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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:51:59 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17844-8.txt b/17844-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5d1edfa --- /dev/null +++ b/17844-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11055 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ben Blair, by Will Lillibridge + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ben Blair + The Story of a Plainsman + +Author: Will Lillibridge + +Release Date: February 24, 2006 [EBook #17844] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEN BLAIR *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[Illustration: Florence touched his arm. "Ben," she pleaded, "Ben, +forgive me. I've hurt you. I can't say I love you." Page 114.] + +BEN BLAIR +THE STORY OF A PLAINSMAN + +By WILL LILLIBRIDGE + +Author of "Where the Trail Divides," etc. + +A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS +NEW YORK + + * * * * * + +COPYRIGHT BY +A. C. MCCLURG & CO. +A. D. 1905 + +Entered at Stationers' Hall, London + +_All rights reserved_ + + +Published October 21, 1905 +Second Edition October 28, 1905 +Third Edition November 29, 1905 +Fourth Edition December 9, 1905 +Fifth Edition December 14, 1905 +Sixth Edition February 28, 1907 + + * * * * * + +_To My Wife_ + + * * * * * + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. IN RUDE BORDER-LAND 1 + II. DESOLATION 9 + III. THE BOX R RANCH 23 + IV. BEN'S NEW HOME 37 + V. THE EXOTICS 44 + VI. THE SOIL AND THE SEED 53 + VII. THE SANITY OF THE WILD 66 + VIII. THE GLITTER OF THE UNKNOWN 74 + IX. A RIFFLE OF PRAIRIE 83 + X. THE DOMINANT ANIMAL 94 + XI. LOVE'S AVOWAL 106 + XII. A DEFERRED RECKONING 117 + XIII. A SHOT IN THE DARK 134 + XIV. THE INEXORABLE TRAIL 148 + XV. IN THE GRIP OF THE LAW 164 + XVI. THE QUICK AND THE DEAD 185 + XVII. GLITTER AND TINSEL 193 +XVIII. PAINTER AND PICTURE 204 + XIX. A VISITOR FROM THE PLAINS 217 + XX. CLUB CONFIDENCES 230 + XXI. LOVE IN CONFLICT 242 + XXII. TWO FRIENDS HAVE IT OUT 258 +XXIII. THE BACK-FIRE 270 + XXIV. THE UPPER AND THE NETHER MILLSTONES 287 + XXV. OF WHAT AVAIL? 304 + XXVI. LOVE'S SURRENDER 318 + + * * * * * + + + + +BEN BLAIR + +CHAPTER I + +IN RUDE BORDER-LAND + + +Even in a community where unsavory reputations were the rule, Mick +Kennedy's saloon was of evil repute. In a land new and wild, his +establishment was the wildest, partook most of the unsubdued, unevolved +character of its surroundings. There, as irresistibly as gravitation +calls the falling apple, came from afar and near--mainly from afar--the +malcontent, the restless, the reckless, seeking--instinctively +gregarious--the crowd, the excitement of the green-covered table, the +temporary oblivion following the gulping of fiery red liquor. + +Great splendid animals were the men who gathered there; hairy, powerful, +strong-voiced from combat with prairie wind and frontier distance; +devoid of a superfluous ounce of flesh, their trousers, uniformly baggy +at the knees, bearing mute testimony to the many hours spent in the +saddle; the bare unprotected skin of their hands and faces speaking +likewise of constant contact with sun and storm. + +By the broad glow of daylight the place was anything but inviting. The +heavy bar, made of cottonwood, had no more elegance than the rude sod +shanty of the pioneer. The worn round cloth-topped tables, imported at +extravagant cost from the East, were covered with splashes of grease and +liquor; and the few fly-marked pictures on the walls were coarsely +suggestive. Scattered among them haphazard, in one instance through a +lithographic print, were round holes as large as a spike-head, through +which, by closely applying the eye, one could view the world without. +When the place was new, similar openings had been carefully refilled +with a whittled stick of wood, but the practice had been discontinued; +it was too much trouble, and also useless from the frequency with which +new holes were made. Besides, although accepted with unconcern by +_habitués_ of the place, they were a source of never-ending interest to +the "tenderfeet" who occasionally appeared from nowhere and disappeared +whence they had come. + +But at night all was different. Encircling the room with gleaming points +of light were a multitude of blazing candles, home-made from tallow of +prairie cattle. The irradiance, almost as strong as daylight, but +radically different, softened all surrounding objects. The prairie dust, +penetrating with the wind, spread itself everywhere. The reflection from +cheap glassware, carefully polished, made it appear of costly make; the +sawdust of the floor seemed a downy covering; the crude heavy chairs, an +imitation of the artistic furniture of our fathers. Even the face of +bartender Mick, with its stiff unshaven red beard and its single +eye,--merciless as an electric headlight,--its broad flaming scar +leading down from the blank socket of its mate, became less repulsive +under the softened light. + +With the coming of Fall frosts, the premonition of Winter, the +frequenters of the place gathered earlier, remained later, emptied more +of the showily labelled bottles behind the bar, and augmented when +possible their well-established reputation for recklessness. About the +soiled tables the fringe of bleared faces and keen hawk-like eyes was +more closely drawn. The dull rattle of poker-chips lasted longer, +frequently far into the night, and even after the tardy light of morning +had come to the rescue of the sputtering stumps in the candlesticks. + +On such a morning, early in November, daylight broadened upon a +characteristic scene. Only one table was in use, and around it sat four +men. One by one the other players had cashed out and left the game. One +of them was snoring in a corner, his head resting upon the sawdust. +Another leaned heavily upon the bar, a half-drained glass before him. +Even the four at the table were not as upon the night before. The hands +which held the greasy cards and toyed with the stacks of chips were +steady, but the heads controlling them wavered uncertainly; and the hawk +eyes were bloodshot. + +A man with a full beard, roughly trimmed into the travesty of a Vandyke, +was dealing. He tossed out the cards, carefully inclining their faces +downward, and returned the remainder of the pack softly to the table. + +"Pass, damn it!" growled the man at the left. + +"Pass," came from the next man. + +"Pass," echoed the last of the quartette. + +Five blue chips dropped in a row upon the cloth. + +"I open it." + +The dealer took up the pack lovingly. + +"Cards?" + +The man at the left, tall, gaunt, ill-kempt, flicked the pasteboards in +his hand to the floor and ground them beneath his heavy boots. + +"Give me five." + +The point of the Vandyke beard was aimed straight past the speaker. + +"Cards?" repeated the dealer. + +"Five! Can't you hear?" + +The man braced against the bar looked around with interest. In the mask +of Mick Kennedy the single eye closed almost imperceptibly. Slowly the +face of the dealer turned. + +"I can hear you pretty well when you cash into the game. You already owe +me forty blues, Blair." + +The long figure stiffened, the face went pale. + +"You--mean--you--" the tongue was very thick. "You cut me out?" + +For a moment there was silence; then once more the beard pointed to the +player next beyond. + +"Cards?" for the third time. + +Five chips ranged in a row beside their predecessors. + +"Three." + +A hand, almost the hand of a gentleman, went instinctively to the gaunt +throat of the ignored gambler and jerked at the close flannel shirt; +then without a word the owner got unsteadily to his feet and followed +an irregular trail toward the interested spectator at the bar. + +"Have a drink with me, pard," said the gambler, as he regarded the +immovable Mick. "Two whiskeys, there!" + +Kennedy did not stir, and for five seconds Blair blinked his dulled eyes +in wordless surprise; then his fist came down upon the cottonwood board +with a mighty crash. + +"Wake up there, Mick!" he roared. "I'm speaking to you! A couple of +'ryes' for the gentleman here and myself." + +Another pause, momentary but effective. + +"I heard you." The barkeeper spoke quietly but without the slightest +change of expression, even of the eye. "I heard you, but I'm not dealing +out drinks to deadbeats. Pay up, and I'll be glad to serve you." + +Swift as thought Blair's hand went to his hip, and the rattle of +poker-chips sympathetically ceased. A second, and a big revolver was +trained fair at the dispenser of liquors. + +"Curse you, Mick Kennedy!" muttered a choking voice, "when I order +drinks I want drinks. Dig up there, and be lively!" + +The man by the speaker's side, surprised out of his intoxication, edged +away to a discreet distance; but even yet the Irishman made no move. +Only the single headlight shifted in its socket until it looked +unblinkingly into the blazing eyes of the gambler. + +"Tom Blair," commanded an even voice, "Tom Blair, you white livered +bully, put up that gun!" + +Slowly, very slowly, the speaker turned,--all but the terrible +Cyclopean eye,--and moved forward until his body leaned upon the bar, +his face protruding over it. + +"Put up that gun, I tell you!" A smile almost fiendish broke over the +furrows of the rugged face. "You wouldn't dast shoot, unless perhaps it +was a woman, you coward!" + +For a fraction of a minute there was silence, while over the visage of +the challenged there flashed, faded, recurred the expression we pay good +dollars to watch playing upon the features of an accomplished actor; +then the yellow streak beneath the bravado showed, and the menacing hand +dropped to the holster at the hip. Once again Kennedy, who seldom made a +mistake, had sized his man correctly. + +"What do I owe you altogether, Mick?" asked a changed and subdued voice. +"Make it as easy as you can." + +Kennedy relaxed into his lounging position. + +"Thirty-five dollars. We'll call it thirty. You've been setting them up +to everybody here for a week on your face." + +"Can't you give me just a little more credit, Mick?" An expression meant +to be a smile formed upon the haggard face. "Just for old time's sake? +You know I've always been a good customer of yours, Kennedy." + +"Not a cent." + +"But I've got to have liquor!" One hand, ill-kept, but long of fingers +and refined of shape, steadied the speaker. "I can't get along without +it!" + +"Sell something, then, and pay up." + +The man thought a moment and shook his head. + +"I haven't anything to sell; you know that. It's the wrong time of the +year." He paused, and the travesty of a smile reappeared. "Next +Winter--" + +"You've got a horse outside." + +For an instant Blair's gaunt face darkened at the insult; he grew almost +dignified; but the drink curse had too strong a grip upon him and the +odor of whiskey was in the air. + +"Yes, I've a good horse," he said slowly. "What'll you give for him?" + +"Seventy dollars." + +"He's a good horse, worth a hundred." + +"I'm glad of that, but I'm not dealing in horses. I make the offer just +to oblige you. Besides, as you said, it's an off season." + +"You won't give me more?" + +"No." + +Blair looked impotently about the room, but his former companions had +returned to their game. Filling in the silence, the dull clatter of +chips mingled with the drunken snores of the man on the floor. + +"Very well, give me forty," he said at last. + +"You accept, do you?" + +"Yes." + +"All right." + +Blair waited a moment. "Aren't you going to give me what's coming?" he +asked. + +Slowly the single eye fixed him as before. + +"I didn't know you had anything coming." + +"Why, you just said forty dollars!" + +There was no relenting in Kennedy's face. + +"You owe that gentleman over there at the table for forty blues. I'll +settle with him." + +Instinctively, as before, Blair's thin hand went to his throat, +clutching at the coarse flannel. He saw he was beaten. + +"Well, give me a drink, anyway!" + +Silently Mick took a big flask from the shelf and set it with a decanter +upon the bar. Filling the glass, Blair drained it at a gulp, refilled +and drained it--and then again. + +"A little drop to take along with me," he whined. + +Kennedy selected a pint bottle, filled it from the big flask, and +silently proffered it over the board. + +Blair took the extended favor, glanced once more about the room, and +stumbled toward the exit. Mick busied himself wiping the soiled bar with +a towel, if possible, even more filthy. At the threshold, his hand upon +the knob, Blair paused, stiffened, grew livid in the face. + +"May Satan blister your scoundrel souls, all of you!" he cursed. + +Not a man within sound of his voice gave sign that he had heard, as the +opened door returned to its casing with a crash. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +DESOLATION + + +Ten miles out on the prairies,--not lands plane as a table, as they are +usually pictured, but rolling like the sea with waves of tremendous +amplitude--stood a rough shack, called by courtesy a house. Like many a +more pretentious domicile, it was of composite construction, although +consisting of but one room. At the base was the native prairie sod, +piled tier upon tier. Above this the superstructure, like the bar of +Mick Kennedy's resort, was of warping cottonwood. Built out from this +single room and forming a part of it was what the designer had called a +woodshed; but as no tree the size of a man's wrist was within ten miles, +or a railroad within fifty, the term was manifestly a misnomer. Wood in +any form it had never contained; instead, it was filled with that +providential fuel of the frontiersman, found superabundantly upon the +ranges,--buffalo chips. + +From the main room there was another and much smaller opening into the +sod foundation, and below it,--a dog-kennel. Slightly apart from the +shack stood a twin structure even less assuming, its walls and roof +being wholly built of sod. It was likewise without partition, and was +used as a barn. Hard by was a corral covering perhaps two acres, +enclosed with a barbed-wire fence. These three excrescences upon the +face of nature comprised the "improvements" of the "Big B Ranch." + +Within the house the furnishings accorded with their surroundings. Two +folding bunks, similar in conception to the upper berths of a Pullman +car, were built end to end against the wall; when they were raised to +give room, four supports dangled beneath like paralyzed arms. A +home-made table, suggesting those scattered about country picnic +grounds, a few cheap chairs, a row of chests and cupboards variously +remodelled from a common foundation of dry-goods boxes, and a stove, +ingeniously evolved out of the cylinder and head of a portable engine, +comprised the furniture. + +The morning sunlight which dimmed the candles of Mick Kennedy's saloon +drifted through the single high-set window of the Big B Ranch-house, +revealing there a very different scene. From beneath the quilts in one +of the folding bunks appeared the faces of a woman and a little boy. At +the opening of the dog-kennel the head of a mottled yellow-and-white +mongrel dog projected into the room, the sensitive muzzle pointing +directly at the occupied bunk. The eyes of woman, child, and beast were +open and moved restlessly about. + +"Mamma," and the small boy wriggled beneath the clothes, "Mamma, I'm +hungry." + +The white face of the woman turned away, more pallid than before. An +unfamiliar observer would have been at a loss to guess the age of the +owner. In that haggard, non-committal countenance there was nothing to +indicate whether she was twenty-five or forty. + +"It is early yet, son. Go to sleep." + +The boy closed his eyes dutifully, and for perhaps five minutes there +was silence; then the blue orbs opened wider than before. + +"Mamma, I can't go to sleep. I'm hungry!" + +"Never mind, Benjamin. The horses, the rabbits, the birds,--all get +hungry sometimes." A hacking cough interrupted her words. "Snuggle close +up to me, little son, and keep warm." + +"But, mamma, I want something to eat. Won't you get it for me?" + +"I can't, son." + +He waited a moment. "Won't you let me help myself, then, mamma?" + +The eyes of the mother moistened. + +"Mamma," the child repeated, gently shaking his mother's shoulder, +"won't you let me help myself?" + +"There's nothing for you to eat, sonny, nothing at all." + +The blue child-eyes widened; the serious little face puckered. + +"Why ain't there anything to eat, mamma?" + +"Because there isn't, bubby." + +The reasoning was conclusive, and the child accepted it without further +parley; but soon another interrogation took form in his active brain. + +"It's cold, mamma," he announced. "Aren't you going to build a fire?" + +Again the mother coughed, and a flush of red appeared upon her cheeks. + +"No," she answered with a sigh. + +"Why not, mamma?" + +There was not the slightest trace of irritation in the answering voice, +although it was clearly an effort to speak. + +"I can't get up this morning, little one." + +Mysteries were multiplying, but the small Benjamin was equal to the +occasion. With a spring he was out of bed, and in another moment was +stepping gingerly upon the cold bare floor. + +"I'm going to build a fire for you, mamma," he announced. + +The homely mongrel whined a welcome to the little lad's appearance, and +with his tail beat a friendly tattoo upon the kennel floor; but the +woman spoke no word. With impassive face she watched the shivering +little figure as it hurried into its clothes, and then, with celerity +born of experience, went about the making of a fire. Suddenly a hitherto +unthought-of possibility flashed into the boy's mind, and leaving his +work he came back to the bunk. + +"Are you sick, mamma?" he asked. + +Instantly the woman's face softened. + +"Yes, laddie," she answered gently. + +Carefully as a nurse, the small protector replaced the cover at his +mother's back, where his exit had left a gap; then returned to his work. + +"You must have it warm here," he said. + +Not until the fire in the old cylinder makeshift was burning merrily did +he return to his patient; then, standing straight before her, he looked +down with an air of childish dignity that would have been comical had it +been less pathetic. + +"Are you very sick, mamma?" he said at last, hesitatingly. + +"I am dying, little son." She spoke calmly and impersonally, without +even a quickening of the breath. The thin hand, lying on the tattered +cover, did not stir. + +"Mamma!" the old-man face of the boy tightened, as, bending over the +bed, he pressed his warm cheek against hers, now growing cold and white. + +At the mouth of the kennel two bright eyes were watching curiously. +Their owner wriggled the tip of his muzzle inquiringly, but the action +brought no response. Then the muzzle went into the air, and a whine, +long-drawn and insistent, broke the silence. + +The boy rose. There was not a trace of moisture in his eyes, but the +uncannily aged face seemed older than before. He went over to a peg +where his clothes were hanging and took down the frayed garment that +answered as an overcoat. From the bunk there came another cough, quickly +muffled; but he did not turn. Cap followed coat, mittens cap; then, +suddenly remembering, he turned to the stove and scattered fresh chips +upon the glowing embers. + +"Good-bye, mamma," said the boy. + +The mother had been watching him, although she gave no sign. "Where are +you going, sonny?" she asked. + +"To town, mamma. Someone ought to know you're sick." + +There was a moment's pause, wherein the mongrel whined impatiently. + +"Aren't you going to kiss me first, Benjamin?" + +The little lad retraced his steps, until, bending over, his lips touched +those of his mother. As he did so, the hand which had lain upon the +coverlet shifted to his arm detainingly. + +"How were you thinking of going, son?" + +A look of surprise crept into the boy's blue eyes. A question like this, +with its obvious answer, was unusual from his matter-of-fact mother. He +glanced at her gravely. + +"I'm going afoot, mamma." + +"It's ten miles to town, Benjamin." + +"But you and I walked it once together. Don't you remember?" + +An expression the lad did not understand flashed over the white face of +Jennie Blair. Well she remembered that other occasion, one of many like +the present, when she and the little lad had gone in company to the +settlement of which Mick Kennedy's place was a part, in search of +someone whom after ten hours' delay they had succeeded in bringing +home,--the remnant and vestige of what was once a man. + +"Yes, I know we did, Bennie." + +The boy waited a moment longer, then straightened himself. + +"I think I'd better be starting now." + +But instead of loosening its hold, the hand upon the boy's shoulder +tightened. The eyes of the two met. + +"You're not going, sonny. I'm glad you thought of it, but I can't let +you go." + +Again there was silence for so long that the waiting dog, impatient of +the delay, whined in soft protest. + +"Why not, mamma?" + +"Because, Benjamin, it's too late now. Besides, there wouldn't be a +person there who would come out to help me." + +The boy's look of perplexity returned. + +"Not if they knew you were very sick, mamma?" + +"Not if they knew I was dying, my son." + +The boy took off hat, mittens, and coat, and returned them to their +places. Never in his short life had he questioned a statement of his +mother's, and such heresy did not occur to him now. Coming back to the +bunk, he laid his cheek caressingly beside hers. + +"Is there anything I can do for you, mamma?" he whispered. + +"Nothing but what you are doing now, laddie." + +Tired of standing, the mongrel dropped within his tracks flat upon his +belly, and, his head resting upon his fore-paws, lay watching intently. + + * * * * * + +When the door of Mick Kennedy's saloon closed with an emphasis that +shook the very walls, it shut out a being more ferocious, more evil, +than any beast of the jungle. For the time, Blair's alcohol-saturated +brain evolved but one chain of thought, was capable of but one +emotion--hate. Every object in the universe, from its Creator to +himself, fell under the ban. The language of hate is curses; and as he +moved out over the prairie there dripped from his lips continuously, +monotonously, a trickling, blighting stream of malediction. Swaying, +stumbling, unconscious of his physical motions, instinct kept him upon +the trail; a Providence, sometimes kindest to those least worthy, +preserved him from injury. + +Half way out he met a solitary Indian astride a faded-looking mustang, +and the current of his wrath was temporarily diverted by a surly "How!" +Even this measure of friendliness was regretted when the big revolver +came out of the rancher's holster like a flash, and, head low on the +neck of the mustang, heels in the little beast's ribs, the aborigine +retreated with a yell, amid a shower of ill-aimed bullets. Long after +the figure on the pony had passed out of range, Blair stood pulling at +the trigger of the empty repeater and cursing louder than before because +it would not "pop." + +Two hours later, when it was past noon, an uncertain hand lifted the +wooden latch of the Big B Ranch-house door, and, heralded by an inrush +of cold outside air, Tom Blair, master and dictator, entered his domain. +The passage of time, the physical exercise, and the prairie air, had +somewhat cleared his brain. Just within the room, he paused and looked +about him with surprise. With premonition of impending trouble, the +mongrel bristled the yellow hair of his neck, and, retreating to the +mouth of his kennel, stood guard; but otherwise the scene was to a +detail as it had been in the morning. The woman lay passive within the +bunk. The child by her side, holding her hand, did not turn. The very +atmosphere of the place tingled with an ominous quiet,--a silence such +as one who has lived through a cyclone connects instinctively with a +whirling oncoming black funnel. + +The new-comer was first to make a move. Walking over to the centre of +the room, he stopped and looked upon his subjects. + +"Well, of all the infernally lazy people I ever saw!" he commented, "you +beat them, Jennie! Get up and cook something to eat; it's way after +noon, and I'm hungry." + +The woman said nothing, but the boy slid to his feet, facing the +intruder. + +"Mamma's sick and can't get up," he explained as impersonally as to a +stranger. "Besides, there isn't anything to cook. She said so." + +The man's brow contracted into a frown. + +"Speak when you're spoken to, young upstart!" he snapped. "Out with you, +Jennie! I don't want to be monkeyed with to-day!" + +He hung up his coat and cap, and loosened his belt a hole; but no one +else in the room moved. + +"Didn't you hear me?" he asked, looking warningly toward the bunk. + +"Yes," she replied. + +Autocrat under his own roof, the man paused in surprise. Never before +had a command here been disobeyed. He could scarcely believe his own +senses. + +"You know what to do, then," he said sharply. + +For the first time a touch of color came into the woman's cheeks, and +catching the man's eyes she looked into them unfalteringly. + +"Since when did I become your slave, Tom Blair?" she asked slowly. + +The words were a challenge, the tone was that of some wild thing, +wounded, cornered, staring death in the face, but defiant to the end. +"Since when did you become my owner, body and soul?" + +Any sportsman, any being with a fragment of admiration for even animal +courage, would have held aloof then. It remained for this man, bred amid +high civilization, who had spent years within college halls, to strike +the prostrate. As in the frontier saloon, so now his hand went +involuntarily to his throat, clutched at the binding collar until the +button flew; then, as before, his face went white. + +"Since when!" he blazed, "since when! I admire your nerve to ask that +question of me! Since six years ago, when you first began living with +me. Since the day when you and the boy,--and not a preacher within a +hundred miles--" Words, a flood of words, were upon his lips; but +suddenly he stopped. Despite the alcohol still in his brain, despite the +effort he made to continue, the gaze of the woman compelled silence. + +"You dare recall that memory, Tom Blair?" The words came more slowly +than before, and with an intensity that burned them into the hearer's +memory. "You dare, knowing what I gave up for your sake!" The eyes +blazed afresh, the dark head was raised on the pillows. "You know that +my son stands listening, and yet you dare throw my coming to you in my +face?" + +White to the lips went the scarred visage of the man, but the madness +was upon him. + +"I dare?" To his own ears the voice sounded unnatural. "I dare? To be +sure I dare! You came to me of your own free-will. You were not a +child!" His voice rose and the flush returned to his face. "You knew the +price and accepted it deliberately,--deliberately, I say!" + +Without a sound, the figure in the rough bunk quivered and stiffened; +the hand upon the coverlet was clenched until the nails grew white, then +it relaxed. Slowly, very slowly, the eyelids closed as though in sleep. + +Impassive but intent listener, an instinct now sent the boy Benjamin +back to his post. + +"Mamma," he said gently. "Mamma!" + +There was no answer, nor even a responsive pressure of the hand. + +"Mamma!" he repeated more loudly. "Mamma! Mamma!" + +Still no answer, only the limp passivity. Then suddenly, although never +before in his short life had the little lad looked upon death, he +recognized it now. His mamma, his playmate, his teacher, was like this; +she would not speak to him, would not answer him; she would never speak +to him or smile upon him again! Like a thunderclap came the realization +of this. Then another thought swiftly followed. This man,--one who had +said things that hurt her, that brought the red spots to her +cheeks,--this man was to blame. Not in the least did he understand the +meaning of what he had just heard. No human being had suggested to him +that Blair was the cause of his mother's death; but as surely as he +would remember their words as long as he lived, so surely did he +recognize the man's guilt. Suddenly, as powder responds to the spark, +there surged through his tiny body a terrible animal hate for this man, +and, scarcely realizing the action, he rushed at him. + +"She's dead and you killed her!" he screamed. "Mamma's dead, dead!" and +the little doubled fists struck at the man's legs again and again. + +Oblivious to the onslaught, Tom Blair strode over to the bunk. + +"Jennie," he said, not unkindly, "Jennie, what's the matter?" + +Again there was no response, and a shade of awe crept into the man's +voice. + +"Jennie! Jennie! Answer me!" A hand fell upon the woman's shoulder and +shook it, first gently, then roughly. "Answer me, I say!" + +With the motion, the head of the dead shifted upon the pillow and turned +toward the man, and involuntarily he loosened his grasp. He had not +eaten for twenty-four hours, and in sudden weakness he made his way to +one of the rough chairs, and sat down, his face buried in his hands. + +Behind him the boy Benjamin, his sudden hot passion over, stood watching +intently,--his face almost uncanny in its lack of childishness. + +For a time there was absolute silence, the hush of a death-chamber; then +of a sudden the boy was conscious that the man was looking at him in a +way he had never looked before. Deep down below our consciousness, far +beneath the veneer of civilization, there is an instinct, relic of the +vigilant savage days, that warns us of personal danger. By this instinct +the lad now interpreted the other's gaze, and knew that it meant ill for +him. For some reason which he could not understand, this man, this big +animal, was his mortal enemy; and, in the manner of smaller animals, he +began to consider an avenue of escape. + +"Ben," spoke the man, "come here!" + +Tom Blair was sober now, and wore a look of determination upon his face +that few had ever seen there before; but to his surprise the boy did not +respond. He waited a moment, and then said sharply: + +"Ben, I'm speaking to you. Come here at once!" + +For answer there was a tightening of the lad's blue eyes and an added +watchfulness in the incongruously long childish figure; but that was +all. + +Another lagging minute passed, wherein the two regarded each other +steadily. The man's eyes dropped first. + +"You little devil!" he muttered, and the passion began showing in his +voice. "I believe you knew what I was thinking all the time! Anyway, +you'll know now. You said awhile ago that I was to blame for your mother +being--as she is. You're liable to say that again." A horror greater +than sudden passion was in the deliberate explanation and in the slow +way he rose to his feet. "I'm going to fix you so you can't say it +again, you old-man imp!" + +Then a peculiar thing happened. Instead of running away, the boy took a +step forward, and the man paused, scarcely believing his eyes. Another +step forward, and yet another, came the diminutive figure, until almost +within the aggressor's reach; then suddenly, quick as a cat, it veered, +dropped upon all fours to the floor, and head first, scrambling like a +rabbit, disappeared into the open mouth of the dog-kennel. + +Too late the man saw the trick, and curses came to his lips,--curses fit +for a fiend, fit for the irresponsible being he was. He himself had +built that kennel. It extended in a curve eight feet into the solid sod +foundation, and to get at the spot where the boy now lay he would have +to tear down the house itself. The temper which had made the man what he +now was, a drunkard and fugitive in a frontier country, took possession +of him wholly, and with it came a madman's cunning; for at a sudden +thought he stopped, and the cursing tongue was silent. Five minutes +later he left the place, closing the door carefully behind him; but +before that time a red jet of flame, like the ravenous tongue of a +famished beast, was lapping at a hastily assembled pile of tinder-dry +furniture in one corner of the shanty. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE BOX R RANCH + + +Mr. Rankin moved back from a well-discussed table, and, the room being +conveniently small, tilted his chair back against the wall. The +protesting creak of the ill-glued joints under the strain of his +ponderous figure was a signal for all the diners, and five other men +likewise drew away from around the board. Rankin extracted a match and a +stout jack-knife from the miscellaneous collection of useful articles in +his capacious pocket, carefully whittled the bit of wood to a point, and +picked his teeth deliberately. The five "hands," sun-browned, unshaven, +dissimilar in face as in dress, waited in expectation; but the +housekeeper, a shapeless, stolid-looking woman, wife of the foreman, +Graham, went methodically about the work of clearing the table. Rankin +watched her a moment indifferently; then without turning his head, his +eyes shifted in their narrow slits of sockets until they rested upon one +of the cowboys. + +"What time was it you saw that smoke, Grannis?" he asked. + +The man addressed paused in the operation of rolling a cigarette. + +"'Bout an hour ago, I should say. I was just thinking of coming in to +dinner." + +The lids met over Rankin's eyes, then the narrow slit opened. + +"It was in the no'thwest you say, and seemed to be quite a way off?" + +Grannis nodded. + +"Yes; I couldn't make out any fire, only the smoke, and that didn't last +long. I thought at first maybe it was a prairie fire, and started to +see; but it was getting thinner before I'd gone a mile, so I turned +round and by the time I got back to the corral there wasn't nothing at +all to see." + +Two of the other hands solemnly exchanged a wink. + +"Think you must have eaten too many of Ma Graham's pancakes this +morning, and had a blur over your eyes," commented one, slyly. "Prairie +fires don't stop that sudden when the grass is like it is now." + +The portly housewife paused in her work to cast a look of scorn upon the +speaker, but Grannis rushed into the breach. + +"Don't you believe it. There was a fire all right. Somebody stopped it, +or it stopped itself, that's all." + +Tilting his chair forward with an effort, Rankin got to his feet, and, +as usual, his action brought the discussion to an end. The woman +returned to her work; the men put on hats and coats preparatory to going +out of doors. Only the proprietor stood passive a moment absently +drawing down his vest over his portly figure. + +"Graham," he said at last, "hitch the mustangs to the light wagon." + +"All right." + +"And, Graham--" + +The man addressed paused. + +"Throw in a couple of extra blankets." + +"All right." + +Out of doors the men took up the conversation where they had left off. + +"You better begin to hope the old man finds something that's been afire +up there, Grannis," said the joker of the house. "If he don't, you've +cooked your goose proper." + +Grannis was a new-comer, and looked his surprise. + +"Why so?" he asked. + +"You'll find out why," retorted the other. "Fire here's 'most as +uncommon as rain, and the boss don't like them smoky jokes." + +"But I saw smoke, I tell you," reiterated Grannis, defensively; "smoke, +dead sure!" + +"All right, if you're certain sure." + +"Marcom knows what he's talking about, Grannis," said Graham. "He tried +to ginger things up a bit when he was new here, like you are; found a +litter of coyotes one September--thought they were timber wolves, I +guess, and braced up with his story to the old man." The speaker paused +with a reflective grin. + +"Well, what happened?" asked Grannis. + +"What happened? The boss sent me dusting about forty miles to get some +hounds. Nearly spoiled a good team to get back inside sixteen hours, +and--they found out Bill here in the next thirty minutes, that was all!" +Once more the story ended in a grin. + +"What'd Rankin say?" asked Grannis, with interest. + +"How about it, Bill?" suggested Graham. + +The big cowboy looked a trifle foolish. + +"Oh, he didn't say much; 'tain't his way. He just remarked, sort of +off-hand, that as far as I was concerned the next year had only about +four pay-months in it. That was all." + + * * * * * + +Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing at once. This was the +motto of the master of the Box R Ranch. In ten minutes' time Rankin's +big shapeless figure, seated in the old buckboard, was moving northwest +at the steady jog-trot typical of prairie travel, and which as the hours +pass by annihilates distance surprisingly. Simply a fat, an abnormally +fat, man, the casual observer would have said. It remained for those who +came in actual contact with him to learn the force beneath the +forbidding exterior,--the relentless bull-dog energy that had made him +dictator of the great ranch, and kept subordinate the restless, roving, +dissolute men-of-fortune he employed,--the deliberate and impartial +judgment which had made his word as near law as it was possible for any +mandate to be among the motley inhabitants within a radius of fifty +miles. Had Rankin chosen he could have attained honor, position, power +in his native Eastern home. No barrier built of convention or of +conservatism could have withstood him. Society reserves her prizes +largely for the man of initiative; and, uncomely block as he was, Rankin +was of the true type. But for some reason, a reason known to none of his +associates, he had chosen to come to the West. Some consideration or +other had caused him to stop at his present abode, and had made him +apparently a fixture in the midst of this unconquered country. + +There was no road in the direction Rankin was travelling,--only the +unbroken prairie sod, eaten close by the herds that grazed its every +foot. Even under the direct sunlight the air was sharp. The regular +breath of the mustangs shot out like puffs of steam from the exhaust of +an engine, and the moisture frosted about their flanks and nostrils. But +the big man on the seat did not notice temperature. He had produced a +pipe from the depths beneath the wagon seat, and tobacco from a jar +cunningly fitted into one corner of the box, both without moving from +his place, the seat being hinged and divided in the centre to facilitate +the operation. More a home to him than the ranch-house itself was that +battered buckboard. Here, on an average, he spent eight hours out of the +twenty-four, and that seat-box was a veritable storehouse of articles +used in his daily life. As the jog-trot measured off the miles he +replenished the pipe again and again, leaving behind him the odor of +strong tobacco. + +Not until he was within a mile of the "Big B" property, and a rise in +the monotonous roll of the land brought him in range of vision, did +Rankin show that he felt more than ordinary interest in his expedition; +then, shading his eyes, he looked steadily ahead. The sod barn stood in +its usual place; the corral, with its posts set close together, +stretched by its side; but where the house had stood there could not be +distinguished even a mound. The hand on the reins tightened meaningly, +and in sympathy the mustangs moved ahead at a swifter pace, leaving +behind a trail of tobacco-smoke denser than before. + + * * * * * + +When the little Benjamin Blair, fugitive, had literally taken to the +earth, it was with definite knowledge of the territory he was entering. +He had often explored its depths with childish curiosity, to the +distress of his mother and the disgust of the rightful owner, the +mongrel dog. Retreating to the farther end of the cave, the instinct of +self-preservation set hands and feet to work like the claws of a gopher, +filling with loose dirt the narrow passage through which he had entered. +Panting and perspiring with the effort, choked with the dust he raised, +all but suffocated, he dug until his strength gave out; then, curling up +in his narrow quarters, he lay listening. At first he heard nothing, not +even a sound from the dog; and he wondered at the fact. He could not +believe that Tom Blair would leave him in peace, and he breathlessly +awaited the first tap of an instrument against his retreat. A minute +passed, lengthened to five--to ten--and with the quick impatience of +childhood he started to learn the reason of the delay. His active little +body revolved in its nest. In the darkness a wiry arm scratched at the +recently erected barricade. A head with a tousled mass of hair poked its +way into the opening, crowded forward a foot--two feet, then stopped, +the whole body quivering. He had passed the curve, and of a sudden it +was as though he had opened the door of a furnace and gazed inside. +Instead of the familiar room, a great sheet of flame walled him in. +Instead of silence, a roar as of a hurricane was in his ears. Never in +his life had he seen a great fire, but instantly he understood. +Instantly the instinctive animal terror of fire gripped him; he +retreated to the very depths of the kennel, and burying his small head +in his arms lay still. But not even then, child though he was, did he +utter a cry. The endurance which