The Last Straw Part 14

These efforts netted her little and after a time she gave up, tentatively, and adopted other means of winning his confidence.

Once she helped him gather a bunch of horses that had not been corraled for seasons. The way led down a steep point and Jane was ahead, holding up the bunch while Beck crowded them from behind. She took the descent with a degree of hesitation for the going--so steep that she was forced to clamp a hand behind her cantle to retain a seat--chilled her with fear. On the level she fanned the sorrel and kept ahead of the horses until she could lead them safely into a corral.

The gate closed, Jane looked at Beck with sparkling eyes, expecting a word of reward, but he only said:

"You've got to keep goin' with horses. The country's all got to look level to you. You slowed up bustin' off that point."

The rebuke hurt her ... and stimulated her ambition.

He taught her to use a rifle and she brought down her first deer, a yearling buck, at long range.

"I told you to hold just behind his shoulder; see where you hit," he said, indicating the wound, a hand's breadth too far back.

She shot with his revolver and he told her that she would never learn to use the weapon. She bade him teach her the rudiments of roping and he decried the woman movements of arms and body.

In all this he was quick to criticise, n.i.g.g.ardly of praise; ready to teach, reluctant to grant progress.

She was resentful but her resentment was no match for her determination. Now and then his rebukes whipped flushes to her cheeks and more than once she left him with tears standing in her eyes, only to tell herself aloud that she _would_ make him acknowledge her accomplishments....

Once, riding on alone after Jane had turned back toward the ranch Beck encountered Sam McKee. The man had dismounted and was recinching when Tom pa.s.sed him. He looked up with that baleful expression, as though he was impelled to do the HC rider great harm and held back only by his cowardice. When Tom had pa.s.sed McKee mounted and before he started on his way he turned to shout over his shoulder:

"Chaperone!"

In it he put all that contempt which small, timid boys put into their shouted taunts.

Beck was not angered but that gave him something to think about.

Another time as, on his roan, he led the sorrel toward the gate to the houseyard he saw Hepburn smiling at him with scornful humour and when the foreman saw that Beck had seen he said:

"A regular chaperone, ain't you?"

Tom did not reply though it roiled him. He thought about the remark at length but the thing which interested him was that Hepburn had used the same word that McKee had used.... Was that, he asked himself, mere chance?

They had ridden far to the eastward one afternoon and returning long after dark Jane made a meal herself and they ate together at her table.

Beck was noticeably restrained and when finished hastened to leave.

"Can't you sit and talk with me a while?" she asked.

"I could, ma'am, but is it necessary?"

"Not necessary to the business, perhaps, but it might mean a pleasant evening for me."

He gave her steady gaze for steady gaze and then said:

"Anybody would think you were courtin' me, ma'am."

She laughed easily, yet her gaze wavered. She asked:

"And what if I should be?"

This disconcerted him but he replied:

"It's likely I'd quit."

"I'm ... wholly distasteful to you, then?"

"If I was to say yes, it'd hurt your feelings, needless. So I won't. I don't mind tellin' you, though, that the country is calling me your chaperone."

"And does what people say worry you?"

"Not when they talk about something that I'm responsible for. I didn't hire out as a ... a companion, ma'am."

She stepped closer, hands behind her and said:

"The first time you talked to me at any length you had a great deal to say about respect. No one had ever talked to me as you did. I took it because it was true ... and I respected you.

"Since that time I have been trying to be worthy of the respect of you men; of yours particularly because you are the only one with whom I have talked so frankly about myself. But at every turn you repulse me, drive me back. Nothing that I do seems to be pleasing to you. You pick on me, Tom Beck! Why do you do it?"

He eyed her calculatingly.

"What would you think if I told you that it was because I don't like you?"

"I would think it was not the truth."

He flushed and this time his eyes fell from hers.

"I would think just that, but I might be wrong." She breathed rapidly, one hand on a gold locket that was at her throat. "I might think that you fear that becoming my friend would be taking a chance ... but I might not want to think that.

"You were the first man who ever dared tell me just how little I have amounted to. You are the first individual that ever made me feel ashamed of myself. You did those things; you opened my eyes, you showed me what real achievement is.

"Now I'm fighting for a place. I have won one thing: my self respect.

Now I'm going to win another: the respect of other people and if I can win their respect I can win their friendship.

"I may be overconfident. Time will prove that. But there is one thing I want, Tom Beck, and that is your friendship. Before I get through, and if I succeed, you are going to be glad to be my ... friend!"

There was challenge in her tone, which, withal its a.s.surance, was sweet and gentle, almost appealing; and that combination of qualities indicated that her words did not express her whole thought. It steeled him and with that mocking twinkle again he said:

"You seem quite sure, ma'am."

"As sure as I have ever been of anything in my life!"

But her a.s.surance did not compare with her desire, for when he had gone she was seized with the fear that she had said too much, had gone too far. And that which she had boasted would be hers was to Jane Hunter a precious possession.

CHAPTER VI