Brand Blotters Part 27

Her conception of the East amused him. It was about as accurate as a New Yorker's of the West.

"I'm glad you didn't. It would have spoiled you and sent you back just like every other young lady the schools grind out."

She turned curiously toward him. "Am I not like other girls?"

It was on his tongue tip to tell her that she was gloriously different from most girls he had known, but discretion sealed his lips. Instead, he told her of life in the city and what it means to society women, its emptiness and unsatisfaction.

His condemnation was not proof positive to her. "I'd like to go there for myself some time and see. And anyhow it must be nice to have all the money you want with which to travel," she said.

This gave him his opening. "It makes one independent. I think that's the best thing wealth can give--a sort of s.p.a.ciousness." He waited perceptibly before he added: "I hope you have decided to be my partner in the mine."

"I've decided not to."

"I'm sorry. But why?"

"It's your mine. It isn't ours."

"That's nonsense. I always in my heart, recognized a moral claim you have.

Besides, the case isn't finished yet. Perhaps your father may win his contest. I'm all for settling out of court."

"You know we won't win."

"I don't."

She gave him applause from her dark eyes. "That's very fair of you, but Dad and I can't do it."

"Then you still have a grudge at me," he smiled.

"Not the least little bit of a one."

"I shan't take no for an answer, then. I'll order the papers made out whether you want me to or not." Without giving her a chance to speak, he pa.s.sed to another topic: "I've decided to go out of the sheep business."

"I'm so glad!" she cried.

"Those aren't my feelings," he answered ruefully. "I hate to quit under fire."

"Of course you do, but your friends will know why you do it."

"Why do I do it?"

"Because you know it's right. The cattlemen had the range first. Their living is tied up in cattle, and your sheep are ruining the feed for them.

Yesterday when I was out riding I counted the bones of eight dead cows."

He nodded gravely. "Yes, in this country sheep are death to cows. I hate to be a quitter, but I hate worse to take the bread out of the mouths of a dozen families. Two days ago I had an offer for my whole bunch, and to-morrow I'm going to take the first instalment over the pa.s.s and drive them down to the railroad."

"But you'll have to cross the dead line to get over the pa.s.s," she said quickly; for all Cattleland knew that a guard had been watching his herds to see they did not cross the pa.s.s.

"Yes. I'm going to send Alan with a letter to Farnum. I don't think there will be any opposition to my crossing it when my object is understood," he smiled.

Melissy watched him ride away, strong and rugged and ungraceful, from the head to the heel of him a man. Life had gone hard with him. She wondered whether that were the reason her heart went out to him so warmly.

As she moved about her work that day and the next little s.n.a.t.c.hes of song broke from her, bubbling forth like laughter, born of the quiet happiness within, for which she could give no reason.

After the stage had gone she saddled her pony and rode toward the head of the pa.s.s. In an hour or two now the sheep would be pouring across the divide, and she wanted to get a photograph of them as they emerged from the pa.s.s. She was following an old cattle trail which ran into the main path just this side of the pa.s.s, and she was close to the junction when the sound of voices stopped her. Some instinct made her wait and listen.

The speakers were in a dip of the trail just ahead of her, and the voice of the first she recognized as belonging to the man Boone. The tone of it was jubilantly cruel.

"No, sir. You don't move a step of the way, not a step, Mr. Alan McKinstra. I've got him right where I want him, and I don't care if you talk till the cows come home."

Alan's voice rang out indignantly, "It's murder then--just plain, low-down murder. If you hold me here and let Morse fall into a death trap without warning him, you're as responsible as if you shot him yourself."

"All right. Suits me down to the ground. We'll let it go at that. I'm responsible. If you want the truth flat and plain, I don't mind telling you that I wouldn't be satisfied if I wasn't responsible. I'm evening up some little things with Mr. Morse to-day."

Melissy needed to hear no more to understand the situation, but if she had, the next words of Boone would have cleared it up.

"When I met up with you and happened on the news that you was taking a message to Farnum, and when I got onto the fact that Morse, as you call him, was moving his sheep across the dead line, _relying on you having got his letter to the cattlemen to make it safe_, it seemed luck too good to be true. All I had to do was to persuade you to stay right here with me, and Mr. Morse would walk into the pa.s.s and be wiped out. You get the beauty of it, my friend, don't you? _I'm_ responsible, but it will be Farnum and his friends that will bear the blame. There ain't but one flaw in the whole thing: Morse will never know that it's me that killed him."

"You devil!" cried the boy, with impotent pa.s.sion.

"I've waited ten years for this day, and it's come at last. Don't you think for a moment I'm going to weaken. No, sir! You'll sit there with my gun poked in your face just as you've sat for six hours. It's my say-so to-day, sir," Boone retorted, malevolence riding triumph in his voice.

Melissy's first impulse was to confront the man, her next to slip away without being discovered and then give the alarm.

"Yes, sir," continued the cowpuncher; "I scored on Mr. Morse two or three nights ago, when I played h.e.l.l with one of his sheep camps, and to-day I finish up with him. His sheep have been watched for weeks, and at the first move it's all up with him and them. Farnum's vaqueros will pay my debt in full. Just as soon as I'm right sure of it I'll be jogging along to Dead Man's Cache, and you can go order the coffin for your boss."

The venom of the man was something to wonder at. It filled the listening girl with sick apprehension. She had not known that such hatred could live in the world.

Quietly she led her pony back, mounted, and made a wide detour until she struck the trail above. Already she could hear the distant bleat of sheep which told her that the herd was entering the pa.s.s. Recklessly she urged her pony forward, galloping into the saddle between the peaks without regard to the roughness of the boulder-strewn path. A voice from above hailed her with a startled shout as she flew past. Again, a shot rang out, the bullet whistling close to her ear. But nothing could stop her till she reached the man she meant to save.

And so it happened that Richard Bellamy, walking at the head of his herd, saw a horse gallop wildly round a bend almost into his bleating flock. The rider dragged the bronco to a halt and slipped to the ground. She stood there ashen-hued, clinging to the saddle-horn and swaying slightly.

"I'm in time.... Thank G.o.d!... Thank G.o.d!" her parched lips murmured.

"Miss Lee! You here?" he cried.

They looked at each other, the man and the girl, while the wild fear in her heart began to still. The dust of the drive was thick on his boots, his clothes, his face, but the soil of travel could not obscure the power of his carriage, the strong lines of his shoulders, the set of his broad, flat back, any more than it could tarnish her rarity, the sweetness of blood in her that under his gaze beat faintly into her dusky cheeks. The still force of him somehow carried rea.s.surance to her. Such virility of manhood could not be marked for extinction.

She panted out her story, and his eyes never left her.

"You have risked your life to save mine and my herders," he said very quietly.

"You must go back," she replied irrelevantly.

"I can't. The entrance is guarded."

This startled her. "Then--what shall we do?"

"You must ride forward at once. Tell the vaqueros that I am moving my sheep only to take them to the railroad. Explain to them how Alan is detained with the message I sent Farnum. In a few minutes we shall follow with the sheep."