Brand Blotters Part 4

The blood burned in her cheeks beneath their Arizona tan. She did not look at him. "If you like to put it that way."

He counted it to her credit that she was ashamed of the bargain in every honest fiber of her.

"No matter what they say I've done. You'll keep faith?"

"I don't care what you've done," she flung back bitterly. "It's none of my affair. I told you that before. Men come out here for all sorts of reasons. We don't ask for a bill of particulars."

"Then I'll be right glad to go down to the Bar Double G with you, and say thanks for the chance."

He had dismounted when they first reached the pa.s.s. Now she swung to the saddle and he climbed behind her. They reached presently one of the nomadic trails of the cattle country which wander leisurely around hills and over gulches along the line of least resistance. This brought them to a main traveled road leading to the ranch.

They rode in silence until the pasture fence was pa.s.sed.

"What am I to tell them your name is?" she asked stiffly.

He took his time to answer. "Tom Morse is a good name, don't you think?

How would T. L. Morse do?"

She offered no comment, but sat in front of him, unresponsive as the sphinx. The rigor of her flat back told him that, though she might have to keep his shameful secret for the sake of her own, he could not presume upon it the least in the world.

Melissy turned the horse over to a little Mexican boy and they were just mounting the steps of the porch when a young man cantered up to the house.

Lean and muscular and sunbaked, he looked out of cool, gray eyes upon a man's world that had often put him through the acid test. The plain, cactus-torn chaps, flannel shirt open at the sinewy throat, dusty, wide-brimmed hat, revolver peeping from its leather pocket on the thigh: every detail contributed to the impression of efficiency he created. Even the one touch of swagger about him, the blue silk kerchief knotted loosely around his neck, lent color to his virile competency.

He dragged his horse to a standstill and leaped off at the same instant.

"Evenin', 'Lissie."

She was busy lacing her shoe and did not look up. He guessed that he was being snubbed and into his eyes came a gleam of fun. A day later than he had promised, Jack Flatray was of opinion that he was being punished for tardiness.

Casually he explained. "Couldn't make it any sooner. Burke had a hurry-up job that took us into the hills. Fellow by the name of Bellamy, wanted for murder at Nemo, Arkansas, had been tracked to Mesa. A message came over the wires to arrest him. When Burke sent me to his room he had lit out, taken a swift hike into the hills. Must a-had some warning, for he didn't even wait for a horse."

The dilated eyes of the girl went past the deputy to the man she had rescued. He was leaning against one of the porch posts, tense and rigid, on his face the look of the hunted brought to bay.

"And did you find him?" she asked mechanically of the deputy.

"We found him. He had been trampled to death by a cattle stampede."

Her mind groped blindly for an explanation. Her woman's instinct told her that the man panting on the porch within six feet of the officer was the criminal wanted. There must be a mistake somewhere.

"Did you identify him?"

"I guess there is no doubt about it. His papers and belongings all showed he was our man."

"Oh!" The excitement of his news had for a moment thawed her, but a dignified aloofness showed again in her manner. "If you want to see father you'll find him in the corral, Mr. Flatray."

"Well, I don't know as I'm looking for him awful hard," the blue kerchiefed youth smiled genially. "Anyway, I can wait a few minutes if I have to."

"Yes." She turned away indifferently. "I'll show you your room, Mr.

Morse."

The deputy watched them disappear into the house with astonishment printed on his face. He had ridden twenty-seven miles to see Melissy Lee and he had not quite expected this sort of a greeting.

"If that don't beat the Dutch. Looks like I'll do my callin' on the old man after all, maybe," he murmured with a grin.

CHAPTER III

AN ACCUSATION

The rescued man ate, drank, and from sheer fatigue fell asleep within five minutes of the time he was shown his bedroom.

Since he was not of the easily discouraged kind, the deputy stayed to supper on invitation of Lee. He sat opposite the daughter of his host, and that young woman treated him with the most frigid politeness. The owner of the Bar Double G was quite unaware of any change of temperature. Jack and his little girl had always been the best of friends. So now he discoursed on the price of cows, the good rains, the outrages of the rustlers, and kindred topics without suspecting that the attention of the young man was on more personal matters.

Though born in Arizona, Melissy was of the South. Due westward rolls the tide of settlement, and Beauchamp Lee had migrated from Tennessee after the war, following the line of least resistance to the sunburned territory. Later he had married a woman a good deal younger than himself.

She had borne him two children, the elder of whom was now a young man.

Melissy was the younger, and while she was still a babe in arms the mother had died of typhoid and left her baby girl to grow up as best she might in a land where women were few and far. This tiny pledge of her mother's love Champ Lee had treasured as a gift from Heaven. He had tended her and nursed her through the ailments of childhood with a devotion the most pure of his reckless life. Given to heady gusts of pa.s.sion, there had never been a moment when his voice had been other than gentle and tender to her.

Inevitably Melissy had become the product of her inheritance and her environment. If she was the heiress of Beauchamp Lee's courage and generosity, his quick indignation against wrong and injustice, so, too, she was of his pa.s.sionate lawlessness.

After supper Melissy disappeared. She wanted very much to be alone and have a good cry. Wherefore she slipped out of the back door and ran up the Lone Tree trail in the darkness. Jack thought he saw a white skirt fly a traitorous signal, and at leisure he pursued.

But Melissy was not aware of that. She reached Lone Tree rock and slipped down from boulder to boulder until she came to the pine which gave the place its name. For hours she had been forced to repress her emotions, to make necessary small talk, to arrange for breakfast and other household details. Now she was alone, and the floods of her bitterness were unloosed. She broke down and wept pa.s.sionately, for she was facing her first great disillusionment. She had lost a friend, one in whom she had put great faith.

The first gust of the storm was past when Melissy heard a step on the rocks above. She knew intuitively that Jack Flatray had come in search of her, and he was the last man on earth she wanted to meet just now.

"'Lissie!" she heard him call softly; and again, "'Lissie!"

Noiselessly she got to her feet, waiting to see what he would do. She knew he must be standing on the edge of the great rock, so directly above her that if he had kicked a pebble it would have landed beside her. Presently he began to clamber down.

She tiptoed along the ledge and slipped into the trough at the farther end that led to the top. It was a climb she had taken several times, but never in the dark. The ascent was almost perpendicular, and it had to be made by clinging to projecting rocks and vegetation. Moreover, if she were to escape undetected it had to be done in silence.

She was a daughter of the hills, as surefooted as a mountain goat. Handily she went up, making the most of the footholds that offered. In spite of the best she could do the rustling of bushes betrayed her.

Jack came to the foot of the trough and looked up.

"So you're there, are you?" he asked.

Her foot loosened a stone and sent it rolling down.

"If I were you I wouldn't try that at night, 'Liss," he advised.

She made sure of the steadiness of her voice before she answered. "You don't need to try it."

"I said if I were you, girl."

"But you are not. Don't let me detain you here, Mr. Flatray," she told him in a manner of icy precision.