The weend she blow lak —— —— ——, and my boat, she +zat small, she —— ——."</p> + +<p>I caught King looking at us from under his eyebrows, so I was airily +indifferent to wind or water. "Sure, we want to cross," I said. "Just as +soon as we finish our smoke, Pochette."</p> + +<p>"But, mon Dieu!" (Ever hear tell of a Frenchman that didn't begin his +sentences that way? In this case, however, Pochette really said just +that.) "The weend, she blow lak ——"</p> + +<p>"'A hurricane; bimeby by she blaw some more,'" I quoted bravely. "It's +all right, Pochette; let her howl. We're going to cross, just the same. It +isn't likely you'll have to make the trip for any body else to-day." I +didn't mean to, but I looked over toward King, and caught the glint of his +unfriendly eyes upon me. Also, the corners of his mouth hunched up for a +second in what looked like a sneer. But the Lord knows I wasn't casting +any aspersions on <i>his</i> nerve.</p> + +<p>He must have taken it that way, though; for he went out when we did and +hooked up, and when we drove down to where the little old scow they called +a ferry was bobbing like a decoy-duck in the water, he was just behind us +with his team. Pochette looked at him, and at us, and at the river; and +his meager little face with its pointed beard looked like a perturbed +gnome—if you ever saw one.</p> + +<p>"The leetle boat, she not stand for ze beeg load. The weend, she—"</p> + +<p>"Aw, what yuh running a ferry for?" Frosty cut in impatiently. "There's a +good, strong current on, to-day; she'll go across on a high run."</p> + +<p>Pochette shook his head still more dubiously, till I got down and +bolstered up his courage with a small piece of gold. They're all alike; +their courage ebbs and flows on a golden tide, if you'll let me indulge in +a bit of unnecessary hyperbole. He worked the scow around end on to the +bank, so that we could drive on. The team wasn't a bit stuck on going, but +Frosty knows how to handle horses, and they steadied when he went to their +heads and talked to them.</p> + +<p>We were so busy with our own affairs that we didn't notice what was going +on behind us till we heard Pochette declaiming bad profanity in a high +soprano. Then I turned, and he was trying to stand off old King. But King +wasn't that sort; he yelled to us to move up and make room, and then took +down his whip and started up. Pochette pirouetted out of the way, and +stood holding to the low plank railing while he went on saying things +that, properly pronounced, must have been very blasphemous.</p> + +<p>King paid about as much attention to him as he would to a good-sized +prairie-dog chittering beside its burrow. I reckon he knew Pochette pretty +well. He got his rig in place and climbed down and went to his horses' +heads.</p> + +<p>"Now, shove off, dammit," he ordered, just as if no one had been near +bursting a blood-vessel within ten feet of him.</p> + +<p>Pochette gulped, worked the point of his beard up and down like a villain +in a second-rate melodrama, and shoved off. The current and the wind +caught us in their grip, and we swashed out from shore and got under way.</p> + +<p>I can't say that trip looked good to me, from the first rod out. Of +course, the river couldn't rear up and get real savage, like the ocean, +but there were choppy little waves that were plenty nasty enough, once you +got to bucking them with a blum-nosed old scow fastened to a cable that +swayed and sagged in the wind that came howling down on us. And with two +rigs on, we filled her from bow to stern; all but about four feet around +the edges.</p> + +<p>Frosty looked across to the farther shore, then at the sagging cable, and +then at me. I gathered that he had his doubts, too, but he wouldn't say +anything. Nobody did, for that matter. Even Pochette wasn't doing anything +but chew his whiskers and watch the cable.</p> + +<p>Then she broke, with a snap like a rifle, and a jolt that came near +throwing us off our feet. Pochette gave a yell and relapsed into French +that I'd hate to translate; it would shock even his own countrymen. The +ferry ducked and bobbed, now there was nothing to hold its nose steady to +the current, and went careering down river with all hands aboard and +looking for trouble.</p> + +<p>We didn't do anything, though; there wasn't anything to do but stay right +where we were and take chances. If she stayed right side up we would +probably land eventually. If she flopped over—which she seemed trying to +do, we'd get a cold bath and lose our teams, if no worse.</p> + +<p>Soon as I thought of that, I began unhooking the traces of the horse +nearest. The poor brutes ought at least to have a chance to swim for it. +Frosty caught on, and went to work, too, and in half a minute we had them +free of the wagon and stripped of everything but their bridles. They would +have as good a show as we, and maybe better.</p> + +<p>I looked back to see what King was doing. He was having troubles of his +own, trying to keep one of his cayuses on all its feet at once. It was +scared, poor devil, and it took all his strength on the bit to keep it +from rearing and maybe upsetting the whole bunch. Pochette wasn't doing +anything but lament, so I went back and unhooked King's horses for him, +and took off the harness and threw it in the back of his wagon so they +wouldn't tangle their feet in it when it came to a show-down.</p> + +<p>I don't think he was what you could call grateful; he never looked my way +at all, but went on cussing the horse he was holding, for acting up just +when he should keep his wits. I went back to Frosty, and we stood elbows +touching, waiting for whatever was coming.</p> + +<p>For what seemed a long while, nothing came but wind and water. But I +don't mind saying that there was plenty of that, and if either one had +been suddenly barred out of the game we wouldn't any of us have called the +umpire harsh names. We drifted, slippety-slosh, and the wind ripped holes +in the atmosphere and made our eyes water with the bare force of it when +we faced the west. And none of us had anything to say, except Pochette; he +said a lot, I remember, but never mind what. I don't suppose he was +mentally responsible at the time.</p> + +<p>Then, a long, narrow, yellow tongue of sand-bar seemed to reach right out +into the river and lap us up. We landed with a worse jolt than when we +broke away from the cable, and the gray-blue river went humping past +without us. Frosty and I looked at each other and grinned; after all, we +were coming out of the deal better than we had expected, for we were still +right side up and on the side of the river toward home. We were a mile or +so down river from the trail, but once we were on the bank with our rig, +that was nothing.</p> + +<p>We had landed head on, with the nose of the scow plowed high and dry. +Being at the front, we went at getting our team off, and our wagon. There +was a four or five-foot jump to make, and the horses didn't know how about +it, at first. But with one of us pulling, and the other slashing them over +the rump, they made it, one at a time. The sand was soft and acted +something like quicksand, too, and we hustled them to shore and tied them +to some bushes. The bank was steep there, and we didn't know how we were +going to make the climb, but we left that to worry over afterward; we +still had our rig to get ashore, and it began to look like quite a +contract.</p> + +<p>We went back, with our boot tracks going deep, and then filling up and +settling back almost level six steps behind us. Frosty looked back at them +and scowled.</p> + +<p>"For sand that isn't quicksand," he said, "this layout will stand about as +little monkeying with as any sand I ever met up with. Time we make a few +trips over it, she's going to be pudding without the raisins. And that's +a picnic, with our rig on the main deck, as you might say."</p> + +<p>We went back and sat swinging our legs off the free board end of the ferry +boat, and rolled us a smoke apiece and considered the next move. King was +somewhere back between our rig and his, cussing Pochette to a +fare-you-well for having such a rotten layout and making white men pay +good money for the privilege of risking their lives and property upon it.</p> + +<p>"We'll have to unload and take the wagon to pieces and pack everything +ashore—I guess that's our only show," said Frosty. We had just given up +my idea of working the scow up along the bar to the bank. We couldn't +budge her off the sand, and Pochette warned us that if we did the wind +would immediately commence doing things to us again.</p> + +<p>Frosty's idea seemed the only possible way, so we threw away our +cigarettes and got ready for business; the dismembering and carrying +ashore of that road-wagon promised to be no light task. Frosty yelled to +Pochette to come and get busy, and went to work on the rig. It looked to +me like a case where we were all in the same fix, and personal spite +shouldn't count for anything, but King was leaning against the wheel of +his buggy, cramming tobacco into his stubby pipe—the same one apparently +that I had rescued from the pickle barrel—and, seeing the wind scatter +half of it broadcast, as though he didn't care a rap whether he got solid +earth beneath his feet once more, or went floating down the river. I +wanted to propose a truce for such time as it would take to get us all +safe on terra firma, but on second thoughts I refrained. We could get off +without his help, and he was the sort of man who would cheerfully have +gone to his last long sleep at the bottom of that boiling river rather +than accept the assistance of an enemy.