had made Jennie Blair stare death +impassively in the face was part and parcel of his nature. + +For the space of perhaps a minute Ben lay motionless. Louder than before +came to his ears the roar of the fire. Occasionally a hot tongue of +flame intruded mockingly into the mouth of his retreat. The confined air +about him grew close, narcotic. He expected to die, and with the +premonition of death an abnormal activity came to the child-brain. +Whatever knowledge he possessed of death was connected with his mother. +It was she who had given him his vague impression of another life. She +herself, as she lay silent and unresponsive, had been the first concrete +example of it. Inevitably thought of her came to him now,--practical, +material thought, crowding from his brain the blind terror that had been +its predecessor. Where was his mother now? He pictured again the furnace +into which he had gazed from the mouth of the kennel. Though perhaps she +would not feel it, she would be burned--burned to a crisp--destroyed +like the fuel he had tossed into the makeshift stove! Instinctively he +felt the sacrilege, and the desire to do something to prevent it. +Something--yes, but what? He was himself helpless; he must seek outside +aid--but where? Suddenly there occurred to the child-mind a suggestion +applicable to his difficulty, an adequate solution, for it involved +everything he had learned to trust in life. He remembered a Being more +powerful than man, more powerful than fire or cold,--a Being whom his +mother had called God. Believing in Him, it was necessary only to ask +for whatever one wished. For himself, even to save his life, he would +not call upon this Being; but for his mamma! In childish faith he folded +his hands and closed his eyes in the darkness. + +"God," he prayed, "please put out this fire and save my mamma from +burning!" + +The small hands loosened and the lips parted to hear the first +diminution in the growl of the flame. But it roared on. + +"God!" The hands were clasped again, the voice vibrant with pleading. +"God, please put out the fire! Please put it out!" + +Silence again within, but without only the steady roaring crackle. Could +it be possible the petition had not been heard? The childish hands met +more tightly than before. The small body fairly writhed. + +"God! God!" he implored for the third time. "Listen to me, please! Save +my mamma, my mamma!" + +For a moment the little figure lay still. Surely there would be an +answer now. His mamma had said there would be, and whatever his mamma +had told him had always come true. The air about him was so close he +could scarcely breathe; but he did not notice it. Reversing head and +feet, he started out of the kennel. It was certainly time to leave. The +roar he had heard must have been of the wind. Assuredly God had acted +before this. Head first, gasping, he moved on, reached the curve, and +looked out. + +Indignation took possession of the little figure. The fingers clinched +until the nails bit deep into the soft palms. The whole body trembled in +impotent anger and outraged self-respect. Upon the face of the small man +was suddenly written the implacable defiance which one sees in carnivora +when wounded and cornered--intensified as an expression can only be +intensified upon a human face--as, almost unconsciously, he returned to +the hollow he had left, and fairly thrust his tousled head into the +kindly earth. + +How long he remained there he did not know. The stifling atmosphere of +the place gradually overcame him. Anger, wonder, the multitude of +thoughts crowding his child-brain, slowly faded away; consciousness +lapsed, and he slept. + +When he awoke it was with a start and a vague wonder as to his +whereabouts. Then memory returned, and he listened intently. Not a sound +could he distinguish save his own breathing, as he slowly made his way +to the mouth of the kennel. Before him was the opposite sod wall of the +house standing as high as his head; above that, the blue of the sky; +upon what had been the earthen floor, a strewing of ashes; over all, +calm, glorious, the slanting rays of the low afternoon sun. A moment the +boy lay gazing out; then he crawled to his feet, shaking off the dirt as +a dog does. One glance about, and the blue eyes halted. A moisture came +into them, gathered into drops, and then, breaking over the barrier of +the long lashes, tears flowed through the accumulated grime, down the +thin cheeks, leaving a clean pathway behind. That was all, for an +instant; then a look--terrible in a mature person and doubly so in a +child--came over the long face,--an expression partaking of both hate +and vengeance. It mirrored an emotion that in a nature such as that of +Benjamin Blair would never be forgotten. Some day, for some one, there +would be a moment of reckoning; for the child was looking at the +charred, unrecognizable corpse of his mother. + + * * * * * + +A half-hour later, Rankin, steaming into the yard of the Big B Ranch, +came upon a scene that savored much of a play. It was so dramatic that +the big man paused in contemplation of it. He saw there the sod and +ashes of what had once been a home. The place must have burned like +tinder, for now, but a few hours from the time when Grannis had first +given the alarm, not an atom of smoke ascended. At one end of the +quadrangular space enclosed by the walls stood the makeshift stove, +discolored with the heat, as was the length of pipe by its side. Near by +was a heap of warped iron and tin cooking utensils. At one side, covered +by an old gunny-sack and a boy's tattered coat, was another object the +form of which the observer could not distinguish. + +In the middle of the plat, standing a few inches below the surface, was +a small boy, and in his hands a very large spade. He wore a man's +discarded shirt, with sleeves rolled up at the wrist, and neck-band +pinned tight at one side. Obviously, he had been digging, for a small +pile of fresh dirt was heaped at his right. Now, however, he was +motionless, the blue eyes beneath the long lashes observing the +new-comer inquiringly. That was all, save that to the picture was added +the background of the unbroken silence of the prairie. + +The man was the first to break the spell. He got out of the wagon +clumsily, walked around the wall, and entered the quadrangle by what had +been the door. + +"What are you doing?" he asked. + +"Digging," replied the boy, resuming his work. + +"Digging what?" + +The boy lifted out a double handful of dirt upon the big spade. + +"A grave." + +The man glanced about again. + +"For some pet?" + +The boy shook his head. + +"No--sir," the latter word coming as an after-thought. His mother had +taught him that title of respect. + +Rankin changed the line of interrogation. + +"Where's Tom Blair, young man?" + +"I don't know, sir." + +"Your mother, then, where is she?" + +"My mother is dead." + +"Dead?" + +The child's blue eyes did not falter. + +"I am digging her grave, sir." + +For a time Rankin did not speak or stir. Amid the stubbly beard the +great jaws closed, until it seemed the pipe-stem must be broken. His +eyes narrowed, as when, before starting, he had questioned the cowboy +Grannis; then of a sudden he rose and laid a detaining hand upon the +worker's shoulder. He understood at last. + +"Stop a minute, son," he said. "I want to talk with you." + +The lad looked up. + +"How did it happen--the fire and your mother's death?" + +No answer, only the same strangely scrutinizing look. + +Rankin repeated the question a bit curtly. + +Ben Blair calmly removed the man's hand from his shoulder and looked him +fairly in the eyes. + +"Why do you wish to know, sir?" he asked. + +The big man made no answer. Why did he wish to know? What answer could +he give? He paced back and forth across the narrow confines of the four +sod walls. Once he paused, gazing at the little lad questioningly, not +as one looks at a child but as man faces man; then, tramp, tramp, he +paced on again. At last, as suddenly as before, he halted, and glanced +sidewise at the uncompleted grave. + +"You're quite sure you want to bury your mother here?" he asked. + +The lad nodded silently. + +"And alone?" + +Again the nod. + +"Yes, I heard her say once she wished it so." + +Without comment, Rankin removed his coat and took the spade from the +boy's hand. + +"I'll help you, then." + +For a half-hour he worked steadily, descending lower and lower into the +dry earth; then, pausing, he wiped the perspiration from his face. + +"Are you cold, son?" he asked directly. + +"Not very, sir." But the lad's teeth were chattering. + +"A bit, though?" + +"Yes, sir," simply. + +"All right, you'll find some blankets out in the wagon, Ben. You'd +better go out and get one and put it around you." + +The boy started to obey. "Thank you, sir," he said. + +Rankin returned to his work. In the west the sun dropped slowly beneath +the horizon, leaving a wonderful golden light behind. The waiting +horses, too well trained to move from their places, shifted uneasily +amid much creaking of harness. Within the grave the digger's head sunk +lower and lower, while the mound by the side grew higher and higher. The +cold increased. Across the prairie, a multitude of black specks +advanced, grew large, whizzed overhead, then retreated, their wings +cutting the keen air, and silence returned. + +Darkness was falling when at last Rankin clambered out to the surface. + +"Another blanket, Ben, please." + +Without a glance beneath, he wrapped the object under the old gunny-sack +round and round with the rough wool winding-sheet, and, carrying it to +the edge of the grave, himself descended clumsily and placed it gently +at his feet. The pit was deep, and in getting out he slipped back twice; +but he said nothing. Outside, he paused a moment, looking at the boy +gravely. + +"Anything you wish to say, Benjamin?" + +The lad returned the gaze with equal gravity. + +"I don't know of anything, sir." + +The man paused a moment longer. + +"Nor I, Ben," he said gently. + +Again the spade resumed its work; and the impassive earth returned dully +to its former resting-place. Dusk came on, but Rankin did not look about +him until the mound was neatly rounded; then he turned to where he had +left the little boy so bravely erect. But the small figure was not +standing now; instead, it was prone on the ground amid the dust and +ashes. + +"Ben!" said Rankin, gently. "Ben!" + +No answer. + +"Ben!" he repeated. + +"Yes, sir." + +For a moment a small thin face appeared above the dishevelled figure, +and a great sob shook the little frame. Then the head disappeared again. + +"I can't help it, sir," wailed a muffled voice. "She was my mamma!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +BEN'S NEW HOME + + +Supper was over at the Box R Ranch. From the tiny lean-to the muffled +rattle of heavy table-ware proclaimed the fact that Ma Graham was +putting things in readiness for breakfast. Beside the sheet-iron heater +in the front room, her husband, carefully swaddled in a big checked +apron with the strings tied in a bow under his left ear, was busily +engaged in dressing the half-dozen prairie chickens he had trapped that +day. As fast as he removed the feathers he thrust them into the stove, +and the pungent odor mingled with the suggestive tang of the bacon that +had been the foundation of the past supper, and with the odor of +cigarettes with which the other four men were permeating the place. + +Graham critically held up to the light the bird upon which he had just +been operating, removed a few scattered feathers, and, with practised +hand, attacked its successor. + +"If I were doing this job for myself," he commented, "I'd skin the +beasts. Life is too blamed short to waste it in pulling out feathers!" + +Grannis, the new-comer from no one knew where, smiled. + +"It would look to me that you were doing it," he remarked. "I'd like to +ask for information, who is if you ain't?" + +The clatter of dishes suddenly ceased, and Graham's labor stopped in +sympathy. + +"My boy," he asked in reply, "were you ever married?" + +Beneath its coat of tan, Grannis's face flushed; but he did not answer. + +A second passed; then the plucking of feathers was continued. + +"I reckon you've never been, though," Graham went on, "else you'd never +ask that question." + +During the remainder of the evening, Grannis sought no further +information; and to Ma Graham's narrow life a new interest was added. + +Ordinarily the cowboys went to their bunks in an adjoining shed almost +directly after supper, but this evening, without giving a reason, they +lingered. The housekeeper finished her work, and, coming into the main +room, took a chair and sat down, her hands folded in her lap. The grouse +dressed, Graham ranged them in a row upon the lean-to table, removed the +apron, and lit his pipe in silence. The cowboys rolled fresh cigarettes +and puffed at them steadily, the four stumps close together glowing in +the dimness of the room. As everywhere upon the prairie, the quiet was +almost a thing to feel. + +At last, when the silence had become oppressive, the foreman took the +pipe from his mouth and blew a short puff of smoke. + +"Seems like the boss ought to've got back before this," he said with a +sidelong glance at his wife. + +Ma Graham nodded corroboration. + +"Yes; must have found something wrong, I guess." She refolded her +hands, and once more relapsed into silence. + +It was the breaking of the ice, however. + +"Where d'ye suppose the trouble could have been, Graham?" It was another +late-comer, Bud Buck, young and narrow of hips, who spoke. + +"At Blair's," was the answer. "The Big B is the closest." + +"Blair?" The questioner puffed at his cigarette thoughtfully. "Guess I +never heard of him." + +"Must be a stranger in these parts, then," said Marcom. "Most everybody +knows Tom Blair." He paused to give an all-including glance. "At least +well enough to get a slice of his dough," he finished with a sarcastic +laugh. + +"Does he handle the pasteboards?" asked Buck, with interest. + +"Tries to," contemptuously. + +The curiosity of the youthful Bud was now thoroughly aroused. + +"What kind of a fellow is he, anyway?" he went on. "Does he go it alone +up at his ranch?" + +At the last question Bill Marcom, discreetly silent, shifted his eyes in +the direction of the foreman, and, following them, Bud surprised a +covert glance between Graham and his wife. It was the latter who finally +answered. + +"Not _exactly_." + +Buck was not without intuition, and he shifted to safer ground. + +"Got much of a herd, has he?" + +Marcom rolled a fresh cigarette skilfully, and drew the string of the +tobacco pouch taut with his teeth. + +"He did have, one time, but I don't believe he's got many left now. +There's been a bunch lost there every storm I can remember. He don't +keep any punchers to look after 'em, and he's never on hand himself. The +woman and the kid," with a peculiar glance at the stout housekeeper, +"saved 'em part of the time, but mostly they just drifted." The speaker +blew a great cloud of smoke, and the veins at his temples swelled. "It's +a shame, the way he neglects his stock and lets 'em starve and freeze!" + +The blood coursed hot in the veins of Bud Buck. + +"Why don't somebody step in?" + +There was a meaning silence, broken at last by Graham. + +"We would've--with a rope--if it hadn't been for the boss. He tried to +help the fellow; went over there lots of times himself--weather colder +than the devil, too, and with the wind and sleet so bad you couldn't see +the team ahead of you--until one time last Winter Blair came home full, +and caught him there." The narrative paused, and the black pipe puffed +reminiscently. "The boss never said much, but I guess they must have had +quite a session. Anyway, Rankin never went again, and from the way he +looked when he got back here, half froze, and the mustangs beat out, I +reckon Blair never knew how close he come to a necktie party that day." + +Again silence fell, and remained unbroken until Graham suddenly sprang +to his feet, and with "That's him now! I could tell that old buckboard +if I was in my grave!" hurried on coat and hat and disappeared into the +night. A minute more and the door through which he had passed opened +slowly, and the figure of a small boy, wrapped like an Indian in a big +blanket, stepped timidly inside and stood blinking in the light. + +In anticipation of a very different arrival the housekeeper had risen to +her feet, and now in surprise, arms akimbo, she stood looking curiously +at the stranger. In this land at this time the young of every other +animal native thereto was common, but a child, a white child, was a +novelty indeed. Many a cow-puncher, bachelor among bachelors, could +testify that it had been years since he had seen the like. But Ma Graham +was not a bachelor, and in her the maternal instinct, though repressed, +was strong. It was barely an instant before she was at the little lad's +side, unwinding the blanket with deft hands. + +"Who be you, anyway, and where'd you come from?" she exclaimed. + +The child observed her gravely. + +"Benjamin Blair's my name. I came with the man." + +The husk was off the lad ere this, and the woman was rubbing his small +hands vigorously. + +"Cold, ain't you? Come right over to the fire!" herself leading the way. +"And hungry--I'll bet you're hungrier than a wolf!" + +The lad nodded. "Yes, ma'am." + +The woman straightened up and looked down at her charge. + +"Of course you are. All little boys are hungry." She cast a challenging +glance around the group of interested spectators. + +"Fix the fire, one of you, while I get something hot for the kid," she +said, and ambled toward the lean-to. + +If the men thought to have their curiosity concerning the youngster +satisfied by word of mouth, however, they were doomed to be +disappointed; for when Rankin himself entered it was as though nothing +out of the ordinary had happened. He hung up his coat methodically, and, +with the boy by his side, partook of the hastily prepared meal +impassively, as was his wont. It could not have escaped him that the +small Benjamin ate and ate until it seemed marvellous that one stomach +could accommodate so much food; but he made no comment, and when at last +the boy succumbed to a final plateful, he tilted back against the wall +for his last smoke for the day. This was the usual signal of dismissal, +and the hands put on their hats and filed silently out. + +Without more words the foreman and his wife prepared for the night. The +dishes were cleared away and piled in the lean-to. From either end of +the room bunks, broad as beds, were let down from the wall, and the +blankets that formed their linings were carefully smoothed out. Along +the pole extending across the middle of the room, another set was drawn, +dividing the room in two. Then the two disappeared with a simple +"Good-night." + +Rankin and the boy sat alone looking at each other. From across the +blanket partition there came the muffled sound of movement, the impact +of Graham's heavy boots, as they dropped to the floor, and then +silence. + +"Better go to bed, Ben," suggested Rankin, with a nod toward the bunk. + +The boy at once went through the process of disrobing, and, crawling in +between the blankets, pulled them up about his chin. But the blue eyes +did not close. Instead, they rested steadily upon the man's face. Rankin +returned the look, and then the stubby pipe left his mouth. + +"What is it, Ben?" + +The boy hesitated. "Am I to--to stay with you?" he asked at last. + +"Yes." + +For an instant the questioner seemed satisfied; then the peculiar +inquiring look returned. + +"Anything else, son?" + +The lad hesitated longer than before. Beneath the coverings his body +moved restlessly. + +"Yes, sir, I want to know why nobody would come to help my mamma if +she'd sent for them. She said they wouldn't." + +The pipe left Rankin's mouth, his great jaws closing with an audible +click. + +"You wish to know--what did you say, Ben?" + +The boy repeated the question. + +For a minute, and then another, Rankin said nothing; then he knocked the +ashes from the bowl of his brier and laid it upon the table. + +"Never mind now why they wouldn't, son." He arose heavily and drew off +his coat. "You'll find out for yourself quickly enough--too quickly, my +boy. Now go to sleep." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE EXOTICS + + +Some men acquire involuntary prominence by being democratic amid +aristocratic surroundings. Others, on the contrary, but with the same +result, continue to live the life to which they were born, even when +placed amid surroundings that make their actions all but grotesque. An +example of this latter class was Scotty Baker, whose ranch, as the wild +goose flies, was thirteen miles west of the Box R. + +Scotty was a very English Englishman, with an inborn love of fine +horse-flesh and a guileless nature. Some years before he had fallen into +the hands of a promoter, and had bartered a goodly proportion of his +worldly belongings for a horse-ranch in Dakota, to be taken possession +of immediately. Long indeed was the wail which went up from his home in +Sussex when the fact was made known. Neighbors were fluent in +denunciation, relatives insistent in expostulation; his wife, and in +sympathy their baby daughter, copious in the argument of tears; but the +die was irrevocably cast. Go he would,--not from voluntary stubbornness, +but because he must. + +The actual departure of the Bakers was much like the sailing of +Columbus. Probably not one of the friends who saw them off for their +new home expected ever to see the family again. Indians they were +confident were rampant, and frantic for scalps. Should any by a miracle +escape the savages, the tremendous herds of buffalo, running amuck, here +and there, could not fail to trample the survivors into the dust of the +prairie. By comparison, war was a benignant prospect; and sighs mingled +until the sound was as the wailing of winds. + +Scotty was very cheerful through it all, very encouraging even in the +face of incontestibly unfavorable evidence, until, with the few remnants +of civilization they had brought with them, the family arrived at the +wind-beaten terminus, a hundred miles from his newly acquired property. +Then for the first time he wilted. + +"I've been an ass," he admitted bitterly, as he glanced in impotent +contempt at the handful of weather-stained buildings which on the map +bore the name of a town; "an ass, an egregious, abominable, blethering +ass!" + +But, notwithstanding his lack of the practical, Scotty was made of good +stuff. It was not an alternative but a necessity that faced him now, and +he arose right manfully to the occasion. Despite his wife's assertion +that she "never, never would go any farther into this God-forsaken +country," he succeeded in getting her into a lumber-wagon and headed for +what he genially termed "the interior." At last he even succeeded in +making her smile at his efforts to make the disreputable mule pack-team +he had secured move faster than a walk. + +Once in possession of his own, however, he returned to his customary +easy manner of life. It took him a very short time to discover that he +had purchased a gold brick. Horses, especially fine horses, were in no +demand there; but this fact did not alter his course in the least. A +horse-ranch he had bought, a horse-ranch he would run, though every man +west of the Mississippi should smile. He enlarged his tiny shack to a +cottage of three rooms; put in floor and ceiling, and papered the walls. +Out of poles and prairie sod he fashioned a serviceable barn, and built +an admirable horse paddock. Last of all he planted in his dooryard, in +artistic irregularity, a wagon-load of small imported trees. The fact +that within six months they all died caused him slight misgiving. He at +least had done what he could to beautify the earth; that he failed was +nature's fault, not his. + +Once settled, he began to make acquaintances. Methodically, to the +members of one ranch at a time, he sent invitations to dinner, and upon +the appointed date he confronted his guests with a spectacle which made +them all but doubt their identity, the like of which most of them had +never even seen before. Fancy a cowboy rancher, clad in flannel and +leather, welcomed by a host and hostess in complete evening dress, +ushered into a room which contained a carpet and a piano, and had lace +curtains at the windows; seated later at a table covered with pure linen +and set with real china and cut-glass. The experience was like a dream +to the visitor. Temporarily, as in a dream, the evening would pass +without conscious volition upon the latter's part; and not until later, +when he was at home, would the full significance of the experience +assert itself, and his wonder and admiration find vent in words. Then +indeed would the fame of Scotty Baker, his wife, and little daughter, +be heard in the land. + +Early in his career, Scotty began to cultivate the impassive Rankin. He +fairly bombarded the big rancher with courtesies and invitations. No +holiday (and Scotty was an assiduous observer of holidays) was complete +unless Rankin was present to help celebrate. No improvement about the +ranch was definitely undertaken until Rankin had expressed a favorable +opinion concerning the project. Gradually, so gradually that the big man +himself did not realize the change, he fell under Scotty's influence, +and more and more frequently he was to be found headed toward the cosey +Baker cottage. Now, for a year or more, scarcely a Sunday had passed +without one or the other of the men finding it possible to traverse the +thirty miles intervening between them, to spend a few hours in each +other's company. + +It was in pursuance of this laudable intention that on the second +morning following Ben Blair's adoption into the Box R Ranch--a +Sunday--the Englishman hitched a team of his best blooded trotters to +the antiquated phaeton, which was the only vehicle he possessed, and +started across country at a lively clip. Thus it came to pass that about +two hours later, having tied his team at the barn and started for the +ranch-house, the visitor saw squarely in his path upon the sunny south +doorstep an object that made him pause and blink his near-sighted eyes. +Under the concentration of his vision, the object resolved itself into a +small boy perched like a frog upon a rock, his fingers locked across his +shins, his chin upon his knees. For an instant the Englishman +hesitated. Courtesy was instinctive with him. + +"Can you tell me whether Mr. Rankin is at home?" he asked. + +The lad calmly disentangled himself and stood up. + +"You mean the big man, sir?" + +Again Scotty was guilty of a breach of etiquette. He stared. + +"Certainly," he replied at last. + +Ben Blair stepped out of the way. + +"Yes, sir, he is." + +Within the ranch-house Scotty dropped into the nearest chair. + +"Tell me, Rankin," he began, "who is the new-comer, and where did you +get him?" A long leg swung comfortably over its mate. "And, by the way, +while you're about it, is he six or sixty? By Jove, I couldn't tell!" + +The host looked at his visitor quizzically. + +"Ben, I suppose you mean?" + +"Ben, or _Tom_, I don't know. I mean the gentleman on the front steps, +the one who didn't know your name," and the Englishman related the +recent conversation. + +The corners of Rankin's eyes tightened into an unwonted smile as he +listened, and then contracted until the corner of the large mouth drew +upward in sympathy. + +"I'm not surprised, Baker," he admitted, "that you're in doubt about +Ben's age. He's eight; but I'd be uncertain myself if I didn't +absolutely know. As to his not knowing my name--it's just struck me that +I've never introduced myself to the little fellow." + +"But how did you come to get him? This isn't a country where one sees +many children roaming around." + +"No," the big mouth dropped back into its normal shape; "that's a fact. +He didn't just drop in. I got him by adoption, I suppose; least ways, I +asked him to come and live with me, and he accepted." The speaker turned +to his companion directly. "You knew Jennie Blair, did you?" + +Scotty looked interested. + +"Knew of her, but never had the pleasure of an acquaintance. I always--" + +"Well," interrupted Rankin impassively, "Ben's her son. She died awhile +ago, you remember, and somehow it seemed to break Blair all up. He +wouldn't stay here any longer, and didn't want to take the kid with him, +so I took the youngster in. As far as I know, the arrangement will +stick." + +For a minute there was silence. Scotty observed his host shrewdly, +almost sceptically. + +"That's all of the story, is it?" he asked at last. + +"All, as far as I know." + +Scotty continued his observation a moment longer. + +"But not all the kid knows, I judge." + +The host made no comment, and in a distinctively absent manner the +Englishman removed his glasses and cleaned the lenses upon the tail of +his Sunday frock-coat. + +"By the way,"--Scotty returned the glasses to his nose and sprung the +bows over his ears with a snap,--"what day was it that Blair left? Did +it happen to be Friday?" + +"Yes, Friday." + +"And he doesn't intend ever to return?" + +"I believe not." + +The visitor's eyes flashed swiftly around the room. The two men were +alone. + +"I think, then, I see through it." The voice was lower than before. "One +of my best mares disappeared night before last, and I haven't been able +to get trace of a hoof or hair since." + +"What?" Rankin was interested at last. + +Scotty repeated the statement, and his host eyed him a full half minute +steadily. + +"And you just--tell of it?" he said at last. + +The Englishman shifted uneasily in his seat. + +"Yes." Forgetting that he had just polished his glasses, he took them +off and went through the process again. + +"Yes, I may as well be honest, I've seen a bit of these Westerners about +here, and I don't really agree with their scheme of justice. They're apt +to put two and two together and make eight where you know it's only +four." For the second time he sprung the bows back over his ears. "And +when they find out their beastly mistake--why--oh--it's too late then, +perhaps, for some poor devil!" + +For another half minute Rankin hesitated; then he reached over and +grasped the other man by the hand. + +"Baker," he said, "you ain't very practical, but you're dead square." +And he shook the hand again. + +Of a sudden a twinkle came into the Britisher's eyes and he tore himself +loose with an effort. + +"By the way," he said, "I'd like to ask a question for future guidance. +What would you have done if you'd been in my place?" + +Rankin stiffened in his seat, and a color almost red surged beneath the +tan of his cheeks; then, as suddenly as his companion had done, he +smiled outright. + +"I reckon I'd have done just what you did," he admitted; and the two men +laughed together. + +"Seriously, though," said Scotty, after a moment, "and as long as I've +told you anyway, what ought I to do under the circumstances? Should I +let Blair off, do you think?" + +For a moment Rankin did not answer; then he faced his questioner +directly, and Scotty knew why the big man's word was so nearly law in +the community. + +"Under the circumstances," he repeated, "I'd let him go; for several +reasons. First of all, he's got such a start of you now that you +couldn't catch him, anyway. Then he's a coward by nature, and it'll be a +mighty long time before he ever shows up here again. And last of all," +the speaker hesitated, "last of all," he repeated slowly, "though I +don't know, I believe you were right when you said the boy could tell +more about it than the rest of us; and if what we suspect is true, I +think by the time he comes back, if he ever does come, Ben will be old +enough to take care of him." Again the speaker paused, and his great +jowl settled down into his shirt-front. "If he doesn't, I can't read +signs when I see 'em." + +For a moment the room was silent; then Scotty sprang to his feet as if a +load had been taken off his mind. + +"All right," said he, "we'll forget it. And, speaking of forgetting, +I've nearly got myself into trouble already. I have an invitation from +Mrs. Baker for you to take dinner with us to-day. In fact, I was sent on +purpose to bring you. Not a word, not a word!" he continued, at sight of +objections gathering on the other's face; "a lady's invitations are +sacred, you know. Get your coat!" + +Rankin arose with an effort and stood facing his visitor. + +"You know I'm always glad to visit you, Baker," he said. "I wasn't +thinking of holding off on my own account, but I've got someone else to +consider now, you know. Ben--" + +"Certainly, certainly!" Scotty's voice was eloquent of comprehension. +"Throw the kiddie in too. He can play with Flossie; they're about of an +age, and she'll be tickled to death to have him." + +Rankin looked at his friend a moment peculiarly. "I know Ben's going +would be all right with you, Baker," he explained at last, "but how +about your wife? Considering--everything--she might object." + +The smile left the Englishman's face, and a look of perplexity took its +place. + +"By Jove!" he said, "you're right! I never thought of that." He shifted +from one foot to the other uneasily. "But, pshaw! What's the use of +saying anything whatever about the boy's connections? He's nothing but a +youngster,--and, besides, his mother's actions are no fault of his." + +Rankin took his top-coat off its peg deliberately. + +"All right," he said. "I'll call Ben." At the door he paused, looking +back, the peculiar expression again upon his face. "As you say, the +faults of Ben's mother are not his faults, anyway." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE SOIL AND THE SEED + + +Within the Baker home three persons, a woman and two men, were sitting +beside a well-discussed table in the perfect content that follows a good +meal. Strange to say, in this frontier land, the men had cigars, and +their smoke curled slowly toward the ceiling. Intermittently, with the +unconscious attitude of indifference we bestow upon happenings remote +from our lives, they were discussing the month-old news of the world, +which the messenger from town, who supplied at stated intervals the +family wants, had brought the day before. + +Out of doors, in the warm sunny plat south of the barn, a small boy and +a still smaller girl were engaged in the fascinating occupation of +becoming acquainted. The little girl was decidedly taking the +initiative. + +"How's it come your name is Blair?" she asked, opening fire as soon as +they were alone. + +The boy pondered the question. It had never occurred to him before. Why +should he be called Blair? No adequate reason suggested itself. + +"I don't know," he admitted. + +The little girl wrinkled her forehead in thought. + +"It's funny, isn't it?" she said. "Now, my papa's name is Baker, and my +name's Florence Baker. You ought to be Ben Rankin--but you aren't." She +stroked a diminutive nose with a fairy forefinger. "It's funny," she +repeated. + +"Oh!" commented Benjamin. He understood now, but explanations were not a +part of his philosophy. "Oh!" and the subject dropped. + +"Let's play duck on the rock," suggested Florence. + +The boy's hands were deep in the recesses of his pockets. + +"I don't know how." + +"That's nothing." The small brunette had the air of one to whom +difficulties were unknown. "I'll show you. Papa and I play, and it's +lots of fun--only he beats me." She looked about for available material. + +"You get that little box up by the house," she directed, "and we'll have +that for the rock." + +Ben did as ordered. + +"Now bring two tin cans. You'll find a pile back of the barn." + +Once more the boy departed, to return a moment later with a pair of +"selects," each bearing in gaudy illumination a composite picture of the +ingredients of succotash. + +"Now watch me," said Florence. + +She carried the box about a rod away and planted it firmly on the +ground. "This is the rock," she explained. On the top of the box she +perched one of the cans, open end up. "And this is the duck--my duck. Do +you see?" + +The boy had watched the proceedings carefully. "Yes, I see," he said. + +Florence came back to the barn. "Now the game is for you to take this +other can and knock my duck off. Then we both run, and if you get your +can on the box ahead of me, I'm _it_, and I'll have to knock off your +duck. Are you ready?" + +"Yes." + +"All right." And the sport was on. + +Ben poised his missile and carefully let fly. + +"He, he!" tittered Florence. "You missed!" + +He retrieved his duck without comment. + +"Try again; you've got three chances." + +More carefully than before Ben took aim and tossed his can. + +"Missed again!" exulted the little brunette. "You've only one more try." +And the brown eyes flashed with mischief. + +For the last time Ben stood at position. + +"Be careful! you're out if you miss." + +Even more slowly than before the boy took aim, swung his arm overhead +clear from the shoulder, and threw with all his might. There was a flash +of gaudy paper through the air, a resounding impact of tin against wood, +and the make-believe duck skipped away as though fearful of danger. + +For a moment Florence stood aghast, but only for a moment; then she +stamped a tiny foot imperiously. + +"Oh, you naughty boy!" she exclaimed. "You naughty, naughty boy!" + +Once more Ben's hands were in his pockets. "Why?" he asked innocently. + +"Because you don't play right!" + +"You told me to knock the duck off, and I did!" + +"But not that way." Florence's small chin was high in the air. "I'm +going in the house." + +Ben made no motion to follow her, none to prevent her going. + +"I'm sorry," he said simply. + +The little girl took two steps decidedly, a third haltingly, a fourth, +then stopped and looked back out of the corner of her eye. + +"Are you very sorry?" she asked. + +Ben nodded his head gravely. + +There was a moment of indecision. "All right," she said, with apparent +reluctance; "but we won't play duck any more. We'll play drop the +handkerchief." + +The boy discreetly ignored the change of purpose. + +"I don't know how," he admitted once more. + +Such deplorable ignorance aroused her sympathy. + +"Don't Mr. Rankin, or--or anyone--play with you?" she asked. + +Ben shook his head. + +"All right, then," she said obligingly, "I'll show you." + +With her heel she drew upon the ground a rough circle about ten feet in +diameter. + +"You can't cross that place in there," she said. + +The boy looked at the bare ground critically. No visible barrier +presented itself to his vision. + +"Why not?" he asked. + +Florence made a gesture of disapproval. "Because you can't," she +explained. Then, some further reason seeming necessary, she added, +"Perhaps there are red-hot irons or snakes, or something, in there. +Anyway, you can't cross!" + +Ben made no comment, and his instructor looked at him a moment +doubtfully. + +"Now," she went on, "I stand right here close to the line, and you take +the handkerchief." She produced a dainty little kerchief with a "B" +embroidered in the corner. "Drop it behind me, and get in my place if +you can before I touch you. If you get clear around and catch me before +I notice you--you can kiss me. Do you see?" + +Ben could see. + +"All right, then." And the little girl stood at attention, very prim, +apparently very watchful, toes touching the line. + +The nature of Benjamin Blair was very direct. The first time he passed, +he dropped the handkerchief and proceeded calmly on his journey. His +back toward her, the little girl turned and gave a surreptitious glance +behind; then quickly shifted to her original position, a look of +innocence upon her face. Straight ahead went Ben around the circle--that +contained hot irons, or snakes, or something--back to his +starting-point, touched the small fragment of femininity upon the +shoulder gingerly, as though afraid she would fracture. + +"Here's your handkerchief," he said, stooping to recover the bit of +linen. "You're it." + +"Oh, dear!" she said, in mock despair; "you dropped it the first time, +didn't you?" + +Ben agreed to the statement. + +An unaccountable lull followed. In it he caught a curious sidelong +glance from the brown eyes under the drooping lashes. + +"I didn't suppose you'd do that the first time," said the little girl. +"Papa never does." + +The observation seemed irrelevant to Ben Blair, at least inadequate to +halt the game; but he made no comment. + +Again there was a lull. + +"Well," suggested Florence, and a tinge of red surged beneath the soft +brown skin. + +Ben began to feel uncomfortable. He had a premonition that all was not +well. + +"You're _it_, ain't you?" he hesitated at last. + +This time, full and fair, the tiny woman looked at him. The color which +before had stood just beneath the skin rose burning to her ears, to the +roots of her hair. Her big brown eyes flashed fire. + +"Ben Blair," she flamed, "you're a 'fraid cat!" Tears welled up into her +voice, into her eyes, and she made a motion as if to leave; but the +sudden passion of a spoiled child was too strong upon her, the mystified +face of the other too near, too tempting. With a motion which was all +but involuntary, a tiny brown hand shot out and struck the boy fair on +the mouth. "A 'fraid cat, 'fraid cat, and I hate you!" + +Never before in his short life had Benjamin Blair met a girl. The ethics +of sex was a thing unknown to him, but nevertheless some instinct +prevented his returning the insult. Except for the red mark upon his +lips, his face grew very white. + +"What am I afraid of?" he asked steadily. + +Defiant still, the girl held her ground. + +"Afraid of what?" she jeered. "You're afraid of everything! 