Bred of the Desert Part 9

"Why?" he asked, a little surprised.

She regarded him curiously. He saw a look of mild annoyance in her eyes, one that seemed to tell of her inability to understand so needless a question.

"I just didn't," she rejoined, after a moment. "I discovered that you Easterners value things which are diametrically opposite to the things we value, and that you value not at all those things which we value most of all."

He had to laugh. "What are they?" he wanted to know.

For an instant she showed shyness. "Oh, I can't say," she declared, finally. "Some day I may tell you."

Stephen realized that it must be serious. He was hesitating whether to press her further, when he saw her tighten her reins, put spurs to her horse, and go flashing off in the direction of the mountain trail. As she dashed off he heard her call out:

"Pat!" she cried. "Pat! It's Pat!" Then she glanced to the rear. "Adele!

Sam! It's Pat! Come, quick!"

Stephen spurred on with the others. He galloped after this hard-riding girl--so intensely alive--a girl past his understanding. Over dunes and across flats he charged, followed closely by the others, urging his horse to his utmost. But, try as he might, he could not overtake her or even lessen the distance between them, so furious was her race for her lost horse. Finally he burst out upon the trail and drew rein beside her, standing with the others in the path of an oncoming wood-wagon, anxiously awaiting its slow approach.

It was a curious outfit. One of the team, an aged and decrepit horse, was laboring along with head drooping and hoofs scuffling the trail, while beside it, with head erect and nostrils aquiver and hoofs lifting eagerly, stepped the glorious Pat! Both horses were draped in a disreputable harness, crudely patched with makeshift string and wire, and both were covered with a fine coating of dust. Atop all this, high and mighty upon an enormous load of wood, sat a Mexican, complacently smoking a cigarette and contentedly swinging his heels, evidently elated with this prospect of parading his horse before a group of Americans.

But as he drew close a look of uneasiness crept over him, and he pulled up his team and shrugged his shoulders, as a preliminary, no doubt, to disappearance behind the Mexican shield of "No sabe!"

Helen swung close to him. There was a choice between a contest and diplomatic concession. She decided to offer to purchase the horse at once, believing this to be the easiest way out of the trouble.

"_Senor_," she began in Spanish, "_deseo comprar_ _aquel caballo negro. Puedo pagar cualquire cantidad razonable por el. Se perdio y nosotros lo cuidamos, y he aprendido a quererlo mucho. Si usted quiere venderlo me haria un gran favor. Siento mucho que me lo hayan quitado._"

The Mexican looked relieved. He slowly removed his hat with true Castilian courtesy.

"_Senorita_," he replied, "_lo venderia con gusto pero pienso que me paga lo que quiero por el_."

Which delighted Helen. "_Pagare lo que sea._"

The Mexican hesitated a moment. "_Pagara cuarenta pesos?_" he asked, finally. "_Yo tambien quiero al caballo mucho_," he added.

"_Pero por cuarenta pesos pienso--pienso que lo olvido._" And he grinned.

Helen turned to the others. For Stephen's benefit she explained what had been said, and the men promptly offered to make up the required forty dollars. Helen turned to the Mexican, accepted his price, and requested him to release Pat from the harness. Whereat the Mexican smiled broadly; shrugged his shoulders suddenly; forgot his role of "No sabe."

"How," he burst out--"how I'm gettin' thees wagon to town? I'm pullin'

eet myself?"

The others laughed. Then Helen, deciding upon another arrangement, instructed him to drive forward. She could see her father in town, she explained to the others, and there also, after the exchange of money, the Mexican could purchase another horse. Which closed the matter. The Mexican started the team forward, while the others fell in alongside, ranging themselves on either side. Thus they journeyed into town--a strange cavalcade--Pat prancing, the mare drooping, the Mexican visibly pleased, the others gratified by their unexpected success. In town they turned into a side street, and there Helen left them, going off in the direction of her father's office. When she returned, the Judge was with her. He read the Mexican a brief but stern lecture on the law pertaining to the recovery of lost property, and closed the deal. Whereupon the wood-hauler unharnessed Pat, bestowed him smilingly upon Helen, and took himself off, evidently in quest of another horse, for he headed straight as a plumb-line for the city pound.

