The Cow Puncher Part 2

'Sh scush me." He made his uncertain way to the water bench, took a great drink, and set about washing his face and hands, while the breakfast proceeded in silence. As his preparations neared completion Irene set a place at the table.

"Won't you sit down here, Mr. Elden?" she said. There had been no introductions. Dave ate on in silence.

"Thank you," said the old man, and there was something in his voice which may have been emotion, or may have been the huskiness of the heavy drinker's throat. The girl gave it the former explanation.

Perhaps it was his unintended tribute to that touch of womanly attentiveness to which his old heart still beat response. As he took the proffered chair she saw in this old man shreds of dignity which the less refined eye of his son had not distinguished. To Dave, his father was an affliction to be borne; an unfair load on a boy who had done nothing to deserve this punishment. The miseries a.s.sociated with his parentage had gone far to make him sour and moody. Irene at first had thought him rude and gloomy; flashes of humor had modified that opinion, but she had not yet learned that his disposition was naturally a buoyant one, weighed down by an environment which had made it soggy and unresponsive. In years to come she was to know what unguessed depths of character were to be revealed when that stoic nature was cross-sectioned by the blade of a keen and defiant pa.s.sion. This morning she foresaw nothing of those future revelations, but in the old man her instinct detected qualities which perhaps were awaiting only some touch of sympathetic understanding to flash forth even yet like that burst of sunset radiance which sometimes marks the close of a leaden day.

Mr. Elden promptly engaged the doctor in conversation, and in a few moments had gleaned the main facts in connection with the accident and the father and daughter which it had brought so involuntarily under his roof. He was quite sober now, and his speech, although slovenly, was not indelicate. He was still able to pay to woman that respect which curbs the coa.r.s.eness of a tongue for years subjected to little discipline.

After breakfast Irene attended to the wants of her father, and by this time the visiting doctor was manifesting impatience to be away. Other fees were calling him, and he a.s.sured Doctor Hardy, what the latter quite well knew, that nothing more could be done for him at present.

He would come again at any time if summoned by the young man, or if his professional duties should bring him into the neighborhood of the Elden ranch. But Dave declared with prompt finality that the horses must rest until after noon, and the doctor, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, spent the morning rambling in the foothills. Meanwhile the girl busied herself with work about the house, in which she was effecting a rapid transformation.

After the mid-day dinner Dave harnessed the team for the journey to town, but before leaving inquired of Irene if there were any special purchases, either personal or for the use of the house, which she would recommend. With some diffidence she mentioned one that was uppermost in her thoughts: soap, both laundry and toilet. Dr. Hardy had no hesitation in calling for a box of his favorite cigars and some new magazines, and took occasion to press into the boy's hand a bill out of all proportion to the value of the supplies requested. There was an argument in the yard, which the girl did not fully hear, between father and son, but she gathered that the old man insisted on going to town, and, failing that, that Dave should replenish his stock of whiskey, to neither of which would the young man consent. It was evident that Dave was the responsible person in the affairs of the Elden ranch.

The day was introductory to others that were to follow. Dave returned the next afternoon, riding his own horse, and heavily laden with cigars, magazines, soap, and with a soft little package which proved to be a sponge, which he had bought on his own initiative, and which he tendered to Irene. She took it with slowly rising color, and with a strange misgiving whether this was a bona fide contribution to the toilet equipment of the house, or a quiet satire designed to offset the effect of the appeal for soap.

The following day it was decided that the automobile, which since the accident had lain upturned by the roadway, should be brought to the ranch buildings. Dave harnessed his team, and, instead of riding one of the horses, walked behind, driving by the reins, and accompanied by the girl, who had proclaimed her ability to steer the car. When they reached the stream she hesitated, remembering her mishap, but the boy slipped his unoccupied hand firmly under her arm, and they walked the log in safety. It seemed to Irene that he continued his a.s.sistance when it was no longer needed, but she accepted the courtesy without remark.