</p> + +<p>The next couple of hours was a season of aching back, and sloppy feet, and +grunting, and swearing that I don't much care about remembering in detail. +The wind blew till the tears ran down our cheeks. The sand stuck and +clogged every move we made till I used to dream of it afterward. If you +think it was just a simple little job, taking that rig to pieces and +packing it to dry land on our backs, just give another guess. And if you +think we were any of us in a mood to look at it as a joke, you're miles +off the track.</p> + +<p>Pochette helped us like a little man—he had to, or we'd have done him up +right there. Old King sat on the ferry-rail and smoked, and watched us +break our backs sardonically—I did think I had that last word in the +wrong place; but I think not. We did break our backs sardonically, and he +watched us in the same fashion; so the word stands as she is.</p> + +<p>When the last load was safe on the bank, I went back to the boat. It +seemed a low-down way to leave a man, and now he knew I wasn't fishing for +help, I didn't mind speaking to the old reprobate. So I went up and faced +him, still sitting on the ferry-rail, and still smoking.</p> + +<p>"Mr. King," I said politely as I could, "we're all right now, and, if you +like, we'll help you off. It won't take long if we all get to work."</p> + +<p>He took two long puffs, and pressed the tobacco down in his pipe. "You go +to hell," he advised me for the second time. "When I want any help from +you or your tribe, I'll let yuh know."</p> + +<p>It took me just one second to backslide from my politeness. "Go to the +devil, then!" I snapped. "I hope you have to stay on the damn' bar a +week." Then I went plucking back through the sand that almost pulled the +shoes off my feet every step, kicking myself for many kinds of a fool. +Lord, but I was mad!</p> + +<p>Pochette went back to the boat and old King, after nearly getting kicked +into the river for hinting that we ought to pay for the damage and trouble +we had caused him. Frosty and I weren't in any frame of mind for such a +hold-up, and it didn't take him long to find it out.</p> + +<p>The bank there was so steep that we had to pack my trunk and what other +truck had been brought out from Osage, up to the top by hand. That was +another temper-sweetening job. Then we put the wagon together, hitched on +the horses, and they managed to get to the top with it, by a scratch. It +all took time—and, as for patience, we'd been out of that commodity for +so long we hardly knew it by name.</p> + +<p>The last straw fell on us just as we were loading up. I happened to look +down upon the ferry; and what do you suppose that old devil was doing? He +had torn up the back part of the plank floor of the ferry, and had laid it +along the sand for a bridge. He had made an incline from boat nose to the +bar, and had rough-locked his wagon and driven it down. Just as we looked, +he had come to the end of his bridge, and he and Pochette were taking up +the planks behind and extending the platform out in front.</p> + +<p>Well! maybe you think Frosty and I stood there congratulating the old fox. +Frosty wanted me to kick him, I remember; and he said a lot of things that +sounded inspired to me, they hit my feelings off so straight. If we had +had the sense to do what old King was doing, we'd have been ten or +fifteen miles nearer home than we were.</p> + +<p>But, anyway, we were up the bank ahead of him, and we loaded in the last +package and drove away from the painful scene at a lope. And you can +imagine how we didn't love old King any better, after that experience.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII" />CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<h3><i>I Begin to Realize.</i></h3> + + +<p>If I had hoped that I'd gotten over any foolishness by spending the fall +and winter away from White Divide—or the sight of it—I commenced right +away to find out my mistake. No sooner did the big ridge rise up from the +green horizon, than every scar, and wrinkle, and abrupt little peak fairly +shouted things about Beryl King.</p> + +<p>She wasn't there; she was back in New York, and that blasted Terence +Weaver was back there, too, making all kinds of love to her according to +the letters of Edith. But I hadn't realized just how seriously I was +taking it, till I got within sight of the ridge that had sheltered her +abiding-place and had made all the trouble.</p> + +<p>Like a fool I had kept telling myself that I was fair sick for the range; +for range-horses and range-living; for the wind that always blows over the +prairies, and for the cattle that feed on the hills and troop down the +long coulée bottoms to drink at their favorite watering-places. I thought +it was the boys I wanted to see, and to gallop out with them in the soft +sunrise, and lie down with them under a tent roof at night; that I wanted +to eat my meals sitting cross-legged in the grass, with my plate piled +with all the courses at once and my cup of coffee balanced precariously +somewhere within reach.</p> + +<p>That's what I thought. When things tasted flat in old Frisco, I wasn't +dead sure why, and maybe I didn't want to be sure why. When I couldn't get +hold of anything that had the old tang, I laid it all to a hankering after +round-up.</p> + +<p>Even when we drove around the end of White Divide, and got up on a ridge +where I could see the long arm that stretched out from the east side of +King's Highway, I wouldn't own up to myself that there was the cause of +all my bad feelings. I think Frosty knew, all along; for when I had sat +with my face turned to the divide, and had let my cigarette go cold while +I thought and thought, and remembered, he didn't say a word. But when +memory came down to that last ride through the pass, and to Shylock shot +down by the corral, at last to Frosty standing, tall and dark, against the +first yellow streak of sunrise, while I rode on and left him afoot beside +a half-dead horse, I turned my eyes and looked at his thin, thoughtful +face beside me.</p> + +<p>His eyes met mine for half a minute, and he had a little twitching at the +corners of his mouth. "Chirk up," he said quietly. "The chances are she'll +come back this summer."</p> + +<p>I guess I blushed. Anyway, I didn't think of anything to say that would be +either witty or squelching, and could only relight my cigarette and look +the fool I felt. He'd caught me right in the solar plexus, and we both +knew it, and there was nothing to say. So after awhile we commenced +talking about a new bunch of horses that dad had bought through an agent, +and that had to be saddle-broke that summer, and I kept my eyes away from +White Divide and my mind from all it meant to me.</p> + +<p>The old ranch did look good to me, and Perry Potter actually shook hands; +if you knew him as well as I do you'd realize better what such a +demonstration means, coming from a fellow like him. Why, even his lips are +always shut with a drawstring—from the looks—to keep any words but what +are actually necessary from coming out. His eyes have the same look, kind +of pulled in at the corners. No, don't ever accuse Perry Potter of being a +demonstrative man, or a loquacious one.</p> + +<p>I had two days at the ranch, getting fitted into the life again; on the +third the round-up started, and I packed a "war-bag" of essentials, took +my last summer's chaps down off the nail in the bunk-house where they had +hung all that time as a sort of absent-but-not-forgotten memento, one of +the boys told me, and started out in full regalia and with an enthusiasm +that was real—while it lasted.</p> + +<p>If you never slept on the new grass with only a bit of canvas between you +and the stars; if you have never rolled out, at daylight, and dressed +before your eyes were fair open, and rushed with the bunch over to the +mess-wagon for your breakfast; if you have never saddled hurriedly a +range-bred and range-broken cayuse with a hump in his back and seven +devils in his eye, and gone careening across the dew-wet prairie like a +tug-boat in a choppy sea; if you have never—well, if you don't know what +it's all like, and how it gets into the very bones of you so that the +hankering never quite leaves you when you try to give it up, I'm not going +to tell you. I can't. If I could, you'd know just how heady it made me +feel those first few days after we started out to "work the range."