The Twins of Suffering Creek Part 11

"I 'lows that should bring James to his senses," he observed, as he handed it back to its owner.

Scipio read his answer as approval, and warmed towards him.

"I'd say so," he said, returning his antiquity to his pocket. "You see, a gun's li'ble to rattle a feller like James. A man who can get around when a feller's back's turned, an' make love to his wife, ain't much of a man, is he? I mean he hasn't much grit. He's a coward sure.

If he'd got grit he wouldn't do it. Well, that's how I figger 'bout this James. He's mean, an' a cowardly dog. I don't guess I'll have to use that gun, but I jest brought it along to scare him to his senses, if he needs it. Maybe though he won't need it when he sees me come along--y'see, I'm Jessie's husband--guess that'll fix him sure."

"Guess you got James sized up good," observed the man, with his eyes fixed ahead. "No, I don't see you'll need that gun."

They rode on, Scipio's spirits rising with every yard they traveled.

He knew he was nearing his wife with every pa.s.sing moment. He had no doubts, no fears. So long as he could reach her side he felt that all would be well. In spite of her letter it never entered his head that she cared for the man she had gone off with. He blamed James, and it was no mere figure of speech when he said that he believed he had "stolen" her. He believed such to be the case. He believed she had gone unwillingly. In his mind it was a case of abduction. Again and again he thanked Providence that he had fallen in with this man, Conroy. He was a good fellow, he told himself, a good friend. And his ideas were so coincident with his own about James.

They were approaching the higher hills. Towering, broken crags loomed ahead darkly in the gathering gloom. The vast riven facets cut the sky-line, and black patches of pine forests, and spruce, gave a ghostly, threatening outlook. They must have been riding over two hours when Scipio realized they were pa.s.sing over a narrow cattle track on the summit of a wooded hill. Then presently their horses began a steep shelving descent which required great caution to negotiate. And as they proceeded the darkness closed in upon them, until they appeared to be making an almost precipitate descent into a vast black pit. There was no light here at all except for the stars above, for the last glow of twilight was completely shut off by the great wall they were now leaving behind them.

No word was spoken. Each man was busy with his horse, and the animals themselves were stumbling and floundering as they picked their uncertain way. A quarter of an hour of this went by, then, suddenly, ahead, still farther down the slope, two or three dim lights shone up at them like will-o'-the-wisps. They seemed to dance about before Scipio's eyes as they rode. Nor, as he pointed them out to his companion, did he realize that this peculiarity was due to the motion of his mare under him.

"Yep," replied Conroy dryly. "Them's James' lights."

"He's got a large place," said Scipio, with some awe in his tone.

"He sure has," agreed Conroy, smiling in the darkness. "He's got the biggest an' best-stocked ranch in Montana."

"You say he's a--cattle thief?" Scipio was struggling to get things into proper focus.

"He sure is." And Conroy's tone of satisfaction had the effect of silencing further comment by his companion.

A few moments later the descent was completed, and the soft gra.s.s under her feet set Gipsy dancing to get on, but Conroy pulled up.

"Here," he said authoritatively, "you set right here while I get on an' get thro' with my business. I'll come along back for you."

Without demur Scipio waited, and his companion vanished in the darkness. The little man had entered into an agreement, and had no desire, in spite of his eagerness to be doing, of departing from the letter of it. So he possessed himself in what patience he could until Conroy's return.

The soft pad of the retiring horse's hoofs on the thick gra.s.s died away. And presently one of the twinkling lights ahead was abruptly shut out. The horseman had intervened on Scipio's line of vision. Then the yellow gleam as suddenly reappeared, and the last sign of Conroy pa.s.sed. The waiting man watched with every faculty alert. His ears and eyes straining for the least unusual sound or sight. But there was none forthcoming.