With the aid of the team and Dave's lariat the car was soon righted, and was found to be none the worse for its deflection from the beaten track. Irene presided at the steering wheel, watching the road with great intentness, and turning the wheel too far on each occasion, which gave to her course a somewhat wavy or undulating order, such as is found in bread knives, or perhaps a better figure would be to compare it to that rolling motion affected by fancy skaters. However, the mean of her direction corresponded with the mean of the trail, and all went merrily until the stream was approached. Here was a rather steep descent, and the car showed a sudden purpose to engage the horses in a contest of speed. The animals were suspicious enough at best of their strange wagon, and had no thought of allowing it to a.s.sume the initiative. Now, Irene knew perfectly well where the brake was, and how to use it. In fact, there were two brakes, operated by different members, and perhaps it was this duplication, intended to insure safety, that was responsible for her undoing. Her first impulse was to use the emergency, but to do so she must remove her hand from the steering wheel, where it was very fully occupied. She did start to put this impulse into effect, but an unusually violent deflection caused her to reconsider that intention. She determined to use the foot brake, a feat which was accomplished, under normal conditions, by pressing one foot firmly against a contraption somewhere beneath the steering post. She shot a quick glance downward, and to her alarm discovered not one, but three contraptions, all apparently designed to receive the pressure of a foot--if one could reach them--and as similar as the steps of a stair. This involved a further hesitation, and in automobiling he who hesitates invites a series of rapid experiences.

By this time all Irene's attention was required to bring the car to some unanimity of direction. It was quite evident that it was running away. It was quite evident that the horses were running away. The situation a.s.sumed the qualities of a race, and the only matter of grave doubt related to its termination. Dave, still holding fast to the reins, ran beside the car with prodigious strides which enabled him to bring but little restraint upon the team, and Irene held to the steering wheel with a grip of desperation.

Then they struck the water. It was not more than two feet deep, but the extra resistance it caused, and the extra alarm it excited in the horses, resulted in the breaking of the lariat. Dave still clung fast to his team, and, now that the terrifying rival no longer pursued them, they were soon brought to a standstill. Having pacified them he tied them to a post and returned to the stream. The car sat in the middle; the girl had put her feet on the seat beside her, and the swift water flowed by a few inches below. She was laughing merrily when Dave, very wet in parts, appeared on the bank.

"Well, I'm not wet, except for a little splashing," she said, "and you are. Does anything occur to you?" Without reply he walked stolidly into the cold water, took her in his arms, and carried her ash.o.r.e. The lariat was soon repaired and the car hauled to the ranch buildings without further mishap.

Later in the day he said to her, "Can you ride?"

"Some," she answered. "I have ridden city horses, but don't know about these ranch animals. You know, a city horse has to do as he is told, but a ranch horse seems to do pretty much as he likes. But I would like to try--if I had a saddle."

"I have an extra saddle," he said. "But it's a man's. . . . They all ride that way here."

She made no answer, and the subject was dropped for the time. But the next morning she saw Dave ride away, leading a horse by his side. He did not return until evening, but when he came the idle horse carried a saddle.

"It's a strad-legger," he said when he drew up beside Irene, "but it's a girl's. I couldn't find anythin' else in the whole diggin's."

"I'm sure it will do--splendidly--if I can just stick on," she replied.

But another problem was already in her mind. It apparently had not occurred to Dave that women require special clothing for riding, especially if it's a "strad-legger." She opened her lips to mention this, then closed them again. He had been to enough trouble on her account. He had already spent a whole day scouring the country for a saddle. . . . She would manage some way.

Late that night she was busy with scissors and needle.

CHAPTER THREE

Dr. Hardy recovered from his injuries as rapidly as could be expected, and, while he chafed somewhat over spending his holidays under such circ.u.mstances, the time pa.s.sed not unhappily. Had he sought the world over for a haven from the intrusion of business or professional cares he could have found it nowhere in greater perfection than in the foothill country centering about the Elden ranch. Here was an Arcadia where one might well return to the simple life; a little bay of still water sheltered from the onrushing tide of affairs by the warm brown prairies and the white-bosomed mountains towering through their draperies of blue-purple mist. It was life as far removed from his accustomed circles as if he had been suddenly spirited to a different planet. It was life without the contact of life, without the crowd and jostle and haste and gaiety and despair that are called life; but the doctor wondered if, after all, it did not come nearer to filling the measure of experience--which is life.