</p> + +<p>I was fond of telling myself, those days, that I'd been more scared than +hurt, and that it was the range I was in love with, and not Beryl King at +all. She was simply a part of it—but she wasn't the whole thing, nor even +a part that was going to be indispensable to my mental comfort. I was a +free man once more, and so long as I had a good horse under me, and a +bunch of the right sort of fellows to lie down in the same tent with, I +wasn't going to worry much over any girl.</p> + +<p>That, for as long as a week; and that, more than pages of description, +shows you how great is the spell of the range-land, and how it grips a +man.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII" />CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<h3><i>We Meet Once More.</i></h3> + + +<p>I think it was about three weeks that I stayed with the round-up. I didn't +get tired of the life, or weary of honest labor, or anything of that sort. +I think the trouble was that I grew accustomed to the life, so that the +exhilarating effects of it wore off, or got so soaked into my system that +I began to take it all as a matter of course. And that, naturally, left +room for other things.</p> + +<p>I know I'm no good at analysis, and that's as close as I can come to +accounting for my welching, the third week out. You see, we were working +south and west, and getting farther and farther away from—well, from the +part of country that I knew and liked best. It's kind of lonesome, leaving +old landmarks behind you; so when White Divide dropped down behind another +range of hills and I couldn't turn in my saddle almost any time and see +the jagged, blue sky-line of her, I stood it for about two days. Then I +rolled my bed one morning, caught out two horses from my string instead of +one, told the wagon-boss I was going back to the ranch, and lit out—with +the whole bunch grinning after me. As they would have said, they were all +"dead next," but were good enough not to say so. Or, perhaps, they +remembered the boxing-lessons I had given them in the bunk-house a year or +more ago.</p> + +<p>I did feel kind of sneaking, quitting them like that; but it's like +playing higher than your logical limit: you know you're doing a fool +thing, and you want to plant your foot violently upon your own person +somewhere, but you go right ahead in the face of it all. They didn't have +to tell me I was acting like a calf that has lost his mother in the herd. +(You know he is prone to go mooning back to the last place he was with +her, if it's ten miles.) I knew it, all right. And when I topped a hill +and saw the high ridges and peaks of White Divide stand up against the +horizon to the north, I was so glad I felt ashamed of myself and called +one Ellis Carleton worse names than I'd stand to hear from anybody else.</p> + +<p>Still, to go back to the metaphor, I kept on shoving in chips, just as if +I had a chance to win out and wasn't the biggest, softest-headed idiot the +Lord ever made. Why, even Perry Potter almost grinned when I came riding +up to the corral; and I caught the fellow that was kept on at the ranch, +lowering his left lid knowingly at the cook, when I went in to supper that +first night. But I was too far gone then to care much what anybody +thought; so long as they kept their mouths shut and left me alone, that +was all I asked of them. Oh, I was a heroic figure, all right, those days.</p> + +<p>On a day in June I rode dispiritedly over to the little butte just out +from the mouth of the pass. Not that I expected to see her; I went because +I had gotten into the habit of going, and every nice morning just simply +<i>pulled</i> me over that way, no matter how much I might want to keep away. +That argues great strength of character for me, I know, but it's +unfortunately the truth.</p> + +<p>I knew she was back—or that she should be back, if nothing had happened +to upset their plans. Edith had written me that they were all coming, and +that they would have two cars, this summer, instead of just one, and that +they expected to stay a month. She and her mother, and Beryl and Aunt +Lodema, Terence Weaver—deuce take him!—and two other fellows, and a +Gertrude—somebody—I forget just who. Edith hoped that I would make my +peace with Uncle Homer, so they could see something of me. (If I had told +her how easy it was to make peace with "Uncle Homer," and how he had +turned me down, she might not have been quite so sure that it was all my +bull-headedness.) She complained that Gertrude was engaged to one of the +fellows, and so was awfully stupid; and Beryl might as well be—</p> + +<p>I tore up the letter just there, and the wind, which was howling that day, +caught the pieces and took them over into North Dakota; so I don't know +what else Edith may have had to tell me. I'd read enough to put me in a +mighty nasty temper at any rate, so I suppose its purpose was +accomplished. Edith is like all the rest: If she can say anything to make +a man uncomfortable she'll do it, every time.</p> + +<p>This day, I remember, I went mooning along, thinking hard things about the +world in general, and my little corner of it in particular. The country +was beginning to irritate me, and I knew that if something didn't break +loose pretty soon I'd be off somewhere. Riding over to little buttes, and +not meeting a soul on the way or seeing anything but a bare rock when you +get there, grows monotonous in time, and rather gets on the nerves of a +fellow.</p> + +<p>When I came close up to the butte, however, I saw a flutter of skirts on +the pinnacle, and it made a difference in my gait; I went up all out of +breath, scrambling as if my life hung on a few seconds, and calling myself +a different kind of fool for every step I took. I kept assuring myself, +over and over, that it was only Edith, and that there was no need to get +excited about it. But all the while I knew, down deep down in the +thumping chest of me, that it wasn't Edith. Edith couldn't make all that +disturbance in my circulatory system, not in a thousand years.</p> + +<p>She was sitting on the same rock, and she was dressed in the same adorable +riding outfit with a blue wisp of veil wound somehow on her gray felt hat, +and the same blue roan was dozing, with dragging bridle-reins, a few rods +down the other side of the peak. She was sketching so industriously that +she never heard me coming until I stood right at her elbow.</p> + +<p>It might have been the first time over again, except that my mental +attitude toward her had changed a lot.</p> + +<p>"That's better; I can see now what you're trying to draw," I said, looking +down over her shoulder—not at the sketch; it might have been a sea view, +for all I knew—but at the pink curve of her cheek, which was growing +pinker while I looked.</p> + +<p>She did not glance up, or even start; so she must have known, all along, +that I was headed her way. She went on making a lot of marks that didn't +seem to fit anywhere, and that seemed to me a bit wobbly and uncertain. I +caught just the least hint of a smile twitching the corner of her mouth—I +wanted awfully to kiss it!</p> + +<p>"Yes? I believe I have at last got everything—King's Highway—in the +proper perspective and the proper proportion," she said, stumbling a bit +over the alliteration—and no wonder. It was a sentence to stampede +cattle; but I didn't stampede. I wanted, more than ever, to kiss—but I +won't be like Barney, if I can help it.</p> + +<p>"It's too far off—too unattainable," I criticized—meaning something more +than her sketch of the pass. "And it's too narrow. If a fellow rode in +there he would have to go straight on through; there wouldn't be a chance +to turn back."</p> + +<p>"Ergo, a fellow shouldn't ride in," she retorted, with a composure +positively wicked, considering my feelings. "Though it does seem that a +fellow rather enjoys going straight on through, regardless of anything; +promises, for instance."</p> + +<p>That was the gauntlet I'd been hoping for. From the minute I first saw her +there it flashed upon me that she was astonished and indignant that night +when she saw Frosty and me come charging through the pass, after me +telling her I wouldn't do it any more. It looked to me like I'd have to +square myself, so I was glad enough of the chance.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes a fellow has to do things regardless of—promises," I +explained. "Sometimes it's a matter of life and death. If a fellow's +father, for instance—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know; Edith told me all about it." Her tone was curious, and while +it did not encourage further explanations or apologies, it also lacked +absolution of the offense I had committed.</p> + +<p>I sat down in the grass, half-facing her to better my chance of a look +into her eyes. I was consumed by a desire to know if they still had the +power to send crimply waves all over me. For the rest, she was prettier +even than I remembered her to be, and I could fairly see what little +sense or composure I had left slide away from me. I looked at her +fatuously, and she looked speculatively at a sharp ridge of the divide as +if that sketch were the only thing around there that could possibly +interest her.