The Range Boss Part 25

"I ain't got any," said the girl, morosely, grimly.

"Why, Hagar, you have! Everybody has--either good or bad."

"Mine's bad, I reckon--if I've got any." She suddenly buried her face on Ruth's shoulder and sobbed.

Perplexed, astonished, almost dismayed, Ruth held her off and tried to look at her face. But the girl only buried it deeper and continued to cry.

"Why, Hagar; whatever is the matter?"

There was no answer, and after holding her for a time, Ruth succeeded in getting a look at her face. It was tear-stained, but dogged in expression, and had Ruth been experienced in reading the human emotions, she could have seen the guilt in the girl's eyes, lurking far back. She also might have seen the determination in them--a determination not to tell her secret. And a sorrow, also, was there--aroused through the thought that she had deceived Ruth, and could not tell her.

Hagar realized now that she had permitted her emotions to carry her too far, that she had aroused Ruth's curiosity. Ruth must never know! She made an effort and sat up, laughing grimly through her tears, shaking her hair back from her eyes, brushing it away fiercely.

"Dad says there's times when I'm half loco," she said. "I reckon he's right." She recovered her composure rapidly, and in a few minutes there were no traces of tears or of mental distress. But Ruth was puzzled, and after she left the cabin she tried in vain to provide an explanation for the girl's strange conduct.

On her next visit to the cabin, Ruth was astonished when Hagar asked her bluntly:

"Ain't there no punishment for men who deceive girls?"

"Very little, Hagar, I fear--unless it is G.o.d's punishment."

"Shucks!" The girl's eyes flashed vindictively. "There ought to be. Durn 'em, anyway!"

"Hagar, what has brought such a subject into your mind?" said Ruth wonderingly.

The girl reddened, but met Ruth's eyes determinedly. "I've got a book in here, that dad got with some other traps from ol' man Cullen's girls, back in Red Rock--they thought we was poorly, an' they helped us that-a-way. It's 'Millie's Lovers,' an' it tells how a man deceived a girl, an' run away an' left her--the sneakin' coyote!"

"Girls shouldn't read such books, Hagar."

"Yes, they ought to. But it ought to tell in 'em how to get even with the men who do things like that!" She frowned as she looked at Ruth. "What would you think of a man that done that in real life?"

"I should think that he wouldn't be much of a man," said Ruth.

As before, Ruth departed from this visit, puzzled and wondering.

On another morning, a few days following Ruth's discovery of the shooting of Kelso, she found Hagar standing on the porch. The dog had apprised Hagar of the coming of her visitor. Hagar's first words were:

"Did you hear? Rex Randerson killed Kelso."

"I heard about it some days ago," said Ruth. "It's horrible!"

"What do you reckon is horrible about it?" questioned Hagar, with a queer look at her friend.

"Why," returned Ruth, surprised; "the deed itself! The very thought of one human being taking the life of another!"

"There's worse things than killin' a man that's tryin' to make you shuffle off," declared Hagar evenly. "Rex Randerson wouldn't kill n.o.body unless they made him do it. An' accordin' to what dad says, Kelso pulled first. Rex ain't lettin' n.o.body perforate _him_, you bet!"

"He is too ready with his pistol."

The girl caught the repugnance in Ruth's voice. "I thought you kind of liked Randerson," she said.

Ruth blushed. "What made you think that?" she demanded.

"I've heard that you've gone ridin' with him a lot. I just reckoned it."

"You are mistaken, Hagar. I do not like Randerson at all. He is my range boss--that is all. A murderer could never be a friend to me."

A shadow came over Hagar's face. "Rex Randerson has got a clean heart,"

she said slowly. She stood looking at Ruth, disappointment plain in her eyes. The disappointment was quickly succeeded by suspicion; she caught her breath, and the hands that were under her ap.r.o.n gripped each other hard.

"I reckon you'll take up with Masten again," she said, trying to control her voice.

Ruth looked intently at her, but she did not notice the girl's emotion through her interest in her words.

"What do you mean by 'again'?"

"I heard that you'd broke your engagement."

"Who told you that?" Ruth's voice was sharp, for she thought Randerson perhaps had been talking.

Hagar blushed crimson and resorted to a lie. "My dad told me. He said he'd heard it."

"Well, it isn't true," Ruth told her firmly; "I have never broken with Mr. Masten. And we are to be married soon."

She turned, for she was slightly indignant at this evidence that the people in the country near her had been meddling with her affairs, and she did not see the ashen pallor that quickly spread over Hagar's face.

Had Ruth been looking she must have suspected the girl's secret. But it took her some time to mount her pony, and then looking back she waved her hand at Hagar, who was smiling, though with pale and drawn face.

Hagar stood rigid on the porch until she could no longer see Ruth. Then she sank to the edge of the porch, gathered the dog Nig into her arms, and buried her face in his unkempt shoulder. Rocking back and forth in a paroxysm of impotent pa.s.sion, she spoke to the dog:

"I can't kill him now, Nig, he's goin' to marry _her_! Oh Nig, Nig, what am I goin' to do now?" And then she looked up scornfully, her eyes flashing. "She won't let Rex be a friend of hers, because he's killed two men that G.o.d had ought to have killed a long while ago! But she'll marry Masten--who ain't fit to be Rex's dog. She won't, Nig! Why--?"

She got up and started for the door. But nearing it, she sank upon the threshold, crying and moaning, while Nig, perplexed at this conduct on the part of his mistress, stood off a little and barked loudly at her.

CHAPTER XX

THE BUBBLE--DREAMS

Loping his pony through the golden haze of the afternoon, Randerson came over the plains toward the Flying W ranchhouse, tingling with antic.i.p.ation. The still small voice to which he had listened in the days before Ruth's coming had not lied to him; Fate, or whatever power ruled the destinies of lovers, had made her for him. Man's interference might delay the time of possession, his thoughts were of Masten for a brief instant, and his lips straightened, but in the end there could be no other outcome.

But though he was as certain of her as he was that the sun would continue to rule the days, he kept his confidence from betraying his thoughts, and when at last he rode slowly down along the corral fence, past the bunkhouse and the other buildings, to the edge of the porch, sitting quietly in the saddle and looking down at Ruth, who was sitting in a rocker, sewing, his face was grave and his manner that of unconscious reverence.

Ruth had been on the porch for more than an hour. And as on the day when he had come riding in in obedience to her orders to teach her the mysteries of the six-shooter, she watched him today--with antic.i.p.ation, but with antic.i.p.ation of a different sort, in which was mingled a little regret, but burdened largely with an eagerness to show him, unmistakably, that he was not the sort of man that she could look upon seriously. And so when she saw him ride up to the porch and bring his pony to a halt, she laid her sewing in her lap, folded her hands over it, and watched him with outward calmness, though with a vague sorrow gripping her. For in spite of what he had done, she still felt the man's strong personality, his virility--the compelling lure of him. She experienced a quick, involuntary tightening of the muscles when she heard his voice--for it intensified the regret in her--low, drawling, gentle:

"I have come in to report to you, ma'am."