A considerable acquaintanceship had sprung up between him and the senior Elden. The rancher had come from the East forty years before, but in turning over their memories the two men found many links of a.s.sociation; third persons known to them both; places, even streets and houses common to their feet in early manhood; events of local history which each could recall, although from different angles. And Elden's life in the West had been a treasury of experience, in which he now dipped for the first time in years, regaling his guest with tales of the open range long before barbed wire had stuck its poisoned fang into the heart of the ranchman; tales of horse-stealing and cattle-rustling, with glimpses of sudden justice unrecorded in the official doc.u.ments of the territory; of whiskey-running and excess and all those large adventures that drink the red blood of the wilderness. In his grizzled head and stooping frame he carried more experiences than would fill a dozen well-rounded city lives, and he had the story-teller's art which scorns to spoil dramatic effect by a too strict adherence to fact. But over one phase of his life he kept the curtain resolutely down. No ray of conversation would he admit into the more personal affairs of his heart, or of the woman who had been his wife, and even when the talk turned on the boy he quickly withdrew it to another topic, as though the subject were dangerous or distasteful. But once, after a long silence following such a diversion, had he betrayed himself into a whispered remark, an outburst of feeling rather than a communication.

"I've been alone so much," he said. "It seems I have never been anything but alone. And--sooner or later--it gets you--it gets you."

"You have the boy," ventured the doctor.

"No," he answered, almost fiercely. "That would be different, I could stand it then. But I haven't got him, and I can't get him. He despises me because--because I take too much at times." He paused as though wondering whether to proceed with this unwonted confidence, but the ache in his heart insisted on its right to human sympathy. "No, it ain't that," he continued. "He despises me because he thinks I wasn't fair to his mother. He can't understand. He doesn't know yet that there's things--pulls and tugs of life, that lead a man as helpless as a steer chokin' in his la.s.so. I was like that. I wanted to be good to her, to be close to her. Then I took to booze, as natural as a steer under the brandin' iron roars to drown his hurt. But the boy don't understand." The old man got up and stood at the western window, watching the gold of approaching sunset gather on the mountains. . . .

"He despises me." Then, after a long silence, "No matter. I despise myself."

The doctor approached and placed a hand on his shoulder. But Elden was himself again. The curtains of his life, which he had drawn apart for a moment, he whipped together again rudely, almost viciously, and covered his confusion by plunging into a tale of how he had led a breed suspected of cattle rustling on a little canter of ten miles with a rope about his neck and the other end tied to the saddle. "He ran well," said the old man, chuckling still at the reminiscence. "And it was lucky he did. It was a strong rope."

The morning after Dave had brought in the borrowed saddle Irene appeared in a sort of bloomer suit, somewhat wonderfully contrived from the spare skirt to which allusion has been made, and announced a willingness to risk life and limb on any horse that Dave might select for that purpose. He provided her with a dependable mount, and their first journey, taken somewhat gingerly along the princ.i.p.al trail, was accomplished without incident. It was the fore-runner of many others, plunging deeper and deeper into the fastnesses of the foothills, and even into the pa.s.ses of the very mountains themselves. These long rides through the almost untracked wilderness, frequently along paths on which the element of danger was by no means a mere fancy, and into regions where the girl's sense of distance and direction were totally confused, afforded her many side-lights on the remarkable nature of her escort. His patience was infinite, and, although there were no silk trappings to his courtesy, it was a very genuine and manly deference he paid her. She was quite sure that he would at any moment give his life if needed to defend her from injury--and accept the transaction as a matter of course. His physical endurance was inexhaustible, and his knowledge of prairie and foothill seemed to her almost uncanny. When she had been utterly lost for hours he would suddenly swing their horses' heads about and guide them home with the accuracy of the wild goose on its nights to the nesting grounds. He read every sign of footprint, leaf, water, and sky with unfailing insight. He had no knowledge of books, and she had at first thought him ignorant, but as the days went by she had found in him a mine of wisdom which shamed her ready-made education.

[Ill.u.s.tration: These long rides afforded her many side-lights on the remarkable nature of her escort.]