'Fraid cats +always are!" + +"But what?" pressed the boy. "Tell me something I'm afraid of." + +Florence glanced about her. The tall roof of the barn caught her vision. + +"You wouldn't dare jump off the roof there, for one thing," she +ventured. + +Ben looked up. The point mentioned arose at least sixteen feet, and the +earth beneath was frozen like asphalt, but he did not hesitate. At the +north end, a stack of hay piled against the wall formed a sort of +inclined plane, and making a detour he began to climb. Half-way up he +lost his footing and came tumbling to the ground; but still he said +nothing. The next time he was more careful, and reached the ridge-pole +without accident. Below, the little girl, brilliant in her red jacket, +stood watching him; but he never even glanced at her. Instead, he raised +himself to his full height, looked once at the ground beneath, and +jumped. + +That instant a wave of contrition swept over Florence. In a sort of +vision she saw the boy lying injured, perhaps dead, upon the frozen +ground,--and all through her fault! She shut her eyes, and clasped her +hands over her face. + +A few seconds passed, bringing with them no further sound, and she +slowly opened her fingers. Through them, instead of a prostrate corpse, +she saw the boy standing erect before her. There was a smear of dust +upon his coat and face where he had fallen, and a scratch upon his +cheek, which bled a bit, but otherwise he was apparently unhurt. From +beneath his long lashes as she looked, the blue eyes met hers, +deliberate and unsmiling. + +As swiftly as it had come, the mood of contrition passed. In an +indefinite sort of way the girl experienced a sensation of +disappointment,--a feeling of being deprived of something which was her +due. She was only a child, a spoiled child, and her defiance arose anew. +A moment so the children faced each other. + +"Do you still think I'm afraid?" asked the boy at last. + +Again the hot color flamed beneath the brown skin. + +"Pooh!" said the girl, "_that_ was nothing!" She tossed her head in +derision. "Anyone could do that!" + +Ben slowly took off his cap, slapped it against his knee to shake off +the dust, and put it back upon his head. The action took only a half +minute, but when the girl looked at him again it hardly seemed he was +the same boy with whom she had just played. His eyes were no longer +blue, but gray. The chin, too, with an odd trick,--one she was destined +to know better in future,--had protruded, had become the dominant +feature of his face, aggressive, almost menacing. Except for the size, +one looking could scarcely have believed Ben's visage was that of a +child. + +"What," the boy's hands went back into his pockets, "what wouldn't +anyone do, then?" he asked directly. + +At that moment Florence Baker would have been glad to occupy some other +person's shoes. Obviously, the proper thing for her to do was to admit +her fault and clear the atmosphere, but that did not accord with her +disposition, and she looked about for a suggestion. One came promptly, +but at first she did not speak. Then the brown head tossed again. + +"Some folks would be afraid to ride one of those colts out there!" She +indicated the pasture near by. "Papa said the other day he'd rather not +be the first to try." + +The colts mentioned were a bunch of four-year-olds that Scotty had just +imported from an Eastern breeder. They were absolutely unbroken, but +every ounce thoroughbreds, and full to the ear-tips of what the +Englishman expressively termed "ginger." + +To her credit be it said, the small Florence had no idea that her +challenge would be accepted. Implicit trust in her father was one of her +virtues, and the mere suggestion that another would attempt to do what +he would not, was rankest heresy. But the boy Benjamin started for the +barn, and, securing a bridle and a pan of oats, moved toward the gate. +Instinctively Florence took a step after him. + +"Really, I didn't mean for you to try," she explained in swift +penitence. "I don't think you're afraid!" + +Ben opened and closed the gate silently. + +"Please don't do it," pleaded the girl. "You'll be hurt!" + +But for all the effect her petition had, she might as well have asked +the sun to cease shining. Nothing could stop that gray-eyed boy. Without +a show of haste he advanced toward the nearest colt, shook the oats in +the pan, and whistled enticingly. Full often in his short life he had +seen the trick done before, and he waited expectantly. + +Florence, forgetting her fears, watched with interest. At first the +colt was shy, but gradually, under stimulus of its appetite, it drew +nearer, then ran frisking away, again drew near. Ben held out the pan, +shook it at intervals, displaying its contents to the best advantage. +Colt nature could not resist the appeal. The sleek thoroughbred cast +aside all scruples, came close, and thrust a silken muzzle deep into the +grain. + +Still without haste, the boy put on the bridle, holding the pan near the +ground to reach the straps over the ears; then, pausing, looked at the +back far above his head. How he was to get up there would have perplexed +an observer. For a moment it puzzled the boy; then an idea occurred to +him. Once more holding the remnants of the oats near the ground, he +waited until the hungry nose was deep amongst them, the head well +lowered; then, improving his opportunity, he swung one leg over the +sleek neck and awaited developments. + +He was not long in suspense. The action was like touching flame to +powder; the resulting explosion was all but simultaneous. With a snort, +the head went high in air, tossing the grain about like seed, and down +the inclined plane of the neck thus formed the long-legged Benjamin slid +to the slippery back. Once there, an instinct told him to grip the +rounding flank with his ankles, and clutch the heavy mane. + +And he was none too quick. For a moment the colt paused in pure wonder +at the audacity of the thing; then, with a neigh, half of anger and half +of fear, it sprang away at top speed, circling and recircling, flashing +in and out among the other horses, the fragment of humanity on its back +meanwhile clinging to his place like a monkey. For a minute, then +another, the youngster kept his seat, pulling upon the reins at +intervals, gripping together his small knees until the muscles ached. +Then suddenly the colt, changing its tactics, planted its front feet +firmly into the ground, stopped short, and the small Benjamin shot +overhead, to strike the turf beyond with an impact which fairly drove +the breath from his body. But even then, half unconscious as he was, he +wouldn't let loose of the reins. Not until the now thoroughly aroused +colt had dragged him for rods, did the leather break, leaving the boy +and the bridle in a most disreputable-looking heap upon the earth. + +Florence had watched the scene with breathless interest. While Ben was +making his mount, she observed him doubtfully. While he retained his +seat, she clapped her hands in glee. Then, with his downfall, a great +lump came chokingly into her throat, and, without waiting to see the +outcome, she ran sobbing to the house. A moment later she rushed into +the little parlor where her father and Rankin, their cigars finished, +were sitting and chatting. + +"Papa," she pleaded, "papa, go quick! Ben's killed!" + +"Great Cæsar's ghost!" exclaimed Scotty, springing up nervously, and +holding the little girl at arm's length. "What's the matter?" + +"Ben, Ben, I told you! He tried to ride one of the colts, and he's +killed--I know he is!" + +"Holy buckets!" Genuine apprehension was in the Englishman's voice. +Without waiting for further explanation he shot out of the door, and +ran full tilt to the paddock behind the barn. There he stopped, and +Rankin coming up a moment later, the two men stood side by side watching +the approach of a small figure still some rods away. The boy's face and +hands were marked with bloodstains from numerous scratches; one leg of +his trousers was torn disclosing the skin, and upon that side when he +walked he limped noticeably. All these things the two men observed at a +distance. When he came closer, they were forgotten in the look upon his +small face. The odd trick the boy had of throwing his lower jaw forward +was now emphasized until the lower teeth fairly overshot the upper. In +sympathy, the eyes had tightened, not morosely or cruelly, but with a +fixed determination which was all but uncanny. Scotty shifted a bit +uncomfortably. + +"By Jove!" he remarked, with his usual unconscious expletive, "I'd +rather have a tiger-cat on my trail than that youngster, if he was to +look that way. What do you suppose he's got in his cranium now?" + +Rankin shook his head. "I don't know. He's beyond me." + +Scarcely a minute passed before the boy returned. He had another bridle +in his hand and a fresh pan of oats. As before, he started to pass +without a word, but Rankin halted him. "What's the matter with your +clothes, Ben?" he queried. + +The lad looked at his questioner. "Horse threw me, sir." + +"And what are you going to do now?" + +"Going to try to ride him again, sir." + +Rankin paused, his face growing momentarily more severe. + +"Ben," he said at last, "did Mr. Baker hire you to break his horses? If +I were you I'd put those things away and ask his pardon." + +The boy looked from one man to the other uncertainly. Obviously, this +phase of the matter had not occurred to him. Obviously, too, the point +of view must be correct, for both Rankin and Scotty were solemn as the +grave. The lad shot out toward the pasture a glance that spoke volumes; +then he turned to Baker. + +"I beg your pardon, sir," he said. + +Scotty caught his cue. "Granted--this time," he answered. + +A half-hour later, Rankin and Ben, the latter carefully washed, the +rents in his trousers temporarily repaired, were ready to go home. Not +until the very last moment did Florence appear; then, her face a bit +flushed, she came out to the buckboard. + +"Good-bye," she said simply. There was a moment's pause; then, with a +deepening color, she turned to Ben Blair. "Come again soon," she added +in a low tone. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SANITY OF THE WILD + + +Summer, tan-colored, musical with note of katydid and cicada, and the +constant purr of the south wind, was upon the prairie country. Under the +eternal law of necessity,--the necessity of sunburnt, stunted +grass,--the boundaries of the range extended far in every direction. The +herds bearing the Box R brand no longer fed in one body, but scattered +far and wide. Often for a week at a time the men did not sleep under +cover. Morning and night, when a semblance of dew was upon the blighted +grass, the cattle grazed. The life was primitive and natural almost +beyond belief in a world of artificial civilization; but it was +independent, care-free, and healthy. + +The land surrounding the ranch-house was now almost as bare as the palm +of a hand. Only one object relieved the impression of desolation, and +that was a tree. It stood carefully fenced about in the drain from the +big artesian well,--a vivid blot of green against the dun background. +The first year after he came, Rankin had imported it,--a goodly sized +soft maple; and in the pathway of constantly trickling water, it had +grown and prospered. It was the only tree for miles and miles about, +except the scrawny scrub-oaks, cotton-woods, and wild plums that flanked +the infrequent creeks,--creeks which in Summer, save in deepest holes, +reverted to mere dry runs. Beneath its shade Rankin had constructed a +rough bench, and therein Ma Graham, day after day when her housework was +finished, dozed and sewed and dozed again, apparently as forgetful as +the cowboys upon the prairies that beyond her vision were great cities +where countless thousands of human beings sweltered and struggled in +desperate competition for daily bread. + +So much for the day. With the coming of dusk, a coolness like a +benediction took the place of heat. The south wind gradually died down +with the descending sun, until immediately following the setting it was +absolutely still; now it sprang up anew, and wandered on until the break +of day. + +Such an evening in late July found Rankin and Baker stretched out like +boys upon a pile of hay in the latter's yard. The big man had just +arrived; the old buckboard, with its mouse-colored mustangs, stood just +as he had driven it up. Scotty knew him well enough to know that he had +come for a purpose, and he awaited its revelation. Rankin slowly filled +and lit his pipe, drew thereon until the glow from the bowl was +reflected upon his face, and blew a great cloud of smoke out into the +gathering dusk. + +"Baker," he asked at last, "what are we going to do for the education of +these youngsters of ours? We can't let them grow up here like savages." + +Scotty rolled over on his side, and leaned his head comfortably in his +hand. + +"I've thought of that," he answered, "and there seems to me only one of +two things to do--either move into civilization, or import a pedagogue." +A pause, and a whimsical inflection came into his voice. "Unfortunately, +however, neither plan seems exactly practical at this time." + +Rankin smoked a minute in silence. "How would it do to move into +civilization six months of the year--the Winter six?" he suggested. + +Scotty considered for a moment. "Do you mean that seriously?" he asked. + +"Yes." + +By the sense of feeling alone, the Englishman rolled a cigarette +skilfully. "How about the stock here while we're gone," he said +hesitatingly. "Do you suppose we'd find anything left when we came back +in the Spring?" + +Rankin crowded the half-burned tobacco down into the pipe-bowl with his +little finger. "I don't think you got the idea," he explained. "My plan +was for you to go East in the Fall and put the kids in school. I'd stay +here and see that everything ran smoothly while you were gone. Mrs. +Baker has said a dozen times that she wanted a change--for a time, +anyway." + +Scotty threw one long leg over the other. "As usual you're right, +Rankin," he said slowly. "The Lord knows Mollie gets restless enough at +times. People were like ants in a hill where she was raised, and that +life was a part of her." He took a last puff at the cigarette, and with +a toss sent the smoking stump spinning like a firefly into the darkness. +"And Flossie can't grow up wild--I know that. I'll talk your suggestion +over with Mollie first, but I think I'd be safe in saying right now +that we'll accept." + +For a moment Rankin did not speak; then he knocked the ashes out of his +pipe upon his heel. + +"Excuse me if I keep going back to something unpleasant, Baker," he said +slowly, "but in considering the matter there's one thing I don't want +you to forget." Then, after a meaning pause, he went on: "It's the same +reason I had for not introducing Ben in the first place." + +Scotty drew out his book of rice-paper again almost involuntarily. + +"I'd thought of that this time," he said; then paused to finger a gauzy +sheet absently. "I don't see why I should consider it now, +though--seeing I didn't before." + +Rankin said nothing, and conversation lapsed. Irresistibly, but so +gradually as to be all but unconscious, the spirit of the prairie +night--a sensation, a conception of infinite vastness, of unassailable +serenity--stole over and took possession of the men. The ambitious and +manifold artificial needs for which men barter their happiness, their +sense of humanity, even life itself, seemed beyond belief out there +alone with the stars, with the prairie night-wind singing in the ears; +seemed so puny that they elicited only a smile. The lust of show, of +extravagance, follies, wisdoms, man's loves and hates--how their true +proportions stand revealed against the eternal background of +immeasurable distance, in nature's vast scheme! + +Scotty cleared his throat. "I used to think, when I first came here, +that I'd been a fool; but now, somehow, at times like this, I wonder if +I didn't blunder into the wisest act of my life." The prairie spirit +had taken hold of him. "And the longer I stay the more it grows upon me +that such a life as this, where one's success is not the measure of +another's failure, is the only one to live. It is the only life," he +added after a pause. + +Rankin said nothing. + +Scotty was silent for a moment, but the mood was too strong for him to +remain so, and he went on. + +"I know the ordinary person would laugh if I said it, but really, I +believe I'm developing a distaste for money. It's simply another term +for caste; and that word, with the unreasoning superiority it implies, +has somehow become hateful to me." He looked up into the night. + +"I used to think I was happy back in England. I had my home and my +associates; born so, because their fathers were friends of my father, +their grandfathers of my grandfather's class. As a small landlord I had +my gentlemanly leisure; but as well as I know my name, I realize now +that I could never return to that life again. Looking back, I see its +intolerable narrowness, its petty smugness. By comparison it's like the +relative clearness of the atmosphere there and here. There, perhaps I +could see a few miles: here, I look away over leagues and leagues of +distance. It's symbolic." The voice paused; the face, turned directly +toward his companion's, tried in the half-darkness to read its +expression. "I've been in this prairie country long enough now to +realize that financially I've made a mistake. I can earn a living, and +that's all; but nevertheless I'm happy--happier than I ever realized it +was possible for me to be. I've got enough--more would be a burden to +me. If I have a trouble in the world, it's because I see the inevitable +prospect of money in the future,--money I don't want, for I'm an only +son and my father is comparatively wealthy. Without turning his hand, +his rent-roll is five thousand pounds a year. He's getting along in +life. Some day--it may be five years, it may be fifteen--he will die and +leave it to me. I am to maintain and pass on the family name, the family +dignity. It was all cut and dried generations back, generations before I +was born." + +Still Rankin said nothing. For any indication he gave, the other's +revelation might have been only that he had a hundred dollars deposited +in the savings bank against a rainy day. + +But Scotty was now fairly under headway. He stripped his reserve and +confidence bare. + +"You see now why I'm glad to consider your proposition. Whatever I +believe myself must be of secondary importance. I've others to think +about--Florence and her mother. Flossie is only a child, but Mollie is a +woman, and has lived her life in sight of the brazen calf. She doesn't +realize, she never can realize, that it is of brass and not of gold. +Personally, I believe, as I believe in my own existence, that Flossie +would be immeasurably happier if she never saw the other side of +life,--the artificial side,--but lived right here, knowing what we +taught her and developing like a healthy animal; perhaps, when the time +came, marrying a rancher, having her own home, her own family interests, +and living close to nature. But it can't be. I've got to develop her, +cultivate her, fit her for any society." The voice paused, and the +speaker turned his face away. + +"God knows,--and He knows also that I love her dearly,--that looking +into the future I wish sometimes she were the daughter of another man." + +The minutes passed. The ponies shifted restlessly and then were still. +In the lull, the soft night-breeze crooned its minor song, while near or +far away--no human ear could measure the distance--a prairie owl gave +its weird cry. Then silence fell as before. + +Once more Scotty turned, facing his companion. + +"I've a question to ask you, Rankin; may I ask it without offence?" + +The big man nodded. By the starlight Baker caught the motion. + +"You told me once that you were a college man, and that you had a +Master's degree. From the very first you started cattle-raising on a big +scale. You must have had money. Still, such being the case, you left +culture and civilization far behind and came here to choose a life +absolutely different. I have told you why I wish to educate my daughter. +But why, feeling as you must have felt and must still feel, since you're +here, why do you wish to educate this waif boy you've picked up? By all +the standards of convention, he is at the very bottom of the social +scale. Why do you want to do this?" + +It was a psychological moment. Even in the semi-darkness, Rankin felt +the other's eyes fixed piercingly upon him. He passed his hand over his +face; he seemed about to speak. But the habit of reticence was too +strong upon him. Even the inspiration of the Englishman's confidence +was not sufficient to break the seal of his own reserve. He arose slowly +and shook the clinging wisps of hay from his clothes. + +"For somewhat the same reason as your own," he answered at last. "Ben, +like Flossie, is a child, an odd old child to be sure, but nevertheless +a child. I have no reason to know that when he grows up his beliefs will +be my beliefs. He must see both sides of the coin, and judge for +himself." + +The speaker paused, then walked slowly over to the old buckboard. "It's +getting late, and I've got a long drive home." With an effort he mounted +into the seat and picked up the reins. "Good-night." + +Scotty hesitated a moment, and then said, "Good-night." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE GLITTER OF THE UNKNOWN + + +Twelve years slipped by. Short as they seemed to those actually living +them, they had brought great material changes. No longer did the ranch +cattle graze at the will of their owners, but, under stress of +competition, they browsed within the confines of miles upon miles of +galvanized fencing. Neighbors, as Rankin said, were near now. There were +four within a radius of twenty miles. To be sure, there was still plenty +of land west of them, beyond the broad muddy Missouri,--open rough land, +gradually rising in elevation, where a traveller could journey for days +and days without seeing a human face. But this was not then a part of +the so-called "cattle ranges." In the parlance of the country, that was +"West,"--a place to hunt in, a refuge for criminals, but as yet giving +no indication of ever becoming of practical use. + +The Box R Ranch had evolved along with the others, and always well in +advance. The house now boasted six rooms; the barn and stock-sheds had +at a distance the appearance of a town in themselves; the collection of +haying implements--mowers, loaders, stackers--was almost complete enough +to stock a jobbing house. The herd itself had augmented, despite its +annual reduction, until one artesian well was inadequate to supply +water; and fifteen miles north, at the extreme limit of his home-ranch, +Rankin had sunk another well, making a sort of sub-station of that +point. From it an observer with good eyes could see the outlines of the +modern Big B Ranch property, built on the old site, and ostensibly +operated by a long-legged Yankee, Rob Hoyt by name, but in reality +owned, as had been the remnant of stock Tom Blair left behind him, by +saloon-keeper Mick Kennedy. + +The ranch force had changed very little. Rankin, stouter by a +quarter-hundred weight, shaggier of eyebrows and with an accentuated +droop in the upper eyelids, and if possible an increased taciturnity, +still lived his daytime life mainly on wheels. The old buckboard had +finally succumbed, but its counterpart, mud-spattered and +weather-bleached, had taken its place. In the kitchen, Ma Graham still +presided, her accumulated avoirdupois seeming to have been gathered at +the expense of her lord, who in equal ratio thinner and more weazened, +danced attendance as of old. Only one of the former cowboys now +remained. That one, strange to say, was Grannis, the "man from nowhere," +who had apparently taken root at last. Regularly on the last day of each +month he drew his pay, and without a word of explanation or comment +disappeared upon the back of a cow-pony, to reappear, perhaps in ten +hours, perhaps in sixty, dead broke, with a thirst seemingly +unappeasable, but quite non-committal concerning his experience, +apparently satisfied and ready to take up the dull routine of his life +again. + +Last of all, Benjamin Blair. Precisely as the boy had given promise, the +youth had developed. He was now mature in size, in poise, in action. +Long of leg, long of arm, long of face, he stood a half head above +Rankin, who had been the tallest man upon the place. Yet he was not +awkward. Physically he was of the type, but magnified, to which all +cowboys belong; and no one would ever call him awkward or uncouth. + +There had been less change upon the Baker ranch. Scotty was not an +expansionist. Scarcely a score more horses grazed in his paddock than of +old. The barn, though often repaired, was still of sod and thatch. The +house contained the original number of rooms. The experiment with trees +had never been repeated. If possible, the man himself had altered even +less than his surroundings. Scrupulously fresh-shaven each day, +fortified beyond the compound lenses of his spectacles, a stranger would +have guessed him anywhere from thirty-five to fifty. + +Time had not dealt as kindly with Mrs. Baker. She seemed to have aged +enough for both herself and her husband. Notwithstanding the fact that +for the first eight years of the twelve, the family had spent half their +time in the East, she had grown careless of her appearance. True to his +instincts, Scotty still dressed for dinner in his antiquated evening +clothes; but pathetic as was the example, it had long ceased to +stimulate her. The last four years had been dead years with Mollie +Baker. The future held but one promise. She referred to it daily, almost +hourly; and at such times only would a trace of youth and beauty return +to the one-time winsome face. She looked forward and dreamed of an +event after which she would do certain things upon which she had set her +heart; when, as she said, she would begin to live. It seemed to Scotty +ghastly to speak about that event, for it was the death of his father. + +The last member of the family had developed with the child's promise, +and at seventeen Florence was beautiful; not with a conventional +prettiness, but with a vital feminine attraction. All that the mother +had been, with her dark, oval face, her mass of walnut-brown hair, her +great dark eyes, her uptilted chin, the daughter was now; but with added +health and an augmented femininity that the mother had never known. +Moreover, she had an independence, a dominance, born perhaps of the wild +prairie influence, that at times made her parents almost gasp. Except in +the minute details of their daily existence, which habit had made +unchangeable, she ruled them absolutely. Even Rankin had become a +secondary factor. Scotty probably would have denied the assertion +emphatically, yet at the bottom of his consciousness he realized that +had she told him to sell everything he possessed for what he could get +and return to old Sussex he would have complied. Considering Mollie's +daily plaint, it was a constant source of wonder to him that the girl +did not do this; but she seemed wholly satisfied with things as they +were. For exercise and excitement she rode almost every horse upon the +place--rode astride like a man. For amusement she read everything she +could lay hands upon, both from the modest Baker library and from the +larger and more creditable collection which Rankin had imported from +the East. This was the first real library that had ever entered the +State, and, subject for speculation, it had uniformly the front +fly-leaves remaining as mere stubs, as though the pages had been torn +out by a hurried hand. What name was it that had been in those hundreds +of volumes? For what reason had it been so carefully removed? The girl +had often speculated thereon, and fitted theory after theory; but never +yet, wilful as she was, had she had the temerity to ask the only person +who could have given explanation,--Rankin himself. + +In common with her sisters everywhere, Florence had an instinctive love +of a fad. Realizing this fact, Scotty was not in the least deceived +when, during a lull at the dinner-table one evening late in the Fall, +she broke in with an irrelevant though seemingly innocent remark. + +"I saw several big jack-rabbits when I was out riding this morning." The +dark eyes turned upon her father quizzically, humorously. "They seem to +be very plentiful." + +"Yes," said Scotty; "they always are in the Fall." + +Florence ate for a moment in silence. + +"Did you ever think how much sport we could have if we owned a couple of +hounds?" she asked. + +Scotty was silent; but Mollie threw up her hands in horror. "You don't +really mean that you want any of those hungry-looking dogs around, do +you, Flossie?" she protested pettishly. "Seems as though you'd be +satisfied with riding the horses tomboy style without going to hunting +rabbits that way." + +The daughter's color heightened and the matter dropped; but Scotty knew +the main attack was yet to come. He had learned from experience the +methods of his daughter in attaining an object. + +Later in the evening father and daughter were alone beside a well-shaded +lamp in the cosey sitting-room. Mollie had retired early, complaining of +a headache, and carrying with her an air of martyrdom even more +pronounced than usual; so noticeable, in fact, that, absently watching +the door through which she had left, an expression of positive gloom +formed over Scotty's thin face. Two strong young arms fell suddenly +about his neck and abruptly changed his thoughts. A soft warm cheek was +laid against his own. + +"Poor old daddy!" whispered a caressing voice. + +For a moment Scotty did not move; then, turning, he looked into the +brown eyes. "Why?" he asked. + +"Because,"--her voice was low, her answering look was steady,--"because +it won't be but a little while until he'll have to move away--move back +into civilization." + +For a moment neither spoke; then, with a last pressure of her cheek +against her father's, the girl crossed the room and took another chair. +Scotty followed her with his eyes. + +"Are you against me, too, little girl?" he asked. + +Florence reached over to the table, took up an ever-ready strip of +rice-paper, and, rolling a cigarette, tendered it with the air of a +peace-offering. + +"No, I'm not against you; but it's got to come. Mamma simply can't +change. She can't find anything here to interest her, and we've got to +take her away--for good." + +Scotty slowly struck a sulphur match, waited until the flame had burned +well along the wood, then deliberately lit his cigarette and burned it +to a stump. + +"Aren't you happy here, Flossie?" he asked gently. + +The girl's hands were folded in her lap, her eyes looked past him +absently. + +"Really, for once in my life," she answered seriously, "I spoke quite +unselfishly. I was thinking only of mamma." There was a pause, and a +deeper concentration in the brown eyes. "As for myself, I hardly know. +Yes, I do know. I'm happy now, but I wouldn't be long. The life here is +too narrow; I'd lose interest in it. At last I'd have a frantic desire, +one I couldn't resist, to peep just over the edge of the horizon and +take part in whatever is going on beyond." She smiled. "I might run +away, or marry an Indian, or do something shocking!" + +Scotty flicked off a bit of ashes with his little finger. + +"Can't you think of anything that would interest you and broaden your +life enough to make it pleasant?" he ventured. + +This time mirth shone upon the girl's face, and a laugh sounded in her +voice. + +"Papa, papa," she said, "I didn't think that of you! Are you so anxious +to get rid of your daughter?" As swiftly as it had come, the smile +vanished, leaving in its place a softer and warmer color. + +"I'm not enough of a hypocrite," she added slowly, "to pretend not to +understand what you mean. Yes, I believe if there is a man in the world +I could care enough for to marry, I could live here or anywhere with him +and be perfectly happy; but that isn't possible. I'm of the wrong +disposition." The soft color in the cheek grew warmer, the brown eyes +sparkled. "I know myself well enough to realize that any man I could +care for wouldn't live out here. He'd be one who did things, and did +them better than others; and to do things he'd have to be where others +are. No, I never could live here." + +Scotty dropped the dead cigarette stump into an ash-tray, and brushed a +stray speck of dust from his sleeve. + +"In other words, you could never care for such a man as your father," he +remarked quietly. + +The girl instantly realized what she had said, and springing up she +threw her arms impulsively about her father's neck. + +"Dear old daddy!" she said. "There isn't another man in the world like +you! I love you dearly, dearly!" The soft lips touched his cheek again +and again. But for the first time in her life that Florence could +remember, her father did not respond. Instead, he gently freed himself. + +"Nevertheless," he said, steadily, "the fact remains. You could never +marry a man like your father,--one who had no desire to be known of men, +but who simply loved you and would do anything in his power to make you +happy. You have said it." Scotty rose slowly, the youthfulness of his +movements gone, the expression of age unconsciously creeping into the +wrinkles at his temples and at the corners of his mouth. "You have hurt +me, Florence." + +The girl was at once repentant, but her repentance came too late. She +dropped her face into her hands. + +"Oh, daddy, daddy!" she pleaded, but could not say another word. Indeed, +there was nothing to be said. + +Scotty moved silently about the room, closed a book he had laid face +downward upon the table, picked up a paper which had fallen to the +floor, and wound the clock for the night. At the doorway to his +sleeping-room he paused. + +"You said something at dinner to-night about wanting some hounds, +Florence. I know where I can buy a pair, and I'll see that you have +them." He opened the door slowly, then quietly closed it. "And about our +leaving here. I have always expected to go sometime, but I hoped it +wouldn't be necessary for a while yet." He paused, fingering the knob +absently. "I'm ready, though, whenever you and your mother wish." + +This time the door closed behind him, and, alone within the room, the +girl sobbed as though her heart would break. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A RIFFLE OF PRAIRIE + + +Florence got her dogs promptly. They were two big mouse-colored +grayhounds, with tails like rats and protruding ribs. They were named +"Racer" and "Pacer," and were warranted by their late owner to +out-distance any rabbit that ever drew breath. The girl felt that an +event as important as a coursing should be the occasion of a gathering +of the neighboring ranchers; but at the mere suggestion her conventional +mother threw up her hands in horror. It was bad enough for her daughter +to go out alone, but as the one woman among all that lot of cowboys--it +was too much for her to endure. Finally, as a compromise, Florence +agreed to invite only the people of the Box R Ranch to the first event. +So the invitations for a certain day, composed with fitting formality, +were sent, and in due time were ceremoniously accepted. + +The chase was scheduled to begin soon after daybreak, and before that +time Rankin and Ben Blair were at the Baker house. They wore their +ordinary clothes of wool and leather, but Scotty appeared in a wonderful +red hunting-coat, which, though a bit moth-eaten in spots, nevertheless +showed glaringly against the brown earth of the ranch-house yard. + +With the exception of the dogs, which were kept properly hungry for the +hunt, and Mollie, who had washed her hands of the whole affair, the +party all had breakfast, Scotty himself serving the coffee with the +skill of a head-waiter. Then the old buckboard, carefully oiled and +tightened for the occasion, was gotten out, a team of the fastest, +wiriest mustangs the Box R possessed was attached, and Rankin and Baker +upon the seat, Florence and Ben, well-mounted, trailing behind, the +party sallied forth. In order to avoid fences they had agreed to go ten +miles to the south before beginning operations. There a great tract of +government land, well grazed but untouched by the hand of man, gave all +but unlimited room. + +The morning was beautiful and clear beyond the comprehension of city +dwellers, a typical day of prairie Dakota in late Fall. Far out over the +broad expanse, indefinite as to distance, the rising sun seemed resting +upon the very rim of the world. All about, near at hand, stretching into +the horizon, glistening, sparkling, innumerable frost crystals, product +of the past night, gleamed like scattered gems, showing in their +coloring every blended shade of the rainbow. The glory of it all +appealed to the girl, and throwing back her head she drew in deep +breaths of the tonic air. + +"I'm going to miss these mornings terribly when I'm gone," she said +soberly. + +Ben Blair scrutinized the backs of the two men in the buckboard with +apparent interest. + +"I didn't know you intended leaving," he said. "Where are you going?" + +Florence regarded her companion from the corner of her eye. + +"I'm going away for good," she said. + +Ben shifted half around in the saddle and folded back the rim of his big +sombrero. + +"For good, you say?" + +The girl's brown eyes were cast down demurely. "Yes, for good," she +repeated. + +They had been losing ground. Now in silence they galloped ahead, the +regular muffled patter of their horses' feet upon the frozen sod +sounding like the distant rattle of a snare-drum. Once again even with +the buckboard, they lapsed into a walk. + +"You haven't told me where you're going," repeated Blair. + +The question seemed to be of purest politeness, as a host inquires if +his visitor has rested well; yet for a dozen years they two had lived +nearest neighbors, and had grown to maturity side by side. She concluded +there were some phases of this silent youth which she had not yet +learned. + +"We haven't decided where we're going yet," she replied. "Mamma wants to +go to England, but papa and I refuse to leave this country. Then daddy +wants to live in a small town, and I vote for a big one. Just now we're +at deadlock." + +A smile started in Ben's blue eyes and spread over his thin face. + +"From the way you talk," he said, "I have a suspicion the deadlock won't +last long. If I stretch my imagination a little I can guess pretty close +to the decision." + +Florence was sober a moment; then a smile flashed over her face and left +the daintiest of dimples in either cheek. + +"Maybe you can," she said. + +For the second time they galloped ahead and caught up with the slower +buckboard. + +"Florence," Ben threw one leg over the pommel of his saddle and faced +his companion squarely, "I've heard your mother talk, and of course I +understand why she wants to go back among her folks, but you were raised +here. Why do you want to leave?" + +The girl hesitated, and ran her fingers through her horse's mane. + +"Mamma's been here against her will for a good many years. We ought to +go for her sake." + +Ben made a motion of deprecation. "What I want to know is the real +reason,--your own reason," he said. + +The warm blood flushed Florence's face. "By what right do you ask that?" +she retorted. "You seem to forget that we've both grown up since we went +to school together." + +Ben looked calmly out over the prairie. + +"No, I don't forget; and I admit I have no right to ask. But I may ask +as a friend, I am sure. Why do you want to go?" + +Again the girl hesitated. Logically she should refuse to answer. To do +otherwise was to admit that her first answer was an evasion; but +something, an influence that always controlled her in Ben's presence, +prevented refusal. Slow of speech, deliberate of movement as he was, +there was about him a force that dominated her, even as she dominated +her parents, and, worst of all--to her inmost self she admitted the +fact--it fascinated her as well. With all her strength she rebelled +against the knowledge and combated the influence, but in vain. Instead +of replying, she chirruped to her horse. "It seems to me," she said, +"it's just as well to begin hunting here as to go further. I'm going on +ahead to ask papa and Mr. Rankin." + +With a grave smile, Blair reached over and caught her bridle-rein, +saying carelessly: "Pardon me, but you forget something you were going +to tell me." + +The girl's brown cheeks crimsoned anew, but this time there was no +hesitation in her reply. + +"Very well, since you insist, I'll answer your question; but don't be +surprised if I offend you." A dainty hand tugged at the loosened button +of her riding-glove. "I'm going away, for one reason, because I want to +be where things move, and where I don't always know what is going to +happen to-morrow." She turned to her companion directly. "But most of +all, I'm going because I want to be among people who have ambitions, who +do things, things worth while. I am tired of just existing, like the +animals, from day to day. I was only a young girl when we were going to +school, but now I know why I liked that life so well. It was because of +the intense activity, the constant movement, the competition, the +evolution. I like it! I want to be a part of it!" + +"Thank you for telling me," said Ben, quietly. + +But now the girl was in no hurry to hasten on. She forgot that her +explanation was given under protest. It had become a confession. + +"Up to the last few years I never thought much about the future--I took +it for granted; but since then it has been different. Unconsciously, +I've become a woman. All the little things that belong to women's lives, +too small to tell, begin to appeal to me. I want to live in a good house +and have good clothes and know people. I want to go to shops and +theatres and concerts; all these things belong to me and I intend to +have them." + +"I think I understand," said Ben, slowly. "Yes, I'm sure I understand," +he repeated. + +But the girl did not heed him. "Last of all, there's another reason," +she went on. "I don't know why I shouldn't speak it, as well as think +it, for it's the greatest of all. I'm a young woman. I won't remain such +long. I don't want to be a spinster. I know I'm not supposed to say +these things, but why not? I want to meet men, men of my own class, my +parents' class, men who know something besides the weight of a steer and +the value of a bronco,--some man I could respect and care for." Again +she turned directly to her companion. "Do you wonder I want to change, +that I want to leave these prairies, much as I like them?" + +It was long before Ben Blair spoke. He scarcely stirred in his seat; +then of a sudden, rousing, he threw his leg back over the saddle. + +"No," he said slowly, "I don't wonder--looking at things your way. It's +all in the point of view. But perhaps yours is wrong, maybe you don't +think of the other side of that life. There usually is another side to +everything, I've noticed." He glanced ahead. A half-mile on, the +blackboard had stopped, and Scotty was standing up on the seat and +motioning the laggards energetically. + +"I think we'd better dust up a little. Your father seems to have struck +something interesting." + +Florence seemed inclined to linger, but Scotty's waving cap was +insistent, and they galloped ahead. + +They found Rankin sitting upon the wagon seat, smoking impassively as +usual; but the Englishman was upon the ground holding the two hounds by +the collars. Behind the big compound lenses his eyes were twinkling +excitedly, and he was smiling like a boy. + +"Look out there!" he exclaimed with a jerk of his head, "over to the +west. We all but missed him! Are you ready?" + +They all looked and saw, perhaps thirty rods away, a grayish-white +jack-rabbit, distinct by contrast with the brown earth. The hounds had +also caught sight of the game and pulled lustily at their collars. + +Instantly Florence was all excitement. "Of course we're ready! No, wait +a second, until I see about my saddle." She dismounted precipitately. +"Tighten the cinch a bit, won't you, Ben? I don't mind a tumble, but it +might interfere at a critical moment." She put her foot in his extended +hand, and sprang back into her seat. "Now, I'm ready. Come on, Ben! Let +them go, papa! Be in at the finish if you can!" and, a second behind the +hounds, she was away. Simultaneously, the great jack-rabbit, scenting +danger, leaped forward, a ball of animate rubber, bounding farther and +farther as he got under full motion, speeding away toward the blue +distance. + +The chase that followed was a thing to live in memory. From the nature +of the land, gently rolling to the horizon without an obstruction the +height of a man's hand, there was no possibility of escape for the +quarry. The outcome was as mathematically certain as a problem in +arithmetic; the only uncertain element was that of time. At first the +jack seemed to be gaining, but gradually the greater endurance of the +hounds began to count, and foot by foot the gap between pursuers and +pursued lessened. In the beginning the rabbit ran in great leaps, as +though glorying in the speed that it would seem no other animal could +equal, but very soon his movements changed; his ears were flattened +tight to his head, and, with every muscle strained to the utmost, he ran +wildly for his life. + +Meanwhile, the four hunters were following as best they might. In the +all but soundless atmosphere, the rattle of the old buckboard could be +heard a quarter of a mile. Alternately losing and gaining ground as they +cut off angles and followed the diameter instead of the circumference of +the great circles the rabbit described, the drivers were always within +sight. Closer behind the hounds and following the same course, Florence +rode her thoroughbred like mad, with Ben Blair at her side. The pace was +terrific. The rush of the crisp morning air sang in their ears and cut +keenly at their faces. The tattoo of the horses' feet upon the hard +earth was continuous. Beneath her riding-cap, the girl's hair was +loosened and swept free in the wind. Her color was high, her eyes +sparkled. Never before had the man at her side seen her so fair to gaze +upon; but despite the excitement, despite the rush of action, there was +a jarring note in her beauty. Deep in his nature, ingrained, elemental, +was the love of fair play. Though he was in the chase and a part of it, +his sympathies were far from being with the hounds. That the girl should +favor the strong over the weak was something he could not understand--a +blemish that even her beauty did not excuse. + +A quarter-hour passed. The sun rose from the lap of the prairie and +scattered the frost-crystals as though they had been mist. The chase was +near its end. All moved more slowly. A dozen times since they had +started, it seemed as if the hounds must soon catch their prey, that in +another second all would be over; but each time the rabbit had escaped, +had at the last instant shot into the air, while the hounds rushed +harmlessly beneath, and, ere they recovered, had gained a goodly lead +again in a new course. But now that time was past, and he was tired and +weak. It was a straight-away race, with the hounds scarcely twenty feet +behind. Back of the latter, perhaps ten rods, were the riders, still +side by side as at first. Their horses were covered with foam and +blowing steadily, but nevertheless they galloped on gallantly. Bringing +up the rear, just in sight but now out of sound, was the buckboard. Thus +they approached the finish. + +Inch by inch the dogs gained upon the rabbit. Standing in his stirrups, +Ben Blair, the seemingly stolid, watched the scene. The twenty feet +lessened to eighteen, to fifteen, and, turning his head, the man looked +at his companion. Beautiful as she was, there now appeared to his eye an +expression of anticipation,--anticipation of the end, anticipation of a +death,--the death of a weaker animal! + +A determination which had been only latent became positive with Blair. +He urged on his horse to the uttermost and sprang past his companion. +His right hand went to his hip and lingered there. His voice rang out +above the sound of the horses' feet and of their breathing. + +"Hi, there, Racer, Pacer!" he shouted. "Come here!" + +There was no response from the hounds; no sign that they had heard him. +They were within ten feet of the rabbit now, and no voice on earth could +have stopped them. + +"Pacer! Racer!" shouted Ben. There was a pause, and then the quick bark +of a revolver. A puff of dust arose before the nose of the leading dog. + +Again no response, only the steadily lessening distance. + +For a second Ben Blair hesitated; but it was for a second only. Florence +watched him, too surprised to speak, and saw what for a moment made her +doubt her own eyes. The hand that held the big revolver was raised, +there was a report, then another, and the two dead hounds went tumbling +over and over with their own momentum upon the brown prairie. Beyond +them the rabbit bounded away into distance and safety. + +Without a word Ben Blair drew rein, returned the revolver to its +holster, and came back to where the girl had stopped. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. "I'll pay you for the dogs, if you like." +A pause and a straight glance from out the blue eyes. "I couldn't help +doing what I did." + +Having in mind the look he had last seen upon the girl's face, he +expected an explosion of wrath; but he was destined to surprise. There +was silence, instead, while two great tears gathered slowly in her soft +eyes, and brimmed over upon the brown cheeks. + +"I don't want you to pay for the dogs; I'm glad they're gone." She +brushed back a straggling lock of hair. "It's a horrid sport, and I'll +never have anything to do with it again." A look that set the youth's +heart bounding shot out sideways from beneath the long lashes. "I'm very +glad you did--what you did." + +Just then the noisy old buckboard, with Rankin and Scotty clinging to +the seat, drove up and stopped short, with a protest from every joint of +the ancient vehicle. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE DOMINANT ANIMAL + + +The chance to sell his stock, ostensibly his reason for delaying +departure, came to Scotty Baker much more quickly than he had +anticipated. Within a week after the hunt--in the very first mail he +received, in fact--came an offer from a Minneapolis firm to take every +scrap of horse-flesh he could spare. With much compunction and a doleful +face he read the letter aloud in the family council. + +"That means 'go' for sure, I suppose," he commented at its conclusion. + +Involuntarily Florence laughed. "You look as though you'd just got word +that the whole herd had stampeded over a ravine, instead of having had a +wave of good fortune," she bantered. "I believe you'd still back out if +you could." + +Scotty's face did not lighten. "I know I would," he admitted. + +"We'll not give you the chance, though," broke in Mollie, with the first +indication of enthusiasm she had shown in many a day. "Florence and I +will begin packing right away, and you can carry the things along with +you when you drive the horses to town." + +Scotty looked at his wife steadily and caught the trace of excitement in +her manner. + +"Yes, that is a good suggestion," he replied slowly. "It's liable to +turn cold any time now, and as long as we're going it may as well be +before Winter sets in." He filled a stubby meerschaum pipe with tobacco, +and put on cap and coat preparatory to going out of doors. "I spoke to +Rankin about the place the other day," he added, "and he says he'll take +it and pay cash whenever I'm ready. I'll drive over and see him this +morning." + +Rankin was not at home--so Ma Graham told Scotty when he arrived--and +probably he wouldn't return till afternoon; but Ben was around the barn +somewhere, more than likely out among the broncos. He usually was, when +he had nothing else in particular to do. + +Following her direction the Englishman loitered out toward the stock +quarters, looked with interest into the big sheds where the haying +machinery was kept, stopped to listen to the rush of water through the +four-inch pipe of the artesian well, lit his pipe afresh, and moved on +reflectively to the first of the great stock-yards that stretched +beyond. A tight board fence, ten feet high, built as a windbreak on two +sides, obstructed his way; and he started to walk around it. At the end +the windbreak merged into a well-built fence of six wires, and, a +wagon's breadth between, a long row of haystacks, built as a further +protection against the wind. These, together with the wires, formed the +third side of the yard. Leaning on the latter, Scotty looked into the +enclosure, at first carelessly, then with interest. A moment later, +without making his presence known, he stepped back to the hay, and, +selecting a pile of convenient height, sat down in the sunshine to +watch. + +What he saw was a tall slim young man, in chaparejos and sombrero, the +inevitable "repeater" at his hip, solitarily engaged in the process of +breaking a bronco. Ordinarily in this cattle-country the first time one +of these wiry little ponies is ridden is on a holiday or a Sunday, +whenever a company of spectators can be secured to assist or to applaud; +but this was not Ben Blair's way. By nature solitary, whenever possible +he did his work as he took his pleasure, unseen of men. At present, as +he went methodically about his business, he had no idea that a person +save Ma Graham was within miles, or that anyone anywhere had the +slightest interest in what he was doing. + +"Yard One," as the cowboys designated this corral, was the most used of +any on the ranch. Save for a single stout post set solidly in its +centre, it was entirely clear, and under the feet of hundreds of cattle +had been tramped firm as a pavement. At present it contained a +half-dozen horses, and one of these, a little mustang that was Ben's +particular pride, he was just saddling when Scotty appeared; the others, +a wild-eyed, evil-looking lot, scattering meantime as far as the +boundaries of the corral would permit. + +Very deliberately Ben mounted the pony, hitched up the legs of his +leather trousers, folded back the brim of the big sombrero, and +critically inspected the ponies before him. One of them, a demoniacal +looking buckskin, appeared more vixenish than the others, and very +promptly the youth made this selection; but to get in touch of the wily +little beast was another matter. Every time the rancher made a move +forward the herd found it convenient likewise to move, and to the limit +of the corral fence. Once clear around the yard the rider humored them; +and Scotty, the spectator, felt sure he must be observed. But Ben never +looked outside the fence. + +Starting to make the circle a second time, the rancher spoke a single +word to the little mustang and they moved ahead at a gallop. Instantly +responsive, the herd likewise broke into a lope, maintaining their lead. +Twice, three times, faster and faster, the rider and the riderless +completed the circle, the hard ground ringing with the din, the dust +rising in a filmy cloud; then of a sudden the figure on the mustang +passed from inaction into motion, the left hand on the reins tightened +and turned the pony's head to the side, straight across the diameter of +the circle. Simultaneously the right dropped to the lariat coiled on the +pummel of the saddle, loosed it, and swung the noose at the end freely +in air. On galloped the broncos, unmindful of the trick--on around the +limiting fence, until suddenly they found almost in their midst the +animal, man, whom they so feared, whom they were trying so to escape. +Then for a moment there was scattering, reversal, confusion, a denser +cloud of dust; but for one of their number, the buckskin, it was too +late. Ben Blair rose in his stirrups, the rawhide rope that had been +circling above his sombrero shot out, spread, dropped over the uplifted +yellow head. The little mustang the man rode recognized the song of the +lariat; well he knew what would follow. In anticipation he stopped dead; +his front legs stiffened. There was a shock, a protest of straining +leather which Scotty could hear clear beyond the corral, as, checked +under speed, the buckskin rose on his hind-feet and all but lost his +balance. That instant was Blair's opportunity. He turned his mustang +swiftly and headed straight for the centre-post, dragging the struggling +and half-strangled bronco; he rode around the post, sprang from the +saddle, took a skilful half-hitch in the lariat--and the buckskin was a +prisoner. + +Scotty polished his glasses excitedly. He was wondering how the sleek +young men with whom he would soon be mingling in the city would go at a +job like that; and he smiled absently. + +To "snub" the bronco up to the post so that he could scarcely turn his +head was an easy matter. To exchange the bridle to the new mount was +also comparatively simple. To adjust the great saddle, with the +unwilling victim struggling like mad, was a more difficult task; but +eventually all these came to pass, and Ben paused a moment to inspect +his handiwork. To a tenderfoot observer it might have seemed that the +battle was about over; but as a matter of fact it had scarcely begun. To +chronicle on paper that a certain person on a certain day rode a certain +bronco for the first time sounds commonplace; but to one who has seen +the deviltry lurking in those wild prairie ponies' eyes, who knows their +dogged fighting disposition, the reality is very different. + +Only a moment Ben Blair paused. Almost before Scotty had got his +spectacles back to his nose he saw the long figure spring into the +saddle, observed that the lariat which had held the bronco helpless to +the post had been removed, and knew that the fight was on in earnest. + +And emphatically it was on. With his first leap the pony went straight +into the air, to come down with a mighty jolt, stiff-legged; but Ben +Blair sat through it apparently undisturbed. If ever an animal showed +surprise it was the buckskin then. For an instant he paused, looked back +at the motionless rider with eyes that seemed almost green, then +suddenly started away at full speed around the corral as though Satan +himself were in pursuit. + +Instantly with the diminutive horse swift anger took the place of +surprise. Scotty, the spectator, could read it in the tightening of the +rippling muscles beneath the skin, in the toss of the sleek head. Fear +had passed long ago, if the little beast had ever really known the +sensation. It was now merely animal against animal, dogged obstinacy +against dogged tenacity, a fight until one or the other gave in, no +quarter asked or accepted. + +As before, the bronco was the aggressor. One by one, so swiftly that +they formed a continuous movement, he tried all the tricks which +instinct or ingenuity suggested. He bucked, his hind-quarters in the air +until it seemed he would reverse. He reared up until his front feet were +on the level of a man's head, until Scotty held his breath for fear the +animal would lose his balance backward; but when he resumed the normal +he found the man, ever relentless, firmly in place, impassively awaiting +the next move. He grew more furious with each failure. The sweat oozed +out in drops that became trickling streams beneath the short hair. His +breath came more quickly, whistling through the wide nostrils. A new +light came into the gray-green eyes and flashed from them fiendishly. As +suddenly as he had made his previous attacks he played his last trump. +Like a ball of lead he dropped in his tracks and tried to roll; but the +great saddle prevented, and when he sprang up again, there, as firmly +seated as before, was the hated man upon his back. + +Then overpowering and unreasoning anger, the wrath of a frenzied lion in +a cage, of a baited bull in a ring, took possession of the buckskin. He +went through his tricks anew, not methodically as before, but furiously, +desperately. The sweat churned into foam beneath the saddle and between +his legs. He screamed like a demon, until the other broncos retreated in +terror, and Scotty's hair fairly lifted on his head. But one idea +possessed him--to kill this being on his back, this hated thing he could +not move or dislodge. A suggestion of means came to him, and straight as +a line he made for the high board fence. There was no misunderstanding +his purpose. + +Then for the first time Ben Blair roused himself. The hand on the rein +tightened, as the lariat had tightened, until the small head with the +dainty ears curled back in a half-circle. Simultaneously the long rowels +of a spur bit deep into the foaming flank, the swish of a quirt sounded +keenly, a voice broke out in one word of command, "Whoa!" and repeated, +"Whoa!" + +It was like thunder out of a clear sky, like an unseen blow in the dark. +Within three feet of the fence the bronco stopped and stood trembling in +every muscle, expecting he knew not what. + +It was the man's time now--the beginning of the end. + +"Get up!" repeated the same authoritative voice, and the hand on the bit +loosened. "Get up!" and rowel and quirt again did their work. + +In terror this time the bronco plunged ahead, felt the guiding rein, and +started afresh around the circle of the corral fence. "Get up!" repeated +Ben, and like a streak of yellowish light they spun about the trail. +Round and round they went, the body of the man and horse alike tilted in +at an angle, the other ponies plunging to clear the way. Scotty counted +ten revolutions; then he awaited the end. It was not long in coming. Of +a sudden, as before, directly in front of where he sat, the bridle-reins +tightened, and he heard the one word, "Whoa!" and pony and rider stopped +like figures in clay. For a moment they stood motionless, save for their +labored breathing; then very deliberately Ben Blair dismounted. Not a +movement did the buckskin make, either of offence or to escape; he +merely waited. Still deliberately, the man removed the saddle and +bridle, while not a muscle of the bronco's body stirred. Scotty watched +the scene in fascination. Every trace of anger was out of the pony's +gray-green eyes now, every indication of terror as well. Dozens of +horses the Englishman had seen broken; but one like this--never before. +It was as though in the last few minutes an understanding had come about +between this fierce wild thing and its conqueror; as though, like every +human being with whom he came in contact, the latter had dominated by +the sheer strength of his will. It was all but uncanny. + +Slowly Blair laid the bridle beside the saddle, and stepping over to his +late mount he patted the damp neck and gently stroked the silken muzzle. + +"I think, old boy, you'll remember me when we meet again," Scotty heard +him say. "Good luck to you meantime," and with a last pat he picked up +his riding paraphernalia and started for the sheds. + +Scotty stood up. "Hello," he called. + +Ben halted and turned about, looking his surprise. + +"Well, in the name of all that's proper!" he ejaculated slowly; "where'd +you drop down from?" + +Scotty smiled broadly; frank admiration for the dusty cowboy was in his +gaze. + +"I didn't drop down at all; I walked around here about half an hour ago. +You were rather preoccupied at the time and didn't notice me." + +Blair came back to the fence and swung over the saddle and bridle. "You +took in the whole show then?" he asked. A trace of color came into his +face, as he vaulted over the rails. "I hope you enjoyed it." + +Scotty observed the latest feat, unconscious as its predecessor, with +augmented admiration. "I certainly did," he said, and the subject was +dropped. + +The two men walked together toward the ranch-house. + +"I came over to see Rankin," remarked the Englishman, "but I'm afraid +I'll have to wait a bit." + +"I guess you will," replied Ben. "He went up to the north well this +morning. They're building some sheds up there, and he's superintending +the job. He's as liable to forget about dinner as not. Nothing I can do +for you, is there?" + +Scotty thrust his hands into his pockets. + +"No, I guess not. I came over to see about selling him my place. We're +going to leave in a few days." + +Ben Blair made no comment, and for a moment they walked on in silence; +then an idea suddenly occurred to the Englishman. + +"Come to think of it," he said, "there is something you can do for me. +Bill and I have got to drive all the stock over to the station. I'd be a +thousand times obliged if you would help us." + +For a half-dozen steps Blair did not answer; then he turned fairly to +his companion. + +"You won't be offended if I refuse?" he asked. + +"No, certainly not." + +"Well, then, I don't want to help you myself, but I'll get Grannis to go +with you. He'll be just as useful." + +Ordinarily, despite his assertion to the contrary, Scotty would have +been offended; but he knew this long youth quite too well to +misunderstand. + +"Would you mind telling me why you refuse?" he said at last. + +Ben shifted the heavy saddle to his other shoulder. + +"No, I don't mind," he said bluntly. "I won't help you because I don't +want you to go." + +Scotty pondered, and a light dawned on his slow-moving brain. He looked +at Ben sympathetically. "My boy," he said, "I'm sorry for you; by Jove! +I am." + +They were even with the horse-barn now, and without a word Ben went in +and hung up the saddle, each stirrup upon a nail. Relieved of his load +he came back, slapping the dust from his clothes with his big gauntlets. + +"If it's a fair question," he asked, "why do I merit your sympathy?" + +The Englishman's hands went deeper into his pockets. + +"Why?" He all but stared. "Because you haven't a ghost of a chance with +Florence. She'd laugh at you!" + +Ben's blue eyes were raised to a level with the other's glasses. "She'd +laugh at me, you think?" he asked quietly. + +Scotty shifted uneasily. "Well, perhaps not that," he retracted, "but +anyway, you haven't a chance. I like you, Ben, and I'm dead sorry that +she is different. She comes, if I do say it, of a good family, and +you--" of a sudden the Englishman found himself floundering in deep +water. + +"And I am--an unknown," Ben finished for him. + +At that moment Scotty heartily wished himself elsewhere, but wishing did +not help him. "Yes, to put it baldly, that's the word. It's unfortunate, +damned unfortunate, but true, you know." + +Ben's eyes did not leave the other man's face. "You've talked with her, +have you?" he asked. + +Scotty fidgeted more than before, and swore silently that in future he +would keep his compassions to himself. + +"No, I've never thought it necessary so far; but of course--" + +Ben Blair lifted his head. "Don't worry, Mr. Baker, I'll tell her my +pedigree myself. I supposed she already knew--that everybody who had +ever heard of me knew." + +Scotty forgot his nervousness. "You'll--tell her yourself, you say?" + +"Certainly." + +The Englishman said nothing. It seemed to him there was nothing to say. + +For a moment there was silence. "Mr. Baker," said Blair at last, "as +long as we've started on this subject I suppose we might as well finish +it up. I love your daughter; that you've guessed. If I can keep her +here, I'll do so. It's my right; and if there's a God who watches over +us, He knows I'll do my best to make her happy. As to my mother, I'll +tell her about that myself--and consider the matter closed." + +Again there was silence. As before, there seemed to the Englishman +nothing to say. + +Blair turned toward the ranch-house. "I saw Ma Graham motioning for +dinner quite a while ago," he said. "Let's go in and eat." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +LOVE'S AVOWAL + + +A distinct path, in places almost a beaten road, connected the Box R and +the Baker ranches. Along it a tall slim youth was riding a buckskin +pony. He was clean-shaven and clean-shirted; but the shirt was of rough +brown flannel. His leather trousers were creased and baggy at the knees. +At his hip protruded the butt of a big revolver. Upon his head, +seemingly a load in itself, was a broad sombrero; and surrounding it, +beneath a band which at one time had been very gaudy but was now sobered +by sun and rain, were stuck a score or more of matches. Despite the +motion of the horse the youth was steadily smoking a stubby bull-dog +pipe. + +The time was morning, early morning; it was Winter, and the sun was +still but a little way up in the sky. The day, although the month was +December, was as warm as September. There had not even been a frost the +previous night. Mother Nature was indulging in one of her many whims, +and seemed smiling broadly at the incongruity. + +Though the rider was out thus early, his departure had been by no means +surreptitious. "I'm going over to Baker's, and may not be back before +night," he had said at the breakfast table; and, impassive as usual, the +older man had made no comment, but simply nodded and went about his +work. Likewise there was no subterfuge when the youth arrived at his +destination. "I came to see Florence," he announced to Scotty in the +front yard; then, as he tied the pony, he added: "I spoke to Grannis, +and he said he'd come over and help you. Do you know exactly when you'll +want him?" + +"Yes, day after to-morrow. This weather is too good to waste." + +Ben turned toward the house. "All right. I'll see that he's over here +bright and early." + +The visitor found the interior of the Baker home looking like a corner +in a storage warehouse. Florence, in a big checked apron reaching to her +chin, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, was busily engaged in still +further dismantling the once cosey parlor. Amidst the confusion, and +apparently a part of it, Mrs. Baker wandered aimlessly about. The front +door was wide open, letting in a stream of sunlight. + +"Good-morning," said Ben, appearing in the doorway. + +Mrs. Baker stopped long enough to nod, and Florence looked up from her +work. + +"Good-morning," she replied. A deliberate glance took in the new-comer's +dress from head to foot, and lingered on the exposed revolver hilt. "Are +you hunting Indians or bear?" + +Ben Blair returned the look, even more deliberately. + +"Bear, I judge from the question. I came in search of you." + +There was no answer, and the man came in and sat down on the corner of +a box. "You seem to be very busy," he said. + +The girl went on with her packing. "Yes, rather busy," she said +indifferently. + +Ben dangled one long leg over the side of the box. + +"Are you too busy to take a ride with me? I want to talk with you." + +"I'm pretty busy," non-committally. + +"Suppose I should ask it as a favor?" + +"Suppose I should decline?" + +The long leg stopped its swinging. "You wouldn't, though." + +The girl's brown eyes flashed. "How do you know I wouldn't?" + +Ben stood up and folded his arms. "Because it would be the first favor I +ever asked of you, and you wouldn't refuse that." + +They eyed each other a moment. + +"Where do you want to go?" temporized Florence. + +"Anywhere, so it's with you." + +"You don't want to stay long?" + +"I'll come back whenever you say." + +Florence rolled down her sleeves and sighed with assumed regret. "I +ought to stay here and work." + +"I'll help you when we come back, if you like." + +"Very well." She said it hesitatingly. + +"All right. I'll get your horse ready for you." + +Scotty watched them peculiarly, Molly doubtfully, as they rode out of +the ranch yard; but neither made any comment, and they moved away in +silence. + +"That's an odd looking pony you've got there," remarked the girl +critically, when they had turned into the half-beaten trail which led +south. "How does it happen you're on him instead of the other?" + +Ben patted the smooth neck before him, and the pony twitched his ears +appreciatively. + +"Buckskin and I had the misfortune not to meet until lately. We just got +acquainted a few days ago." + +The girl glanced at her companion quickly and caught the look upon his +face. + +"I believe you're fonder of your horses and cattle and things than you +are of people," she flashed. + +The man's hand continued patting the pony's yellow neck. + +"More fond than I am of some people, maybe you meant to say." + +"Perhaps so," she conceded. + +"Yes, I think I am," he admitted. "They're more worthy. They never abuse +a kindness, and never come down to the insult of class distinctions. +They're the same to-day, to-morrow, a year from now. They'll work +themselves to death for you, instead of sacrificing you to their +personal gain. Yes, they make better friends than some people." + +Florence smiled as she glanced at her companion. + +"Is that what you want to tell me? If it is, seeing I've just made my +choice and decided to return to civilization and mingle with human +beings of whom you have such a poor opinion, I think we may as well go +back. Mamma and I have been racking our brains for two days to find a +place for the china, and I've just thought of one." + +Blair was silent a moment; then he said, "I promised to return whenever +you wished, but I've not said what I wanted to say yet." + +Florence looked at the speaker with feigned surprise. "Is that so? I'm +very curious to hear!" + +Ben returned the look deliberately. "You'd like to hear now what I have +to say?" + +The girl's breath came more quickly, but she persisted in her banter. "I +can scarcely wait!" + +The line of the youth's big jaw tightened, "I won't keep you in suspense +any longer then. First of all, I want to relate a little personal +history. I was eight years old, as you know, when I was taken into the +Box R ranch. In those eight years, as far as I can remember, not one +person except Mr. Rankin ever called at my mother's home." + +Again the girl felt a thrill of anticipation, but the brown eyes opened +archly. "You must have kept a big fierce dog, or--or something." + +"No, that was not the reason." + +"I can't imagine what it could be, then." + +"The explanation is simple. My mother and Tom Blair were never married." + +Swiftly the color mounted into Florence's cheeks, and she drew up her +horse with a jerk. + +"So that is what you brought me out here to tell me!" she blazed. + +Ben drew up likewise, and wheeled his pony facing hers. + +"I beg your pardon, but I'm not to blame for the way I told you--of +myself. You forced it. For once in my life at least, Florence, I'm in +dead earnest to-day." + +The girl hesitated. Tears of anger, or of something else, came into her +eyes. "I'm going home," she announced briefly, and turned back the way +they had come. + +The man silently wheeled his buckskin and for five minutes, ten minutes, +they rode toward home together. + +"Florence," said the youth steadily, "I had something more I wished to +say to you; will you listen?" + +No answer--only the sound of the solid steps of the thoroughbred and the +daintier tread of the mustang. + +"Florence," he repeated, "I asked you a question." + +The girl's face was turned away. "Oh, you are cruel!" she said. + +Ben touched his pony, advanced, caught the bridle of the girl's horse, +and brought both to a standstill. The girl did not turn her head to look +at him, but she did not resist. Deliberately the man dismounted, loosed +the rolled blanket he carried back of his saddle, spread it upon the +ground, then looked fairly up into her brown eyes. + +"Florence," he said, as he held out his hand to assist her to dismount, +"I've something I wish very much to say to you. Won't you listen?" + +Florence Baker looked steadily down into the clear blue eyes. Why she +did not refuse she could not have told, could never tell. As well as she +knew her own name she realized what was coming--what it was the man +wished to say to her; but she did not refuse to listen. + +"Florence," he said gently, "I'm waiting," and as in a dream she +stepped into the proffered hand, felt herself lowered to the ground, +followed the young man over to the blanket, and sat down. The sun, now +high above them, shone down warmly and approvingly. Scarcely a breath of +air was stirring. Not a sound came from over the prairies. As completely +as though they were the only two people on the earth, they were alone. + +The man stretched himself at his companion's feet, where he could look +into her face and catch its every expression. + +"Florence Baker," his voice came to her ears like the sound of one +speaking afar off, "Florence Baker, I love you. In all that I'm going to +say, bear this in mind; don't forget it for a moment. To me you will +always be the one woman on earth. Why I haven't told you this before, +why I waited until you were passing from my life before I said it, I +don't know; but now I'm as sure as that I'm looking at you that it is +so." The blue eyes never shifted. Presently one big strong hand reached +over and enfolded within its grasp another tiny resistless hand, which +lay there passive. + +"You're getting ready to go away, Florence," he went on, "leaving this +country where you've spent almost your life, changing it for an +uncertainty. Don't do it--not for my sake, but for your own. You know +nothing of the city, its pleasures, its rush, its excitement, its +ambitions. Granted that you've been there, that we've both been there; +but we were only children then and couldn't see beneath the thinnest +surface. Yet there must be something beneath the glitter, something +you've never thought of and cannot realize; something which makes the +life hateful to those who have felt and known it. I don't know what it +is, you don't; but it must be there. If it weren't so, why would men +like your father, like Mr. Rankin, college men, men of wealth, men who +have seen the world, leave the city and come here to stay? They were +born in cities, raised in cities. The city was a part of their life; but +they left it, and are glad." The man clasped the little hand more +tightly, shook it gently. "Florence, are you listening?" + +"Yes, I'm listening." + +"I repeat then, don't go. You belong here. This life is your life. +Everything that is best for your happiness you will find here. You spoke +the other day of your birthright--to love and to be loved--as though +this could only be realized in a city. Do you think I don't care for you +as much as though my home were in a town?" + +Passive, motionless, Florence listened, feeling the subtle sympathy +which ever existed between her and this boy-man drawing them closer +together. His strong magnetism, never before so potent, gripped her +almost like a physical force. His personality, original, masterful, +convincing, fascinated her. For the time the tacit consent of her +position never occurred to her. It seemed but natural and fitting that +he should hold her hand. She had no desire to speak or move, merely to +listen. + +"Florence," the voice was very near now, and very low. "Florence, I love +you. I can't have you go away, can't have you pass out of my life. I'll +do anything for you,--live for you, die for you, fight for you, slave +for you,--anything but give you up." Of a sudden his arms were about +her, his lips touched her cheek. "Can't you love me in return? Speak to +me, tell me--for I love you, Florence!" + +The girl started, and drew away involuntarily. "Oh, don't, don't! please +don't!" she pleaded. The dream faded, and she awoke to the reality of +her position. The brown head bowed, dropped into her hands. Her whole +body shook. "Oh, what have I done!" she sobbed. "Oh, what have I done! +Oh--oh--oh--" + +For a time, neither of them realized nor cared how long, they sat side +by side, though separate now. Warmly and brightly as before, the sun +shone down upon them. A breath of breeze, born of the heated earth, +wandered gently over the land. The big thoroughbred shifted on its feet +and whinnied suggestively. + +Gradually the girl's hysterical weeping grew quieter. The sobs came less +frequently, and at last ceased. Ben Blair slowly arose, folded his arms, +and waited. Another minute passed. Florence Baker, the storm over, +glanced up at her companion--at first hesitatingly, then openly and +soberly. She stood up, almost at his side; but he did not turn. Awe, +contrition, strange feelings and emotions flooded her anew. She reached +out her hand and touched him on the arm; at first hesitatingly, then +boldly, she leaned her head against his shoulder. + +"Ben," she pleaded, "Ben, forgive me. I've hurt you terribly; but I +didn't mean to. I am as I am; I can't help it. I can't promise to do +what you ask--can't say I love you now, or promise to love you in the +future." She looked up into his face. "Won't you forgive me?" + +Still the man did not turn. "There's nothing to forgive, Florence," he +said sadly. "I misunderstood it all." + +"But there is something for me to say," she went on swiftly. "I knew +from the first what you were going to tell me, and knew I couldn't give +you what you asked; yet I let you think differently. It's all my fault, +Ben, and I'm so sorry!" She gently and timidly stroked the shoulder of +the rough flannel shirt. "I should have stopped you, and told you my +reasons; but they seemed so weak, and somehow I couldn't help listening +to you." There was a hesitating pause. "Would you like to hear my +reasons now?" + +"Just as you please." There was no unkindness in the voice--only +resignation and acceptance of the hard fact she had already made known +to him. + +Florence hesitated. A catch came into her throat, and she dropped her +head to the broad shoulder as before. + +"Ben, Ben!" she almost sobbed, "I can't tell you, after all. It'll only +hurt you again." + +He was looking out over the prairies, watching the heat-waves that arose +in fantastic circles, as in Spring. "You can't hurt me again," he said +wearily. + +The vague feeling of irreparable loss gripped the girl anew; but this +time she rushed on desperately, in spite of it. "Oh, why couldn't I have +met you somewhere else, under different circumstances?" she wailed. "Why +couldn't your mother have been--different?" She paused, the brown head +raised, the loosened hair tossed back in abandon. "Maybe, as you say, +it's a rainbow I'm seeking. Maybe I'll be sorry; but I can't help it. I +want them all--the things of civilization. I want them all," she +finished abruptly. + +Gently the man disengaged himself. "Is that all you wished to say?" + +"Yes," hesitatingly, "I guess that's all." + +Ben picked up the blanket and returned it to his saddle; then he led the +horse to the girl's side. "Can I help you up?" + +His companion nodded. The youth held down his hand, and upon it Florence +mounted to the saddle as she had done many times before. The thought +came to her that it might be the last time. + +Not a word did Ben speak as they rode back to the ranch-house; not once +did he look at his companion. At the door he held out his hand. + +"Good-bye," he said simply. + +"Good-bye," she echoed feebly. + +Ben made his adieu to Mrs. Baker, and then rode out to the barn where +Scotty was working. "Good-bye," he repeated. "We'll probably not meet +again before you go." The expression upon the Englishman's face caught +his eye. "Don't," he said. "I'd rather not talk now." + +Scotty gripped the extended hand and shook it heartily. + +"Good-bye," he said, with misty eyes. + +The youth wheeled the buckskin and headed for home. Florence and her +mother were still standing in the doorway watching him, and he lifted +his big sombrero; but he did not glance at them, nor turn his head in +passing. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A DEFERRED RECKONING + + +Time had dealt kindly with the saloon of Mick Kennedy. A hundred +electric storms had left it unscathed. Prairie fires had passed it by. +Only the relentless sun and rain had fastened the mark of their +handiwork upon it and stained it until it was the color of the earth +itself. Within, man had performed a similar office. The same old +cottonwood bar stretched across the side of the room, taking up a third +of the available space; but no stranger would have called it cottonwood +now. It had become brown like oak from continuous saturation with +various colored liquids; and upon its surface, indelible record of the +years, were innumerable bruises and dents where heavy bottles and +glasses had made their impress under impulse of heavier hands. The +continuous deposit of tobacco smoke had darkened the ceiling, modulating +to a lighter tone on the walls. The place was even gloomier than before, +and immeasurably filthier under the accumulated grime of a dozen years. +Once in their history the battered tables had been recovered, but no one +would have guessed it now. The gritty decks of cards had been often +replaced, but from their appearance they might have been those with +which Tom Blair long ago bartered away his honor. + +Time had left its impress also on bartender Mick. A generous sprinkling +of gray was in his hair; the single eye was redder and fiercer, seeming +by its blaze to have consumed the very lashes surrounding it; the cheeks +were sunken, the great jaw and chin prominent from the loss of teeth. +Otherwise Mick was not much changed. The hand which dealt out his wares, +which insisted on their payment to the last nickel, was as steady as of +yore. His words were as few, his control of the reckless and often +drunken frequenters was as perfect. He was the personified spirit of the +place--crafty, designing, relentless. + +Bob Hoyt, the foreman, shambled into Mick's lair at the time of day when +the lights were burning and smoking on the circling shelf. He peered +through the haze of tobacco smoke at the patrons already present, +received a word from one and a stare from another, but from none an +invitation to join the circle. + +Bob sidled up to the bar where Kennedy was impassively waiting. "Warmer +out," he advanced. + +Mick made no comment. "Something?" he suggested. + +Bob's colorless eyes blinked involuntarily. "Yes, a bit of rye." + +Mick poured a very small drink into a whiskey glass, set it with another +of water before the customer, on a big card tacked upon the wall added a +fresh line to those already succeeding the other's name, and leaned his +elbows once more upon the bar. + +Upon the floor of his mouth Bob Hoyt laid a foundation of water, over +this sent down the fiery liquor with a gulp, and followed the retreat +with the last of the water, unconsciously making a wry face. + +Kennedy whisked the empty glasses through the doubtful contents of a +convenient pail, and set them dripping upon a perforated shelf. "Found +the horses yet?" he queried, in an undertone. + +Bob shifted uncomfortably and searched for a place for his hands, but +finding none he let them hang awkwardly over the rail of the bar. + +"No, not even a trail." + +"Looked, have you?" The single searchlight turned unwinkingly upon the +other's face. + +"Yes, I've been out all day. Made a circle of the places within forty +miles--Russel's of the Circle R, Stetson's of the 'XI,' Frazier's, +Rankin's--none of them have seen a sign of a stray." + +"That settles it, then. Those horses were stolen." The red face with its +bristle of buff and gray came closer. "I didn't think they'd strayed. +The two best horses on a ranch don't wander off by chance; if they'd +been broncos it might have been different. It's the same thing as three +years ago; pretty nearly the same date too--early in January it was, you +remember!" + +Bob's long head nodded confirmation. "Yes. We thought then they'd come +around all right in the next round up, but they didn't, and never have." + +Kennedy stepped back, spread his hands palm down upon the bar, leaned +his full weight upon them, and gazed meditatively at the other occupants +of the room. A question was in his mind. Should he take these men into +his confidence and trust to their well-known method of dealing with +rustlers--a method very effective when successful in catching the +offender, but infinitely deficient in finesse--or depend wholly upon his +own ingenuity? He decided that in this instance the latter offered +little hope. His province was in dealing with people at close range. + +"Boys,"--his voice was normal, but not a man in the room failed to give +attention,--"boys, line up! It's on the house." + +Promptly the card games ceased. In one, the pot lay as it was, its +ownership undecided, in the centre of the table. The loungers' feet +dropped to the floor. An inebriate, half dozing in the corner, awoke. +Well they knew it was for no small reason that Mick interrupted their +diversions. Up they came--Grover of the far-away "XXX" ranch, who had +been here for two days now, and had lost the price of a small herd; +Gilbert of the "Lost Range," whose brand was a circle within a circle; +Stetson of the "XI," a short heavy-set man, with an immovable pugilist's +face, to-night, as usual, ahead of the game; Thompson, one-armed but +formidable, who drove the stage and kept the postoffice and inadequate +general store just across to the north of the saloon; McFadden, a wiry +little Scotchman with sandy whiskers, Rankin's nearest neighbor to the +south; a half-dozen lesser lights, in distinction from the big ranchers +called by their first names, "Buck" or "Pete" or "Bill" as the case +might be, mere cowmen employed at a salary. Elbow to elbow they leaned +upon the supporting bar, awaiting with interest the something they knew +Kennedy had to say. + +Kennedy did not ask a single man what he would have. It was needless. +Silently he placed a glass before each, and starting a bottle of red +liquor at one end of the line, he watched it, as, steadily emptying, it +passed on down to the end. + +"I never use it, you know," he explained, as, the preparation complete, +they looked at him expectantly. + +"Take something else, then," pressed McFadden. + +Mick poured out a glass of water and set it on the bar before him; but +not an observer smiled. They knew the man they were dealing with. + +"All right, boys,"--McFadden's glass went up on a level with his eye, +and one and all the others followed the motion,--"all right, boys! +Here's to you, Kennedy!"--mouthing the last word as though it were a hot +pebble, and in unison the dozen odd hands led the way to their +respective owners' mouths. There was a momentary pause; then a musical +clinking, as the empty glasses returned to the board. Silence, expectant +silence, returned. + +"Boys,"--Mick looked from face to face intimately,--"we've got work +ahead. Hoyt here reported this morning that two of the best horses on +the Big B were missing. He's made a forty-mile circuit to-day, and no +one has seen anything of them. You all know what that means." + +Stetson turned to the foreman. "What time did you see them last, Hoyt?" + +"About nine last evening." + +"Sure?" + +Bob's long head nodded emphatically. "Yes, one of the boys had the team +out mending fence in the afternoon, and when he was through he turned +them into the corral with the broncos. I'm sure they were there." + +"I'm not surprised," commented Thompson, swinging on his single elbow to +face the others. "It's been some time now since we've had a necktie +party and it's bound to come. The wonder is it hasn't come before." + +Gilbert and Grover, comparatively elderly men, said nothing, looked +nothing; but upon the faces of the half-dozen cowboys there appeared +distinct anticipation. The hunt of a "rustler" appealed to them as a +circus does to a small boy, as the prospect of a football game does to a +college student. + +Meanwhile, McFadden had been thinking. One could always tell when this +process was taking place with the Scotchman, from his habit of tapping +his chest with his middle finger as though beating time to the movement +of his mental machinery. + +"Got any plan, Kennedy?" he queried. "Whoever's done you has got a good +start by this time; but if we're going to do anything, there's no use in +giving him longer. How about it?" + +Mick's single eye shifted as before, and went from face to face. "No, I +haven't; but I've got an idea." A pause. "How many of you boys remembers +Tom Blair?" he digressed. + +"I do," said Grover. + +"Same here." It was Gilbert of the Lost Range who spoke. + +"I've heard of him," commented one of the cowboys. + +"I guess we all have," added another. + +Again Mick's eye, like a flashlight, passed from man to man. + +"Well," he announced, "I may be wrong, but I've got reason to believe it +was Tom Blair who did the job last night, and that he's somewhere this +side the river right now." + +For a moment there was silence, while the idea took root. + +"I supposed he was dead long ago," remarked Stetson at last. + +"So did I, until a month ago--until the last time I was in town stocking +up. I met a fellow there then from the country west of the river, and it +all came out. Blair's been stampin' that range for a year, and they're +suspicious of him. He disappears every now and then, and they think he +keeps in with a gang of rustlers who have their headquarters over in the +Johnson's Hole country in Wyoming. The fellow said he kept up +appearances by claiming he owned a ranch on this side--the Big B. That's +how we came to speak of him." + +"Queer," commented Stetson, "that if it's Blair, he hasn't been around +before. It's been ten years now since he disappeared, hasn't it?" + +"More than that," corrected Mick. "That's another reason I believe it's +him; that, and the fact that I didn't do nothin' the last time I was +held up. It must be one lone rustler who's operating or there'd be +more'n a couple of hosses missing. Then it must be some feller that +knows the Big B, and has a particular grudge against it, or why would +they have passed the Broken Kettle or the Lone Buffalo on the west? +Morris has a whole herd, and his main hoss sheds are in an old creek-bed +a mile away from the ranch-house. I tell you it's some feller who knows +this country and knows me." + +"I believe you're right about him being this side of the river," broke +in Thompson. "When I was over after the mail two days ago there was +water running on the ice; and it's been warmer since. It must be wide +open in spots now. A man who knows the crossings might make it afoot, +but he couldn't take a hoss over." + +Mick's lone eye burned more ominously than before. "Of course he can't. +He's run into a trap, and all we've got to do is to make a spread and +round him up. I'll bet a hundred to one we find him somewhere this side, +waiting for a freeze." Again the half-emptied bottle came from the shelf +and passed to the end of the line. "Have another whiskey on me, boys." + +They silently drank. Then grim Stetson suggested that they drink +again--"to our success"; and cowboy Buck, not to be outdone, proposed +another toast--"to the necktie party--after." The big bottle, empty now, +dinned on the surface of the bar. + +"By God! I hope we get him," flamed Grover. "He ought to be hung, +anyway. He killed his wife and burned up the body, they say, before he +left!" + +"Someone must call for Rankin and Ben," suggested another, "Ben +particularly. He ought to be there at the finish. Lord knows he's got +grudge enough." + +"We'll let him pull the trap," broke in Stetson grimly. + +Of a sudden above the confusion there sounded a snarl, almost like the +cry of an animal. Surprised, for the moment silenced, the men turned in +the direction whence it had come. + +"Rankin!" It was Mick Kennedy who spoke, but it was Mick transformed. +"Rankin!" The great veins of the bartender's neck swelled; the red face +congested until it became all but purple. "No! We won't go near him! +He'd put a stop to the whole thing. What we want is men, not cowards!" + +A moment only the silence lasted. "All right," agreed Stetson. "Have +another, boys! We'll drop Rankin!" + +Anew, louder than before, broke forth the confusion. The games of a +short time ago were forgotten. A heap of coin lay on the shelf behind +the bar where Mick, the banker, had placed it; but winner and loser +alike ignored its existence. The savage, ever so near the surface of +these rough frontiersmen, had taken complete possession of them. Drop +Rankin--forget civilization--ignore the slow practices of law and order! + +"Come on!" someone yelled. "We're enough to do the business. To the +river!" + +Instantly the crowd burst through the single front door. Momentarily +there followed a lull, while in the half darkness each rider found his +mount. Then sounded an "All ready!" from cowboy Buck, first in motion, a +straining of leather, a swish of quirts, a grunting of ponies as the +spurs dug into their flanks, a rush of leaping feet, a wild medley of +yells, and westward across the prairie, beneath the stars, there passed +a swiftly moving black shadow that grew momentarily lighter, and back +from which came a patter, patter, patter, that grew softer and softer; +until at last over the old saloon and its companion store fell silence +absolute. + +It was 10:28 when they left Kennedy's place. It was 12:36 when, without +having for a moment stopped their long swinging gallop, they pulled up +at the "Lone Buffalo" ranch, twenty-five miles away, and the last ranch +before they reached the river. The house was dark and silent as the +grave at their approach; but it did not remain so long. The display of +fireworks with which they illumined the night would have done credit to +an Independence Day celebration. The yells which accompanied it were +hair-raising as the shrieks from a band of maniacs. Instantly lights +began to burn, and the proprietor himself, Grey--a long Southerner with +an imperial--came rushing to the door, a revolver in either hand. + +But the visitors had not waited for him. With one impulse they had +ridden straight into the horse corral, had thrown off saddles and +bridles from their steaming mounts, and, every man for himself, had +chosen afresh from the ranch herd. Passing out in single-file through +the gate, they came upon Grey; but still they did not stop. The one word +"rustler" was sufficient password, and not five minutes from the time +they arrived they were again on the way, headed straight southwest for +their long ride to the river. + +Hour after hour they forged ahead. The mustangs had long since puffed +themselves into their second wind, and, falling instinctively into their +steady swinging lope, they moved ahead like machines. The country grew +more and more rolling, even hilly. From between the tufts of buffalo +grass now and then protruded the white face of a rock. Over one such, +all but concealed in the darkness, Grover's horse stumbled, and with a +groan, the rancher beneath, fell flat to earth. By a seeming miracle the +man arose, but the horse did not, and an examination showed the jagged +edge of a fractured bone protruding through the hide at the shoulder. +There was but one thing to do. A revolver spoke its message of relief, a +hastily-cast lot fell to McFadden, and without a word he faced his own +mount back the way they had come, assisted Grover to a place behind him, +turned to wish the others good luck, and found himself already too late. +Where a minute ago they had been standing there was now but vacancy. The +night and the rolling ground had swallowed the avengers up as completely +as though they had never existed; and the Scotchman rode slowly back. + +It was yet dark, but the eastern sky was reddening, when they reached +the chain of bluffs bordering the great river. They had made their plans +before, so that now without hesitating they split as though upon the +edge of a mighty wedge, half to the right, half to the left, each +division separating again into its individual members, until the whole, +like two giant hands whereof the cowboys, half a mile apart from each +other, were the fingers, moved forward until the end finger all but +touched the river itself. + +Still there was no pause. The details had been worked out to a nicety. +They had bent far to the south, miles farther than any man aiming at the +Wyoming border would have gone, and now, having arrived at the barrier, +they wheeled north again. It was getting daylight, and cowboy Pete,--in +our simile the left little finger,--first to catch sight of the surface +of the stream, waved in triumph to the nearest rider on his right. + +"We've got him, sure!" he yelled. "She's open in spots"; and though the +others could not hear, they understood the meaning, and the message went +on down the line. + +On, on, more swiftly now, at a stiff gallop, for it was day, the riders +advanced. As they moved, first one rider and then another would +disappear, as a depression in the uneven country temporarily swallowed +them up--but only to reappear again over a prominent rise, still +galloping on. They watched each other closely now, searching the +surrounding country. They were nearing a region where they might expect +action at any moment,--the remains of a camp-fire, a clue to him they +sought,--for it was on a line directly west of the Big B ranch. + +And they were not to be disappointed. Observing closely, Stetson, who +was nearest to Pete, saw the latter suddenly draw up his horse and come +to a full stop. At last the end had arrived--at last; and the rancher +turned to motion to his right. Only a moment the action took, but when +he shifted back he saw a sight which, stolid gambler as he was, sent a +thrill through his nerves, a mumbling curse to his lips. Coming toward +him, crazy-scared, bounding like an antelope, mane flying, stirrups +flapping, was the pony Pete had ridden, but now riderless. Of the cowboy +himself there was not a sign. Stetson had not heard a sound or caught a +motion. Nevertheless, he understood. Somewhere near, just to the west, +lay death, death in ambush; but he did not hesitate. Whatever his +faults, the man was no coward. A revolver in either hand, the reins in +his teeth, he spurred straight for the river. + +It took him but a minute to cover the distance--a minute until, almost +by the rivers bank, he saw ahead on the brown earth the sprawling form +of a dead man. With a jerk he drew up alongside, and, the muzzles of big +revolvers following his eye, sent swiftly about him a sweeping glance. +Of a sudden, three hundred yards out, seemingly from the surface of the +river itself, he caught a tiny rising puff of smoke, heard +simultaneously a sound he knew so well,--the dull spattering impact of a +bullet,--realized that the pony beneath him was sinking, felt the shock +as his own body came to earth, and heard just over his head the singing +passage of a rifle-ball. + +Unconscious profanity flowed from the rancher's lips in a stream; but +meanwhile his brain worked swiftly, and, freeing himself, he crawled +back hand over hand until a wave in the ground covered the river from +view; then springing to his feet he ran toward the others, approaching +now as fast as spurs would bring them, waving, shouting a warning as he +went. Within a minute they were all together listening to his story. +Within another, the rifles from off their saddles in their hands, the +ponies left in charge of lank Bob Hoyt, the eight others now remaining +moved back as Stetson had come: at first upright, then, crawling, hand +over hand until, peeping over the intervening ridge, they saw lying +before them the mingled ice patches and open running water of the +low-lying Missouri. Beside them at their left, very near, was the body +of Pete; but after a first glance and an added invective no man for the +present gave attention. He was dead, dead in his tracks, and their +affair was not with such, but with the quick. + +At first they could see nothing which explained the mystery of death, +only the forbidding face of the great river; then gradually to one after +another there appeared tell-tale marks which linked together into clues. + +"Ain't that a hoss-carcass?" It was cowboy Buck who spoke. "Look, a +hundred yards out, down stream." + +Gilbert's swift glance caught the indicated object. + +"Yes, and another beyond--farther down--amongst that ice-pack! Do you +see?" + +"Where?" Mick Kennedy trained his one eye like a fieldpiece upon the +locality suggested. "Where? Yes! I see them now--both of them. Blair's +own horse, if he had one, is probably in there too, somewhere." + +Meanwhile Stetson had been scrutinizing the spot on the river's face +from which had come the puff of smoke. + +"Say, boys!" a ring as near excitement as was possible to one of his +temperament was in his voice. "Ain't that an island, that brown patch +out there, pretty well over to the other side? I believe it is." + +The others followed his glance. Near the farther bank was a long +low-lying object, like a jam of broken ice-cakes, between which and them +the open water was flowing. At first they thought it was ice; then under +longer observation they knew better. They had seen too many other +formations of the kind in this shifting treacherous stream to be long +deceived. A flat sandy island it was, sure enough; and what they thought +was ice was driftwood. + +Almost simultaneously from the eight there burst forth an exclamation, a +rumbling curse of comprehension. They understood it all now as plainly +as though their own eyes had seen the tragedy. Blair had reached the +river and, despite its rotten ice, had tried to cross. One by one the +horses had broken through, had been abandoned to their fate. He alone, +somehow, had managed to reach this sandy island, and he was there now, +intrenched behind the driftwood, waiting and watching. + +In the brain of every cowboy there formed an unuttered curse. Their +impotence to go farther, to mete out retribution to this murderer of +their companion, came over them in a blind wave of fury. The sun, now +well above the horizon, shone warmly down upon them. They were in the +midst of an infrequent Winter thaw. The full current of the river was +between them and the desperado. It might be days, a week, before ice +would again form; yet, connecting the island with the western bank, it +was even now in place. Blair had but to wait until cover of night, and +depart in peace--on foot, to be sure, but in the course of days a man +could travel far afoot. Doubtless he realized all this. Doubtless he was +laughing at them now. The curses redoubled. + +Stetson had been taking off his coat. He now draped it about his +rifle-stock, and placed his sombrero on top. "All ready, boys," he +cautioned, and raised it slowly into view. + +Instantly from the centre of the driftwood heap there arose a tracing of +blue smoke. Simultaneously, irregular in outline as though punched by a +dull instrument, a jagged hole appeared in the felt of the hat. + +As instantly, eight rifles on the bank began to play. The crackling of +their reports was like infantry, the sliding click of the ejecting +mechanism as continuous and regular as the stamp-stamp of many presses. +The smoke rose over their heads in a blue cloud. Far out on the river, +under impact of the bullets, splinters of the rotted driftwood leaped +high into the air. Now and then the open water in front splashed into +spray as a ball went amiss. Not until the rifle magazines were empty did +they cease, and then only to reload. Again and once again they repeated +the onslaught, until it would seem no object the size of a human being +upon the place where they aimed could by any possibility remain alive. +Then, and not until then, did silence return, did the dummy upon +Stetson's rifle again raise its head. + +But this time there was no response. They waited a minute, two +minutes--tried the ruse again, and it was as before. Had they really hit +the man out there, as they hoped, or was he, conscious of a trick, +merely lying low? Who could tell? The uncertainty, the inaction, goaded +all that was reckless in cowboy Buck's nature, and he sprang to his +feet. + +"I'm going out there if I have to walk on the bottom of the river!" he +blazed. + +Instantly Stetson's hands were on his legs, pulling him, prostrate. + +"Down, you fool!" he growled. "At the bottom of the river is where you'd +be quick enough." The speaker turned to the others. "One of us is done +for already. There's no use for the rest to risk our lives without a +show. We've either potted Blair or we haven't. There's nothing more to +be done now, anyway. We may as well go back." + +For a moment there was a murmur of dissent, but it was short-lived. One +and all realized that what the rancher said was true. For the present at +least, nature was against them, on the side of the outlaw; and to combat +nature was useless. Another time--yes, there would surely be another +time; and grim faces grew grimmer at the thought. Another time it would +be different. + +"Yes, we may as well go." It was Mick Kennedy who spoke. "We can't stay +here long, that's sure." He tossed his rifle over to Stetson. "Carry +that, will you?" and rising, regardless of danger, he walked over to +cowboy Pete, took the dead body in his arms, without a glance behind +him, stalked back to where the horses were waiting, laid his burden +almost tenderly across the shoulder of his own mustang, and mounted +behind. Coming up, the others, likewise in silence, got into their +saddles, not as at starting, with one bound, but heavily, by aid of +stirrups. Still in silence, Mick leading, the legs of dead Pete dangling +at the pony's shoulder, they faced east, and started moving slowly along +the backward trail. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A SHOT IN THE DARK + + +Winter, long delayed, came at last in earnest. On the morning of the +seventeenth of January--the ranchers did not soon forget the date--a +warm snow, soft with moisture, drove tumbling in from the east. All the +morning it came, thicker and thicker, until on the level, several inches +had fallen; then, so rapidly that one could almost discern the change, +the temperature began lowering, the wind shifting from the east to the +north, from north to west, and steadily rising. The surface of the snow +froze to ice, the snowflakes turned to sleet, and went bounding and +grinding, forming drifts but to disperse again, journeying aimlessly on, +cutting viciously at the chance animal who came in their path like a +myriad of tiny knives. + +All that day the force of the Box R ranch labored in the increasing +storm to get the home herds safely behind the shelter of the corral. It +was impossible for cattle long to face such a storm; but with this very +emergency in mind, Rankin had always in Winter kept the scattered +bunches to the north and west, and under these conditions the feat was +accomplished by dusk, and the half-frozen cowboys tumbled into their +bunks, to fall asleep almost before they assumed the horizontal. The +other ranchers wondered why it was that Rankin was so prosperous and why +his herd seldom diminished in Winter. Had they been observant, they +could have learned one reason that day. + +All the following night the storm moaned and raged, and the cold became +more and more intense. It came in through the walls of houses and +through bunk coverings, and bit at one like a living thing. Nothing +could stop it, nothing unprotected could withstand it. In the great +corral behind the windbreak, the cattle, all headed east, were jammed +together for warmth, a conglomerate mass of brown heads and bodies from +which projected a wilderness of horns. + +The next morning broke with a clear sky but with the thermometer marking +many degrees below zero. Out of doors, when the sun had arisen, the +light was dazzling. As far as eye could reach not a spot of brown +relieved the white. The layer of frozen snow lay like a vast carpet +stretched tight from horizon to horizon. Although it was only snow, yet +so far as the herds of the ranchers were concerned it might have been a +protecting armor of steel. Well did the tired cowboys, stiff from the +previous day's struggle, know what was before them, when at daylight +Graham routed them out. Food the helpless multitude must have. If they +could not find it for themselves it must be found for them; and in +stolid disapproval the men ate a hasty breakfast by the light of a +kerosene lamp and went forth to the inevitable. + +Rankin and Ben and Graham were already astir, and under their +supervision the campaign was rapidly begun. For a few days the stock +must be fed on hay, and seven of the available fifteen men of the ranch +force were detailed to keep full the great racks in the cattle +stockade--a task in itself, with the myriad hungry mouths swarming on +every hand, all but Herculean. The others, Rankin himself among the +number, undertook the greater feat of in a measure opening the range for +the future. + +The device which the big man had evolved for this purpose, and had used +on previous similar occasions, was a simple triangular snow-plough +several feet in width, with guiding handles behind. Comparatively narrow +as was the ribbon path cleared by this appliance, its length was only +limited by the endurance of the horses and the driver, and in the course +of the day many an acre could be uncovered. Half an hour after sunrise, +the eight outfits thus equipped were lined up side by side and headed +due northwest to a range which had been but little pastured. + +For five miles straight as a taut line they went, leaving behind them +eight brown stripes alternating with bands of white between. Then back +and forth, back and forth, for the distance of another mile they +vibrated until it was noon, when eight more connecting brown ribbons +were stretched beside their predecessors back to the ranch-house. In the +afternoon the labor was repeated, until by night the clearing, a +gigantic mottled fan with an abnormally long handle, lay in vivid +contrast against the surrounding white. + +The second day was the same, except that but seven bands stretched out +behind the moving squad. Rankin, game as he was, could scarcely put one +foot ahead of the other, and in consequence, changing his tactics, he +mounted the old buckboard and departed on a tour of inspection toward +the north range. He was late in returning, and, as usual, very taciturn; +but after supper, as he and Ben were smoking in friendly silence by the +kitchen fire, he turned to the younger man. + +"Someone stayed at the north range last night," he announced abruptly. +"He slept there and had a fire." + +Ben showed no surprise. "I thought so, probably," he replied. "Late this +afternoon I ran across a trail leading in from the west along our +clearing, and headed that way. It was one lone chain of footprints." + +Rankin shivered, and replenished the fire. His long drive had chilled +him through and through. + +"I suppose you have an idea who made that trail?" he said. + +Though each knew that the other had heard the details of Pete's death, +neither had mentioned the incident. To do so had seemed superfluous. +Now, however, each realized the thought in the other's mind, and chose +not to avoid it. + +"Yes," answered Ben, simply. "I suppose it was made by Tom Blair." + +Never before had Rankin heard Benjamin Blair speak that name. He +stretched back heavily in his chair and lit his pipe afresh. + +"Ben," he said, "I'm getting old. I never began to realize the fact +until this Winter; but I sha'n't last many more years." Puff, puff went +two twin clouds of smoke toward the ceiling. "Civilization has some +advantages over the frontier, and this is one of them: it's kinder to +the old." + +Never before had Rankin spoken in this way, and the other understood the +strength of his conviction. + +"You work too hard," he said soberly, though he felt the inadequacy of +the trite remark. "It's unnecessary. I wish you wouldn't do it." + +Rankin threw an outward motion with his powerful hand. "Yes, I know; but +when I quit moving I want to die. I know I could get a steam-heated back +room in a quiet street of a sleepy town somewhere and coddle myself into +a good many years yet; but it isn't worth the price. I love this big +free life too well ever to leave it. Most of the people one meets here +are rough, but in time that will all change. It's changing now; and +meantime nature compensates for everything." + +There was a moment's silence, and then, as though there had been no +digression, Rankin went back to the former subject. "Yes," he said +slowly, "I think you're right about those being Tom Blair's tracks." He +turned and faced the younger man squarely. "If it is, Ben, it means he's +been frozen out from his hiding-place, wherever that is, and he's crazy +desperate. He'd do anything now. He wouldn't ever come back here +otherwise." + +Ben Blair's blue eyes tightened until the lashes were all but parallel. + +"Yes," Rankin repeated, "he's crazy desperate to come here at +all--especially so now." A pause, but the eyes did not shift. "God knows +I'm sorry he ever came back. I was glad we found that trail too late to +follow it to-day; but it's only postponing the end. I believe he'll be +here at the ranch to-night. He's got to get a horse--he's got to do +something right away; and I'm going to watch. If he don't come I'll take +up the old trail in the morning." + +Once more the pause, more intense than words. "He can't escape again, +unless--unless he gets me first--He must be desperate crazy." + +Rankin arose heavily and knocked the ashes out of his pipe preparatory +to bed. + +"There are a lot of things I might say now, Ben, but I won't say them. +We're not living in a land of law. We haven't someone always at hand to +shift our responsibility onto. In self-protection, we've got to take +justice more or less into our own hands. One thing I will say, though, +and I hope you'll never forget it. Think twice before you ever take the +life of another human being, Ben; think twice. Be sure your reasons are +mighty good--and then think again. Don't ever act in hot blood, or as +long as you live you'll know remorse." The speaker paused and his breath +came fast. Something more--who knew how much?