Pat was home again. He knew it from many things--the white fence, the clean stable, the Mexican hostler with broom in hand. And though he was at home where he wanted to be, yet he found himself filled with vague uneasiness. After a time he sought to relieve it. He made his way into the stable, but he found no relief there. He returned to the corral, and began slowly to circle inside the fence, but neither did this relieve him. Finally he took up his old stand in the sunlit corner, where he fell to listening with ears and eyes attentive to least sounds. But even this did not relieve him.

Nor would anything ever relieve him. Never would he find absolute solace from his inner disquiet. For what he sought and could not find, what he listened for and could not hear, was another of those sounds which had relieved the tedium of his brief stay in the mountains, the friendly nicker of the aged mare, gone to toil out her life in the racking treadmill between town and mountain.

CHAPTER XI

LOVE REJECTED

Pat had just been clipped. And never was there a horse nearer perfection! Shorn of all hair, his splendid physique, now in fullest maturity, stood out clean-cut and fascinating.

In weight he might have tipped the scales at ten hundred pounds. In color his skin, which now showed clearly, was a shade darker than that of the elephant, but it showed the richness of velvet. His body through the trunk was round and symmetrical; his haunches were wide without projection of the hip-bones; and his limbs, the stifle and lower thigh, were long and strong and fully developed. Added to these, he was high in the withers, the line of back and neck curving perfectly; his shoulders were deep and oblique; and his long, thick fore arm, knotty with bulging sinews, told of powerful muscles. And finally, his knees across the pan were wide, the cannon-bone below thin and short, the pasterns long and sloping, and the hoofs round and dark and neatly set on. While over all--over the small, bony head, beautiful neck and shoulders--over the entire body, clear down to the hoofs--ran a network of veins like those on the back of a leaf, only more irregular--veins which stood out as though the skin were but thin parchment through which the blood might burst. A rare horse, rare in any country, doubly rare in this land of the small Spanish product, was the rating given to Pat by men trained to judge value at sight. And so widespread did this appraisal become, along trail, beside camp-fire, in bunk-house, that it was known throughout the length and breadth of the Territory, and beyond the Territory, that Judge Richards was the owner of a horse the like of which never had been seen south of the Pecos.

For several days after the clipping, Helen did not choose to ride. So Pat was permitted the doubtful pleasure of loafing about in the inclosure. Then one morning, when the winter day was unusually warm, he awoke to a great clatter of hoofs outside the corral. Directly he saw a party of young people, men and girls under the chaperonage of a comely matron, dismounting in high spirits. As the party swung down he saw his mistress appear from the house, attired in her riding-habit, and, understanding the object of all this, since these parties had become frequent in the past two months, he pressed close to the fence, anxious to be off. The Mexican bridled and saddled him; his mistress and the others mounted; soon all clattered out upon the river-trail.

The day was beautiful, and Helen, riding, as usual, beside Stephen, both in the rear, enjoyed the morning keenly. Overhead, out of a shimmering azure sky, the sun beamed mildly down, penetrating the chill of the morning, yet leaving enough tang to bring a bloom to their cheeks. On their left the river, high with melted snows from the north, moved in slow eddies near the sh.o.r.e, quicker eddies away from the sh.o.r.e, steady and swift flow in the middle--a changing, fascinating panorama. There fell a long silence before she turned to the young man beside her.

"Well, Mr. Native," she began, smiling, "I hope you don't mean to bury yourself this morning! For more than a month you have had very little to say to me. I don't like it, because I can't understand it, and so I won't have it!" Then she became serious. "Whatever is the matter, Stephen?"

