The Ranchman Part 38

It seemed a lashing sea of retribution to Danforth and Judge Littlefield, who were in the mayor's office, a little group of their political adherents around them. At the first sign of a disturbance, Danforth had attempted to gather his official forces with the intention of preserving order. But only these few had responded, and they, white-faced, feeling their utter impotence, were standing in the room, terror-stricken, when Bothwell and the men of the Arrow outfit, with the crowd yelling behind them, entered the door of the office.

The little, broken-nosed man had done well to leave the vicinity of the big house before Taylor arrived there. For when Taylor emerged from the front room, in which the light still burned, his soul was still in the grip of a l.u.s.t to slay.

He was breathing fast when he emerged from the house, for what he saw there had puzzled him-the guard lying on the floor and Marion gone-and he stood for an instant on the porch, scanning the clearing and the woods around the house with blazing eyes, his guns in hand.

The silence around the house was deep and solemn now, and over Taylor stole a conviction that Carrington had sent Marion to Dawes in charge of some of his men; having divined that he would come for her. But Taylor did not act upon the conviction instantly. He ran to the stable, stormed through it-and the other buildings in the cl.u.s.ter around the ranchhouse; and finding no trace of men or girl, he at last leaped on Spotted Tail and sent him thundering over the trail toward Dawes.

When he arrived in town a swaying, shouting, shooting mob jammed the streets. He brought his horse to a halt on the edge of the crowd that packed the street in front of the city hall, and demanded to know what was wrong.

The man shouted at him:

"h.e.l.l's to pay! Carrington abducted Marion Harlan, an' that little guy-Parsons-rescued her. An' Parsons made a speech, tellin' folks what Carrington an' Danforth an' all the rest of the sneakin' coyotes have done, an' we're runnin' the sc.u.m out of town!" And then, before Taylor could ask about the girl, the man raised his voice to a shrill yell:

"It's Squint Taylor, boys! Squint Taylor! Stand back an' let ol' Squint take a hand in this here deal!"

There was a wild, concerted screech of joy. It rose like the shrieking of a gale; it broke against the buildings that fringed the street; it echoed and reechoed with terrific resonance back and forth over the heads of the men in the crowd. It penetrated into the cozy room of a private dwelling, where sat a girl who started at the sound and sat erect, her face paling, her eyes, glowing with a light that made the motherly looking woman say to her, softly:

"Ah, then you _do_ believe in him, my dear!"

It was when the noise and the tumult had subsided that Taylor went to her. For he had been told where he might find her by men who smiled sympathetically at his back as he walked down the street toward the private dwelling.

She was at the door as soon as he, for she had been watching from one of the front windows, and had seen him come toward the house.

And when the motherly looking woman saw them in each other's arms, the moon and the light from within the house revealing them to her, and to the men in the crowd who watched from the street, she smiled gently.

What the two said to each other will never be known, for their words were drowned in the cheer that rose from hoa.r.s.e-voiced men who knew that words are sometimes futile and unnecessary.

CHAPTER x.x.xV-TRIUMPH AT LAST

A month later, Taylor walked to the front door of the Arrow ranchhouse and stood on the threshold looking out over the great sweep of green-brown plain that reached eastward to Dawes.

A change had come over Taylor. His eyes had a gentler light in them-as though they had seen things that had taken the edge off his sterner side; and there was an atmosphere about him that created the impression that his thoughts were at this moment far from violence.

"Mr. Taylor!" said a voice behind him-from the front room. There had been an undoubted accent on the "Mr." And the voice was one that Taylor knew well; the sound of it deepened the gentle gleam in his eyes.

"Mrs. Taylor," he answered, imparting to the "Mrs." exactly the emphasis the voice had placed on the other.

There was a laugh behind him, and then the voice again, slightly reproachful: "Oh, that sounds so _awfully_ formal, Squint!"

"Well," he said, "you started it."

"I like 'Squint' better," said the voice.

"I'm hoping you keep on liking Squint all the days of your life," he returned.

"I was speaking of names," declared the voice.

"Doan' yo' let her fool yo', Mr. Squint!" came another voice, "fo' she think a heap mo' of you than she think of yo' name!"

"Martha!" said the first voice in laughing reproof, "I vow I shall send you away some day!"

And then there was a clumping step on the floor, and Martha's voice reached the door as she went out of the house through the kitchen:

"I's goin' to the bunkhouse to expostulate wif that lazy Bud Hemmingway.

He tole me this mawnin' he's gwine feed them hawgs-an' he ain't done it!"

And then Mrs. Taylor appeared at the door and placed an arm around her husband's neck, drawing his head over to her and kissing him.

She looked much like the Marion Harlan who had left the Arrow on a night about a month before, though there was a more eloquent light in her eyes, and a tenderness had come over her that made her whole being radiate.

"Don't you think you had better get ready to go to Dawes, dear?" she suggested.

"I like that better than 'Squint' even," he grinned.

For a long time they stood in the doorway very close together. And then Mrs. Taylor looked up with grave eyes at her husband.

"Won't you please let me look at _all_ of father's note to you, Squint?"

she asked.

"That can't be done," he grinned at her. "For," he added, "that day after I let you read part of it I burnt it. It's gone-like a lot of other things that are not needed now!"

"But what did it say-that part that you wouldn't let me read?" she insisted.

"It said," he quoted, "'I want you to marry her, Squint.' And I have done so-haven't I?"

"Was that _all_?" she persisted.

"I'd call that plenty!" he laughed.

"Well," she sighed, "I suppose that will have to be sufficient. But get ready, dear; they will be waiting for you!" She left him and went into a room, from where she called back to him: "It won't take me long to dress." And then, after an interval: "Where do you suppose Uncle Elam went?"

He scowled out of the doorway; then turned and smiled. "He didn't say.

And he lost no time saying farewell to Dawes, once he got his hands on the money Carrington left." Taylor's smile became a laugh, low and full of amus.e.m.e.nt.

Shortly Mrs. Taylor appeared, attired in a neat riding-habit, and Taylor donned coat and hat, and they went arm in arm to the corral gate, where their horses were standing, having been roped, saddled, and bridled by the "lazy" Bud Hemmingway, who stood outside the bunkhouse grinning at them.

"Well, good luck!" Bud called after them as they rode toward Dawes.

Lingering much on the way, and stopping at the Mullarky cabin, they finally reached the edge of town and were met by Neil Norton, who grinned widely when he greeted them.

Norton waved a hand at Dawes. As in another time, Dawes was arrayed in holiday attire, swathed in a riot of color-starry bunting, flags, and streamers, with hundreds of j.a.panese lanterns suspended festoonlike across the streets. And now, as Taylor and the blushing, moist-eyed woman at his side rode down the street, a band on a platform near the station burst into music, its brazen-tongued instruments drowning the sound of cheering.