The Short Cut Part 3

And then you are going to make me a pretty bow and give me a pretty smile and say, 'Thank you, Red,' as you did when I chastised your first suitor! Remember, Wanda?"

"Only I don't call you 'Red' any more," she had laughed back at him.

"We're grown up now, you know, and Wayne is much more dignified and . . . and respectful."

"And you can handle your own suitors now," he had retorted. "More artistically and with equal finality!"

Only a week ago out there in the orchard where now the sunlight lay in golden splashes over the fruit trees, she and Red Reckless had bantered each other as they strolled toward the house where Arthur was sitting on the veranda with her mother, watching them. It was a sparkling morning like to-day's, and they had spoken of the old school days before Mr. Shandon sent his two sons to the East to school, of the time when she was eight and he was fifteen and he had "licked" a boy whom she did not like but who was stubborn in vowing that the little girl should eat a red cheeked apple he had brought her. A week ago, and now Arthur Shandon was dead and men were ready to believe that Wayne Shandon had killed him.

She sat very still, while her mind wandered in many directions. The old days rose up vividly bringing back the young faces of Arthur and Wayne and Garth Conway,--they had all played Prisoner's Base and Anti-over at the little white school house down in the valley. She remembered the day when a letter came from Mr. Shandon summoning Arthur and Wayne and Garth to the East, and how merry the boys had been over it. She missed them dreadfully after they went away until vacation came and her own father had taken her with him on a tour of inspection to his four other ranches, up and down the State. For three years she did not see the three boys, their letters had ceased, and she was well on the way to forget her playfellows. And then, when she was twelve and Wayne Shandon nineteen, he had come back.

He had run away. He had quarrelled with his father, and Arthur had tried to show him that he was unreasonable. Then the boy's hot temper had flashed out at his brother and finally at Garth Conway who had long been accustomed to thinking as Arthur Shandon thought. So the youth, in whom love of adventure and hatred of restraint were already marked characteristics, had sold his books, the saddle pony which his father's generosity had given him, his guns and fishing tackle, in fact everything which he might sell even to his spare clothing, had caught a night train and come West again.

Wanda's mother had tried to reason with the boy when he came to them, laughing at the trick he had played his father, full of mockery of the hidebound ways of cities, and had wanted to send him back to Mr.

Shandon. She had cried a little over him and kissed him and talked gently with him as was her motherly way. But Wanda's father berated him severely and sternly and Wayne flushed and bit his lip and then went away from them as he had gone away from the East.

More years, happy years for Wanda Leland, sped by and she did not see the boy. Both Arthur and Garth came in the long summer vacations to Mr. Shandon's range and were frequent visitors at the Echo Creek place.

Word came now and then of Wayne Shandon, sometimes by infrequent and unsatisfactory short letters from him, more often in elaborately embroidered rumour from men making long trips across the country. He had gone to work for a cattle outfit, taking a dollar a day and doing an ordinary cowboy's work. Even before he was twenty-one, men called him Red Reckless. He had learned to gamble, and to gamble for big stakes. He played poker; he took his chance with the "bank"; but he loved the dice. They were quicker; a man could "make or break" at one throw. It was his way to hazard everything on a throw, to laugh if he won, to laugh if he lost.

Rumour said that he had been shot by a notorious gambler, Dash Dulac; and had come near dying; that he had shot another man up at Spanish Dry Diggings where he had rushed with a frantic flood of men on news of a golden strike; that he had been sucked away with another flux of gold seekers to the Yukon country where he had lived lawlessly with his lawless companions; that he had drifted back to the lumber camps of the mountains; that at last he had returned to the cattle country.

Wanda had gone away to school in the East, spending only her summers upon the Echo Creek ranch. She had seen very little of Wayne Shandon.

When Mr. Shandon died, leaving his wide reaching cattle range to his elder son, Arthur had come promptly to take charge of the Bar L-M Outfit, and Garth Conway had come with him as foreman and general manager under him. Arthur, whose affection for his stormy souled brother had lasted strong through the years, had at last prevailed upon Wayne to "come home" and to go to work for him. That had been a year ago.

A light knock at her door brought back her wandering thoughts to to-day, to Arthur Shandon, to the suspicion which was so quickly lifting its venomous head. She rose from the bed, pushed back the hair which had fallen unnoticed into confusion about her cheeks, and said softly,

"Come in, mamma."

"We were just going to have lunch when you came, Wanda," her mother said quietly. "You must come and have a cup of tea."

"Mamma! I can't."

"But you can!" Her mother smiled a little at her and patted the restless hand she took in her own. "You had a very early breakfast and you must have a cup of tea."

Together they went back to the dining room.