--trembled on the end of +his tongue. He roused himself with an effort and turned toward his bunk. +"Good-night, Ben. I trust you as I'd trust my own son." + +The younger man watched the departing figure and felt the irony of the +separation that keeps us silent even when we wish to be nearest and most +helpful to our friends and makes our words a mockery. + +"Thank you, sir, I shall not forget. Good-night," he said. + +When a few minutes later the young man sauntered out to the barns, +everything was peaceful as usual. From the horse-stalls came the steady +monotonous grind of the animals at feed. In the cattle-yards was heard +the sleepy breathing of the multitude of cattle. Perfect contentment and +oblivion was the keynote of the place, and the watcher looked at the +lethargic mass thoughtfully. He had always responded instinctively to +the moods of dumb animals. He did so now. The passive trustfulness of +the great herd affected him deeply. Twice he made the circuit of the +buildings, but finding nothing amiss returned to his place. The sound of +the horses feeding had long since ceased. The sleepy murmur of the +cattle was lower and more regular. In the increasing coldness the vapor +of their breath, even though the night was dark and moonless, arose in +an indistinct cloud, like the smoke of smouldering camp-fires over the +tents of a sleeping army. For two days the man had been doing the +heaviest kind of work. Gradually, amid much opening and closing of +eyelids, consciousness lapsed into semi-consciousness, and he dozed. + +Suddenly--whether it was an hour or a minute afterwards, he did not +know--he awoke and sat up listening. Some sound had caught and held his +sub-conscious attention. He waited a moment, intent, scarcely breathing, +and then sprang swiftly to his feet. The sound now came definitely from +the sheds at the left. It was the deep chesty groan of a horse in pain. + +Once upon his feet, Ben Blair ran toward the barn, not cautiously but +precipitately. He had not grown to maturity amid animals without +learning something of their language; but even if such had been the +case, he could scarcely have mistaken that sound. Mortal pain and mortal +terror vibrated in those tones. No human being could have cried for help +more distinctly. The frozen snow squeaked under the rancher's feet as he +ran. "Stop there!" he shouted. "Stop there!" and throwing open the +nearest door, unmindful of danger, he dashed into the interior darkness. + +The barn was eighty odd feet in length, and as Ben swung open the door +at the east corner there was a flash of fire from the extreme west end, +and a bullet splintered the wood just back of his head. His precipitate +entry had been his salvation. He groped his way ahead, the groans of the +horses in his ears--for now he detected more than one voice. A growing +realization of what he would find was in his mind, and then a dark form +shot through the west door, and he was alone. Impulse told him to +follow, but the sound of pain and struggle kept him back. He struck a +match, held it like a torch above him, moved ahead, stopped. The flame +burned down the dry pine until it reached his fingers, blackened them, +went out; but he did not stir. He had expected the thing he saw, +expected it at the first cry he heard; yet infinitely more horrible than +a picture of imagination was the reality. He did not light another +match, he did not wish to see. To hear was bad enough--to hear and to +know. He started for the door; and behind him three great horses, +hopelessly maimed and crippled, struggled to rise, and failing, groaned +anew. + +It seemed Ben's fate this night to be just too late for service. Before +he reached the exit there sounded, spattering and intermittent, like the +first popping kernels of corn in a pan, a succession of pistol-shots +from the ranch-house. There was no answer, and as he stepped out into +the air the sound ceased. As he did so, the kitchen of the house sprang +alight from a lamp within. There was a moment of apparent inactivity, +and then, the door swinging open, fair against the lighted background, +shading his eyes to look into the outer darkness, stood Rankin. +Instantly a wave of premonition flooded the watching Benjamin. + +"Go back!" he shouted. "Go back! Back, quick!" and careless of personal +danger, he started running for the ranch-house as before he had raced +for the barn. + +The warning might as well have been ungiven. Almost before the last +words were spoken there came from the darkness at Ben's right the sound +he had been expecting--a single vicious rifle report; and as though a +mighty invisible weight were crushing him down, Rankin sank to the +floor. + +Then for the first time in his history Ben Blair lost self-control. +Quick as thought he changed his course from the house to the direction +from which the shot had come. The great veins of his throat swelled +until it seemed he could scarcely breathe. Curses, horrible, blighting +curses, combinations of malediction which had never even in thought +entered his mind before, rolled from his lips. His brain seemed afire. +But one idea possessed him--to lay hands upon this intruding being who +had in cold blood done that fiendish deed in the barn, and now had shot +his best friend on earth. The rage of primitive man who knew not steel +or gunpowder was his; the ferocity of the great monkey, the aborigine's +predecessor, whose means of offence were teeth and nails. Straight ahead +the man rushed, seeming not to run, but fairly to bound, turned suddenly +the angle at the corner of the machinery shed, stumbled over a +snow-plough drawn up carelessly by one of the men, fell, regained his +feet, and heard in his ears the thundering hoof-beats of a horse urged +away at full speed. + +For a moment Ben Blair stood as he had risen, gazing westward where the +other had departed, but seeing nothing, not even a shadow. Clouds had +formed over the sky, and the night was of intense darkness. To attempt +to follow a trail now was waste of time; and gradually, as he stood +there, the unevolved fury of the man transformed. His tongue became +silent; not a human being had heard the outburst. The physical paroxysm +relaxed. As he returned to the ranch-house no observer would have +detected in him other than the usual matter-of-fact rancher; yet beneath +that calm was a purpose infinitely more terrible than the animal blaze +of a few minutes before, a tenacity more relentless than a tiger on the +trail of its quarry, than an Indian stalking his enemy; a formulated +purpose which could patiently wait, but eventually and inevitably would +grind its object to powder. + +Meanwhile, back at the scene of the tragedy, there had been feverish +action. Many of the cowboys were already about the barns, and lanterns +gleamed in the horse corral. Within the house, in the nearest bunk where +they had laid him, stretched the proprietor of the ranch. About him +were grouped Grannis, Graham, and Ma Graham. The latter was weeping +hysterically--her head buried in her big checked apron, the great mass +of her body vibrating with the effort. As Ben approached, her husband +glanced up. Upon his face was the dull unreasoning indecision of a steer +which had lost its leader; an animal passivity which awaited command. + +"Rankin's dead," he announced dully. "He's hit here." A withered hand +indicated a spot on the left breast. "He went quick." + +Grannis said nothing, and walking up Ben Blair stopped beside the bunk. +He took a long look at the kindly heavy face of the only man he had ever +called friend; but not a feature of his own face relaxed, not a muscle +quivered. Grannis watched him fixedly, almost with fascination. +Gray-haired gambler and man of fortune that he was, he realized as +Graham could never do the emotions which so often lie just back of the +locked countenance of a human being; realized it, and with the grim +carelessness of a frontiersman admired it. + +Of a sudden there was a grinding of frosty snow in the outer yard, a +confused medley of human voices, a snorting of horses; and, turning, Ben +went to the door. One glance told him the meaning of the cluster of +cowboys. He walked out toward them deliberately. + +"Boys," he said steadily, "put up your horses. You couldn't find a +mountain in the darkness to-night." A pause. "Besides," slowly, "this is +my affair. Put them up and go to bed." + +For a moment there was silence. The hearers could scarcely believe their +ears. + +"You mean we're to let him go?" queried a hesitating voice at last. + +Blair folded up the broad brim of his hat and looked from face to face +as it was revealed by the uncertain light from the window. + +"I mean what I said," he repeated evenly. "I'll attend to this matter +myself." + +For a moment again there was silence, but only for a moment. + +"No you won't!" blazed a voice suddenly. "Rankin was the whitest man +that ever owned a brand. Just because the kyote that shot him lived with +your mother won't save him. I'm going--and now." + +Quicker than a cat, so swiftly that the other cowboys scarcely realized +what was happening, the long gaunt Benjamin was at the speaker's side. +With a leap he had him by the throat, had dragged him from the back of +the horse, and held him at arm's length. + +"Freeman,"--the voice was neither raised nor lowered, but steady as the +drip of falling water,--"Freeman, you know better than that, and you +know you know better." The grip of the long left hand on the throat +tightened. The fingers of the right locked. "Say so--quick!" + +Face to face, looking fair into each other's eyes, stood the two men, +while the spectators watched breathlessly as they would have done at a +climax in a play. It was a case of will against will, elemental man +against his brother. + +"I'm waiting," suggested Blair, and even in the dim light Freeman saw +the blue eyes beneath the long lashes darken. Instinctively the victim's +hand went to his hip and lingered there; but he could no more have +withdrawn the weapon which he felt there than he could have struck his +own mother. He started to speak; but his lips were dry, and he moistened +them with his tongue. + +"Yes, I know better," he admitted low. + +Ben Blair dropped his hand and turned to the spectators. "Men," he said +slowly and distinctly, "for the present at least I'm master of this +ranch, and when I give an order I expect to be obeyed." Again his eye +went from face to face fearlessly, dominantly. "Does any other man doubt +me?" + +Not a voice broke the stillness of the night. Only the restless movement +of the impatient mustangs answered. + +"Very well, then, you heard what I said. Go to bed, and to-morrow go on +with your work as usual. Grannis will be in charge while I'm gone," and +without a backward glance the long figure returned to the ranch-house. + +The weazened foreman and the tall adventurer had been watching him +impassively from the doorway. In silence they made room for him to pass. + +"Grannis," he asked directly, "have those horses been taken care of?" + +"No, sir." + +"See to it at once then." + +"Yes, sir." + +The blue eyes rested for a moment on the other's face. + +"You heard who I said would be in charge while I'm away?" + +"Yes, sir," again. + +Ben moved over to the bunk opposite to that in which lay the dead man +and took off his hat and coat. + +"Graham!" + +The foreman came close, stood at attention. + +"Keep awake and call me before daylight, will you?" + +"I will." + +"And, Graham!" + +"Yes." + +"I may be gone several days. You and Ma attend to the--burial. Dig the +grave out under the big maple." A pause. "I think," steadily, "he would +have liked it there." + +The foreman nodded silently. + +Benjamin Blair dropped into the bunk, drew the blankets over him and +closed his eyes. As he did so, from the direction of the barn there came +a succession of pistol shots--one, two, three. Then again silence fell. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE INEXORABLE TRAIL + + +Once more, westward across the prairie country, there moved a tall and +sinewy youth astride a vicious looking buckskin. This time, however, it +was very early in the morning. The rider moved slowly, his eyes on the +ground. His outfit was more elaborate than on the former journey. A +heavy blanket and a light camp kit were strapped behind his saddle, and +so attached that they could be quickly transferred to his back. A big +rifle was stretched across his right knee and the saddle-horn. At either +hip rode a great holster. The air, despite the cloudiness, was bitter +cold; and he wore a heavy sheepskin coat with the wool turned in, and +long gauntlets reaching half-way to his elbows. A broad leather belt +held the heavy coat in place, and attached to it was a thin sheath from +which protruded the stout handle of a hunting-knife. He also wore +another belt, fitted with many loops, each holding a gleaming little +brass cylinder. No one seeing the man this morning could have made the +mistake of considering him, as before, on a journey to see a lady. + +Slowly day advanced. The east resolved itself from flaming red into the +neutral tint of the remainder of the sky. The sun shone through the +clouds, dissipated them, was obscured, and shone again. The something +which the man had been watching so intently gradually grew clearer. It +was the trail of another horse--a galloping horse. It was easy to +follow, and the rider looked about him. After a few miles, when the +mustang had warmed to his second wind, a gauntleted hand dropped to the +yellow neck and stroked it gently. + +"Let 'em out a bit, Buck," said a voice, "let 'em out!" and with a flick +of the dainty ears, almost as if he understood, the little beast fell +into the steady swinging lope which was his natural gait, and which he +could follow if need be without a break from sun to sun. + +On they went, the trail they were following unwinding like a great tape +steadily before them, the crunch of the frozen snow in their ears, tiny +particles of it flying to the side and behind like spray. But, bravely +as they were going, the horse ahead which had unwound that band of +tracks had moved more swiftly. Not within inches did the best efforts of +the buckskin approach those giant strides. It had been a desperate rider +who had urged such a pace; and the grim face of the tall youth grew +grimmer at the thought. + +Not another sound than of their own making did they hear. Not an object +uncovered of white did they see, until, thirteen miles out, they passed +near the deserted Baker ranch; but the trail did not stop, nor did they, +and ere long it faded again from view. The course was dipping well to +the north now, and Ben realized that not again on his journey would he +pass in sight of a human habitation. + +All that mortal day the buckskin pounded monotonously ahead. The sun +rose to the meridian, gazed warmly down upon them, softened the surface +of the frozen snow until the crunch sounded mellower, and slowly +descended to their left. The dainty ears of the pony, as the day waned, +flattened close to his head. Foam gathered beneath the saddle and +between the animal's legs; but doggedly relentless as his rider, he +forged ahead. Much in common had these two beings; more closely than +ever was their comradery cemented that day. Many times, with the same +motion as at first, the man had leaned over and patted that muscular +neck, dark and soiled now with perspiration. "Good old Buck," he said as +to a fellow, "good old Buck!" and each time the set ears had flicked +intelligently in response. + +It was nearing sunset when they came in sight of the hills bordering the +river, and the last mile Ben drew the buckskin to a walk. The chain of +hoof-tracks had changed much since the morning. The buckskin could equal +the strides of the other now, and the follower was content. The evenings +were very short at this season of the year, and they would not attempt +to go farther to-night. At the margin of the stream Ben rode along until +he found a spot where the full strength of the current ate into the +bank. There on the thinner ice he hammered with the butt of his heavy +rifle until he broke a hole; then, the dumb one first, the two friends +drank their fill. After that, side by side, they walked back until in +the shelter of a high knoll the man found a space of perhaps half an +acre where the grass, thick and unpastured, was practically bare of +snow. Here he removed saddle and bridle, and without lariat or +hobble--for they knew each other now, these two--he turned the pony +loose to graze. He himself, with the kit and blanket and a handful of +dead wood, went to the hill-top, where he could see for miles around, +built a tiny fire, an Indian's fire, made a can of strong black coffee, +and ate of the jerked beef he had brought. Later, he cleared a spot the +size of a man's grave, and with grass and the blanket built a shallow +nest, in which he stretched himself, his elbow on the earth, his face in +his hand, thinking, thinking. + +The night came on. As the eastern sky had done in the morning, so now +the west crimsoned gloriously, became the color of blood, then gradually +shaded back until it was neutral again, and the stars from a few +scattering dots increased in numbers and filled the dome as scattered +sand-grains cover a floor. Darkness came, and with it the slight wind of +the day died down until the air was perfectly still. The cold, which had +retreated for a time, returned, augmented. As though it were a live +thing moving about, its coming could be heard in the almost +indistinguishable crackling of the snow-crust. As beneath a crushing +weight, the ice of the great river boomed and crackled from its touch. + +Wide-eyed but impassive, the man watched and listened. Scarcely a muscle +of his body moved. Not once, as the hours slipped by, did he drowse; not +for an instant was he off his guard. With the first trace of morning in +the east, he was astir. As on the night before, he made his Indian's +fire, ate his handful of beef, and drank of the strong black coffee. +The pony, sleepy as a child, was aroused and saddled. The ice which had +frozen during the night over their drinking-hole was broken. Then, both +man and horse stiff and sore from the exposure and the previous +exertion, the trail was taken up anew. + +For five miles, until both were warmed to their work, the man and beast +trotted along side by side. "Now, Buck, old boy!" said Ben, and +mounting, they were off in earnest. At first the trail they were +following was that of a horse that walked; but later it stretched out +into the old long-strided gallop, and the pursuer read the tale of quirt +and spur which had forced the change. + +Three hours out, thirty odd miles from the river as the rider calculated +the distance, he came to the first break in the seemingly endless trail +of hoofprints he was following. A heap of snow scraped aside and two +brown spots on the earth told the story of where the pursued man and +horse had paused to rest and sleep. No water was near. Neither the human +nor the beast had strayed from the direct line; they had merely halted +and dropped almost within their tracks. Just beyond was the spot where +the man had remounted, where the flight began anew; and again a tale lay +written on the surface of the snow. The prints of the horse's feet were +now unsteady and irregular. Within a few rods there was on the right a +red splash of blood; then others, a drop at a time. Very hard it had +been to put life into the beast at starting; deep the rowels of the +great spur had been dug. Ben Blair lightly touched the neck of his +buckskin and gave the word to go. + +"They were only thirty miles ahead last night, Buck, old chap," he said, +"and very tired. We'll gain on them fast to-day." + +But though they gained--the record of the tracks told that--they did not +gain fast. Notwithstanding he still galloped doggedly ahead, the gallant +little buckskin was plainly weakening. The eternal pounding through the +snow was eating up his strength, and though his spirit was indomitable +the end of his endurance was in sight. No longer would the dainty ears +respond to a touch on the neck. With head lowered he moved forward like +a machine. While the sun was yet above the horizon, the lope diminished +to a trot, the trot to a walk--a game walk, but only a walk. + +Then, for the second time that day, Ben dismounted. Silently he removed +saddle and bridle, transferred the blanket and kit to his own back, and +then, the rifle under his arm, stopped a moment by the pony's side and +laid the dainty muzzle against his face. + +"Buck, old boy," he said, "you've done mighty well--but I can beat you +now. Maybe some day we'll meet again. I hope we shall. Anyway, we're +better for having known each other. Good-bye." + +A moment longer his face lay so, as his hand would have lain in a +friend's hand at parting; then, with a last pat to the silken nose, he +started on ahead. + +At first the man walked steadily; then, warming to the work, he broke +into the swinging jog-trot of the frontiersman, the hunter who travels +afoot. Many Indians the youth had known in his day, and from them he had +learned much; one thing was that in walking or running to step +straight-footed instead of partially sideways, as the white man plants +his sole, was to gain inches at every motion, besides making it easier +to retrace his steps should he wish to do so. This habit had become a +part of him, and now the marks of his own trail were like the +alternately broken line which represents a railroad on a map. + +As long as he could see to read from the white page of the snow-blanket, +Ben Blair jogged ahead. Hot anger, that he could not repress, was with +him constantly now, for the trail before him was very fresh, and, +distinct beside it, more and more frequent were the red marks of an +animal's suffering. He knew what horse it was the other had stolen. It +was "Lady," one of Scotty's prize thoroughbred mares, the one Florence +had ridden so many times. Often during those last hours the man wondered +at the endurance of the mare. None but a thoroughbred would have stood +up this long; and even she, if she ever stopped,--but the man ahead +doubtless knew this also, for he would not let her stop, not so long as +life remained and spur and quirt had power to torture. + +Thus night came on, folding within its concealing arms alike the hunter +and the pursued. Ben did not build a fire this night. First of all, +though during the day at different times he had been able to see the +bordering trees of the White River at his left and the Bad River at his +right, the trail hung to the comparatively level land of the great +divide between, and not a scrap of wood was within miles. Again, +although he did not actually know, he could not believe he was far +behind, and he would run no risk of giving a warning sign to eyes which +must be watching the backward trail. The fierce hunger of a healthy +animal was his; but his supply of beef was limited, and he ate a meagre +allowance, washing it down with a draught of river water from his +canteen. Rolled up in the blanket, through which the stinging cold +pierced as though it were gossamer, shivering, beating his hands and +feet to prevent their stiffening, longing for protecting fur like a wolf +or a buffalo, keeping constant watch about him as does a great prairie +owl, the interminably long hours of his second night dragged by. + +"The beginning of the end," he soliloquized, when once more it was light +enough so that standing he could see the earth at his feet. Well he knew +that ere this the other horse was eliminated from the chase--that it was +now man against man. God! how his joints ached when he stretched +them!--how his muscles pained at the slightest motion! He ground his +teeth when he first began to walk, and hobbled like a rheumatic cripple; +but within a half-hour tenacity had won, and the relentless jog-trot of +the interrupted line was measuring off the miles anew. + +The chase was nearing an end. Long ere noon, in the distance toward +which he was heading, Blair detected a brown dot against the white. +Steadily, as he advanced, it resolved itself into the thing he had +expected, and stood revealed before him, the centre of a horribly +legible page, the last page in the biography of a noble horse. Let us +pass it by: Ben did, looking the other way. But a new and terrible +vitality possessed him. His weariness left him, as pain passes under an +opiate. He did not pause to eat, to drink. Tireless as a waterfall, +watchful as a hawk, he jogged on, on, a mile--two miles--five--came to a +rise in the great roll of the lands--stopped, his heart suddenly +pounding the walls of his chest. Before him, not half a mile away, +moving slowly westward, was the diminutive black shape of a man +travelling afoot! + +Instantly the primal hunting instinct of the Anglo-Saxon awoke in the +lank Benjamin. The incomparable fascination which makes man-hunting the +sport supreme of all ages gripped him tight. The stealthy cunning of a +savage became on the moment his. A plan of ambush, one which could +scarcely fail, flashed into his mind. The trail of the divide narrowing +now, stretched for miles and miles straight before them. That black +figure would scarcely leave it. The pursuer had but to make a great +detour, get far in advance, find a point of concealment, and wait. + +Swift as thought was action. Back on his trail until he was out of sight +went Ben Blair; then, turning to his right, he made straight for the +concealing bed of Bad River. Once there, he turned west again, following +the winding course of the stream toward its source. Faster than ever he +moved, the pat-pat of his feet on the deadening snow drowning the sound +of the great breaths he drew into his lungs and sent whistling out again +through his nostrils. As with the horse, the sweat oozed at every pore. +Collecting on his brow and face, it dripped slowly from his great chin. +Dampening, his clothes clung binding-tight to his body; but he never +noticed. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor behind +him; but, like a sprinter approaching the wire, only straight ahead. + +Under him the miles flowed past like water. Five, ten, a dozen he +covered; then of a sudden he turned again to the south, quitting his +shelter of the river-bed. For a time the country was very rough, but he +scarcely slackened his pace. Once he fell through the crust of a drift, +and went down nearly to his neck; but he crowded his way through by +sheer strength, emerging a powdered figure from the snow which clung to +his damp clothes. The sun was down now, and he knew darkness would come +very quickly and he must reach the divide, the probable trail, before it +fell, and there select his point of waiting. + +As he moved on, he saw some miles ahead that which decided him. A low +chain of hills, stretching to the north and south, crossed the great +divide as a fallen log spans a path. In these hills, appreciable even at +this distance, there was a dip, an almost level pass. A small diversity +it was on the face of nature, but to a weary man, fleeing afoot, seen in +the distance it would irresistibly appeal. Almost as certain as though +he saw the black figure already heading for it, the hunter felt it would +be utilized. Anyway, he would take the chance; and with a last spurt of +speed he put himself fairly in its way. To clear a narrow strip of +ground the length of his body, and build around it like a breastwork a +border of snow, was the work of but a few minutes; then, wrapped in his +blanket, too deadly tired to even attempt to eat, he dropped behind the +cover like a log. At first the rest was that of Paradise; but swiftly +came the reaction, the chill. To lie there in his present condition +meant but one thing, that never would he arise again; and with an effort +the man got to his feet and started walking. It was dark again now, and +the sky was becoming rapidly overcast. Within an hour it began to snow, +a steady big-flaked snow that fairly filled the air and lay where it +fell. The night grew slightly warmer, and, rolling in the blanket once +more, Ben lay down; but the warning chill soon had him again upon his +feet, walking back and forth in the one beaten path. + +Very long the two previous nights had been. Interminable seemed this +third. As long as the sun or moon or stars were shining, the man never +felt completely alone; but in this utter darkness the hours seemed like +days. The steadily falling snowflakes added to the impression of +loneliness and isolation. They were like the falling clods of earth in a +grave: something crowding between him and life, burying and suffocating +him where he stood. Try as he might, the man could not shake off the +weird impression, and at last he ceased the effort. Grimly stolid, he +lit his pipe, and, his damp clothing having dried at last, cleared a +fresh spot and lay down, the horrible loneliness still tugging at his +heart. + +Finally, after an eternity of waiting, the morning came. With it the +storm ceased and the sun shone brightly. Behind the barricade, Ben Blair +ate the last of his beef and drank the few remaining swallows of water +from his canteen. His muscles were stiff from the inaction, and, not +wishing to show himself, he kicked vigorously into space as he lay. At +intervals he made inspection of the east, looking out over the glitter +of white; but not a living thing was in sight. An hour he watched, two +hours, while the sun, beating down obliquely, warmed him back into +activity; then of a sudden his eyes became fixed, the grip upon his +rifle tightened. Far to the southeast, something dark against the snow +was moving,--was coming toward him. + +Rapidly the figure approached, while lower behind the barricade dropped +the body of Benjamin Blair. The sun was in his eyes, so that as yet he +could not make out whether it was man or beast. Not until the object was +within three hundred yards, until it passed by to the north, did Ben +make out that it was a great gray wolf headed straight for the bed of +Bad River. + +Again two hours of unbroken monotony passed. The sun had almost reached +the meridian, and the man behind the barricade had all but decided he +must have miscalculated somehow, when in the dim distance as before +there appeared a tiny dark object, but this time directly from the east. +For five minutes Ben watched it fixedly, his hand shading his eyes; +then, slowly as moves the second-hand of a great clock, a change +indescribable came over his face. No need was there now to ask whether +it was a human being that was approaching. There was no mistaking that +slow, swinging man-motion. At last the moment was approaching for which +the youth had been striving so madly for the last few days, the moment +he had for years been conscious would some day come. It would soon be +his; and with the thought his teeth set firmer, and a fierce joy tugged +at his heart. + +Five minutes, ten minutes dragged by; yet no observer, however close, +could have seen a muscle stir in the long body of the waiting man. Like +a great panther cat he lay there, the blue eyes peering just over the +surface of the ambush. Not ten paces away could an observer have told +the tip of that motionless sombrero from the protruding top of a +boulder. Gradually the approaching figure grew more distinct. A red +handkerchief showed clearly about the man's neck. Then a slight limp in +the left leg intruded itself, and a droop of the shoulders that spoke +weariness. He was very near by this time, so near that the black beard +which covered his face became discernible, likewise the bizarre breadth +of the Mexican belt above the baggy chaperejos. The crunch of the +snow-crust marked his every foot-fall. + +And still Ben Blair had not stirred. Slowly, as the other had +approached, the big blue eyes had darkened until they seemed almost +brown. Involuntarily the massive chin had moved forward; but that was +all. On the surface he was as calm as a lake on a windless night; but +beneath,--God! what a tempest was raging! Each one of those minutes he +waited so impassively marked the rush of a year's memories. Human hate, +primal instinct all but uncontrollable, throbbed in his accelerated +pulse-beats. Like the continuous shifting scenes in a panorama, the +incidents of his life in which this man had played a part appeared +mockingly before his mind's eye. Plainly, as though in his physical ear, +he heard the shuffle of an uncertain hand upon a latch; he saw a figure +with bloodshot eyes lurch into a rude floorless room, saw it approach a +bunk whereon lay a sick woman, his mother; heard the swift passage of +angry words, words which had branded themselves into his memory forever. +Once more he was on all fours, scurrying for his life toward the dark +opening of a protecting kennel. As plainly as though the memory were of +yesterday, he gazed into the blazing mouth of a furnace, felt its +scorching breath on his cheek. Swiftly the changing scenes danced before +his eyes. A rifle-shot, real almost as though he could smell the burning +powder, sounded in his brain. Within the circle of light from a kerosene +lamp a great figure sank in a heap to a ranch house floor. Against a +background of unbroken white a trail of red blotches ended in the mutely +pathetic figure of a prostrate dying horse--a noble thoroughbred. What +varied horrors seethed in the watcher's brain, crowded each other, +recurred and again recurred! How the long sinewy fingers itched to +clutch that throat above the red neckerchief! He could see the man's +face now, as, ignorant of danger so close, he was passing by fifty feet +to the left, looking to neither side, doggedly heading toward the pass. +With the first motion since the figure had appeared, the hand of the +watcher tightened on the rifle, raised it until its black muzzle peeped +over the elevation of snow. A pair of steady blue eyes gazed down the +long barrel, brought the sights in line with a spot between the +shoulders and the waist of the unsuspecting man, the trigger-finger +tightened, almost-- + +A preventing something, something not primal in the youth, gripped him, +held him for a second motionless. To kill a man from an ambush, even +such a one as this without giving him a chance--no, he could not quite +do that. But to take him by the throat with his bare hands, and then +slowly, slowly-- + +As noiselessly as the rifle had raised, it dropped again. The muscles of +the long legs tightened as do those of a sprinter awaiting the starting +pistol. Then over the barricade, straight as a tiger leaps, shot a tall +youth with steel-blue eyes, hatless, free of hand, straight for that +listless, moving figure; the scattered snow flying to either side, the +impact of the bounding feet breaking the previous stillness. Tom Blair, +the outlaw, could not but hear the rush. Instinctively he turned, and in +the fleeting second of that first glance Ben could see the face above +the beard-line blanch. As one might feel should the Angel of Death +appear suddenly before him, Tom Blair must have felt then. As though +fallen from the sky, this avenging demon was upon him. He had not time +to draw a revolver, a knife; barely to swing the rifle in his hand +upward to strike, to brace himself a little for the oncoming rush. + +With a crash the two bodies came together. Simultaneously the rifle +descended, but for all its effectiveness it might have been a dead +weed-stalk in the hands of a child. It was not a time for artificial +weapons, but only for nature's own; a war of gripping, strangling hands, +of tooth and nail. Nearly of a size were the two men. Both alike were +hardened of muscle; both realized the battle was for life or death. For +a moment they remained upright, clutching, parrying for an advantage; +then, locked each with each, they went to the ground. Beneath and about +them the fresh snow flew, filling their eyes, their mouths. Squirming, +straining, over and over they rolled; first the beardless man on top, +then the bearded. The sound of their straining breath was continuous, +the ripping of coarse cloth an occasional interruption; but from the +first, a spectator could not but have foreseen the end. The elder man +was fighting in self-defence: the younger, he of the massive protruding +jaw--a jaw now so prominent as to be a positive disfigurement--in +unappeasable ferocity. Against him in that hour a very giant could not +have held his own. Merely a glimpse of his face inspired terror. Again +and again as they struggled his hand had clutched at the other's throat, +but only to have his hold broken. At last, however, his adversary was +weakening under the strain. Blind terror began to grip Tom Blair. At +first a mere suggestion, then a horrible certainty, possessed him as to +the identity of the relentless being who opposed him. Again the other's +hand, like the creeping tentacle of an octopus, sought his throat, would +not be stayed. He struggled with all his might against it, until it +seemed the blood-vessels of his neck would burst, but still the hold +tightened. He clutched at the long fingers desperately, bit at them, +felt his breath coming hard. Freeing his own hand, he smashed with his +fist again and again into that long thin face so near his own, knew that +another tentacle had joined with the first, felt the impossibility of +drawing air into his lungs, realized that consciousness was deserting +him, saw the sun over him like a mocking face--then knew no more. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +IN THE GRIP OF THE LAW + + +How long Tom Blair was unconscious he did not know. When he awoke he +could scarcely believe his own senses; and he looked about him dazedly. +The sun was shining down as brightly as before. The snow was as white. +He had for some reason been spared, after all, and hope arose in his +breast. He began to look around him. Not two rods away, his face clearly +in sight, his eyes closed, dead asleep, lay the figure of the man who +had waylaid him. For a moment he looked at the figure steadily; then, in +distinct animal cunning, the lids of the close-set eyes tightened. +Stealthily, almost holding his breath, he started to rise, then fell +back with a jerk. For the first time he realized that he was bound hand +and foot, so he could scarcely stir. He struggled, at first cautiously, +then desperately, to be free; but the straps which bound him, those +which had held his own blanket, only cut the deeper; and he gave it up. +Flat on his back he lay watching the sleeper, his anger increasing. +Again his eyes tightened. + +"Wake up, curse you!" he yelled suddenly. + +No answer, only the steady rise and fall of the sleeper's chest. + +"Wake up, I say!" repeated the voice, in a tone to raise the dead. + +This time there was response--of action. Slowly Ben Blair roused, and +got up. A moment he looked about him; then, tearing a strip off his +blanket, he walked over, and, against the other's protests and promises +of silence, forced open the bearded lips, as though giving a horse the +bit, and tied a gag full in the cursing mouth. Without a word or a +superfluous look he returned and lay down. Another minute, and the +regular breathing showed he was again asleep. + +During all the warmth of that day Ben Blair slept on, as a child sleeps, +as sleep the very aged; and although the bearded man had freed himself +from the gag at last, he did not again make a sound. Too miserable +himself to sleep, he lay staring at the other. Gradually through the +haze of impotent anger a realization of his position came to him. He +could not avoid the issue. To be sure, he was still alive; but what of +the future? A host of possibilities flashed into his mind, but in every +one there faced him a single termination. By no process of reasoning +could he escape the inevitable end; and despite the chilliness of the +air a sweat broke out over him. Contrition for what he had done he could +not feel--long ago he had passed even the possibility of that; but fear, +deadly and absorbing fear, had him in its clutch. The passing of the +years, years full of lawlessness and violence, had left him the same man +whom bartender "Mick" had terrorized in the long ago; and for the first +time in his wretched life, personal death--not of another but of +himself--looked at him with steady eyes, and he could not return the +gaze. All he could do was to wait, and think--and thoughts were madness. +Again and again, knowing what the result would be, but seeking merely a +diversion, he struggled at the straps until he was breathless; but +relentless as time one picture kept recurring to his brain. In it was a +rope, a stout rope, dangling from something he could not distinctly +recognize; but what he could see, and see plainly, was a figure of a +man, a bearded man--_himself_--at its end. The body swayed back and +forth as he had once seen that of a "rustler" whom a group of cowboys +had left hanging to the scraggly branch of a scrub-oak; as a pendulum +marks time, measuring the velocity of the prairie wind. + +With each recurrence of the vision the perspiration broke out over the +man anew, the sunburned forehead paled. This was what it was coming to; +he could not escape it. If ever purpose was unmistakably written on a +human face, it had been on the face of the man who lay sleeping so near, +the man who had trailed him like a tiger and caught him when he thought +he was safe. From another, there might still be hope; but from this one, +Jennie Blair's son--The vision of a woman lying white and motionless on +the coarse blankets of a bunk, of a small boy with wonderfully clear +blue eyes pounding harmlessly at the legs of the man looking down; the +sound of a childish voice, accusing, menacing, ringing out over all, +"You've killed her! You've killed her!"