</p> + +<p>"Why do you spend every summer out here in the wilderness?" I asked, +feeling certain that nothing but speech could save me from going +hopelessly silly.</p> + +<p>She turned her eyes calmly toward me, and—their power had not weakened, +at all events. I felt as if I had taken hold of a battery with all the +current turned on.</p> + +<p>"Why, I suppose I like it here in summer. You're here, yourself; don't you +like it?"</p> + +<p>I wanted to say something smart, there, and I have thought of a dozen +bright remarks since; but at the time I couldn't think of a blessed thing +that came within a mile of being either witty or epigrammatic. Love-making +was all new to me, and I saw right then that I wasn't going to shine. I +finally did remark that I should like it better if her father would be +less belligerent and more peaceful as a neighbor.</p> + +<p>"You told me, last summer, that you enjoyed keeping up the feud," she +reminded, smiling whimsically down at me.</p> + +<p>She made a wrong play there; she let me see that she did remember some +things that I said. It boosted my courage a notch.</p> + +<p>"But that was last summer," I countered. "One can change one's view-point +a lot in twelve months. Anyway, you knew all along that I didn't mean a +word of it."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!" It was evident that she didn't quite like having me take that +tone.</p> + +<p>"Yes, 'indeed'!" I repeated, feeling a rebellion against circumstances and +at convention growing stronger within me. Why couldn't I put her on my +horse and carry her off and keep her always? I wondered crazily. That was +what I wanted to do.</p> + +<p>"Do you ever mean what you say, I wonder?" she mused, biting her +pencil-point like a schoolgirl when she can't remember how many times +three goes into twenty-seven.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes. Sometimes I mean more." I set my teeth, closed my +eyes—mentally—and plunged, insanely, not knowing whether I should come +to the surface alive or knock my head on a rock and stay down. "For +instance, when I say that some day I shall carry you off and find a +preacher to marry us, and that we shall live happily ever after, whether +you want to or not, because I shall <i>make</i> you, I mean every word of +it—and a lot more."</p> + +<p>That was going some, I fancy! I was so scared at myself I didn't dare +breathe. I kept my eyes fixed desperately on the mouth of the pass, all +golden-green in the sunshine; and I remember that my teeth were so tight +together that they ached afterward.</p> + +<p>The point of her pencil came off with a snap. I heard it, but I was afraid +to look. "Do you? How very odd!" Her voice sounded queer, as if it had +been squeezed dry of every sort of emotion. "And—Edith?"</p> + +<p>I looked at her then, fast enough. "Edith?" I stared at her stupidly. +"What the—what's Edith got to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"Possibly nothing"—in the same squeezed tone. "Men are +so—er—irresponsible; and you say you don't always mean—Still, when a +man writes pages and <i>pages</i> to a girl every week for nearly a year, one +naturally supposes—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, look here!" I was getting desperate enough to be a bit rough with +her. "Edith doesn't care a rap about me, and you know it. And she knows I +don't care, and—and if anybody had anything to say, it would be your Mr. +Terence Weaver."</p> + +<p>"<i>My</i> Mr. Terence Weaver?" She was looking down at me sidewise, in a +perfectly maddening way. "You are really very—er—funny, Mr. Carleton."</p> + +<p>"Well," I rapped out between my teeth, "I don't <i>feel</i> funny. I feel—"</p> + +<p>"No? But, really, you know, you act that way."</p> + +<p>I saw she was getting all the best of it—and, in my opinion, that would +kill what little chance a man might have with a girl. I set deliberately +about breaking through that crust of composure, if I did nothing more.</p> + +<p>"That depends on the view-point," I grinned. "Would you think it funny if +I carried you off—really, you know—and—er—married you and made you +live happy—"</p> + +<p>"You seem to insist upon the happy part of it, which is not at all—"</p> + +<p>"Necessary?" I hinted.</p> + +<p>"Plausible," she supplied sweetly.</p> + +<p>"But would you think it funny, if I did?"</p> + +<p>She regarded her broken pencil ruefully—or pretended to—and pinched her +brows together in deep meditation. Oh, she was the most maddening bit of +young womanhood—But, there, no Barney for me.</p> + +<p>"I—might," she decided at last. "It <i>would</i> be rather droll, you know, +and I wonder how you'd manage it; I'm not very tiny, and I rather think it +wouldn't be easy to—er—carry me off. Would you wear a mask—a black +velvet mask? I should insist upon black velvet. And would you say: +'Gadzooks, madam! I command you not to scream!' Would you?" She leaned +toward me, and her eyes—well, for downright torture, women are at times +perfectly fiendish.</p> + +<p>I caught her hand, and I held it, too, in spite of her. That far I was +master.</p> + +<p>"No," I told her grimly. "If I saw that you were going to do anything so +foolish as to scream, I should just kiss you, and—kiss you till you were +glad to be sensible about it."</p> + +<p>Well, she tried first to look calmly amused; then she tried to look +insulted, and to freeze me into sanity. She ended, however, by looking a +good bit confused, and by blushing scarlet. I had won that far. I kept her +hand held tight in mine; I could feel it squirm to get away, and it +felt—oh, thunder!</p> + +<p>"Let's play something else," she said, after a long minute. "I—I never +did admire highwaymen particularly, and I must go home."</p> + +<p>"No, you mustn't," I contradicted. "You must—"</p> + +<p>She looked at me with those wonderful, heavy-lashed eyes, and her lips had +a little quiver as if—Oh, I don't know, but I let go her hand, and I felt +like a great, hulking brute that had been teasing a child till it cried.</p> + +<p>"All right," I sighed, "I'll let you go this time. But I warn you, little +girl. If—no, <i>when</i> I find you out from King's Highway by yourself again, +that kidnaping is sure going to come off. The Lord intended you to be Mrs. +Ellis Carleton. And forty feuds and forty fathers can't prevent it. I +don't believe in going against the decrees of Providence; a <i>wise</i> +Providence."</p> + +<p>She bit her lip at the corner. "You must have a little private Providence +of your own," she retorted, with something like her old assurance. "I'm +sure mine never hinted at such a—a fate for me. And one feud is as good +as forty, Mr. Carleton. If you are anything like your father, I can easily +understand how the feud began. The Kings and the Carletons are fond of +their own way."</p> + +<p>"Thy way shall be my way," I promised rashly, just because it sounded +smart.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. Then there will be no melodramatic abductions in the shadow of +White Divide," she laughed triumphantly, "and I shall escape a most +horrible fate!" She went, still laughing, down to where her horse was +waiting.</p> + +<p>I followed—rather, I kept pace with her. "All the same, I dare you to +ride out alone from King's Highway again," I defied. "For, if you do, and +I find you—"</p> + +<p>"Good-by, Mr. Carleton. You'd be splendid in vaudeville," she mocked from +her saddle, where she had got with all the ease of a cowboy, without any +help from me. "Black velvet mask and gadzooks, madam—I must certainly +tell Edith. It will amuse her, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>"No, you won't tell Edith," I flung after her, but I don't know if she +heard.</p> + +<p>She rode away down the steep slope, the roan leaning back stiffly against +the incline, and I stood watching her like a fool. I didn't think it would +be good policy to follow her. I tried to roll a cigarette—in case she +might look back to see how I was taking her last shot. But she didn't, and +I threw the thing away half-made. It was a case where smoke wouldn't help +me.</p> + +<p>If I hadn't made my chance any better, I knew I couldn't very well make it +worse; but there was mighty little comfort in that reflection. And what a +bluff I had put up! Carry her off and marry her? Lord knows I wanted to, +badly enough! But—</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV" />CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<h3><i>Frosty Disappears.</i></h3> + + +<p>On the way back to the ranch I overtook Frosty mooning along at a walk, +with his shoulders humped in the way a man has when he's thinking pretty +hard. I had left Frosty with the round-up, and I was pretty much surprised +to see him here. I didn't feel in the mood for conversation, even with +him; but, to be decent, I spurred up alongside and said hello, and where +had he come from? There was nothing in that for a man to get uppish about, +but he turned and actually glared at me.</p> + +<p>"I might be an inquisitive son-of-a-gun and ask you the same thing," he +growled.