Pat, walking slowly beside the unfriendly horse, was attentive. He heard his mistress's voice, and somehow knew she was troubled. Then directly he had positive proof of this, for she suddenly began to stroke his neck and shoulders. Always she did this when thoughtful, but though he strained his ears for further sounds of her voice, he did not hear her.

What he did hear presently was the voice of the young man, and having learned long before to discriminate between different shades of the human voice, he knew from its low and tense quality that the topic was a vital one. He listened sharply, heedful of any least change of intonation that might be interpreted as a climax. But instead he was relieved presently to hear the voice of his mistress again, breaking in upon the low, constrained tones of the young man.

Pat held his ears steadily back. He noted that her voice was well under control, and she appeared to be answering the young man. Also, it was quite evident that she was not accepting his argument, whatever it was.

Yet her voice took on many delicate changes. Sometimes he heard a note of pleading; again, mild exasperation; and once a falling inflection which hinted at sadness. So it continued, his mistress talking as he had never heard her talk before, until the group ahead drew rein and wheeled, indicating their intention of returning. Then once more the voice of his mistress changed suddenly and became light, even gay, leaving Pat, as he himself was turned around, a very much mystified horse.

Yet this gaiety did not last. When they were well on their way back toward the ranch, with the sun higher and brighter in the heavens, and the trail correspondingly whiter and more dazzling to the eye, he found himself listening to grave tones again--the voice of the young man. He talked steadily now, his flow of words always tense, though occasionally interrupted by the other with a quiet rejoinder. Then suddenly he ceased altogether, and Pat, acutely conscious of the silence which descended upon them, was relieved when it was broken by sounds of laughter ahead.

Still the pair above him did not speak. Each appeared to be adrift on a sea of thought the like of which he had never known. And it continued, this ominous silence, and became heavier, until he saw the ranch loom up ahead. Then he felt his mistress urge him into a canter that she might join the others for the parting. But when the party broke up, as it did with much good feeling, and he found himself turned loose to one side, with his mistress and the young man walking into the shade of a cottonwood, he found himself forced, since he now was out of range of their voices, to forego any further listening, keenly against his desires. So he gave it all up as a bad job.

"Stephen," began Helen, seating herself upon a hummock of earth, "I am sorry--sorry beyond words--that it has turned out this way! I must admit that I like you--like you very much! But--but I am afraid it is not the sort of liking you ask."

He was seated beside her, reclining upon one elbow, absently thrusting the tip of his riding-whip into a tuft of gra.s.s. And now again, as before that morning, he told her of his very great love for her, his deep voice vibrant with emotion, grimly acknowledging himself as unworthy of her, yet asking with rare simplicity that she take him anyway, take him in spite of his unworthiness, declaring it as his belief she would find him in time worthy--that he would try to make himself worthy--_would_ make himself worthy--would overcome those faults which evidently--though she had not as yet told him what they were--made him impossible in her eyes. Then suddenly he asked her to tell him precisely what these faults were. He knew that he had many and could only blame himself for them. But which of them did she find chiefly objectionable? He was pitiable in his pleading.

But Helen shook her head. "I--I can't tell you, Stephen," she declared, her voice breaking. "It--it is too much to ask of--of any girl."

He rose, turning toward the distant mountains, bright and smiling in their noonday splendor. As his eyes dwelt upon them in brooding silence, Helen gained her feet. And, aware of her great part in this wretchedness, she took his hand very gently in her own. Subtly conscious of the touch, realizing the tumult in his soul, she found herself suddenly alive to a feeling within her deeper than mere pity and sympathy. It was the anguish preceding tears. Quickly withdrawing her hand, she turned and fled to the house. Inside, she slowly approached a window. He was leading Pat into the corral; and, watching him unsaddle and unbridle her horse, her treasure, she awoke to something else within her, a strange swelling of her heart, different from anything she had ever known. It was like ownership; it was a something as of maternal pride, a something new to her which she could not fathom. She turned away. When she looked out again, her eyes dry and burning, he was riding slowly along the trail toward town.