--this like a chasm stood between +them, and could never be crossed. Clasped together, the long nervous +fingers, a gentleman's fingers still, twined and gripped each other. +No, there was no hope. Better that the hands he had felt about his +throat in the morning had done their work. He shut his eyes. A hot wave +of anger, anger against himself, swept all other thoughts before it. +Why, having gotten safely away, having successfully hidden himself, had +he ever returned? Why, having in the depths of his nest in the middle of +the island escaped once, had a paltry desire for revenge against the man +he fancied had led the attack sent him back? What satisfaction was it, +if in taking the life of the other man it cost him his own? Fool that he +had been to imagine he could escape where no one had ever escaped +before! Fool! Fool! Thus dragged by the long hours of the afternoon. + +With the coming of the chill of evening, Ben Blair awoke and rubbed his +eyes. A moment later he arose, and, walking over to his captive, looked +down at him, steadily, peculiarly. So long as he could, Tom Blair +returned the gaze; but at last his eyes fell. A voice sounded in his +ears, a voice speaking low and clearly. + +"You're a human being," it said. "Physically, I'm of your species, +modelled from the same clay." A long pause. "I wonder if anywhere in my +make-up there's a streak of such as you!" Again a moment of silence, in +which the elder man felt the blue eyes of the younger piercing him +through and through. "If I thought there was a trace, or the suggestion +of a trace, before God, I'd kill you and myself, and I'd do it now!" The +speaker scanned the prostrate figure from head to foot, and back again. +"And do it now," he repeated. + +Silence fell; and in it, though he dared not look, coward Tom Blair +fancied he heard a movement, imagined the other man about to put the +threat into execution. + +"No, no!" he pleaded. "People are different--different as day and night. +You belong to your mother's kind, and she was good and pure." Every +trace of the man's nerve was gone. But one instinct was active--to +placate this relentless being, his captor. He fairly grovelled. "I swear +she was pure. I swear it!" + +Without speaking a word, Ben turned. Going back to his snow-blind, he +packed his blanket and camp kit swiftly and strapped them to his +shoulders. Returning, he gathered the things he had found upon the +other's person--the rifle, the revolvers, the sheath-knife--into a pile; +then deliberately, one against the other, he broke them until they were +useless. Only the blanket he preserved, tossing it down by the side of +the prostrate figure. + +"Tom Blair," he said, no indication now that he had ever been nearer to +the other than a stranger, "Tom Blair, I've got a few things to say to +you, and if you're wise you'll listen carefully, for I sha'n't repeat +them. You're going with me, and you're going free; but if you try to +escape, or cause me trouble, as sure as I'm alive this minute I'll strip +off every stitch of clothing you wear and leave you where I catch you +though the snow be up to your waist." + +Slowly he reached over and untied first the feet then the hands. "Get +up," he ordered. + +Tom Blair arose, stretched himself stiffly. + +"Take that," Ben indicated the blanket, "and go ahead straight for the +river." + +The bearded man obeyed. To have secured his freedom he could not have +done otherwise. + +For ten minutes they moved ahead, only the crunching snow breaking the +stillness. + +"Trot!" said Ben. + +"I can't." + +"Trot!" There was no misunderstanding the tone. + +In single file they jogged ahead, reached the river, and descended to +the level surface of its bed. + +"Keep to the middle, and go straight ahead." + +On they went--jog, jog, jog. + +Of a sudden from under cover of the bank a frightened cottontail sprang +forth and started running. Instantly there was the report of a big +revolver, and Tom jumped as though he felt the bullet in his back. Again +the report sounded, and this time the rabbit rolled over and over in the +snow. + +Without stopping, Ben picked up the still struggling game and slipped a +couple of fresh cartridges into the empty revolver chambers. The banks +were lined with burrows and tracks, and within five minutes a second +cottontail met the fate of the first. + +"Come back!" called Ben to the man ahead. + +Again Tom obeyed. He would have gone barefoot in the snow without a +question now. + +"Can you make a fire?" + +"Yes." + +"Do it, then. I left the matches in your pocket." + +On opposite sides of the fire, from long forked sticks of green ash, +they broiled strips of the meat which Ben dressed and cut. Likewise +fronting each other, they ate in silence. Darkness was falling, and the +glow from the embers lit their faces like those of two friends camping +after a day's hunt. Had it not all been such deadly earnest, the scene +would have been farce-comedy. Suddenly Tom Blair raised his eyes. + +"What are you going to do with me?" he asked directly. + +Ben said nothing. + +The question was not repeated, but another trembled on the speaker's +lips. At last it found words. + +"When you had me down I--I thought you had done for me. Why did you--let +me up?" + +A pause followed. Then Ben's blue eyes raised and met the other's. + +"You'd really like to know?" + +"Yes." + +Another moment of hesitation, but the youth's eyes did not move. "Very +well, I'll tell you." More to himself than to the other he was speaking. +His voice softened unconsciously. "A girl saved you that time, Tom +Blair, a girl you never saw. You haven't any idea what it means, but I +love that girl, and I could never look her in the face again with blood +on my hands, even such blood as yours. That's the reason." + +For a moment Tom Blair was silent; then into his brain there flashed a +suggestion, and he grasped at it as a drowning man at a straw. + +"Wouldn't it be blood on your hands just the same if you take me back +where we're headed, back to Mick Kennedy and--" + +With a single motion, swift as though raised by a spring, Ben was upon +his feet. + +"Pick up your blanket!" + +"But--" + +"Silence!" The big square jaw shot forward like the piston of an engine. +"Not another word of that, now or ever. Not another word!" + +For a second the other paused doggedly, then taking up his load he moved +ahead into the shadow. + +Hour after hour they advanced, alternately walking and trotting, +following the winding bed of the stream. Darkness fell, until they could +not see each other's faces, until they were merely two black passing +shadows; but the figure behind was relentless. Stimulating, compelling, +he forced himself close. Ever and anon they could hear the frightened +dash of a rabbit away from their path. More than once a snow-owl +fluttered over their heads; but they took no notice. Twice the man in +advance stumbled and fell; but though Ben paused he spoke no word. Like +a soldier of the ranks on secret forced march, ignorant of his +destination, given only conjecture as to what the morrow would bring +forth, Tom Blair panted ahead. + +With the coming of daylight Ben slowed to a walk, and looked about in +quest of breakfast. Game was plentiful along the shelter of the stream, +and before they had advanced a half-mile farther he saw ahead a flock of +grouse roosting in the diverging branches of a cottonwood tree. At two +hundred yards, selecting those on the lowest branches, he dropped half a +dozen, one after the other, with the rifle; and still the remainder of +the flock did not fly. Very different were they from the open-land +prairie chicken, whom a mere sound will send a-wing. + +As on the night before, they broiled each what he wished, and, carefully +cleaning the others, Ben packed them with his kit. Then, stolid as an +Indian, he cleared a spot of earth, and wrapping himself in his blanket +lay down full in the sunshine, smoking his pipe impassively. Taking the +cue, Tom Blair likewise curled up like a dog near at hand. + +Slowly and more slowly came the puffs of smoke from the captor's pipe; +at last they ceased entirely. The lids of the youth's eyes closed, his +breath came deep and regular. Beneath the blanket a muscle here and +there twitched involuntarily, as in one who is very weary and asleep. + +An hour passed, an hour without a sound; then, looking closely, a +spectator could have seen one of Tom Blair's eyes open and close +furtively. Again it opened, and its mate as well--to remain so. For a +minute, two minutes, they studied the companion face uncertainly, +suspiciously, then savagely. Another minute, and the body had risen to +hands and knees. Still Ben did not stir, still the great expanse of his +chest rose and fell. Tom Blair was satisfied. Hand over hand, feeling +his way like a cat, he advanced toward the prostrate figure. Despite his +caution, the crust of the snow crackled once beneath his touch, and he +paused, a soundless curse forming upon his lips; but the warning passed +unheeded, and, bolder than before, he padded on. + +Eight feet he gained, then ten. His color heightened, the repressed +arteries throbbed above the gaudy neckerchief, the skulking animal +intensified in the tightened muscles of the temples. As many feet again; +but a few more minutes--then liberty and life. The better to guard his +movements, his gaze fell. Out and down went his right hand, then his +left, as his lithe body slid forward. Again he glanced up, paused--and +on the instant every muscle of his tense body went suddenly lax. Instead +of the closed eyes and sleeping face he had expected, two steady eyes +were giving him back look for look. There had not been a motion; the +face was yet that of a sleeper; the chest still rose and fell steadily; +but the eyes! + +Tom Blair's teeth ground each other like those of a dog with rabies. The +suggestion of froth came to his lips. + +"Curse you!" he cried. "Curse you forever!" + +A moment they lay so, a moment wherein the last vestige of hope left the +mind of the captive; but in it Ben Blair spoke no word. Maddening, +immeasurably worse than denunciation, was that relentless silence. It +was uncanny; and the bearded man felt the hairs of his head rising as +the mane of a dog or a wolf lifts at a sound it does not understand. + +"Say something," he pleaded desperately. "Shoot me, kill me, do +anything--but don't look at me like that!" and, fairly writhing, he +crawled back to his blanket and buried his head in its depths. + +With the coming of evening coolness, Ben again made preparation for the +journey. Neither of the men made reference to the incidents of the day, +but on Tom Blair's face there was a new expression, like that of a +criminal on his passage from the cell to the hangman's trap. If the +younger man saw it, he gave no sign; and as on the night before, they +jogged ahead. Before daylight broke, the comparatively smooth bed of Bad +River merged into the irregular surface of the Missouri. Then they +halted. Why they stopped there, Tom Blair could not at the time tell; +but with the coming of daylight he understood. Where he had crossed and +Ben had followed there was not now a single track, but many--a score at +least. At the margin of the stream, where the cavalcade had stopped, the +snow was tramped hard as a stockade; and in the centre of the beaten +place, distinct against the white, was a dark spot where a great +camp-fire had been built. At the river the party had stopped. Obviously, +there the last snow had obliterated the trail, and, seeing that they had +turned back, Tom Blair gave a sigh of relief. Whatever the future had in +store for him, it could reveal nothing so fearful as a meeting with +those whom intuition told him had made up that party. + +But his relief was short-lived. Again, after they had breakfasted from +the grouse in the pack, Ben ordered the onward march, along the bank of +the great river. As they moved ahead, a realization of their destination +at last came to the captive, and for the first time he balked. + +"Do what you wish with me," he cried. "I'll not go a step farther." + +They were perhaps a mile down the river. The bordering hills enclosed +them like an arena. + +"Very well." Ben Blair spoke as though the occurrence were one of +every-day repetition. "Give me your clothes!" + +Tom's face settled stubbornly. + +"You'll have to take them." + +The youth's hand sought his hip, and a bullet spat at the snow within +three inches of the other's feet. There was a meaning pause. Slowly the +bravado left the other's face. + +"Don't keep me waiting!" urged Ben. + +Slowly, very slowly, off came the captive's coat and vest. Despite his +efforts, the hands which loosened the buttons trembled uncontrollably. +Following the vest came the shirt, then a shoe, and the sock beneath. +His foot touched the snow. For the first time a faint realization of the +thing he was choosing came to him. The vicious bite of the frost upon +the bare skin was not a possibility of the future, but a condition of +the immediate now; and he weakened. But in the moment of his indecision, +the wave of stubbornness and of blinding hate again flooded him, and a +rush of hot curses left his lips. + +For a moment, the last time in their lives, the two men eyed each other +fairly. Indescribable hate was written upon one face; the other was as +blank as the surrounding snow. Its very immobility chilled Tom Blair and +cowed him into silence. Without a word he replaced shoe and coat and +took up his blanket. An advancing step sounded behind him, and, +understanding, he moved ahead. After a while the foot-fall again gained +upon him, and once more the walk merged into the interminable jog-jog of +the back-trail. + +It was morning when the two began that last relay. It was four o'clock +in the afternoon when they arrived amid the outskirts of the scattered +prairie terminus which was their destination. Within ten minutes +thereafter the two had separated. The older man, in charge of a lank, +unshaven frontiersman, chiefly noticeable from a quid of tobacco which +swelled one cheek like an abscess, and a nickle-plated star which he +wore on the lapel of his coat, was headed for the pretentious white +painted building known as the court-house. The younger, catching sight +of a wind-twisted sign lettered "Hotel," made for it as though sighting +the promised land. In the office, as he passed through, was a crowd of +men entirely too large to have gathered by chance in a frontier +hostelry, who eyed him peculiarly; but he took no notice, and five +minutes later, upon the bedraggled bed of the unplastered upper room +that the landlord gave him, without even his boots removed, he was deep +in the realm of oblivion. + +Some time later--he had no idea of the hour save that all was dark--he +was awakened by a confusion of voices in the room below, a slamming of +doors, a thumping of great boots upon the bare floor. Scarcely +remembering his whereabouts, he rolled from his bed and thrust his head +out of the narrow window. Here and there about the town were scattered +lights--some stationary, others, which he took to be lanterns, moving. +On the street beneath his window two men went by on a run. Half way up +the block, before the well-lighted front of a saloon, a motley crowd was +shifting back and forth, restless as ants in a hill, the murmur of their +voices sounding menacing as the distant hum of swarming bees. All at +once from out the door there burst fair into the crowd a heavy man with +great shoulders and a bull neck. About him, even in the uncertain light, +there seemed to the watcher something very familiar. What he said, Ben +could not understand; but he turned his head this way and that, and his +motions were unmistakable. The crowd made way before him as sheep before +a dog, and closing behind followed steadily in his wake. Gradually as +the leader advanced the mass gained momentum. At first the pace had been +a slow walk. In the space of seconds it became a swift one, then a run, +with a wild scramble by those in the rear to gain front place. The +frozen ground rumbled under their rushing feet. The direction of their +movement, at first uncertain, became definite. It was a direct line for +the centrally located court-house; and, no longer doubtful of their +purpose, Ben left the window, fairly tumbled downstairs, and rushed +through the now deserted office into the equally deserted street. + +The court-house square was but two blocks away; but the mob had a good +lead, and when the youth arrived he found the space within the +surrounding chain fence fairly covered. Where the people could all have +come from struck him even at that moment as a mystery. Certainly all +told the town could not in itself have mustered half the number. +Elbowing his way among them, however, he began soon to understand. Here +and there among the mass he caught sight of familiar faces,--Russell of +the Circle R Ranch, Stetson of the "XI," each taking no part, but with +hats slouched low over their eyes watching every movement of the drama. +Passing around a jam he could not press through, Ben felt a detaining +hand upon his arm, and turning, he was face to face with Grannis. The +grip of the overseer tightened. + +"I've been looking for you, Blair," he said, "I know what you've been +trying to do, but most of the crowd don't and won't. They're ugly. You'd +better keep back." + +For answer Ben eyed the cowboy squarely. + +"I thought I left you in charge of the ranch," he said evenly. + +The weather-stained face of the foreman reddened in the shifting lantern +light, but the eyes did not drop. + +"I have been. I just got here." A dignity which well became him spoke in +the steady voice. "I had a reason for coming." + +Ben released his gaze. + +"The others are here too?" + +"No, they're all at the ranch. Graham and I attended to that." + +"I just saw Russell and Stetson. They couldn't possibly have got here +to-day from home. Has--has this been planned?" + +Grannis nodded. "Yes. Kennedy and his gang have been watching here and +at the ranch for days. They thought you'd show up at one place or the +other. The whole country is out. There are lots of strangers here, from +ranches I never heard of before. Seems as though everybody knew Rankin +and heard of his being shot. You'd better let them have it their way. +It'll amount to the same in the end, and death itself couldn't stop them +now." + +He took a step forward; for Ben, understanding all, had at last moved +on. + +"Blair!" he called after him, again extending a detaining hand. His +voice took on a new note--intimate, personal, a tone of which no one +would have thought it capable. "Blair, listen to me! Stop!" + +But he might as well have spoken to the swiftly flowing water beneath +the ice of the great river. Of a sudden, from out a passage leading into +the cell-room of the court-house basement, a black swarm of men had +emerged, bearing by sheer animal force a struggling object in their +midst. The silence of those who waited, the lull before the storm, on +the instant ended. A very Babel of voices took its place. By common +consent, as though drawn by centripetal force, actors and spectators +crowded together until they were a solid block of humanity. Caught in +the midst, Grannis and Ben alike could for a moment but move with the +mass. So fierce was the crush that their very breath seemed imprisoned +in their lungs. + +Like molten metal the crowd began to flow--to the right, in the +direction of the railroad track. With each passing moment the confusion +was, if possible, greater than before. Here and there a cowboy, unable +to control his excess of feeling, emptied his revolver into the air. +Once Ben heard the wailing yelp of a dog caught under foot of the mass. +To his left, a little man with a white collar, obviously a mere +spectator, pleaded loudly to be released from the pressure. Adding to +the confusion, the bell on the town-hall began ringing furiously. + +On they went, a hundred yards, two hundred, reached the railroad track, +stopped. In the midst of the leaders, looming over their heads, was a +whitened telegraph pole. Of a sudden a lariat shot up over the painted +cross-arm, and dropped, the two ends dangling free; and, understanding +it all, the spectators again became silent. Everything moved like +clockwork. From somewhere in the darkness a bare-backed pony was +produced and brought directly under the dangling rope. Astride him a +dark-bearded figure with hands tied behind his back was placed and +firmly held. Swiftly a running noose, fashioned from the ends of the +lariat, was slipped over the captive's neck. A man grasped the bit of +the mustang. Before him, the crowd began to give way. The great +bull-necked leader--Mick Kennedy, every one now saw it was--held up his +hand for silence, and turned to the helpless figure astride the pony. + +"Tom Blair!" he said,--and such was now the silence that a whisper would +have been audible,--"Tom Blair, have you anything you wish to say?" + +The dark shape took no notice. Apparently it did not hear. + +Mick Kennedy hesitated. Upon his lips a repetition of the question was +forming--but it got no farther. In the midst of the mass of spectators +there was a sudden tumult, a scattering from one spot as from a lighted +bomb. + +"Make way!" demanded an insistent voice. "Let me through!" And +for a moment, forgetting the other interest, the spectators turned to +this newer one. + +At first they could distinguish nothing perfectly; then amidst the +confusion they made out the form of a long-armed, long-faced youth, his +head lowered, his shoulder before him like a wedge, crowding his way to +the fore. + +"Make room there!" he repeated. "Make room!" and again into the crowd, +like a snow-plough into a drift, he penetrated until his momentum was +exhausted, then paused for a fresh plunge. + +But before him a pathway was forming. Seemingly the thing was +impossible, but the trick of a spoken name was sufficient. + +"It's Ben Blair!" someone had announced, and others had loudly taken up +the cry. "It's Ben Blair! Let him through!" + +Along the pathway thus cleared the youth made his way and approached the +centre of activity. Previously the drama had moved swiftly,--so swiftly +that the spectators could merely watch developments, but under the +interruption it halted. The man at the pony's bridle--cowboy Buck it +was--paused, uncertain what to do, doubtful of the intent of the +long-faced man who so suddenly had come beside him. Not so Mick Kennedy. +Well he knew what was in store, and reaching over he gave the pony a +resounding slap on the flank. + +"Let him go, Buck!" he commanded of the cowboy. "Hurry!" + +But already he was too late. With a grip like a trap, Ben's hand was +likewise on the rein, holding the little beast, despite his struggles, +fairly in his tracks. Ben's head turned, met the bartender's Cyclopean +eye squarely, and held it with a look this bulldozer of men had never +before received in all his checkered career. + +"Mick Kennedy," he said quietly, "another move like that, and in five +minutes you'll be hanging from the other side." + +For the fraction of a second there was a pause; but, short as it was, +the Irishman felt the sweat start. "The day of such as you has passed, +Mick Kennedy." + +There was no time for more. As bystanders gather around a street fight, +the grim cowmen had closed in from all sides. On the outskirts men +mounted each other's shoulders the better to see. Of a sudden, from +behind, Ben felt himself grasped by a multitude of hands. Angry voices +sounded in his ears. + +"String him up too if he interferes!" suggested one. + +"That's the talk!" echoed a third. "Swing him, too!" + +The lust of blood was upon the crowd, crying to be satisfied. But they +had reckoned wrongly, and were soon to learn their error. Every atom of +the long youth's fighting blood was raised to boiling pitch. On the +instant, the all but superhuman strength at which we marvel in the +insane was his. Like flails, his doubled fists shot out in every +direction, meeting resistance at each blow. By the dim light he caught +the answering glint on sheath knives, but he took no notice. His hat had +come off, and his abundant brown hair shook about his shoulders. His +blue eyes blazed. A figure of war incarnate he stood, and a vacant +circle which no one cared to cross formed about him. One long hand, with +fingers outstretched, was raised above his head. The brilliant eyes +searched the surrounding sea of faces for those he knew; as one by one +he found them, lingered, conquered. Silence fell intense. + +"Men! Gentlemen!" The words went out like pistol-shots reaching every +acute ear. "Listen to me. I've a right to speak. Stop a moment, all of +you, and think. This is the twentieth century, not the first. We're in +America, free America. Think, I say, think! Don't act blindly! Think! +This man is guilty. We all know it. He's caught red-handed. But he can't +escape. Remember this, men, and think! As you value your own +self-respect, as you honor the country you live in, don't be savages, +don't do this deed you contemplate, this thing you've started doing. Let +the law take its course!" + +The speaker paused for breath, and, as though fascinated by his audacity +or something else, friend and enemy remained motionless and waiting. +Well fitting the drama was its setting: the darkness of night broken by +the flickering lanterns; on the pony the huddled helpless figure with a +running noose about its neck; the row upon row of rugged faces, of +gleaming eyes! + +"Ranchers, stockmen!" rushed on the insistent voice, "you know +responsibility; it's to you I'm talking. A principle is at stake +here,--the principle of law or of lawlessness. One of these--you know +which--has run this range too long; it's gripping us at this moment. +Before we can be free we must call it halt. Let's do it now; don't wait +for the next time or the next, but now, now!" Once more he paused, his +eyes for the last time making the circle swiftly, his hand in the air, +palm forward. "For law, the law of J. L. Rankin, instead of Judge +Lynch!" he challenged. "For civilization instead of savagery--not +to-morrow but now, now! Help me to uphold the law!" + +So swiftly that the spectators scarcely realized what he was doing, he +stepped over to the limp figure upon the pony, loosed the noose from +around the neck, and lifted him to the ground. + +"Sheriff Ralston!" he called; "come and take your prisoner! Russell! +Stetson! Grannis!" designating each by name, "every man who values life, +help me now!" + +The cry was the trumpet for action. Instantly every one was in motion. +Again arose the Babel of voices,--voices cursing, arguing, encouraging. +The circle of malevolent faces which had surrounded the youth would not +longer be stayed, closed hotly in. He felt the press of their bodies +against his, their breath in his face. With an effort, marking his +place, the extended right hand went up once more into the air. The +slogan again sprang to his tongue. + +"For the law of J. L. Rankin, men! The law of--" + +The sentence died on his lips. Suddenly, something lightning-like, +scorching hot, caught him beneath his right shoulder-blade. Before his +eyes the faces, the lighted lanterns, faded into darkness. A sound like +falling waters roared in his ears. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE QUICK AND THE DEAD + + +When Ben Blair again woke to consciousness the sunlight was pouring upon +him steadily. He was in a strange bed in a strange room; and he looked +about him perplexedly. Amid the unfamiliarity his eye caught an object +he recognized,--the broad angular back of a man. Memory slowly adjusted +itself. + +"Grannis--" + +The back reversed, showing a rather surprised face. + +"Where am I, Grannis?" + +The foreman came over to the bed. "In the hotel. In the bridal chamber, +they informed me, to be exact." + +Ben did not smile. Memory was clear now. "What happened after they--got +me last night?" + +Grannis's face showed distinct animation. "A lot of things--and mighty +fast. You missed the best part." Of a sudden he paused and looked at his +charge doubtfully. "But I forgot. You're not to talk: the doctor said +so." + +Ben made a grimace. "But I can listen, can't I?" + +"I suppose so," still doubtfully. + +"Well--" + +Grannis hearkened equivocally. No one was about, likely to overhear him +disobeying instructions, and the temptation was strong. + +"You know McFadden?" he queried suddenly. + +Blair nodded. + +"Well, say, that Scotchman is a tiger. He got to the front somehow when +you called for reinforcements, and when you went down he was +Johnny-on-the-spot taking your place. Some of the rest of us got in +there pretty soon, and for a bit things was lively. It was rather close +range for gun-work, but knives were as thick as frogs after a shower." +With a sudden movement Grannis slipped up the sleeve of his left arm, +showing a bandage through which the blood had soaked and dried. "All of +us got scratched some. One fellow of the opposition--Mick Kennedy--met +with an accident." + +"Serious?" + +"Rather. We planted him after things had quieted down." + +For a moment the two men looked at each other steadily, and the subject +was dropped. + +"Well," suggested Blair once more. + +"That's all, I guess--except that Ralston has the prisoner." A grim +reminiscent smile came to the speaker's lips. "That is, he's got him if +the floors of the cells here are paved good and thick. Last time I saw +T. Blair he was fairly shaking post-holes into the ground with his +feet." + +Ben tried to shift in bed, but with the movement a sudden pain made him +grit his teeth to keep from uttering a groan. For the first time he +thought of himself. + +"How much am I hurt, Grannis?" he queried directly. + +The foreman busied himself doing nothing about the room. "You?" +cheerfully. "Oh, you're all right." + +Ben looked at the other narrowly. "Nothing to bother about, I judge?" + +"No, certainly not." + +Beneath the bedclothes the long body lifted, but despite anything it +could do the face went pale. + +"Very well, I guess I'll get up then." + +Instantly Grannis was beside him, motioning him back, genuine concern +upon his face. + +"No, please don't. Not yet." + +"But if I'm not hurt much--" + +Grannis fingered his forelock in obvious discomfort. + +"Well, between you and me, it's this way. They ripped a seam for you--so +far," he indicated, "and it's open yet." + +Turning his free left arm, Ben touched the bandage at his side, and the +hand came back moist and red. Now that it occurred to him, he was +ridiculously weak. + +"I see. I'm liable to rip it more," he commented slowly. + +The other nodded. "Yes; don't talk. I ought to have stopped you before +this." + +"Grannis!" There was no escaping the blue eyes this time. "Honestly, +now, am I liable to be--done for, or not?" + +The foreman became instantly serious. "Honest, if you keep quiet you're +all right. Doc said so not an hour ago. At first he thought different, +that you'd never wake up; you bled like a pig with its throat cut; but +this is what he told me when he left. 'Keep him quiet. It may take a +month for that gap to heal, but if you're careful he'll pull through.'" +Again the look of concern, and this time of contrition as well. "I ought +to be ashamed of myself for letting you talk at all; but this is +straight. Now don't say any more." + +This time Ben obeyed. He couldn't well do otherwise. He had suddenly +grown weak and drowsy, and almost before Grannis was through speaking he +was again asleep. + +The doctor was right about the time of healing. During the remainder of +that month and well into the next, despite his restless protests, Ben +Blair was a prisoner in that dull little room; and through it all +Grannis remained with him. + +"You don't have to stay with me unless you like," Ben had said more than +once; but each time Grannis had displayed his own wound, at first +openly, at last, carefully concealed by bandages, whimsically. + +"Got to take good care of this arm of mine," he explained. "Blood +poisoning's liable to set in at any minute, and that's something awful, +they tell me." + +The invalid made no comment. + + * * * * * + +It was the evening following the afternoon of Blair's return to the Box +R ranch. In the cosey kitchen, around the new range which Rankin had +imported the previous Fall, sat three people,--Grannis, Graham, and Ma +Graham. The two men were smoking steadily and silently. The woman, her +hands folded in her lap, her eyes glued to the floor, was breathing +loudly with the difficulty of the very corpulent. Of a sudden, +interrupting, the door connecting with the room adjoining opened and Ben +Blair appeared. + +"Grannis," he requested, "come here a moment, please." + +In silence Blair closed the door behind them, motioned his companion to +a seat, and took another opposite him. He was very quiet, even for his +taciturn self; and, glancing at a heap of papers on a nearby table, +Grannis understood. For a long minute the two men eyed each other +silently. Not without result had they lived the events of the last +months together. It was the younger man who first spoke. + +"Grannis," he said impassively, "I'm going to ask you a question, and I +want an honest answer. Whatever you may think it leads to must cut no +figure. Will you give it?" + +Equally impassively the elder man nodded, "Yes." + +Blair selected a paper from the litter, and looked at it steadily. "What +I want to know is this: have I, has anyone, no matter what the incentive +may be, the right to make known after another's death things which +during that person's life were carefully concealed?" + +The steady gaze shifted to his companion, held there compellingly. "In +other words, is a tragedy any less a tragedy, any more public property, +because the actors are dead? Answer me honest, Grannis." + +Impassively as before the overseer shook his head. "No, I think not," +he said. "Let the dead past bury its dead." + +A moment longer the other remained motionless, then, before his +companion realized what he was doing, Ben had opened the door of the +sheet-iron heater and tossed the paper in his fingers fair among the +glowing coals. + +"Thank you, Grannis," he said, "I agree with you." He stood a second +looking into the suddenly kindled blaze. "As you say, to the living, +life. Let the dead past bury its dead." + +The flame died down until upon the coals lay a thin, curling film of +carbon. Grannis shifted in his seat. + +"Nevertheless," he commented indifferently, "you've done a foolish act." +A pause; then he went on deliberately as before. "You've destroyed the +only evidence that proves you Rankin's son." + +Involuntarily Blair stiffened, seeming about to speak. But he did not. +Instead, he closed the stove and resumed his former seat. + +"By the way," he digressed, "I just received a letter from Scotty Baker. +I wrote him some time ago about--Mr. Rankin. He answered from England." + +Grannis made no comment, and, the conversation being obviously at an +end, after a bit he rose, and with a taciturn "Good-night," left the +room. + + * * * * * + +Days and weeks passed. The dead rigor of Winter gave way to traces of +Spring. On the high places the earth began to turn brown, the buffalo +grass to peep into view. By day the water slushed under the feet of the +cattle, and ran merrily in the draws of the rolling country. By night +it froze into marvellous frost-work; daintier and more intricate of +pattern than any made by man. Overhead, flocks of wild ducks in +irregular geometric patterns sailed north at double the speed of express +trains. With their mellow "Honk--honk," sweetest sound of all to a +frontiersman's ears, harbingers of Spring indeed, far above the level of +the ducks, amid the very clouds themselves, the geese, in regular +triangles, winged their way toward the snow-lands. At first they seemed +to pass only by day; then, as the season advanced, the nights were +melodious with the sound of their voices. Themselves invisible, far +below on the surface of earth the swish of their migratory wings sounded +so distinctly that to a listening human ear it almost seemed it were a +troop of angels passing overhead. + +After them came the myriad small birds of the prairie,--the countless +flocks of blackbirds, whose "fl-ee-ce," in continuous chorus filled all +the daylight hours; the meadow-larks, singly or in pairs, announcing +their arrival with a guttural "tuerk" and a saucy flit of the tail, or +admonishing "fill your tea-kettle, fill your tea-kettle" with a +persistence worthy a better cause. + +Ere this the earth was bare and brown. The chatter of the snow streams +had ceased. In the high places, on southern slopes, there was even a +suggestion of green. At last, on the sunny side of a knoll, there peeped +forth the blue face of an anemone. The following day it had several +companions. Within a week a very army of blue had arrived, stood erect +at attention so far as the eye could reach and beyond. No longer was +there a doubt of the season. Not precursors of Spring, but Spring +itself had come. + +Meanwhile, on the Box R ranch everything moved on as of yore. Save on +that first night, Ben Blair made no man his confidant, accepted without +question his place as Rankin's successor. Most silent of these silent +people, he did his work and did it well, burying deep beneath an +impenetrable mask his thoughts and feelings. Not until an early Summer +was almost come did he make a move. Then at last a note of three +sentences went eastward: + + "Miss Baker: I'll be in New York in a few days, and if + convenient to you will call. The prairies send greetings in + advance. I saw the first wild rose of the season to-day. + + "Ben Blair." + +A week later, after giving directions for the day's work to Grannis one +morning, Ben added some suggestions for the days to follow. As to time, +they were rather indefinite, and the overseer looked a question. + +"I'm going away for a bit," explained Ben, simply, in answer. Then he +turned to Graham. "Hitch up the buckboard right away, please. I want you +to take me to town in time to catch the afternoon train East." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +GLITTER AND TINSEL + + +Clarence Sidwell--Chad, his friends called him--leaned farther back in +the big wicker chair, with an involuntary motion adjusted his +well-creased trousers so there might be no tension at the knees, and +looked across the tiny separating table at his _vis-a-vis_, while his +eyelids whimsically tightened. + +"Well," he queried, "what do you think of it?" + +The little brunette, his companion, roused herself almost with a start, +while a suggestion of conscious red tinged her face. "I beg your +pardon?" she said, inquiringly. + +The man smiled. "Forgotten already, wasn't I?" he bantered. + +"No, certainly not. I--" + +A hand, delicate and carefully manicured as a woman's, was raised in +protest. "Don't prevaricate, please. The occasion isn't worth it." The +hand returned to the chair-arm with a play of light upon the solitaire +it bore. The smile broadened. "You were caught. Confess, and the +sentence will be lighter." + +As a wave recedes, the red flood began to ebb from the girl's face. "I +confess, then. I was--thinking." + +"And I was--forgotten. My statement was correct." + +She looked up, and the two smiled companionably. + +"Admitted. I await the penalty." + +The man's expression changed into mock sternness. "Very well, Miss +Baker; having heard your confession and remembering a promise to +exercise clemency, this court is about to impose sentence. Are you +prepared to listen?" + +"I'm growing stronger every minute." + +The court frowned, the heavy black eyebrows making the face really +formidable. + +"I fear the defendant doesn't realize the enormity of the offence. +However, we'll pass that by. The sentence, Miss Baker, brings me back to +the starting-point. You are directed to answer the question just +propounded, the question which for some inexplicable reason you didn't +hear. What do you think of it--this roof-garden, and things in general?" +The stern voice paused; the brows relaxed, and he smiled again. "But +first, you're sure you won't have something more--an ice, a wee +bottle--anything?" + +The girl shook her head. + +"Then let's make room here at this table for a better man; to hint at +vacating for a better woman would be heresy! It's pleasanter over there +in the corner out of the light, where one can see the street." + +They found a vacant bench behind a skilfully arranged screen of palms, +and Sidwell produced a cigar. + +"In listening to a tale or a confession," he explained, "one should +always call in the aid of nicotine. I fancy Munchausen's listeners must +have been smokers." + +The girl steadily inspected the dark mobile face, half concealed in the +shadow. "You're making sport of me," she announced presently. + +Instantly her companion's smile vanished. "I beg your pardon, Miss +Baker, but you misunderstood. I thought by this time you knew me better +than that." + +"You really are interested, then? Would you truly like to know--what you +asked?" + +"I truly would." + +Florence hesitated. Her breath came a trifle more quickly. She had not +yet learned the trick of repression of the city folk. + +"I think it's wonderful," she said. "Everything is wonderful. I feel +like a child in fairyland; only the fairies must be giants. This great +building, for instance,--I can't make it seem a product of mere six-foot +man! In spite of myself, I keep expecting a great genie to emerge +somewhere. I suppose this seems silly to you, but it's the feeling I +have, and it makes me realize my own insignificance." + +Sidwell smoked in silence. + +"That's the first impression--the most vivid one, I think. The next is +about the people themselves. I've been here nearly a half-year now, but +even yet I stare at them--as you caught me staring to-night--almost with +open mouth. To see these men in the daylight hours down town one would +think they cared more for a minute than for their eternal happiness. I'm +almost afraid to speak to them, my little affairs seem so tiny in +comparison with the big ones it must take to make men work as they do. +And then, a little later,--apparently for no other reason than that the +sun has ceased to shine,--I see them, as here, for instance, unconscious +that not minutes but hours are going by. They all seem to have double +lives. I get to thinking of them as Jekylls and Hydes. It makes me a bit +afraid." + +Still Sidwell smoked in silence, and Florence observed him doubtfully. +"You really wish me to chatter on in this way?" she asked. + +"I was never more interested in my life." + +The girl felt her face grow warm. She was glad they were in the shadow, +so the man could not see it too clearly. For a moment she looked about +her, at the host of skilful waiters, at the crowd of brightly dressed +pleasure-seekers, at the kaleidoscopic changes, at the lights and +shadows. From somewhere invisible the string orchestra, which for a time +had been silent, started up anew, while her answering pulses beat to +swifter measure. The air was a familiar one, heard everywhere about +town; and she was conscious of a childish desire to join in singing it. +The novelty of the scene, the sparkle, the animation, the motion +intoxicated her. She leaned back in her seat luxuriously. + +"This is life," she murmured. "I never grasped the meaning of the word +until within the last few months, but now I begin to understand. To work +mightily when one works, to abandon one's self completely when one +rests--that is the secret of life." + +The man in the shadow shifted his position, and, looking up, Florence +found his eyes upon her. "Do you really believe that?" he asked. + +"I do, most certainly." + +Sidwell lit a fresh cigar, and for a moment the light of the burning +match showed his face clearly. He seemed about to say more; but he did +not, and Florence too was silent. In the pause that followed, the great +express elevator stopped softly at the roof floor. The gate opened with +a musical click, and a woman and a man stepped out. Both were +immaculately dressed, both had the unmistakable air of belonging to the +leisure class. They spied the place Florence and Sidwell had left +vacant, and leisurely made their way to it. A waiter appeared, a coin +changed hands, an order was given. The man drew out a cigarette case +that flashed in colors from the nearby arc-light. Smilingly the woman +held a match, and a moment later wreath after wreath of curling blue +smoke floated above them into the night. + +Florence Baker watched the scene with a strange fascination. She was +conscious of having at some time visited a play wherein a similar action +had taken place. She had thought it merely a creation of the writer's +imagination at the time, but in her present broadened experience she +knew better. It was real,--real as the air she breathed. She simply had +not known the meaning of life then; she was merely existing. Now she +knew! + +The waiter returned, bearing something in a cooler. There were a few +swift motions, a pop distinctly heard above the drone of the orchestra. +The man tossed aside his cigarette and leaned forward. Two glasses with +slender stems, each containing a liquid that effervesced and sparkled, +one in the man's hand, one in the woman's, met midway of the board. The +empty glasses returned to the table. + +Many other seekers of pleasure were about, but Florence had no eyes for +them. This pair alone, so indifferent to their surroundings, so +thoroughly a part of them, perfectly fulfilled her newly formed +conception. They had solved this puzzle of existence, solved it so +completely that she wondered it could ever