After such a ride they one day dismounted in a gra.s.sy opening among the trees that bordered a mountain canyon. The waters of ages had chiselled a sharp pa.s.sage through the rock, and the green stream now swirled in its rapid course a hundred feet below. Fragments of rock, loosened by the sun and wind and frost of centuries, had fallen from time to time, leaving sheltered nooks and shelves in the walls of the canyon. In one of these crevices they found a flat stone that gave comfortable seating, and here they rested while the horses browsed their afternoon meal on the gra.s.s above. Little irregular bits of stone had broken off the parent rock, and for awhile they amused themselves with tossing these into the water. But both were conscious of a gradually increasing tension in the atmosphere. For days the boy had been moody. It was evident he was harbouring something that was calling through his nature for expression, and Irene knew that this afternoon he would talk of more than trees and rocks and footprints of the wild things of the forest.

"Your father is gettin' along well," he said at length.

"Yes," she answered. "He has had a good holiday, even with his broken leg. He is looking ever so much better."

"You will be goin' away before long," he continued.

"Yes," she answered, soberly, and waited.

"Things about here ain't goin' to be the same after you're gone," he went on. He was avoiding her eyes and industriously throwing bits of crumbled rock into the canyon. He wore no coat, and the neck of his shirt was open, for the day was warm. Had he caught her side-long glances even his slow, self-deprecating mind must have read their admiration. But he kept his eyes fixed on the green water.

"You see," he said, "before you came it was different. I didn't know what I was missin', an' so it didn't matter. Not but what I was dog-sick of it at times, but still I thought I was livin',--thought this was life, and, of course, now I know it ain't. At least, it won't be after you're gone."

"That's strange," she said, not in direct answer to his remark, but as a soliloquy on it as she turned it over in her mind. "This life, now, seems empty to you. All my old life seems empty to me. This seems to me the real life, out here in the foothills, with the trees, and the mountains, and--and our horses, you know."

She might have ended the sentence in a way that would have come much closer to him, and been much truer, but conventionality had been bred into her for generations and she did not find it possible yet freely to speak the truth. Indeed, as she thought of her position here it seemed to her she had become shamelessly unconventional. She thought of her mother, careful, correct,--"Always be correct, my dear,"--and wondered what she would say could she see her only child on these wild, unchaperoned rides and in these strange confidences where she was a girl and Dave was a boy and all the artificialities with which society aims to protect itself had been stripped away. There was a dash of adventure which added to the relish of the situation.

"It's such a wonderful life," she continued. "One gets so strong and happy in it."

"You'd soon get sick of it," he said. "We don't see nothin'. We don't learn nothin'. Reenie, I'm eighteen, an' I bet you could read an'

write better'n me when you was six."

"Did you never go to school?" she asked, in genuine surprise. She knew his speech was ungrammatical, but thought that due to careless training rather than to no training at all.

"Where'd I go to school?" he demanded bitterly. "There ain't a school within forty miles. Guess I wouldn't have went if I could," he added as an afterthought, wishing to be quite honest in the matter. "School didn't seem to cut no figure--until jus' lately."

"But you have learned--some?" she continued.

"Some. When I was a little kid my father used to work with me at times. He learned me to read a little, an' to write my name, an' a little more. But things didn't go right between him an' mother, an' he got to drinkin' more an' more, an' just makin' h.e.l.l of it. We used to have a mighty fine herd of steers here, but it's all shot to pieces.

We don't put up hardly no hay, an' in a bad winter they die like rabbits. When we sell a bunch the old man'll stay in town for a month or more, blowin' the coin and leavin' the debts go. But I've been fixin' him this year or two. I sneak a couple of steers away now an'

then, an' with the money I keep our grocery bills paid up, an' have a little to rattle in my jeans. My credit's good at any store in town,"

and Irene thrilled to the note of pride in his voice as he said this.

The boy had real quality in him. "But I'm sick of it all," he continued. "Sick of it, an' I wanna get out."

"You think you are not educated," she answered, trying to meet his outburst as tactfully as possible. "Perhaps you are not, the way we think of it in the city. But I guess there's a good many things you can't learn out of books, and I guess you could show the city boys a good many things they don't know, and never will know."

For the first time he looked her straight in the face. His dark eyes met her grey ones, and demanded truth. "Irene," he said, "do you mean that?"