The Range Boss Part 33

"I've brought you your husband, Hagar," he told her.

Hagar did not move. Her hands were pressing her breast; her eyes were eloquent with doubt and hope. They sought Masten's, searchingly, defiantly. And she spoke directly to him, proudly, her head erect:

"If you've come ag'in your will--If dad had to bring you--" She paused, her lips trembling.

"Shucks," said Catherson gently; "he's come on his own hook, Hagar. Why, he asked me to bring him--didn't you, Masten?"

And then he dismounted and helped Masten down, leading his pony forward toward the shack, but turning when he reached the porch, to look back at Masten and Hagar, standing together in the shade of the trees, the girl's head resting on the man's shoulder.

Catherson pulled the saddle and bridle from the pony, turned him into the corral, and then went into the house. A little later he came out again, smoking a pipe. Masten and Hagar were sitting close together on a fallen tree near where he had left them. Catherson smiled mildly at them and peacefully pulled at his pipe.

CHAPTER XXVI

A DREAM COMES TRUE

On the edge of the mesa, from which, on the day of her adventure with the injured ankle, Ruth had viewed the beautiful virgin wilderness that stretched far on the opposite side of the river, she was riding, the afternoon of a day a week later, with Randerson. She had expressed a wish to come here, and Randerson had agreed joyfully.

Seated on a rock in the shade of some trees that formed the edge of that timber grove in which he had tied Ruth's pony on a night that held many memories for both, they had watched, for a long time, in silence, the vast country before them. Something of the solemn calmness of the scene was reflected in Ruth's eyes. But there was a different expression in Randerson's eyes. It was as though he possessed a secret which, he felt, she ought to know, but was deliberately delaying the telling of it. But at last he decided, though he began obliquely:

"I reckon there's a set plan for the way things turn out--for folks," he said, gravely. "Things turn out to show it. Everything is fixed." He smiled as she looked at him. "Take me," he went on. "I saw your picture.

If I'd only seen it once, mebbe I wouldn't have fell in love with it.

But--"

"Why, Rex!" she reproved with an injured air, "how can you say that? Why, I believe I loved you from the minute I saw you!"

"You didn't have anything on me there!" he told her. "For I was a gone c.o.o.n the first time I set eyes on _you!_ But is it the same with pictures? A picture, now, has to be studied; it ain't like the real article," he apologized. "Anyway, if I hadn't kept lookin' at your picture, mebbe things would have been different. But I got it, an' I looked at it a lot. That shows that it was all fixed for you an' me."

She looked mirthfully at him. "Was it all fixed for you to take the picture from Vickers, by force--as you told me you did?" she demanded.

He grinned brazenly. "I reckon that was part of the plan," he contended.

"Anyway, I got it. Vickers wouldn't speak to me for a month, but I reckon I didn't lose any sleep over that. What sleep I lost was lost lookin' at the picture." The confession did not embarra.s.s him, for he continued quietly:

"An' there's Masten." He watched the smile go out of her face with regret in his eyes. But he went on. "I intended to kill him, one night. But he had no gun, an' I couldn't. That would have spoiled the plan that's fixed for all of us. I let him live, an' the plan works out." He took hold of the hand nearest him and pressed it tightly.

"Have you seen Hagar since?" he asked.

"No," she told him, looking quickly at him, for she caught an odd note in his voice. "I just couldn't bear to think of going back there."

"Well," he said, "Hagar's happy. I was over there this mornin'. Masten's there." He felt her hand grip his suddenly, and he smiled. He had talked with Catherson; the nester had told him the story, but it had been agreed between them the real story was not to be told. "They're married--Hagar an' Masten. Masten come to Catherson's shack the day after I--after I brought you home from there. An' they rode over to Lazette an' got hooked up. An' Catherson had been lookin' for Masten, figurin' to kill him. I reckon it was planned for Masten to have a change of heart. Or mebbe it was gettin' married changed him. For he's a lot different, since. He's quiet, an' a heap considerate of other folks' feelin's. He's got some money, an' he's goin' to help Abe to fix up his place. He asked my pardon, for settin' Pickett an' Kelso on me. I shook his hand, Ruth, an'

wished him luck an' happiness. Don't you wish him the same, Ruth--both of them?"

"Yes," she said earnestly; "I do!" And now she was looking at him with luminous eyes. "But it was very manly of you to forgive him so fully!"

"I reckon it wasn't so awful manly," he returned, blushing. "There wasn't nothin' else to do, I expect. Would you have me hold a grudge against him? An' spoil everything--nature's plan included? It was to happen that way, an' I ain't interferin'. Why, I reckon if I wasn't to forgive him, there'd be another plan spoiled--yours an' mine. An' I'm sure helpin' to work that out. I've thought of the first of the month," he said, looking at her, expectantly, and speaking lowly. "The justice of the peace will be back in Lazette then."

"So you've been inquiring?" she said, her face suffused with color.

"Why, sure! Somebody's got to do it. It's my job."

A little later they mounted their ponies and rode along the edge of the timber. When they reached the tree to which he had tied her pony on the night she had hurt her ankle, he called her attention to it.

"That's where I lost the bandanna," he told her. "It fell off my neck an'

got tangled in the knot."

"Then you know!" she exclaimed.

"Sure," he said, grinning; "Uncle Jepson told me."

"I think Uncle Jep has been your right hand man all through this," she charged.

"Why shouldn't he be?" he retorted. And she could give him no reason why it should have been otherwise.

"It was a rather mean trick to play on me," she charged pretending indignation.

"If you'd have thought it mean, you'd have told me about it before now,"

he answered. "Patches was reliable."

"Kester an' Linton have sloped," he told her as they rode away from the trees. "This climate was gettin' unhealthy for them."

"What makes folks act so foolish?" he questioned, later. "There ain't no way to escape what's got to be. Why can't folks take their medicine without makin' faces?"

She knew he referred to Masten, Chavis and Pickett, and she knew that this would be all the reference Randerson would ever make to them. But no answer formed in her mind and she kept silent.

When they came to the rock upon which he had found her, he halted and regarded it gravely.

"You had me scared that night," he said. "Patches had most run his head off. I was mighty relieved to see you."

"I treated you miserably that night," she confessed.

"Did you hear me complainin'?" he asked with a gentle smile at her. "I expect, some day, when we're together more, an' you get to lovin' me less than you do now, you'll get peevish ag'in. Married folks always do. But I won't notice it. I'll get on Patches--if he's alive, you wantin' to put off the marriage so long--"

"Until the first!" she laughed, in gentle derision.

"Well," he said, with pretended gravity, "when a man has waited, as long as I've waited, he gets sort of impatient." He grinned again, and gave her this last shot: "An' mighty _patient_ after!"

And they rode on again, through the white sunlight, close together, dreaming of days to come.

THE END

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