Then he began to think. He began to consider the situation. He began to picture to himself something of the scene that he hoped would shortly take place between himself and the man James. It was the first time he had thought of the matter deliberately, or attempted to estimate its possibilities. Hitherto he had been too torn by his emotions to consider anything in detail. And, even now, so imbued was he with the right of his cause that he only saw his own point of view, which somehow made James a mere plaything in his hands.

He found himself dictating his will upon the thief in firm tones. He demanded his wife without heat, but with the knowledge of the power of his gun lying behind his words. He felt the restraint he would use. He would not bully. Who was he to bully after having had Jessie restored to him? James should be dealt with as gently as his feelings would permit him. Yes, thank G.o.d, he had no actual desire to hurt this man who had so wronged him. The man was foolish, and he could afford to be generous, having had Jessie restored to him. No, he would try hard to forgive him. It would be a tremendous struggle, he knew, yet he felt, with Jessie restored to him, he ought to make the effort. Somehow, even now, he almost felt sorry for so misguided a--

But his reflections were suddenly cut short by the sound of horses'

hoofs returning, and, a moment later, Conroy loomed up in the darkness. He came quite close up before he spoke, and then it was almost in a whisper.

"I've located things," he said, with an air of deep satisfaction.

"Guess we'll make Mr. 'Lord' James hunt his hole 'fore we're thro'

with him. I figger a rawhide fixed neat about his neck'll 'bout meet his case. An' say, I've news fer you. Ther's some o' his boys around.

He's jest right in ther' wher' you ken see that biggish light," he went on, pointing at the illuminated square of a window. "I see him through an open door round back. He's lyin' on a heap o' blankets readin' a book. Ef you git along now you'll get him wher' you need him, an'--an' I wouldn't take no chances. Get a drop on him from outside the door, an'--wal, guess a feller like you'll know what to do after that. I'm gettin' back to home."

Scipio glowed. He felt he could have hugged this good-natured stranger. But he did not altogether agree with the man's suggestion of getting the drop on James. He felt it would hardly be playing the game. However, he intended to be guided by circ.u.mstances.

"Thanks, friend," he said, in his simple fashion. "You must let me call you that," he went on eagerly. "You see, you've done something for me to-night I can't never forget. Maybe you've got a wife of your own, and if so you'll sure understand."

"Can't rightly say I've got a--wife," the man replied, "but I ken understan' all right. James is low--doggone low," he added. And his face was turned well away so that he could grin comfortably without fear of the other seeing it.

"Well, so long," said Scipio hastily. "Seeing I shan't see you here when I get back, I'd just like to thank you again."

"So long," replied the other. "An' you needn't to thank me too much."

Scipio urged his mare forward, and the man sat looking after him. And somehow his face had lost something of its satisfied expression.

However, he sat there only a moment. Presently he lifted his reins and set his horse at a canter in the direction of one of the more distant lights.

"He's a pore fule," he muttered, "but it's a lousy trick anyways."

Thus he dismissed the matter from his mind with a callous shrug.

In the meantime Scipio neared the house from which shone the larger light. As he drew towards it he saw its outline against the starlight.

It was a large, two-storied frame house of weather-boarding, with a veranda fronting it. There were several windows on the hither side of it, but light shone only in one of them. It was by this light the horseman saw a tie-post some yards from the house. And without hesitation he rode up to it, and, dismounting, secured his mare. Then, following Conroy's directions, he proceeded on foot to the back of the house where he was to find an open door. He turned the angle of the building. Yes, the door was there all right, but whereas Conroy had said that James was lying on his blankets reading, he now discovered that the doorway was filled by that handsome thief's presence.

Before he realized what had happened, Scipio found himself in the full glare of the light from the doorway, and James was smiling down upon his yellow head with a curious blending of insolence and curiosity.

"I was wondering when you'd get around," he said, without shifting his position. Then, as Scipio made no answer, he bestirred himself. "Come right in," he added, and, lounging out of the doorway, he dropped back into the room. "You'll find things a bit untidy," he went on calmly, "you see I'm making changes in my domestic arrangements. This is temporary, I guess. However, if you don't just mind that, why--come right in."

