The Man from the Bitter Roots Part 41

But she was reckoning without John Burt. Reasoning that would apply to nearly any other man did not at all fit Bruce's father. Helen had the sensation of having run at full speed against a stone wall when Burt came toward her slowly, leading his saddle-horse through one of the corrals near the unpretentious ranch-house, which she had reached after a long drive.

The amenities to which she was accustomed were not, as the phrase is, John Burt's long suit. He did not raise his hat, extend a hand, or evince the slightest interest by any lighting of the eye. With his arm thrown across his saddle he waited for her to begin, to state her business and be gone.

The broad backs of ten thousand cattle glistened in the sun as they fed inside the John Burt ranch, but owing to his seedy appearance their owner was frequently mistaken for his own hired man. Self-centred, of narrow views, strong prejudices, saving to penuriousness, whatever there was of sentiment, or warm human impulse, in his nature, seemed to have been buried with Bruce's mother. He had not re-married, but this was the only outward evidence by which any one could know that the memory of "his Annie" was as green as the day she died. He never spoke of her nor of his son, and Burt's life seemed to have for its aim the piling up of dollars faster than his neighbors.

Helen grasped something of his character in her swift apprais.e.m.e.nt. As she returned his impersonal gaze she realized that to him she was simply a female--a person in petticoats who was going to take up his time and bore him until he could get rid of her. She was not accustomed to a reception of this kind; it disconcerted her, but chiefly the magnitude of her task loomed before her.

The sudden, unexpected fear of failure threw her into a panic. The feeling which came upon her was like stage-fright. In the first awkward moment she could scarcely remember why she had come, much less what she had intended to say. But he was too indifferent to notice her confusion and this helped her somewhat to recover her presence of mind.

When she mentioned the distance she had travelled to see him he was entirely unimpressed and it was not until she mentioned Bruce's name that he appeared to realize that she was not an agent trying to sell him a book. Then Helen saw in his eyes his mental start;--the look of resignation vanished and his black brows, so like Bruce's, contracted in a frown.

"He's alive then," Burt's voice was hard.

Helen nodded.

"I've come to see you on his behalf."

"Oh, he's in trouble." His voice had an acid edge. "He wants me to help him out."

"In trouble--yes--but I'm not sure he'd forgive me if he knew I had come."

"Still sore, is he?" His features stiffened.

"Not sore," Helen pleaded, "but--proud."

"Stubborn"--curtly--"mulish. But why should you come to me?"

"Why shouldn't I? You're his father and he needs a helping hand just now more perhaps than he ever will again."

"Being his father is no reason, that I can see. He's never written me a line."

"And you've never tried to find him," Helen retorted.

"He had a good home and he ran away. He was fourteen--old enough to know what he was doing."

"Fourteen!" repeated Helen scornfully throwing diplomacy to the winds at his criticism of Bruce, "Fourteen!--and you judged him as though he were a man of your own age and experience!"

"I made $20 a month and my board when I was fourteen."

"That doesn't prove anything except a difference in ambition. You wanted the $20 a month and Bruce wanted an education."

"He owed me some respect." Burt declared obstinately. At the moment he and Bruce looked marvellously alike.

"And don't you think you owed him anything?" Helen's cheeks were flaming. The last thing she had expected was to quarrel with Bruce's father, but since she was in it she meant to stand her ground. She had made a muddle of it she felt, and her chances of success were slim indeed. "Don't you think a child is ent.i.tled to the best chance for happiness and success that his parents can give him? All Bruce asked was an education--the weapon that every child has a right to, to enable him to fight his own battles. I had the best education my parents could afford and at that I'm not bowed down with grat.i.tude for the privilege of struggling merely to exist."

She expected him to reply with equal heat but instead he ignored her argument and with a return to his former manner as though his flare-up of interest had pa.s.sed, asked indifferently:

"What's he done?"