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you might," I agreed. "But, if you did, I'd be apt to tell you to +depart immediately for a place called Gehenna—which is polite for hell."</p> + +<p>"Well, same here," he retorted laconically; and that ended our +conversation, though we rode stirrup to stirrup for eight miles.</p> + +<p>I can't say that, after the first shock of surprise, I gave much time to +wondering what brought Frosty home. I took it he had had a row with the +wagon-boss. Frosty is an independent sort and won't stand a word from +anybody, and the wagon-boss is something of a bully. The gait they were +traveling, out there with the wagons, was fraying the nerves of the whole +bunch before I left. And that was all I thought about Frosty.</p> + +<p>I had troubles of my own, about that time. I had put up my bluff, and I +kept wondering what I should do if Beryl King called me. There wasn't much +chance that she would, of course; but, still, she wasn't that kind of girl +who always does the conventional thing and the expected thing, and I had +seen a gleam in her eyes that, in a man's, I should call deviltry, pure +and simple. If I should meet her out somewhere, and she even <i>looked</i> a +dare—I'll confess one thing: for a whole week I was mighty shy of riding +out where I would be apt to meet her; and you can call me a coward if you +like.</p> + +<p>Still, I had schemes, plenty of them. I wanted her—Lord knows how I +wanted her!—and I got pretty desperate, sometimes. Once I saddled up with +the fixed determination of riding boldly—and melodramatically—into +King's Highway, facing old King, and saying: "Sir, I love your daughter. +Let bygones be bygones. Dad and I forgive you, and hope you will do the +same. Let us have peace, and let me have Beryl—" or something to that +effect.</p> + +<p>He'd only have done one of two things; he'd have taken a shot at me, or +he'd have told me to go to the same old place where we consign unpleasant +people. But I didn't tempt him, though I did tempt fate. I went over to +the little butte, climbed it pensively, and sat on the flat rock and gazed +forlornly at the mouth of the pass.</p> + +<p>I had the rock to myself, but I made a discovery that set the nerves of me +jumping like a man just getting over a—well, a season of dissipation. In +the sandy soil next the rock were many confused footprints—the prints of +little riding-boots; and they looked quite fresh. She had been there, all +right, and I had missed her! I swore, and wondered what she must think of +me. Then I had an inspiration. I rolled and half-smoked eight cigarettes, +and scattered the stubs with careful carelessness in the immediate +vicinity of the rock. I put my boots down in a clear spot of sand where +they left marks that fairly shouted of my presence. Then I walked off a +few steps and studied the effect with much satisfaction. When she came +again, she couldn't fail to see that I had been there; that I had waited a +long time—she could count the cigarette stubs and so form some estimate +of the time—and had gone away, presumably in deep disappointment. Maybe +it would make her feel a little less sure of herself, to know that I was +camping thus earnestly on her trail. I rode home, feeling a good deal +better in my mind.</p> + +<p>That night it rained barrelsful. I laid and listened to it, and gritted my +teeth. Where was all my cunning now? Where were those blatant footprints +of mine that were to give their own eloquent message? I could imagine just +how the water was running in yellow streams off the peak of that butte. +Then it came to me that, at all events, some of the cigarette-stubs would +be left; so I turned over and went to sleep.</p> + +<p>I wish to say, before I forget it, that I don't think I am deceitful by +nature. You see, it changes a fellow a lot to get all tangled up in his +feelings over a girl that doesn't seem to care a rap for you. He does +things that are positively idiotic At any rate, I did. And I could +sympathize some with Barney MacTague; only, his girl had a crooked nose +and no eyebrows to speak of, so he hadn't the excuse that I had. Take a +girl with eyes like Beryl—</p> + +<p>A couple of days after that—days when I hadn't the nerve to go near the +little butte—Frosty drew six months' wages and disappeared without a word +to anybody. He didn't come back that night, and the next day Perry +Potter, who knows well the strange freaks cowboys will sometimes take when +they have been working steadily for a long time, suggested that I ride +over to Kenmore and see if Frosty was there, and try my powers of +persuasion on him—unless he was already broke; in which case, according +to Perry Potter, he would come back without any persuading. Perry Potter +added dryly that it wouldn't be out of my way any, and would only be a +little longer ride. I must say I looked at him with suspicion. The way +that little dried-up sinner found out everything was positively uncanny.</p> + +<p>Frosty, as I soon discovered, was not in Kenmore. He had been, for I +learned by inquiring around that he had passed the night there at that one +little hotel. Also that he had, not more than two hours before—or three, +at most—hired a rig and driven on to Osage. A man told me that he had +taken a lady with him; but, knowing Frosty as I did, I couldn't quite +swallow that. It was queer, though, about his hiring a rig and leaving his +saddle-horse there in the stable. I couldn't understand it, but I wasn't +going to buy into Frosty's affairs unless I had to. I ate my dinner +dejectedly in the hotel—the dinner was enough to make any man +dejected—and started home again.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV" />CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<h3><i>The Broken Motor-car.</i></h3> + + +<p>Out where the trail from Kenmore intersects the one leading from Laurel to +and through King's Highway, I passed over a little hill and came suddenly +upon a big, dark-gray touring-car stalled in the road. In it Beryl King +sat looking intently down at her toes. I nearly fell off my horse at the +shock of it, and then my blood got to acting funny, so that my head felt +queer. Then I came to, and rode boldly up to her, mentally shaking hands +with myself over my good luck. For it was good luck just to see her, +whether anything came of it or not.</p> + +<p>"Something wrong with the wheelbarrow?" I asked her, with a placid +superiority.</p> + +<p>She looked up with a little start—she never did seem to feel my presence +until I spoke to her—and frowned prettily; but whether at me or at the +car, I didn't know.</p> + +<p>"I guess something must be," she answered quite meekly, for her. "It keeps +making the funniest buzz when I start it—and it's Mr. Weaver's car, and +he doesn't know—I—I borrowed it without asking, and—"</p> + +<p>"That car is all right," I bluffed from my saddle. "It's simply obeying +instructions. It comes under the jurisdiction of my private Providence, +you see. I ordered it that you should be here, and in distress, and +grateful for my helping hand." How was that for straight nerve?</p> + +<p>"Well, then, let's have the helping hand and be done. I should be at home, +by now. They will wonder—I just went for a—a little spin, and when I +turned to go back, it started that funny noise. I—I'm afraid of it. +It—might blow up, or—or something."</p> + +<p>She seemed in a strangely explanatory mood, that was, to say the least, +suspicious. Either she had come out purposely to torment me, or she was +afraid of what she knew was in my mind, and wanted to make me forget it. +But my mettle was up for good. I had no notion of forgetting, or of +letting her.</p> + +<p>"I'll do what I can, and willingly," I told her coolly. "It looks like a +good car—an accommodating car. I hope you are prepared to pay the +penalty—"</p> + +<p>"Penalty?" she interrupted, and opened her eyes at me innocently; a bit +<i>too</i> innocently, I may say.</p> + +<p>"Penalty; yes. The penalty of letting me find you outside of King's +Highway, <i>alone</i>," I explained brazenly.</p> + +<p>She tried a lever hurriedly, and the car growled up at her so that she +quit. Then she pulled herself together and faced me nonchalantly.</p> + +<p>"Oh-h. You mean about the black velvet mask? I'm afraid—I had forgotten +that funny little—joke." With all she could do, her face and her tone +were not convincing.</p> + +<p>I gathered courage as she lost it. "I see that I must demonstrate to you +the fact that I am not altogether a joke," I said grimly, and got down +from my horse.</p> + +<p>I don't, to this day, know what she imagined I was going to do. She sat +very still; the kind of stillness a rabbit adopts when he hopes to escape +the notice of an enemy. I could see that she hardly breathed, even.</p> + +<p>But when I reached her, I only got a wrench out of the tool-box and yanked +open the hood to see what ailed the motor. I knew something of that make +of car; in fact, I had owned one before I got the <i>Yellow Peril</i>, and I +had a suspicion that there wasn't much wrong; a loosened nut will +sometimes sound a good deal more serious than it really is. Still, a +half-formed idea—a perfectly crazy idea—made me go over the whole +machine very carefully to make sure she was all right.