The Eagle's Heart Part 29

She became suddenly very humble. "You misunderstand me--I mean, I'll help you both. How do you expect to live?"

His eyes fell now. He flushed and shifted uneasily in his chair. "I don't know." Then he unbent a little in saying, "That's what's bothering me right now."

She pursued her advantage. "If you marry you've got to quit all this trail business."

"Dead sure thing! And that scares me too. I don't know how I'd stand being tied down to a stake."

She laid a hand on his arm. "Now see here, Mose, you let me help you.

You know all about cattle and the trail, you can shoot and throw a rope, but you're a babe at lots of other things. You've got to get to work at something, settle right down, and dig up some dust. Now isn't that so?"

"I reckon that's the size of it."

It was singular how friendly she now seemed in his eyes. There was something so frank and gentle in her voice (though her eyes remained sinister) that he began almost to trust her.

"Well, now, I tell you what you can do. You take the job I got for you with the Express Company and I'll look around and corral something else for you."

He could not refuse to take her hand upon this compact. Then she said with an attempt to be careless, "Have you a picture of this girl? I'd like to see how she looks."

His face darkened again. "No," he said shortly, "I never had one of her."

She recognized his unwillingness to say more.

"Well, good-by, come and see me."

He parted from her with a sense of having been unnecessarily harsh with a woman who wished to be his good friend.

He was hungry and that made him think of his horse which he returned to at once. After watering and feeding his tired beast he turned in at a coffeehouse and bought a lunch--not being able to afford a meal.

Everywhere he went men pointed a timid or admiring thumb at him. They were un.o.btrusive about it, but it annoyed him at the moment. His mind was too entirely filled with perplexities to welcome strangers'

greetings. "I _must_ earn some money," was the thought which brought with it each time the offer of the Express Company. He determined each time to take it although it involved riding the same trail over and over again, which made him shudder to think of. But it was three times the pay of a cowboy and a single month of it would enable him to make his trip to the East.

After his luncheon he turned in at the office and sullenly accepted the job. "You're just the man we need," said the manager. "We've had two or three hold-ups here, but with you on the seat I shall feel entirely at ease. Marshal Haney has recommended you--and I know your record as a daring man. Can you go out to-morrow morning?"

"Quicker the better."

"I'd like to have you sleep here in the office. I'll see that you have a good bed."

"Anywhere."

After Mose went out the manager winked at the marshal and said:

"It's a good thing to have him retained on our side. He'd make a bad man on the hold-up side."

"Sure thing!" replied Haney.

While loitering on a street corner still busy with his problems Mose saw a tall man on a fine black horse coming down the street. The rider slouched in his saddle like a tired man but with the grace of a true horseman. On his bushy head sat a wide soft hat creased in the middle.

His suit was brown corduroy.

Mose thought, "If that bushy head was not so white I should say it was father's. It _is_ father!"

He let him pa.s.s, staring in astonishment at the transformation in the minister. "Well, well! the old man has woke up. He looks the real thing, sure."

A drum struck up suddenly and the broncho (never too tired to shy) gave a frenzied leap. The rider went with him, reins in hand, heels set well in, knees grasping the saddle.

Mose smiled with genuine pleasure. "I didn't know he could ride like that," and he turned to follow with a genuine interest.

He came up to Mr. Excell just as the marshal stepped out of the crowd and accosted him. For the first time in his life Mose was moved to joke his father.

"Marshal, that man is a dangerous character. I know him; put him out."

The father turned and a smile lit his darkly tanned face. "Harry----"

Mose made a swift sign, "Old man, how are ye?" The minister's manner pleased his son. He grasped his father's hand with a heartiness that checked speech for the moment, then he said, "I was looking for you.

Where you from?"

"I've got a summer camp between here and the Springs. I saw the notice of you in yesterday's paper. I've been watching the newspapers for a long time, hoping to get some word of you. I seized the first chance and came on."

Mose turned. "Marshal, I'll vouch for this man; he's an old neighbor of mine."

Mr. Excell slipped to the ground and Mose took the rein on his arm.

"Come, let's put the horse with mine." They walked away, elbow to elbow.

A wonderful change had swept over Mr. Excell. He was brown, alert, and vigorous--but more than all, his eyes were keen and cheerful and his smile ready and manly.

"You're looking well," said the son.

"I _am well_. Since I struck the high alt.i.tudes I'm a new man. I don't wonder you love this life."

"Are you preaching?"

"Yes, I speak once a week in the Springs. I ride down the trail from my cabin and back again the same day. The fact is I stayed in Rock River till I was nearly broken. I lost my health, and became morbid, trying to preach to the needs of the old men and women of my congregation. Now I am free. I am back to the wild country. Of course, so long as my wife lived I couldn't break away, but now I have no one but myself and my needs are small. I am happier than I have been for years."

As they walked and talked together the two men approached an understanding. Mr. Excell felt sure of his son's interest, for the first time in many years, and avoided all terms of affection. In his return to the more primitive, bolder life he unconsciously left behind him all the "soft phrases" which had disgusted his son. He struck the right note almost without knowing it, and the son, precisely as he perceived in his father a return to rugged manliness, opened his hand to him.

Together they took care of the horse, together they walked the streets.

They sat at supper together and the father's joy was very great when at night they camped together and Mose so far unbent as to tell of his adventures. He did not confide his feeling for Mary--his love was far too deep for that. A strange woman had reached it by craft, a father's affection failed of it.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE EAGLE GUARDS THE SHEEP

Mose did not enter upon his duties as guard with joy. It seemed like small business and not exactly creditable employment for a trailer and cow puncher. It was in his judgment a foolish expenditure of money; but as there was nothing better to do and his need of funds was imperative, he accepted it.

The papers made a great deal of it, complimenting the company upon its shrewdness, and freely predicted that no more hold-ups would take place along that route. Mose rode out of town on the seat with the driver, a Winchester between his knees and a belt of cartridges for both rifle and revolvers showing beneath his coat. He left the stable each morning at four A. M. and rode to the halfway house, where he slept over night, returning the following day. From the halfway house to the Springs there were settlers and less danger.

He was conscious of being an object of curious inquiry. Meeting stage coaches was equivalent to being fired at by fifty pistols. Low words echoed from lip to lip: "Black Mose," "bad man," "graveyard of his own,"