It was the beginning of the end. Winter pa.s.sed, with horses abandoned for the delights, swift-following, of dinner and dance and house party.

These affairs made deep inroads upon Helen's time, and so Pat was left pretty much to his own reflections.

Yet he managed to fill the days to his satisfaction. Standing in the stable, he loved to watch the snow-capped mountains, and the tiny white clouds scudding around them, and the mellow radiance of golden sunlight streaming over them. Also, gazing out of the little square window, he spent long periods in viewing the hard brown of the nearer mesaland--the dips and dunes and thread-like arroyos, with an occasional horseman crawling between. Or else, when he found himself yearning for his mistress, he would turn eyes upon the house, and with lazy speculation regard its sun-flecked windows, tightly shut doors, and smoking chimneys, in the hope that she might step forth. Then came more mild weather when he would spend long hours outside the stable, in his corner in the corral, there to renew his silent vigil over nature and the house from this vantage. Thus he filled his days, and found them not so long as formerly in his babyhood, when each hour was fraught with so many little things that demanded his closest interest and attention.

Nights found him early at rest. But not all nights. Nights there were when the house would be lighted from cellar to garret, when spectral forms would move in and out of doors, and when shadows would flicker across drawn shades. Such nights were always his nights, for he would hear sounds of merriment, and voices lifted in song, and above the voices, tinkling toward him on the crisp air, the music of a piano. Such nights were his nights, for he knew that his mistress was happy, and he would force open the stable door, step out under the cold stars, and take up his stand in his corner, there to rest his head upon the topmost board and turn steady eyes upon the scene of merriment until the last guest had departed.

Always on these nights, with wintry chills coursing down his legs or rollicking along his spine, he found himself wanting to be a part of this gaiety, wanting to enter the house, where he instinctively knew it was warm and comfortable, where he might nuzzle the whole gathering for sugar and apples. But this he could not do. He could only turn longing eyes upon the cottage and stand there until, all too soon, sounds of doors opening and closing, together with voices in cheery farewell, told him that the party was at an end. Then he would see mysterious forms flitting across to the trail, and lights in the house whisking out one by one, until the cottage gradually became engulfed in darkness. Then, but not till then, would he turn away from his corner, walk back slowly into the stable, and, because of the open door, which he could open but never close, suffer intensely from the cold throughout the long night.

One such occasion, when the round moon hung poised in the blue-black dome of heaven, and he was standing as usual in his corner, with eyes upon the brilliantly lighted house, he became suddenly aware of two people descending the rear porch and making slowly toward him. At first he did not recognize his own mistress and the young man who had been her almost constant companion since that memorable fright on the mesa eight months before. But as they drew closer, and he came to know the slender form in white, he sounded a soft whinny of greeting and pressed eagerly close to the fence. The pair came near, very near; but neither of them paid the least attention to him--a fact which troubled him deeply. And directly his mistress spoke, but, as she was addressing herself to the young man, this troubled him even more. But he could listen, and listen he did.

"Stephen," she was saying, "you _must_ accept my answer as final.

For you must know, Stephen," she went on, quietly, "that I have not changed toward you. My answer to-night, and my answer to-morrow night, and my answer for ever, in so far as I can see, will be what it was last autumn. I am more than sorry that this is so. But it is so, nevertheless." She was firm, though Pat, knowing her well, knew that it required all the force of her trembling soul to give firmness to her words.

Stephen felt something of this as he stood beside her in grim meekness.

With his hungry eyes upon her, he felt the despair of one sunk to utter depths, of a man mentally and physically broken. For he loved this girl.

And it was this love, G.o.d-given, that made him persist. In the spell of this love he realized that he was but a weak agent, uttering demands given him to utter, and unable, through a force as mighty as Nature herself, to do otherwise. Yet though he was utterly torn apart, he was able, despite this mighty demand within him, to understand her viewpoint. He had understood it from the first. But the craving within would not let him accept it.