</p> + +<p>When I was through I stood up and found that she was regarding me +curiously, yet with some amusement. She seemed to feel herself mistress of +the situation, and to consider me as an interesting plaything. I didn't +approve that attitude.</p> + +<p>"At all events," she said when she met my eyes, and speaking as if there +had been no break in our conversation, "you are rather a <i>good</i> joke. +Thank you so much."</p> + +<p>I put away the wrench, fastened the lid of the tool-box, and then I faced +her grimly. "I see mere words are wasted on you," I said. "I shall have to +carry you off—Beryl King; I <i>shall</i> carry you off if you look at me that +way again!"</p> + +<p>She did look that way, only more so. I wonder what she thought a man was +made of, to stand it. I set my teeth hard together.</p> + +<p>"Have you got the—er—the black velvet mask?" she taunted, leaning just +the least bit toward me. Her eyes—I say it deliberately—were a direct +challenge that no man could refuse to accept and feel himself a man after.</p> + +<p>"Mask or no mask—you'll see!" I turned away to where my horse was +standing eying the car with extreme disfavor, picked up the reins, and +glanced over my shoulder; I didn't know but she would give me the slip. +She was sitting very straight, with both hands on the wheel and her eyes +looking straight before her. She might have been posing for a photograph, +from the look of her. I tied the reins with a quick twist over the +saddle-horn and gave him a slap on the rump. I knew he would go straight +home. Then I went back and stepped into the car just as she reached down +and started the motor. If she had meant to run away from me she had been +just a second too late. She gave me a sidelong, measuring glance, and +gasped. The car slid easily along the trail as if it were listening for +what we were going to say.</p> + +<p>"I shall drive," I announced quietly, taking her hands gently from the +wheel. She moved over to make room mechanically, as if she didn't in the +least understand this new move of mine. I know she never dreamed of what +was really in my heart to do.</p> + +<p>"You will drive—where?" her voice was politely freezing.</p> + +<p>"To find that preacher, of course," I answered, trying to sound surprised +that she should ask, I sent the speed up a notch.</p> + +<p>"You—you never would <i>dare</i>!" she cried breathlessly, and a little +anxiously.</p> + +<p>"The deuce I wouldn't!" I retorted, and laughed in the face of her. It was +queer, but my thoughts went back, for just a flash, to the time Barney had +dared me to drive the <i>Yellow Peril</i> up past the Cliff House to Sutro +Baths. I had the same heady elation of daredeviltry. I wouldn't have +turned back, then, even if I hadn't cared so much for her.</p> + +<p>She didn't say anything more, and I sent the car ahead at a pace that +almost matched the mood I was in, and that brought White Divide sprinting +up to meet us. The trail was good, and the car was a dandy. I was making +straight for King's Highway as the best and only chance of carrying out my +foolhardy design. I doubt if any bold, bad knight of old ever had the +effrontery to carry his lady-love straight past her own door in broad +daylight.</p> + +<p>Yet it was the safest thing I could do. I meant to get to Osage, and the +only practicable route for a car lay through the pass. To be sure, there +was a preacher at Kenmore; but with the chance of old King being there +also and interrupting the ceremony—supposing I brought matters +successfully that far—with a shot or two, did not in the least appeal to +me. I had made sure that there was plenty of gasoline aboard, so I drove +her right along.</p> + +<p>"I hope your father isn't home," I remarked truthfully when we were +slipping into the wide jaws of the pass.</p> + +<p>"He is, though; and so is Mr. Weaver. I think you had better jump out here +and run home, or it is not a velvet mask you will need, but a mantle of +invisibility." I couldn't make much of her tone, but her words implied +that even yet she would not take me seriously.</p> + +<p>"Well, I've neither mask nor mantle," I said, "But the way I can fade down +the pass will, I think, be a fair substitute for both."</p> + +<p>She said nothing whatever to that, but she began to seem interested in the +affair—as she had need to be. She might have jumped out and escaped +while I was down opening the gate—but she didn't. She sat quite still, +as if we were only out on a commonplace little jaunt. I wondered if she +didn't have the spirit of adventure in her make-up, also. Girls do, +sometimes. When I had got in again, I turned to her, remembering +something.</p> + +<p>"Gadzooks, madam! I command you not to scream," I quoted sternly.</p> + +<p>At that, for the first time in our acquaintance, she laughed; such a +delicious, rollicky little laugh that I felt ready, at the sound, to face +a dozen fathers and they all old Kings.</p> + +<p>As we came chugging up to the house, several faces appeared in the doorway +as if to welcome and scold the runaway. I saw old King with his pipe in +his mouth; and there were Aunt Lodema and Weaver. They were all smiling at +the escapade—Beryl's escapade, that is—and I don't think they realized +just at first who I was, or that I was in any sense a menace to their +peace of mind.</p> + +<p>When we came opposite and showed no disposition to stop, or even to slow +up, I saw the smiles freeze to amazement, and then—but I hadn't the time +to look. Old King yelled something, but by that time we were skidding +around the first shed, where Shylock had been shot down on my last trip +through there. It was a new shed, I observed mechanically as we went by. I +heard much shouting as we disappeared, but by that time we were almost +through the gantlet. I made the last turn on two wheels, and scudded away +up the open trail of the pass.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI" />CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<h3><i>One More Race.</i></h3> + + +<p>A faint toot-toot warned from behind.</p> + +<p>"They've got out the other car," said Beryl, a bit tremulously; and added, +"it's a much bigger one than this."</p> + +<p>I let her out all I dared for the road we were traveling; and then there +we were, at that blessed gate. I hadn't thought of it till we were almost +upon it, but it didn't take much thought; there was only one thing to do, +and I did it.</p> + +<p>I caught Beryl by an arm and pulled her down to the floor of the car, not +taking my eyes from the trail, or speaking. Then I drove the car forward +like a cannon-ball. We hit that gate like a locomotive, and scarcely felt +the jar. I knew the make of that motor, and what it could do. The air was +raining splinters and bits of lamps, but we went right on as if nothing +had happened, and as fast as the winding trail would allow. I knew that +beyond the pass the road ran straight and level for many a mile, and that +we could make good time if we got the chance.</p> + +<p>Beryl sat half-turned in the seat, glancing back; but for me, I was busy +watching the trail and taking the sharp turns in a way to lift the hair of +one not used to traveling by lightning. I will confess it was ticklish +going, at that pace, and there were places when I took longer chances than +I had any right to take. But, you see, I had Beryl—and I meant to keep +her.</p> + +<p>That Weaver fellow must have had a bigger bump of caution than I, or else +he'd never raced. I could hear them coming, but they didn't seem to be +gaining; rather, they lost ground, if anything. Presently Beryl spoke +again, still looking back.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think, Mr. Carleton, this joke has gone far enough? You have +demonstrated what you <i>could</i> do, if—"</p> + +<p>I risked both our lives to glance at her. "This joke," I said, "is going +to Osage. I want to marry you, and you know it. The Lord and this car +willing, I'm going to. Still, if you really have been deceived in my +intentions, and insist upon going back, I shall stop, of course, and give +you back to your father. But you must do it now, at once, or—marry me."</p> + +<p>She gave me a queer, side glance, but she did not insist. Naturally I +didn't stop, either.</p> + +<p>We shot out into the open, with the windings of the pass behind, and then +I turned the old car loose, and maybe we didn't go! She wasn't a bad +sort—but I would have given a good deal, just then, if she had been the +<i>Yellow Peril</i> stripped for a race. I could hear the others coming up, and +we were doing all we could; I saw to that.</p> + +<p>"I think they'll catch us," Beryl observed maliciously. "Their car is a +sixty h.p. Mercedes, and this—"</p> + +<p>"Is about a forty," I cut in tartly, not liking the tone of her; "and just +plain American make. But don't you fret, my money's on Uncle Sam."</p> + +<p>She said no more; indeed, it wasn't easy to talk, with the wind drawing +the breath right out of your lungs. She hung onto her hat, and to the +seat, and she had her hands full, let me tell you.