The Ranchman Part 23

From where Taylor watched her she looked very rigid and indignant-with her head proudly erect and her shoulders squared; and he could almost _feel_ that her eyes were flashing with resentment.

Yet had he been able to see her face, he would have seen her lips twitching and her eyes dancing with a light that might have puzzled him.

For she had already forgiven him.

"There's lies-_and_ lies," he offered palliatively, breaking a painful silence.

There was no answer, and Taylor, desperately in earnest in his desire for forgiveness, and looking decidedly funny to Bud Hemmingway, who was watching from the interior of the room beyond the open door, walked across the porch with no suspicion of a limp, and halted near the girl.

"Shucks, Miss Harlan," he said. "I'm sure caught; and I'm admitting it was a sort of mean trick to pull off on you. But if you wanted to be near a girl you'd taken a shine to-that you liked a whole lot, I mean, Miss Harlan-and you couldn't think of any _good_ excuse to be around her? You couldn't blame a man for that-could you? Besides," he added, when peering at the side of her face, he saw the twitching lips, ready to break into a smile, "I'll make it up to you!"

"How?" It was a strained voice that answered him.

"By manhandling Bud Hemmingway for wrapping up the wrong ankle, ma'am!"

he declared.

Both heard a cackle of mirth from the room behind them. And both turned, to see Bud Hemmingway retreating through a door into the kitchen.

It might have been Bud's action that brought the smile to Miss Harlan's face, or it might have been that she had forgiven Taylor. But at any rate Taylor read the smile correctly, and he succeeded in looking properly repentant when he felt Miss Harlan's gaze upon him.

"I won't play any more tricks-on you," he declared. "You ain't holding it against me?"

"If you will promise not to harm Bud," she said.

"That goes," he agreed, and went into the house to get his discarded boot.

When he reappeared, Miss Harlan was again seated in the chair. Swiftly her thoughts had reverted to the incident of the night before, and her face was wan and pale, and her lips pressed tightly together in a brave effort to repress the emotions that rioted within her. In spite of her courage, and of her determination not to let Taylor know of what had happened to her, her eyes were moist and her lips quivering.

He stepped close to her and peered sharply at her, standing erect instantly, his face grave.

"Shucks!" he said, accusingly; "I wouldn't be called hospitable-now, would I? Standing here, talking a lot of nonsense, and you-you must have started _early_ to get here by this time!" Again he flashed a keen glance at her, and his voice leaped.

"Something has happened, Miss Harlan! What is it?"

She got up again and faced him, smiling, her eyes shining mistily through the moisture in them. She was almost on the verge of tears, and her voice was tremulous when she answered:

"Mr. Taylor, I-I have come to ask if you-still-if your offer about the Arrow is still open-if-I could stay here-myself and Martha; if I could accept the offer you made about giving me father's share of the Arrow. For-for-I can't go back East-to Westwood, and I won't stay in the Huggins house a minute longer!"

"Sure!" he said, with a grim smile, aware of her profound emotion; aware, too, that something had gone terribly wrong with her-to make her accept what she had once considered charity-an offer made out of his regard for her father.

"But, look here," he added. "What's wrong? There's something--"

"Plenty, Mr. Squint."

This was Martha. She had been awake for some little time, sitting back with her eyes closed, listening. She was now sitting erect, her eyes shining with eagerness to tell all she knew of the night's happenings.

"Plenty, Mr. Squint," she repeated, paying no attention to Miss Harlan's sharp, "Martha!" "That big rapscallion, Carrington, has been makin'

things mighty mis'able for Missy Harlan. He come to the house las' night an' bust the door down, tryin' to git at missy, an' she's run away from him like a whitehead. Then, when he finds he can't diskiver where I hide missy he run the hosses off an' we have to walk heah. That's all, Mr.

Squint, 'ceptin' that me an' missy doan stay in that house no more-if we have to walk East-all the way!"