The man's whole manner was one of good-humored indifference. There was an unruffled a.s.surance about him that was quite perfect, if studied.

Scipio's presence there seemed the last thing of concern to him. And the effect of his manner on his visitor entirely upset all the latter's preconceived intentions. Astonishment was his first feeling.

Then a sudden diffidence seized him, a diffidence that was nearly akin to fear of his rival. But this pa.s.sed in a moment, and was instantly replaced by a hot rush of blood through his small body. All his pictured interview died out of his recollections, and, in place of that calmness with which he had intended to meet the man, he found his pulses hammering and hot anger mounting to his head. The commonest of human pa.s.sions stirred in him, and he felt it would be good to hurt this man who had so wronged him.

"Where's my wife?" he demanded, with a sudden fierceness.

"Oh--it's that. Say, come right in?"

James was still smiling pleasantly. This time Scipio accepted the invitation without thought of trap or anything else. He almost precipitated himself into the room.

Nor in his fury did he observe his surroundings. He had no eyes for the furnishings, the cheap comfort with which he was surrounded. And though, as James had said, the place was untidy, he saw nothing and none of it. His eyes were on the man; angry, bloodshot eyes, such eyes as those of a furiously goaded dog, driven into a corner by the cruel lash of a bully's whip.

"Yes, that's it. Wher's my wife?" Scipio demanded threateningly.

"You've stole her, and taken her from me. I've come to take her back."

The force of his demands was tinged with the simplicity of a naturally gentle disposition. And maybe, in consequence, something of their sting was lost. The forceful bl.u.s.ter of an outraged man, determined upon enforcing his demands, would probably have stirred James to active protest, but, as it was, he only continued to smile his insolence upon one whom he regarded as little better than a harmless worm.

"One moment," he said, with an exasperating patience, "you say I stole her. To have stolen her suggests that she was not willing to come along. She came with me. Well, I guess she came because she fancied it. You say you're going to take her back. Well," with a shrug, "I kind of think she'll have something to say about going back."

For a moment Scipio stood aghast. He glanced about him helplessly.

Then, in a flash, his pale-blue eyes came back to the other's face.

"She's mine, I tell you! Mine! Mine! Mine!" he cried, in a frenzy of rage and despair. "She's mine by the laws of G.o.d an' man. She's mine by the love that has brought our kiddies into the world. Do you hear?

She's mine by every tie that can hold man and wife together. An'

you've stole her. She's all I've got. She's all I want. She's just part of me, and I can't live without her. Ther's the kiddies to home waitin' for her, and she's theirs, same as they are hers--and mine. I tell you, you ain't going to keep her. She's got to come back." He drew a deep breath to choke down his fury. "Say," he went on, with a sudden moderating of his tone and his manner, taking on a pitiful pleading, "do you think you love her? You? Do you think you know what love is? You don't. You can't. You can't love her same as I do. I love her honest. I love her so I want to work for her till I drop. I love her so there's nothin' on earth I wouldn't do for her. My life is hers. All that's me is hers. I ain't got a thought without her. Man, you don't know what it is to love my Jessie. You can't, 'cos your love's not honest. You've taken her same as you'd take any woman for your pleasure. If I was dead, would you marry her? No, never, never, never. She's a pastime to you, and when you've done with her you'd turn her right out on this prairie to herd with the cattle, if ther'

wasn't anywher' else for her to go." Then his voice suddenly rose and his fury supervened again. "G.o.d!" he cried fiercely. "Give me back my wife. You're a thief. Give her back to me, I say. She's mine, d'you understand--mine!"

Not for an instant did the smile on James' face relax. Maybe it became more set, and his lips, perhaps, tightened, but the smile was there, hard, unyielding in its very setness. And when Scipio's appeal came to an end he spoke with an underlying harshness that did not carry its way to the little man's distracted brain.

"She wouldn't go back to you, even if I let her--which I won't," he said coldly.