</p> + +<p>The purr of their motor grew louder, and I didn't like the sound of it a +bit. I turned my head enough to see them slithering along +close—abominably close. I glimpsed old King in the tonneau, and Weaver +humped over the wheel in an unpleasantly businesslike fashion.</p> + +<p>I humped over my own wheel and tried to coax her up a bit, as if she had +been the <i>Yellow Peril</i> at the wind-up of a close race. For a minute I +felt hopeful. Then I could tell by the sound that Weaver was crowding up.</p> + +<p>"They're gaining, Mr. Carleton!" Beryl's voice had a new ring in it, and I +caught my breath.</p> + +<p>"Can you get here and take the wheel and hold her straight without slowing +her?" I asked, looking straight ahead. The trail was level and not a bend +in it for half a mile or so, and I thought there was a chance for us. +"I've a notion that friend Weaver has nerves. I'm going to rattle him, if +I can; but whatever happens, don't loose your grip and spill us out. I +won't hurt them."</p> + +<p>Her hands came over and touched mine on the wheel. "I've raced a bit +myself," she said simply. "I can drive her straight."</p> + +<p>I wriggled out of the way and stood up, glancing down to make sure she was +all right. She certainly didn't look much like the girl who was afraid +because something "made a funny noise." I suspected that she knew a lot +about motors.</p> + +<p>A bullet clipped close. Beryl set her teeth into her lips, but grittily +refrained from turning to look. I breathed freer.</p> + +<p>"Now, don't get scared," I warned, balanced myself as well as I could in +the swaying car, and sent a shot back at them.</p> + +<p>Weaver came up to my expectations. He ducked, and the car swerved out of +the trail and went wavering spitefully across the prairie. Old King sent +another rifle-bullet my way—I must have made a fine mark, standing up +there—and he was a good shot. I was mighty glad he was getting jolted +enough to spoil his aim.</p> + +<p>Weaver came to himself a bit and grabbed frantically for brake and +throttle and steering-wheel all at once, it looked like. He was rattled, +all right; he must have given the wheel a twist the wrong way, for their +car hit a jutting rock and went up in the air like a pitching bronco, and +old King sailed in a beautiful curve out of the tonneau.</p> + +<p>I was glad Beryl didn't see that. I watched, not breathing, till I saw +Weaver scramble into view, and Beryl's dad get slowly to his feet and +grope about for his rifle; so I knew there would be no funeral come of it. +I fancy his language was anything but mild, though by that time we were +too far away to hear anything but the faint churning of their motor as +their wheels pawed futilely in the air.</p> + +<p>They were harmless for the present. Their car tilted ungracefully on its +side, and, though I hadn't any quarrel with Weaver, I hoped his big +Mercedes was out of business. I put away my gun, sat down, and looked at +Beryl.</p> + +<p>She was very white around the mouth, and her hat was hanging by one pin, I +remember; but her eyes were fixed unswervingly upon the brown trail +stretching lazily across the green of the grass-land, and she was driving +that big car like an old hand.</p> + +<p>"Well?" her voice was clear, and anxious, and impatient.</p> + +<p>"It's all right," I said. I took the wheel from her, got into her place, +and brought the car down to a six-mile gait. "It's all right," I repeated +triumphantly. "They're out of the race—for awhile, at least, and not +hurt, that I could see. Just plain, old-fashioned mad. Don't look like +that, Beryl!" I slowed the car more. "You're glad, aren't you? And you +<i>will</i> marry me, dear?"</p> + +<p>She leaned back panting a little from the strain of the last half-hour, +and did things to her hat. I watched her furtively. Then she let her eyes +meet mine; those dear, wonderful eyes of hers! And her mouth was +half-smiling, and very tender.</p> + +<p>"You <i>silly</i>!" That's every word she said, on my oath.</p> + + +<p>But I stopped that car dead still and gathered her into my arms, and—Oh, +well, I won't trail off into sentiment, you couldn't appreciate it if I +did.</p> + +<p>It's a mercy Weaver's car <i>was</i> done for, or they could have walked right +up and got their hands on us before we'd have known it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII" />CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<h3><i>The Final Reckoning.</i></h3> + + +<p>About four o'clock we reached the ferry, just behind a fagged-out team and +a light buggy that had in it two figures—one of whom, at least, looked +familiar to me.</p> + +<p>"Frosty, by all that's holy!" I exclaimed when we came close enough to +recognize a man. "I clean forgot, but I was sent to Kenmore this morning +to find that very fellow."</p> + +<p>"Don't you know the other?" Beryl laughed teasingly. "I was at their +wedding this morning, and wished them God-speed. I never dreamed I should +be God-speeded myself, directly! I drove Edith, over to Kenmore quite +early in the car, and—"</p> + +<p>"Edith!"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Edith. Whom else? Did you think she would be left behind, +pining at your infidelity? Didn't you know they are old, old sweethearts +who had quarreled and parted quite like a story? She used to read your +letters so eagerly to see if you made any remark about him; you did, quite +often, you know. I drove her over to Kenmore, and afterward went off +toward Laurel just to put in the time and not arrive home too soon without +her—which might have been awkward, if father took a notion to go after +her. I'm so glad we came up with them." She stood up and waved her hand at +Edith.</p> + +<p>I shouted reassurances to Frosty, who was looking apprehensively back at +us. But it was a facer. I had never once suspected them of such a thing.</p> + +<p>"Well," I greeted, when we overtook them and could talk comfortably; "this +is luck. When we get across to Pochette's you can get in with us, Mr. and +Mrs. Miller, and add the desired touch of propriety to <i>our</i> wedding."</p> + +<p>They did some staring themselves, then, and Beryl blushed +delightfully—just as she did everything else. She was growing an +altogether bewitching bit of femininity, and I kept thanking my private +Providence that I had had the nerve to kidnap her first and take chances +on her being willing. Honest, I don't believe I'd ever have got her in any +other way.</p> + +<p>When we stopped at Pochette's door the girls ran up and tangled their arms +around each other and wasted enough kisses to make Frosty and me swear. +And they whispered things, and then laughed about it, and whispered some +more, and all we could hear was a gurgle of "You dear!" and the like of +that. Frosty and I didn't do much; we just looked at each other and +grinned. And it's long odds we understood each other quite as well as the +girls did after they'd whispered and gurgled an hour.</p> + +<p>We had an early dinner—or supper—and ate fried bacon and stewed +prunes—and right there I couldn't keep the joke, but had to tell the +girls about how Frosty and I had deviled Beryl's father, that time. They +could see the point, all right, and they seemed to appreciate it, too.</p> + +<p>After that, we all talked at once, sometimes; and sometimes we wouldn't +have a thing to say—times when the girls would look at each other and +smile, with their eyes all shiny. Frosty and I would look at them, and +then at each other; and Frosty's eyes were shiny, too.</p> + +<p>Then we went on, with the motor purring love-songs and sliding the miles +behind us, while Frosty and Edith cooed in the tonneau behind us, and +didn't thank us to look around or interrupt. Beryl and I didn't say much; +I was driving as fast as was wise, and sometimes faster. There was always +the chance that the other car would come slithering along on our trail. +Besides, it was enough just to know that this was real, and that Beryl +would marry me just as soon as we found a preacher. There was no incentive +to linger along the road.</p> + +<p>It yet lacked an hour of sunset when we slid into Osage and stopped before +a little goods-box church, with a sample of the same style of architecture +chucked close against one side.</p> + +<p>We left the girls with the preacher's wife, and Frosty wrote down our +ages—Beryl was twenty-one, if you're curious—and our parents' names and +where we were born, and if we were black or white, and a few other +impertinent things which he, having been through it himself, insisted was +necessary. Then he hustled out after the license, while I went over to the +dry-goods and jewelry store to get a ring. I will say that Osage puts up a +mighty poor showing of wedding-rings.</p> + +<p>We were married. I suppose I ought to stop now and describe just how it +was, and what the bride wore, and a list of the presents. But it didn't +last long enough to be clear in my mind. Everything is a bit hazy, just +there. I dropped the ring, I know that for certain, because it rolled +under an article of furniture that looked suspiciously like a folding-bed +masquerading as a cabinet, and Frosty had to get down on all fours and +fish it out before we could go on. And Edith put her handkerchief to her +mouth and giggled disreputably. But, anyway, we got married.