Miss Harlan saw a flash light Taylor's eyes; saw the flash recede, to be replaced by a chilling glow. And his lips grew straight and stiff-two hard lines pressed firmly together. She saw his chest swell and noted the tenseness of his muscles as he stepped closer to her.

"Was your uncle there with you, Miss Harlan?"

She nodded, and saw his lips curve with a mirthless smile.

"What did Carrington do?" The pa.s.sion in his voice made an icy shiver run over her-she felt the terrible earnestness that had come over him, and a pulse of fear gripped her.

She had never felt more like crying than at this instant, and until this minute she had not known how deeply she had been affected by Carrington's conduct, nor how tired she was, nor how she had yearned for the sympathy Taylor was giving her. But she felt that something in Taylor's manner portended violence, and she did not want him to risk his life fighting Carrington-for her.

"You see," she explained, "Mr. Carrington did not really _do_ anything.

He just came there, and was impertinent, and impudent, and insulting.

And he told me that he had bought the house; that it didn't belong to uncle-though I thought it did; and that the people of Dawes-and everywhere-would think-things-about me-as the people of Westwood had-thought. And I-I-why, I just couldn't stay--"

"That's enough, Miss Harlan. So Carrington didn't do anything." His voice was vibrant with some sternly repressed pa.s.sion.

"So you walked all the way here, and you have had no breakfast," he said, shortly. He turned toward the front door, his voice snapping like the report of a rifle:

"Bud!"

And, looking through the doorway, Miss Harlan saw Bud jump as though he had been shot. He appeared in the doorway, serious-faced and alert.

"Rustle some breakfast-quick! And hoe out that spare bedroom. Jump!"

Taylor understood perfectly what had happened, for he remembered what he had overheard between Carrington and Parsons on the train. To be sure, Miss Harlan knew nothing about the conversation, and so she mentally commended Taylor's quickness of perception, and felt grateful to him because he had spared her the horror of explaining further.

She sat down again, aware of the startling unconventionality of this visit and of the conversation that had resulted from it, but oppressed with no sense of shame. For it seemed entirely natural that she should have come to Taylor, though she supposed that was because he had been her father's friend, and that she had no other person to go to-not even if she went East, to Westwood. But she would not have mentioned what had happened at the big house if Martha had not taken the initiative.

She was startled over the change that had come in Taylor. Watching him covertly as he stood near her, and following his movements as he walked around in the room, helping Bud, generously leaving her to herself and her thoughts, she looked in vain for that gentleness and subtle thoughtfulness that hitherto had seemed to distinguish him. She had admired him for his easy-going manner, the slow deliberateness of his glances, the quizzical gleam of his eyes.

But she saw him now as many of the men in this section of the country had seen him when he faced the necessity for rapid, determined action.

It was the other side of his character; before she had heard his voice, and before she had seen him smile-the stern, unyielding side of him which she had discovered always was ready for the blows of adversity and enmity-his fighting side.

And when she went into the house to breakfast, feeling the strangeness of it all-of the odd fate which had led her to the Arrow; the queer reluctance that affected her over the action in accepting the hospitality of a man who-except for his a.s.sociation with her father-was almost a stranger to her-she found that he did not intend to insinuate his presence upon her.

He called her, and stood near the table when she and Martha went in.

Then he told her gravely that the house was "hers," and that he and Bud would live in the bunkhouse.

"And when you get settled," he told her, as he stood in the doorway, ready to go, "we'll write those articles of partnership. And," he added, "don't you go to worrying about Carrington. If he comes here, and Bud or me ain't here, you'll find a loaded rifle hanging behind the front door.

Don't be afraid to use it-there's no law against killing snakes out here!"

CHAPTER XVIII-THE BEAST AGAIN

Carrington was conscious of the error his unrestrained pa.s.sion had driven him to committing. Yet he had not been sincere when he had declared to Martha that he wouldn't bother the girl again. For after leading the two horses to Dawes and arranging for their care, he hunted up Danforth. It was nearly midnight when Danforth reached Carrington's rooms in the Castle, and Carrington was in a sullen mood.