"Nothing to be ashamed of," Helen answered vigorously, "and everything to be proud of. He's put up a plucky fight but the odds are too strong against him and he's going to lose unless you come to the rescue--quick."

Burt combed the horse's mane with his fingers.

"What's he in--what's he doing?" There was no personal interest in the question.

Helen hesitated for a second, knowing instinctively the effect her answer would have upon him--then she replied with a touch of defiance:

"Mining."

"Minin'!" His tone was full of disgust, much as though she had said gambling or burglary. "I might have known it would be some fool thing like that. No, ma'am," harshly, "by writin' first you might have saved yourself the trip for not a dollar of my money ever has or ever will go into any minin' scheme. I don't speculate."

"But Mr. Burt--" Helen began pleadingly. She had a panicky feeling that she was going to cry.

"It's no use arguin'," he interrupted. "He can't get me into any wild-cat minin' scheme--"

"It isn't a wild-cat mining scheme," Helen defended hotly.

Burt went on--

"If he wants to come home and help me with the cattle and behave himself now that he's fooled away his time and failed--"

"But he hasn't failed." Helen insisted with eager impatience. "He won't fail if----"

"Well he's hard up--he wants money----" Burt spoke as though the fact were a crime.

"A good many men have been 'hard up' and needed money before they succeeded," Helen pleaded. "Surely you know that crises come in nearly every undertaking where there isn't unlimited capital, obstacles and combinations of circ.u.mstances that no one can forsee. And if you knew what Bruce has had to fight----"

Helen had expected of course to tell Bruce's father of the placer properties and his efforts to develop them. She had thought he would have a father's natural pride in what Bruce had accomplished in the face of dangers and difficulties. She had intended to tell him of Sprudell, to show him Smaltz's confession, and the options which would defeat Sprudell's plotting, but in the face of his narrow obstinacy, his deep prejudices, she felt the futility of words or argument. She had not for a moment counted upon such opposition; now she felt helpless, impotent before this armor of hardness.

"I don't care what he's had to fight. I'd just as soon put my money in the stove as put it in a mining scheme. There's two things I never do, young lady, and that's speculate and go on people's notes."

"But, Mr. Burt," she begged hopelessly, "If you'd only make an exception--just this once. Go to him--see for yourself that all he needs is a helping hand across this one hard place."

"I got on without any helping hands. n.o.body saw me across hard places.

I've told you the only way that he can expect to get anything from me."

"Then it's useless, quite, quite useless for me to say any more?" Helen was struggling hard to keep her voice steady to the end. "No matter what the circ.u.mstances may be you refuse to do anything for Bruce?"

"That's the size of it--unless he comes back. There's plenty for him to do here." His tone was implacable and he was waiting with a stolid patience for her to go.

"I'm sorry if I've bored you and I shan't inflict you any more. Please remember that Bruce knew nothing of my coming. I came upon my own responsibility. But his success meant so much to him--to me that I--that I----" she choked and turned away abruptly. She dared not even say good-bye.

Burt remained standing by his horse looking after her straight, slender figure as she walked toward the gate. His face was still sphinx-like but there was a speculative look in his shrewd eyes. Bruce's success "meant so much to her," did it? That, then, was why she had come. The distance she had travelled for the purpose of seeing him had not impressed him in the least before.

Helen was halfway to the gate when she stopped to replace the rubber that stuck in the muddy corral and slipped from her heel. Her chin was quivering, her sensitive lips drooped and, feeling that Burt was looking at her, she raised her eyes to his. They were br.i.m.m.i.n.g full of tears.

She looked for all the world like a sorrowful, disappointed, woe-begone little girl of not more than ten or twelve.

The unconscious pathos of some look or pose grips the heart harder than any spoken word and so it was that this unstudied trick of expression found the vulnerable spot in Burt's armor--the spot which might have remained impervious indefinitely to any plea. It went straight to his one weakness, his single point of susceptibility, and that was his unsuspected but excessive fondness for little girls.