</p> + +<p>The preacher gave Beryl an impressive lily-and-rose certificate, which +caused her much embarrassment, because it would not go into any pocket of +hers or mine, but must be carried ostentatiously in the hand. I believe +Edith was a bit jealous of that beflowered roll. <i>Her</i> preacher had been +out of certificates, and had made shift with a plain, undecorated sheet of +foolscap that Frosty said looked exactly like a home-made bill of sale. I +told Edith she could paint some lilies around the edge, and she flounced +out with her nose in the air.</p> + +<p>We had decided that we must go back in the morning and face the music. We +had no desire to be arrested for stealing Weaver's car, and there was not +a man in Osage who could be trusted to drive it back. Then the girls +needed a lot of things; and though Frosty had intended to take the next +train East, I persuaded him to go back and wait for us.</p> + +<p>Beryl said she was almost sure her father would be nice about it, now +there was no good in being anything else. I think that long roll of stiff +paper went a long way toward strengthening her confidence; she simply +could not conceive of any father being able to resist its appeal and its +look of finality.</p> + +<p>We all got into the car again, and went up to the station, so I might +send a wire to dad. It seemed only right and fair to let him know at once +that he had a daughter to be proud of.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" I broke out, when we were nearly to the depot "If that +isn't—do any of you notice anything out on the side-track, over there?" I +pointed an unsteady finger toward the purple and crimson sunset.</p> + +<p>"A maroon-colored car, with dark-green—" Beryl began promptly.</p> + +<p>"That's it," I cut in. "I was afraid joy had gone to my head and was +making me see crooked. It's dad's car, the <i>Shasta</i>. And I wonder how the +deuce she got <i>here</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Probably by the railroad," said Edith flippantly.</p> + +<p>I drove over to the <i>Shasta</i>, and we stopped. I couldn't for the life of +me understand her being, there. I stared up at the windows, and nodded +dazedly to Crom, grinning down at me. The next minute, dad himself came +out on the platform.</p> + +<p>"So it's you, Ellie?" he greeted calmly. "I thought Potter wasn't to let +you know I was coming; he must be getting garrulous as he grows old. +However, since you are here, I'm very glad to see you, my boy."</p> + +<p>"Hello, dad," I said meekly, and helped Beryl out. I wasn't at all sure +that I was glad to see him, just then. Telling dad face to face was a lot +different from telling him by telegraph. I swallowed.</p> + +<p>"Dad, let me introduce you to Miss—Mrs. Beryl King—that is, Carleton; my +<i>wife</i>." I got that last word out plain enough, at any rate.</p> + +<p>Dad stared. For once I had rather floored him. But he's a thoroughbred, +all right; you can't feaze him for longer than ten seconds, and then only +in extreme cases. He leaned down over the rail and held out his hand to +her.</p> + +<p>"I'm very glad to meet you, Mrs. Beryl King—that is, Carleton," he said, +mimicking me. "Come up and give your dad-in-law a proper welcome."</p> + +<p>Beryl did. I wondered how long it had been since dad had been kissed like +that. It made me gulp once or twice to think of all he had missed.</p> + +<p>Frosty and Edith came up, then, and Edith shook hands with dad and I +introduced Frosty. Five minutes, there on the platform, went for +explanations. Dad didn't say much; he just listened and sized up the +layout. Then he led us through the vestibule into the drawing-room. And I +knew, from the look of him, that we would get his verdict straight. But it +was a relief not to see his finger-tips together.</p> + +<p>"Perry Potter wrote me something of all this," he observed, settling +himself comfortably in his pet chair. "He said this young cub needed +looking after, or King—your father, Mrs. Carleton—would have him by the +heels. I thought I'd better come and see what particular brand of—er—</p> + +<p>"As for the motor, I might make shift to take it back myself, seeing +Potter hasn't got a rig here to meet me. And if you'd like a little jaunt +in the <i>Shasta</i>, you four, you're welcome to her for a couple of weeks or +so. I'm not going back right away. Ellis has done his da—er—is married +and off my hands, so I can take a vacation too. I can arrange +transportation over any lines you want, before I start for the ranch. Will +that do?"</p> + +<p>I guess he found that it would, from the way Edith and Beryl made for him.</p> + +<p>Frosty glanced out of the window and motioned to me. I looked, and we both +bolted for the door, reaching it just as old King's foot was on the lower +step of the platform. Weaver, looking like chief mourner at a funeral, was +down below in his car. King came up another step, glaring and evidently in +a mood for war and extermination.</p> + +<p>"How d'y' do, King?" Dad greeted over my shoulder, before I could say a +word. He may not have had his finger-tips together, but he had the +finger-tip tone, all right, and I knew it was a good man who would get the +better of him. "Out looking for strays? Come right up; I've got two brand +new married couples here, and I need some sane person pretty bad to help +me out." There was the faintest possible accent on the <i>sane</i>.</p> + +<p>Say, it was the finest thing I had ever seen dad do. And it wasn't what he +said, so much as the way he said it. I knew then why he had such, a record +for getting his own way.</p> + +<p>King swallowed hard and glared from dad to me, and then at Beryl, who had +come up and laid my arm over her shoulder—where it was perfectly +satisfied to stay. There was a half-minute when I didn't know whether King +would shoot somebody, or have apoplexy.</p> + +<p>"You're late, father," said Beryl sweetly, displaying that blessed +certificate rather conspicuously. "If you had only hurried a little, you +might have been in time for the we-wedding."</p> + +<p>I squeezed my arm tight in approval, and came near choking her. King +gasped as if somebody had an arm around his neck, too, and was squeezing.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, you're here now, and it's all right," put in dad easily, as +though everything was quite commonplace and had happened dozens of times +to us. "Crom will have dinner ready soon, though as he and Tony weren't +notified that there would be a wedding-party here, I can't promise the +feast I'd like to. Still, there's a bottle or two good enough to drink +even <i>their</i> happiness in, Homer. Just send your chauffeur down to the +town, and come in." (Good one on Weaver, that—and, the best part of it +was, he heard it.)</p> + +<p>King hesitated while I could count ten—if I I counted fast enough—and +came in, following us all back through the vestibule. Inside, he looked me +over and drew his hand down over his mouth; I think to hide a smile.</p> + +<p>"Young man, yuh seem born to leave a path uh destruction behind yuh," he +said. "There's a lot uh fixing to be done on that gate—and I don't reckon +I ever <i>will</i> find the padlock again."</p> + +<p>His eyes met the keen, steady look of dad, stopped there, wavered, +softened to friendliness. Their hands went out half-shyly and met. "Kids +are sure terrors, these days," he remarked, and they laughed a little. "Us +old folks have got to stand in the corners when they're around."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>King's Highway is open trail. Beryl and I go through there often in the +<i>Yellow Peril</i>, since dad gave me outright the Bay State Ranch and all +pertaining thereto—except, of course, Perry Potter; he stays on of his +own accord.</p> + +<p>Frosty is father King's foreman, and Aunt Lodema went back East and stayed +there. She writes prim little letters to Beryl, once in awhile, and I +gather that she doesn't approve of the match at all. But Beryl does, and, +if you ask me, I approve also. So what does anything else matter?</p> + +<p> </p> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14334 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/14334-h/images/1-thumbnail.jpg b/14334-h/images/1-thumbnail.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0a0b3d4 --- /dev/null +++ b/14334-h/images/1-thumbnail.jpg diff --git a/14334-h/images/1.jpg b/14334-h/images/1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..938ee6a --- /dev/null +++ b/14334-h/images/1.jpg diff --git a/14334-h/images/96-thumbnail.jpg b/14334-h/images/96-thumbnail.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..da000da --- /dev/null +++ b/14334-h/images/96-thumbnail.jpg diff --git a/14334-h/images/96.jpg b/14334-h/images/96.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2451714 --- /dev/null +++ b/14334-h/images/96.jpg |