"Where are Garth and Mr. Hume?" asked Wanda.

"They have gone . . . with the others, dear," Mrs. Leland told her.

The two women sat down in silence. Wanda forced herself to drink half of her tea and pushed the cup away from her. She got swiftly to her feet and leaving the room, went out upon the north veranda, where she saw Julia, the cook, standing at the window, her red hands upon her broad hips, her eyes even redder than her hands. On the window sill were half a dozen fresh, hot pies which Julia had made for "the boys" . . .

Wanda bit her lips and her eyes went whither her mother's had gone, down the trail along which the men had ridden to the creek.

It seemed a very long time before she saw them. The wagon, with Jim driving slowly and carefully, climbed over a ridge and wound its way down into the valley. Her father, Garth, and Sledge Hume, were riding behind it, abreast and close together. Wayne Shandon farther back was riding alone, his head down, his hat drawn low over his brows.

At last she could see the faces shaded by the wide brimmed hats. They were strangely alike in their hard, set expression, the gravity which told little. These were not, any of them, men given to wearing their deeper emotions on their sleeves. Her eyes ran to Wayne Shandon's face first. It was white, the mouth was sterner than she had ever thought Red Reckless' laughing mouth could be, the eyes were hard and inscrutable.

From him she looked anxiously at her father, then at Sledge Hume, then at Garth Conway. And these faces, stern like Wayne's, sent a little shiver of fear through her.

Her mother went out to meet the wagon, crying quietly. Wanda felt the tears rush with a hotness like fire into her own eyes, and then she turned and hurrying out of sight of the slow procession ran down to the orchard. She was lying there, face down, sobbing like a child, when she felt a shadow over her, heard a man's spurs jingle, and knew who it was that had come out to her.

She looked up at him, wondering.

"Wanda," he said very quietly, his voice strangely steady, "it was good of you to give him your hat. If I were dead and you did a thing like that for me I think I should come back to life to kiss your dear hands."

This was so like him! Oh, just the thing Red Reckless would do! The little thoughtful act of hers had stirred him more deeply than most men are moved even by big things; and the impulse had come to him to go straight to her and thank her. And he was a man who obeyed impulses.

The other men had entered the house for their lunch. It seemed horrible to her that people should be able to eat at a time like this.

Wayne Shandon spoke to her again.

"Your father is going to let Jim go with me," he said. "We are going to El Toyon. Then I am going to take him back East."

"East!" she exclaimed,

"Yes. I have a fancy he'd like to be buried close to dad."

"You are coming back soon?"

"Immediately. Within ten days, I think. Good-bye, Wanda."

"Wait a minute," she hesitated. "I want to think."

She had not meant to tell him so soon, in the first shock of the death, about what she had found. But he was going away, and he ought to know, it was his right to know.

"Will you wait here for me a moment, Wayne?" she asked looking pitifully up into the face of the man whose grave eyes were fixed upon her. "Until I run to the house and get something?"

She was glad then that the other men were able to eat, and that her mother and Julia were waiting on them. Hastening back to her room, she took the revolver from its hiding place in her trunk, slipped it into her blouse and ran back to the orchard.

"Wayne," she whispered coming close to him, suspicious of every little sound in the orchard, fearful of an approaching footstep. "I found something near Arthur. I did not tell any one. As you are going away I had better tell you."

She held out the revolver. The sunlight fell on it, glinting brightly from the polished silver. Wayne Shandon stared at it frowning, as though he could not or would not believe his eyes. Slowly a deeper pallor crept into his white face. Then a terrible look which the girl could not read came into his eyes.

"Good G.o.d!" he whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "You found that near him?"

Suddenly he put his hand out and took it. His fingers touched hers.

They were as cold as ice.

"Wanda," he said, his voice frightening her, it was so hard and unfamiliar, "you were good to give it to me."

That was all. She felt vaguely that his mind was groping for other words which it could not find. He slipped the revolver into his pocket, turned and left her.

From the orchard she watched him ride away. Jim was driving the two big greys, while Shandon followed close behind the wagon, sitting very straight in the saddle, his face telling her nothing. . . . She sank back upon the gra.s.s under the apple tree and lay still, staring up at the patches of blue seen through the green and white of the branches and blossoms.

When at last she went back to the house she heard her father's voice lifted angrily. He was talking to her mother and the name flung furiously from his lips was the name of Wayne Shandon.

"Hush, Martin," protested Mrs. Leland. "You mustn't . . ."

Martin Leland, his face red, his mouth working wordlessly, swept up his hat and went away to the corrals by the stable. Wanda saw his eyes as he brushed by her and she shivered, drawing away from him.