have appealed to her as a +puzzle at all. Again the formula, distinct as the handwriting upon the +wall, stood revealed before her. One had but to _live_ life, not reason +it, and all would be well. + +Again and again, the delicate glasses sparkled to waiting lips, and +returned empty to the table. The man lit another cigarette, and its +smoke mingled with the darkness above. In the hands of the waiter the +cooler disappeared, and was returned; a second cork popped as had the +first. The woman's eyes sparkled as brilliantly as the gems upon her +fingers. The languor of the man had passed. With the old action +repeated, the brimming glasses touched across the board, were exchanged +after the foreign fashion, and again were dry. The figure of the man +leaned far over the table. He spoke earnestly, rapidly. Unconscious +motions of his hands added emphasis to his words. Neither he nor she who +listened was smiling now. Instead, there was a look, identical upon +either face, a look somehow strangely familiar to the watcher, one she +had met with before, somewhere--somewhere. Memory flew back on lightning +wings, searched all the paths of her experience, the dim +all-but-forgotten crannies, stopped with pointing finger; and with a tug +at her very being, she looked, and unbelieving looked again. Ah, could +it be possible--could it? Yes, there it was, unmistakable; the same +expression as this before her--there, blazing from the eyes of a group +of strange street-loafers, as she herself, she, Florence Baker, passed +by! + +In the shadow the face of the spectator crimsoned, the hot flood burned +at her ears, a tightness like a physical hand gripped at her throat; but +it seemed that her eyes could not leave the figures before her. Not the +alien interest of a watcher at the play, but a more intense, a more +personal meaning, was in her gaze now. Something of vital moment to her +own life was taking place out there so near, and she must see. A +fleeting wonder as to whether her own companion was likewise watching +came to her, but she did not turn to discover. The denouement, +inevitable as death, was approaching, might come if she for an instant +looked away. + +The man out there under the electric globe was still talking; the woman, +his companion, still listened. Florence caught herself straining her +ears to hear what he was saying; but to no purpose. She heard only the +repressed murmur of his well-modulated, resonant voice; yet that in +itself was enough. The old song of the sirens was flowing from his lips, +and passion flamed in his eyes. Farther and farther across the tiny +intervening table, nearer the woman's face, his own approached. The last +empty bottle, the thin-stemmed glasses, stood in his way, and he moved +them aside with his elbow. So near now was he that their breaths +mingled, and as the drone of his voice ceased, the music of the +orchestra, a waltz, flowed into the rift with its steady one-two-three. +He was motionless; but his eyes, intense blue eyes under long lashes, +were fixed absorbingly on hers. + +It was the woman's turn to move. Gradually, gracefully, unconsciously, +her own face came forward toward his. Sparkling in the light, a jewelled +hand rested on the surface of the table. A tinge of crimson mounted the +long white neck, and colored it to the roots of her hair. The arteries +at the throat throbbed under the thin skin. Simultaneously, the opening +gate of the elevator clicked, and a man--another with that unmistakable +air of leisure--approached; but still she did not notice, did not hear. +Instead, with a sudden motion, heedless of surroundings, reckless of +spectators, her face crossed the gap intervening between her and her +companion; her lips touched his lips, caught fire with the contact, met +them again and again. + +Watching, scarcely breathing, Florence saw the figure of the man come +closer. His eyes also were upon the pair. He caught their every motion; +but he did not hurry. On he came, leisurely, impassively, as though out +for a stroll. He stopped by their side, a darkening shadow with a +mask-like face. Instinctively the two glanced up. There was a crash of +glassware, as the tiny table lurched in the woman's hand--and they were +on their feet. A moment the three looked into each others' eyes, looked +deep and long; then together, without a word, they turned toward the +elevator. Again, droning monotonously, the car appeared and disappeared. +After them, vibrant, mocking, there beat the unvarying rhythm of the +waltz, one-two-three, one-two-three. + +In the shadow, Florence Baker's face dropped into her hands. When at +last she glanced up another couple, likewise immaculate of attire, +likewise debonair and smiling, were seated at the little table. She +turned to her companion. His cigar was still glowing brightly. He had +not moved. + +"I think I'll go home now, if you please," she said, and every trace of +animation had left her voice. "I'm rather tired." + +The man roused himself. "It's early yet. There'll be vaudeville here in +a little while, after the theatre." + +The girl observed him curiously. "It's early, did you say?" + +Sidwell smiled indulgently. "Beg your pardon. I had forgotten our +standards were not yet in conformity. It is so considered--here." + +Florence was very quiet until they reached the steps of her own home. A +light was in the open vestibule, another in the library, where Scotty, +his feet comfortably enclosed in carpet-slippers and elevated above his +head, was reading. Then she turned to her escort. + +"You won't be offended, Mr. Sidwell, if I ask you a question?" + +The electric light on the nearby corner shone full upon her soft brown +face, a very serious face now, and the man's glance lingered there. +"Certainly not," he answered. + +Florence hesitated. Somehow, now that the moment for speaking had +arrived, the thing she had in mind to say did not seem so easy after +all. At last she spoke, hesitatingly: "You seem to be interested in me, +seem to take pleasure in being in my company. For the last few months we +have been together almost daily, but up to that time we had lived lives +as unlike as--as the city is from the prairie. I know you have many +other friends, friends you've known all your life, whose ideals and +points of view came from the same experience as your own." She +straightened with dignity. "Why is it that you leave those friends to +come here? Why do you find pleasure in taking me about as you do? Why is +it?" + +Not once while she was speaking had the man's eyes left her face; not +once had he stirred. Even after she was silent he remained so; and +despite the compelling influence which had prompted the question, +Florence could not but realize what she had done, what she had all but +suggested. The warm color flooded her face, though she held her eyes up +bravely. "Tell me why," she repeated firmly. + +Sidwell still hesitated. Complex product of the higher civilization, +mixture of good and bad, who knows what thoughts were running riot in +his brain? At last he aroused and came closer. "You ask me a very hard +question," he said steadily; "the most difficult, I think, you could +have chosen; one, also, which perhaps I have already asked myself." +Again he took a step nearer. "It is a question, Florence, that admits of +but one answer; one both adequate and inadequate. It is because you are +you and woman, and I am I and man." Of a sudden his dark face grew +swarthier still, his voice lapsed from its customary impersonal. "It +means, Florence Baker--" + +But the sentence was not completed. As suddenly as the change had come +to the man's face, the girl had understood. With an impulse she could +not have explained to herself, she had drawn away and swiftly mounted +the steps of the house. Not until she reached the porch did she turn. + +"Don't, don't, please!" she urged. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have +asked what I did. Forget that I spoke at all." She was struggling for +words, for breath. Her color came and went. "Good-night." And not +trusting herself to look back, oblivious of courtesy, she almost ran +into the house. + +Standing as she had left him, his hat in his hand, Clarence Sidwell +watched her pass through the lighted vestibule into the darkness +beyond. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +PAINTER AND PICTURE + + +Scotty Baker dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee and stirred the +mixture carefully, glancing the while smilingly at his wife and +daughter. + +"By Jove!" he exclaimed; "it seems good to be back here again." + +Mrs. Baker was deep in a letter she had just opened, but Florence +returned the smile companionably. + +"And it seems mighty good to have you back, daddy," she replied. "Just +think of our being alone, a pair of poor defenceless women, three whole +months without a man about the house! If you ever dare do it again +you're liable to find one in your place when you return. Isn't he, +mamma?" + +Her mother looked up reproachfully. "For shame, Florence!" she cried. + +But Scotty only observed his daughter quizzically. "I did--almost, this +time, didn't I?" he bantered. "By the way, who is this wonderful being, +this Sidwell, I've heard so much about the last few hours?" He was as +obtuse as a post to his wife's meaning look. "Tell me about him, won't +you?" + +Florence laughed a bit unnaturally. It seemed her words had a way of +returning like a boomerang. + +"He's a writer," she explained laconically. + +"A writer?" Scotty paused, a teaspoonful of coffee between the cup and +his mouth. "A real one?" + +The smile left the girl's face. "His family is one of the oldest in the +city," she explained coldly. "His work sells by the thousand. You can +judge for yourself." + +Scotty sipped his coffee impassively, but behind the big glasses the +twinkle left his eyes. + +"The inference you suggest would have been more obvious if you hadn't +made the first remark," he said a little sharply. "I've noticed the +matter of good family has quite an influence in this world." + +The subject was dropped, but nevertheless it left its aftermath. +Easy-going Scotty did not often say an unpleasant thing, and for that +very reason Florence knew that when he did it had an especial +significance. + +"By the way," he observed after a moment, "we ought to celebrate to-day +in some manner. I rather expected to find a band at the station to +welcome me yesterday upon my return, but I didn't, and I fear there's +been no public demonstration arranged. What do you say to our packing up +our dinner, taking the elevated, and spending the day in the country? +What say you, Mollie?" + +His wife looked at her daughter helplessly. "Just as Florence says. I'm +willing," she replied. + +"What speaks the oracle?" smiled Scotty. "Shall we or shall we not? +Personally, I feel a desire for cooling springs, to step on a good-sized +plat of green without having a watchful bluecoat loom in the distance." + +Florence fingered the linen of the tablecloth with genuine discomfort. +"You two can go. I'll help you get ready," she ventured at last. "I'm +sorry, but I promised Mr. Sidwell last night I'd visit the art gallery +with him this afternoon. He says they've some new canvases hung lately, +one of them by a particular friend of his. He's such a student of art, +and I know so little about it that I hate to miss going." + +Again the smile left Scotty's eyes. "Can't you write a note explaining, +and postpone the visit until some other time?" It took quite an effort +for this undemonstrative Englishman to make the request. + +The girl glanced out the window with a look her father understood very +well. "I hardly think so," she said. "He's going away for the Summer +soon, and his time is limited." + +Scotty said no more, and soon after he left the table and went into the +library. Florence sat for a moment abstractedly; then with her old +impulsive manner she followed him. + +"Daddy," the girl's arms clasped around his neck, her cheek pressed +against his, "I'm awful sorry I can't go with you to-day. I'd like to, +really." + +But for one of the very few times that Florence could remember her +father did not respond. Instead, he removed her arms rather coldly. + +"Oh, that's all right," he said; "I hope you'll have a good time." And +picking up the morning paper he lit a cigar and moved toward the shady +veranda. + +Watching him, the girl had a desire to follow, to prevent his leaving +her in that way. But she hesitated and the moment passed. + +Yet, although a cloud shadowed Florence Baker's morning, by afternoon it +had departed. Sidwell's carriage came promptly, creating something of a +stir behind the drawn shades of the adjoining residences--for the Bakers +were not located in a fashionable quarter. Sidwell himself, immaculate, +smiling, greeted her with the deference which became him well, and in +itself conveyed a delicate compliment. Neither made any reference to the +incident of the night before. His manner gave no hint of the constraint +which under the circumstances might have been expected. A few months +before, the girl would have thought he had taken her request literally, +and had forgotten; but now she knew better. In this fascinating new life +one could pass pleasantries with one's dearest enemy and still smile. In +the old life, under similar circumstances, there would have been +gun-play, and probably later a funeral; but here--they knew better how +to live. Already, in the few social events she had attended, she had +seen them juggle with emotions as a conjurer with knives--to emerge +unhurt, unruffled. To be sure, she could not herself do it--yet; but she +understood, and admired. + +Out of doors the sun was uncomfortably hot, but within the high walled +gallery it was cool and pleasant. Florence had been there before, but +earlier in the season, and many other visitors were present. To-day she +and Sidwell were practically alone, and she faced him with a little +receptive gesture. + +"You're always getting me to talk," she said. "To-day I'm going to +exchange places. Don't expect me to do anything but listen." + +Sidwell smiled. "Won't you even condescend to suggest channels in which +my discourse may flow?" he bantered. + +The girl hesitated. "Perhaps," she ventured, "if I find it necessary." + +For an hour they wandered about, moving slowly, and pausing often to +rest. Sidwell talked well, but somewhat impersonally. At last, in an +out-of-the-way corner, they came to the modest canvas of his friend, and +they sat down before it. The picture was unnamed and unsigned. Without +being extraordinary as a work of art, its subject lent its chief claim +to distinction. Interested because her companion seemed interested, +Florence looked at it steadily. At first there appeared to her nothing +but a mountain, steep and rugged, and a weary man who, climbing it, had +lain down to rest. Far down at the mountain's base she saw where the +figure had begun its ascent. The way was easy there, and the trail, +through the abundant grasses crushed underfoot, was of one who had moved +rapidly. Gradually, with the upward incline, obstacles had increased, +and the footprints drew nearer together. Still higher, from a straight +line the trail had become tortuous and irregular. Here the climber had +passed around a thicket of trees; there a great boulder had stood in the +path; but, ever indomitable, the way had been steadily upward toward +some point the climber had in view. Steeper and steeper the way had +grown. The prints on the rocky mountain-side, from being those of feet +only, merged into those made by hands. The man had begun to crawl, +making his way inch by inch. Fragments of his torn clothing hung on the +points of rocks. Dim brown lines showed the path his body had taken, as +he sometimes slipped back. Breaks in the scant vegetation told where his +fingers had clutched desperately to halt his descent. Yet each time the +reverse had been but temporary; he had returned, and mounted higher and +higher. But at last there had come the end. He had reached his present +place in the picture. By gripping tightly he could hold his own, but to +advance was impossible. Straight above him, a sheer wall, many times his +own height, was the blank, unbroken face of the rock. That he had tried +to scale even this was evident, for finger-marks from bleeding hands +were thick thereon; but he had finally abandoned the effort. Physically, +he was conquered. It seemed that one could almost hear the quick coming +and going of his breath. Yet, prostrate as he lay, his eyes were turned +toward the barrier his body could not scale, to a something which +crowned its utmost height,--something indefinite and unattainable,--the +supreme desire and purpose of his life. + +The two spectators sat silent. Other visitors came near, glanced at the +canvas and at the pair of observers, and passed on with muffled +footsteps. + +The girl turned, and, as on the night at the roof-garden, found the +man's eyes upon her. + +"What name does your friend give to his work?" she asked. + +"He calls it 'The Unattainable.'" + +"And what is its meaning?" + +"Ambition, perfection, complete happiness--anything striven for with +one's whole soul." + +Florence was studying her companion now as steadily as he had been +studying her a moment before. "To your--friend it meant--" + +"Happiness." + +The girl's hands were clasped in her lap in a way she had when her +thoughts were concentrated. "And he never found it?" she asked. + +Unconsciously one of Sidwell's hands made a downward motion of +deprecation. "He did not. We made the circuit of the earth together in +pursuit of it--but all was useless. It seemed as though the more he +searched the more he was baffled in his quest." + +For a moment the girl made no reply, but in her lap her hands clasped +tighter and tighter. A thought that made her finger-tips tingle was +taking form in her mind. A dim comprehension of the nature of this man +had first suggested it; the fact that the canvas was unsigned had helped +give it form. The speaker's last words, his even tone of voice, had not +passed unnoticed. She turned to the canvas, searched the skilfully +concealed outlines of the tattered figure with the upturned eyes. The +clasped hands grew white with the tension. + +"I didn't know before you were an artist as well as a writer," she said +evenly. + +Sidwell turned quickly. The girl could feel his look. "I fear," he said, +"I fail to grasp your meaning. You think--" + +Florence met the speaker's look steadily. "I don't think," she said, "I +know. You painted the picture, Mr. Sidwell. That man there on the +mountain-side is you!" + +Her companion hesitated. His face darkened; his lips opened to speak and +closed again. + +The girl continued watching him with steady look. "I can hardly believe +it," she said absently. "It seems impossible." + +Sidwell forced a smile. "Impossible? What? That I should paint a daub +like that?" + +The girl's tense hands relaxed wearily. + +"No, not that you paint, but that the man there--the one finding +happiness unattainable--should be you." + +The lids dropped just a shade over Sidwell's black eyes. "And why, if +you please, should it be more remarkable that I am unhappy than +another?" + +This time Florence took him up quickly. "Because," she answered, "you +seem to have everything one can think of that is needed to make a human +being happy--wealth, position, health, ability--all the prizes other +people work their lives out for or die for." Again the voice dropped. "I +can't understand it." She was silent a moment. "I can't understand it," +she repeated. + +From the girl's face the man's eyes passed to the canvas, and rested +there. "Yes," he said slowly, "I suppose it is difficult, almost +impossible, for you to realize why I am--as I am. You have never had the +personal experience--and we only understand what we have felt. The +trouble with me is that I have experienced too much, felt too much. I've +ceased to take things on trust. Like the youth and the key flower I've +forgotten the best." The voice paused, but the eyes still kept to the +canvas. + +"That picture," he went on, "typifies it all. I painted it, not because +I'm an artist, but because in a fashion it expresses something I +couldn't put into words, or express in any other way. When I began to +climb, the object above me was not happiness but ambition. Wealth and +social place, as you say, I already had. They meant nothing to me. What +I wanted was to make a name in another way--as a literary man." The dark +eyes shifted back to the listener's face, the voice spoke more rapidly. + +"I went after the thing that I wanted with all the power and tenacity +that was in me. I worked with the one object in view; worked without +resting, feverishly. I had successes and failures, failures and +successes--a long line of both. At last, as the world puts it, I +_arrived_. I got to a position where everything I wrote sold, and sold +well; but in the meantime the thing above me, which had been ambition, +gradually took on another shape. Perfection it was I longed for now, +perfection in my art. It was not enough that the public had accepted me +as I was; I was not satisfied with my work. Try as I might, nothing that +I wrote ever reached my own standard in its execution. I worked harder +than ever; but it was useless. I was confronting the blank wall--the +wall of my natural limitations." + +The voice paused, and for a moment lowered. "I won't say what I did +then; I was--mad almost--the finger-marks of it are on the rock." + +The girl could not look longer into the speaker's eyes. She felt as if +she were gazing upon a naked human soul, and turned away. + +"At last," he went on in his confession, "I came to myself, and was +forced to see things as they were. I saw that as well as I thought I had +understood life I had not even grasped its meaning. I had fancied the +attainment of my object the supreme end, and by every human standard I +had succeeded in my purpose; but the thing I had gained was trash. +Wealth, power, notoriety--what were they? Bubbles, nothing more; bubbles +that broke in the hand of him who clasped them. The real meaning and +object of existence lay deeper, and had nothing whatever to do with the +estimate of a person by his fellows. It was a frame of mind of the +individual himself." + +Florence's face turned farther away, but Sidwell did not notice. "Then, +for the last time," he hurried on, "the unattainable changed form for +me, and became what it seems now--happiness. For a little time I think I +was happy--happy in merely having made the discovery. Then came the +reaction. I was as I was, as I am now--a product of my past life, of a +civilization essentially artificial. In striving for a false ideal I had +unfitted myself for the real when at last I discovered it." + +Unconsciously the man had come closer, and his eyes glowed. At last his +apathy was shaken off, and his words came in a torrent. "What I was then +I am to-day. Mentally, I am like an inebriate, who no longer finds +satisfaction in plain food and drink, but craves stimulants. I demand +activity, excitement, change. In every hour of my life I realize the +narrowness and artificiality of it all; but without it I am unhappy. I +sometimes think Mother Nature herself has disowned me; when I try to get +near her she draws away--I fancy with a shudder. Solitude of desert, of +forest, or of prairie is no longer solitude to me. It is filled with +voices--accusing voices; and I rush back to the crowd and the unrest of +the city. Even my former pleasures seem to have deserted me. You have +spoke often of accomplishing big things, doing something better than +anyone else can do it, as an example of pleasure supreme. If you +realized what you were saying you would know its irony. You cannot do a +thing better than anyone else. People, like water, strike a dead level. +No matter how you strive, dozens of others can do the thing you are +doing. Were you to die, your place would be filled to-morrow, and the +world would wag on just the same. There is always someone just beneath +you watchfully waiting, ready to seize your place if you relax your +effort for a moment. The term 'big things' is relative. To speak it is +merely to refer to something you do not personally understand. Nothing +seems really big to the one who does it. Nothing is difficult when you +understand it. The growing of potatoes in a backyard is just as +wonderful a performance as the painting of one of these pictures; it +would be more so were it not so common and so necessary. The +construction of a steam-engine or an electric dynamo is incomparably +more remarkable than the merging of separate thousands of capital into +millions of combination, yet multitudes of men everywhere can do either +of the former things and are unnoticed. We worship what we do not +understand, and call it big; but the man in the secret realizes the +mockery and smiles." + +Closer came the dark face. The black eyes, intense and flashing, held +the listener in their gaze. + +"I said that even my pleasures seem to have deserted me. It is true. I +used to like to wander about the city, to see it at its busiest, to +loiter amid the hum and the roar and the ceaseless activity. I saw in it +then only friendly rivalry, like a hurdle race or a football +game--something pleasing and stimulating. Now it all affects me in just +the reverse way. I look beneath the surface, and my heart sinks to find +not friendly competition, but a battle, where men and women fight for +daily bread, where the weak are crowded and trampled upon by the strong. +In ordinary battle the maimed and the crippled are spared, but here they +still fight on. Mercy or quarter is unknown. Oh, it is ghastly! I used +to take pleasure in books, in the work of others; but even this +satisfaction has been taken from me--except such grim satisfaction as a +physician may feel at a _post mortem_. The very labor that made me a +success in literature caused me to be a dissector of things around me. +To learn how others attained their ends I must needs tear their work +apart and study the fragments. This habit has become a part of me. I +overlook the beauty of the product in the working of the machinery that +produced it. I watch the mixing of literary confections, served to the +reader so that upon laying down the book he may have a good taste in his +mouth. People themselves, those I meet from day to day, inevitably go +through the same metamorphosis. I see them as characters in a book. +Their foibles and peculiarities are grist for my mill. Everything, +everyone, when I appear, slips into the narrow confines of a printed +page. I can't even spare myself. Fragments of me can be had for a price +at any of the book-stalls. I've become public property--and with no one +to blame but myself." + +The flow of speech halted. The speaker's face was so near now that the +girl could not avoid looking at it. + +"Do you wonder," he concluded, "that I am not happy?" + +The girl looked up. The two pairs of brown eyes met. Outwardly, she who +answered was calm; but in her lap the small hands were clasping each +other tightly, so that the blood had left the fingers. + +"No, I do not wonder now," she answered simply. + +"And you understand?" + +"Yes, I--no, there's so much--Oh, take me home, please!" The sentence +ended abruptly in a plea. The slender body was trembling as with cold. +"Take me home, please. I want to--to think." + +"Florence!" The word was a caress. "Florence!" + +But the girl was already on her feet. "Don't say any more to-day! I +can't stand it. Take me home!" + +Sidwell looked at her closely for a moment; then the mask of +conventionality, which for a time had lifted from his face, dropped once +more, and he also arose. In silence, side by side, the two made their +way down the long hall to the exit. Out of doors, the afternoon sun, +serene and smiling, gave them a friendly greeting. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A VISITOR FROM THE PLAINS + + +"Papa," said Florence, next morning, as they two sat alone at breakfast, +her mother having reported a headache and failed to appear, "let's go +somewhere, away from folks, for a week or so." + +"Why this sudden change of front?" her father queried. "Not being of the +enemy I'm entitled to the plan of campaign, you know." + +Florence observed him steadily, and the father could not but notice how +much more mature she seemed than the prairie girl of a few months ago. + +"There is no change of front or plan of campaign as far as I know," she +replied. "I simply want to get away a bit, that's all." She returned to +her neglected breakfast. "There's such a thing as mental dyspepsia, you +know, and I feel a twinge of it now and then. I think this new life is +being fed to me in doses too large for my digestion." + +Mr. Baker eventually acquiesced, as anyone who knew him could have +foretold he would do. His wife, also, when the plan was broached to her, +hesitatingly agreed, but at the last moment balked and declined to go; +so they left without her. + +The small town to which they went had ample grass and trees, and a small +lake convenient. A farmer's family reluctantly consented to board and +lodge them; also to give them the use of a bony horse and a disreputable +one-seated wagon. After their arrival they promptly proceeded to +segregate themselves from their fellow-boarders. The first day they +fished a little, talked, read, slept, meditated, and smoked--that is, +Mr. Baker did, enough for two; and Florence assisted by rolling +cigarettes when the bowl of the meerschaum grew uncomfortably hot. The +next day they repeated the programme, and also the next, and the next. + +"I think I could stay here always," said Mr. Baker. + +"I rather like it myself," Florence admitted. + +Nevertheless, they returned promptly on schedule-time. Mrs. Baker was +awaiting them, her stiff manner indicating that she had not been doing +much else while they were away. Without finesse, one member of the two +delinquents was informed that a certain man of considerable social +prominence, Clarence Sidwell by name, had called daily, and, Mrs. Baker +fancied, with increasing dissatisfaction at their absence. Florence +found in her mail a short note, which after some consideration she +handed without comment to her father. + +He read--and read again. "When was this mailed?" he asked. + +"Over a week ago," answered Florence. "It has been here for several +days." + +It was therefore no surprise to the Englishman when that very evening, +as he sat on the front veranda, his heels on the railing, watching the +passage of equipages swift and slow, he saw a tall young man, at whom +passers-by stared more than was polite, coming leisurely up the +sidewalk, inspecting the numbers on the houses. As he came closer, Mr. +Baker took in the details of the long free stride, of the broad chest, +the square uplifted chin, with something akin to admiration. Vitality +and power were in every motion of the supple body; health--a life free +as the air and sunshine--was written in the brown of the hands, the tan +of the face. Even his clothes, though not the conventional costume of +city streets, seemed a part of their wearer, and had a freedom all their +own. The broad-brimmed felt hat was obviously for comfort and +protection, not for show. The light-brown flannel shirt was the color of +the sinewy throat. The trousers, of darker wool, rolled up at the +bottom, exposed the high-heeled riding-boots. About the whole man--for +he was very near now--there was that immaculate cleanliness which the +world prizes more than godliness. + +Scotty dropped his feet from the railing and advanced to the steps. +"Hello, Ben Blair!" he said. + +The visitor paused and smiled. "How do you do, Mr. Baker?" he answered. +"I thought I'd find you along here somewhere." He swung up the short +walk, and, mounting the steps, grasped the Englishman's extended hand. +For a moment the two said nothing. Then Scotty motioned to a chair. "Sit +down, won't you?" he invited. + +Ben stood as he was. The smile left his face. "Would you really--like me +to?" he asked directly. + +"I really would, or I wouldn't have asked you," Scotty returned, with +equal directness. + +Ben took the proffered chair, and crossed his legs comfortably. The two +sat for a moment in silent companionship. + +"Tell me about Rankin," suggested Scotty at last. + +Ben did so. It did not take long, for he scarcely mentioned himself, and +quite omitted that last incident of which Grannis had been witness. + +"And--the man who shot him?" Scotty found it a bit difficult to put the +query into words. + +"They swung him a few days later. Things move rather fast out there when +they move at all." + +"Were 'they' the cowboys?" + +"No, the sheriff and the rest. It was all regular--scarcely any +spectators, even, I heard." + +"And now about yourself. Shall you be in the city long?" + +"I hardly know. I came partly on business--but that won't take me long." +He looked at his host significantly. "I also had another purpose in +coming." + +Scotty moved uncomfortably in his seat. "Ben," he said at last, "I'd +like to ask you to stay with us if I could, but--" he paused, looking +cautiously in at the open door--"but Mollie, you know--It would mean the +dickens' own time with her." + +Ben showed neither surprise nor resentment. "Thank you," he replied. "I +understand. I couldn't have accepted had you invited me. Let's not +consider it." + +Again the seat which usually fitted the Englishman so well grew +uncomfortable. He was conscious that through the curtains of the library +window some one was watching him and the new-comer. He had a mortal +dread of a scene, and one seemed inevitable. + +"How's the old ranch?" he asked evasively. + +"It's just as you left it. I haven't got the heart somehow to change +anything. We use up a good many horses one way and another during a +year, and when I get squared around I'm going to start a herd there with +one of the boys to look after it. It was Rankin's idea too." + +"You expect to keep on ranching, then?" + +"Why not?" + +"I thought, perhaps, now that you had plenty to do with--You're young, +you know." + +Ben looked out across the narrow plat of turf deliberately. + +"Am I--young? Really, I'd never thought of it in that way." + +The Englishman's feet again mounted the railing in an attempt at +nonchalance. + +"Well, usually a man at your age--" He laughed. "If it were an old +fellow like me--" + +"Mr. Baker, I thought you said you really wished me to sit down and chat +awhile?" + +Scotty colored. "Why, certainly. What makes you think--" + +"Let's be natural then." + +Scotty stiffened. His feet returned to the floor. + +"Blair, you forget--" But somehow the sentence, bravely begun, halted. +Few people in real life acted a part with Benjamin Blair's blue eyes +upon them. "Ben," he said instead, "I'm an ass, and I beg your pardon. +I'll call Florence." + +But the visitor's hand restrained him. + +"Don't, please. She knows I am here. I saw her a bit ago. Let her do as +she wishes." He drew himself up in the cane rocker. "You asked me a +question. As far as I know I shall ranch it always. It suits me, and +it's the thing I can do best. Besides, I like being with live things. +The only trouble I have," he smiled frankly, "is in selling stock after +I raise them. I want to keep them as long as they live, and put them in +greener pastures when they get old. It's the off season, but I brought a +couple of car-loads along with me to Chicago, to the stock-yards. I'll +never do it again. It has to be done, I know; people have to be fed; but +I've watched those steers grow from calves." + +Scotty searched his brain for something relevant and impersonal, but +nothing suggested itself. "Ben Blair," he ventured, "I like you." + +"Thank you," said Ben. + +They were silent for a long time. Pedestrians, singly and in pairs, +sauntered past on the walk. Vehicle after vehicle scurried by in the +street. At last a team of brown thoroughbreds, with one man driving, +drew up in front of the house. The man alighted, tied the horses to the +stone hitching-post, and came up the walk. Simultaneously Ben saw the +curtains at the library window sway as though in a sudden breeze. + +"Splendid horses, those," he commented. + +"Yes," answered Scotty, wishing he were somewhere else just then. "Yes," +he repeated, absently. + +"Good-evening, Mr. Baker!" said the smiling driver of the thoroughbreds. + +"Good-evening," echoed Scotty. Then, with a gesture, he indicated the +passive Benjamin. "My friend Mr. Blair, Mr. Sidwell." + +Sidwell mounted the steps. Ben arose. The library curtains trembled +again. The two men looked each other fairly in the eyes and then shook +hands. + +"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Blair," said Sidwell. + +"Thank you," responded Ben, evenly. + +Down in the depths of his consciousness, Scotty was glad this frontier +youth had seen fit to come to town. Taking off his big glasses he +polished them industriously. + +"Won't you sit down?" he invited the new-comer. + +Sidwell moved toward the door. "No, thank you. With your permission I'll +go inside. I presume Miss Baker--" + +But the Englishman was ahead of him. "Yes," he said, "she's at home. +I'll call her," and he disappeared. + +Watching the retreating figure, Sidwell's black eyes tightened, but he +returned and took the place Scotty had vacated. He gave his companion a +glance which, swift as a flash of light upon a sensitized plate, took in +every detail of the figure, the bizarre dress, the striking face. + +"You are from the West, I judge, Mr. Blair?" he interrogated. + +"Dakota," said Ben, laconically. + +Sidwell's gaze centred on the sombrero. "Cattle raising, perhaps?" he +ventured. + +Ben nodded. "Yes, I have a few head east of the river." He returned the +other's look, and Sidwell had the impression that a searchlight was +suddenly shifted upon him. "Ever been out there?" + +The city man indicated an affirmative. "Yes, twice: the last time about +four years ago. I went out on purpose to see a steer-roping contest, on +the ranch of a man by the name of Gilbert, I remember. A cowboy they +called Pete carried off the honors; had his 'critter' down and tied in +forty-two seconds. They told me that was slow time, but I thought it +lightning itself." + +"The trick can be done in thirty-five with the wildest," commented Ben. + +Sidwell looked out on the narrow street meditatively. "I think that +cowboy exhibition," he went on slowly, "was the most typically American +scene I have ever witnessed. The recklessness, the dash, the splendid +animal activity--there's never been anything like it in the world." His +eyes returned to Ben's face. "Ever hear of Gilbert, did you?" + +"I live within twenty-three miles of him." + +Sidwell looked interested. "What ranch, if I may ask?" + +"The Right Angle Triangle we call it." + +"Oh, yes," Sidwell nodded in recollection. "Rankin is the proprietor--a +big man with a grandfather's-shay buckboard. I saw him while I was +there." + +Involuntarily one of Ben's long legs swung over the other. "That's the +place! You have a good memory." + +Sidwell smiled. "I couldn't help having in this case. He reminded me of +the satraps of ancient Persia. He was monarch of all he surveyed." + +Ben said nothing. + +"He's still the big man of the country, I presume?" + +"He is dead." + +"Dead?" + +"I said so." + +The light of understanding came to the city man. "I see," he observed. +"He is gone, and you--" + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Sidwell," interrupted the other, "but suppose we +change the subject?" + +Sidwell colored, then he laughed. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Blair. No +offence was intended, I assure you. Mr. Rankin interested me, that was +all." + +Again Ben said nothing, and the conversation lapsed. + +Meanwhile within doors another drama had been taking place. A very +discomposed young lady had met Scotty just out of hearing. + +"What made you stop Mr. Sidwell, papa?" she asked indignantly. "Why +didn't you let him come in?" + +"Because I didn't choose to," explained Scotty, bluntly. + +"But I wanted him to," she said imperiously. "I don't care to see Ben +to-night." + +Her father looked at her steadily. "And I wish you to see him," he +insisted. "You must be hypnotized to behave the way you're doing! You +forget yourself completely!" + +The brown eyes of the girl flashed. "And you forget yourself! I'm no +longer a child! I won't see him to-night unless I wish to!" + +Easy-going Scotty was aroused. His weak chin set stubbornly. + +"Very well. You will see neither of them, then. I won't have a man +insulted without cause in my own house. I'll tell them both you're +sick." + +"If you do," flamed Florence, "I'll never forgive you! You're--horrid, +if you are my father. I--" She took refuge in tears. "Oh, you ought to +be ashamed to treat your daughter so!" + +The Englishman flicked a speck of ash off his lounging coat. "I _am_ +ashamed," he admitted; "but not of what you suggest." He turned toward +the door. + +"Daddy," said a pleading voice, "don't you--care for me any more?" + +An expression the daughter had never seen before, but one that ever +after haunted her, flashed over the father's face. + +"Care for you?" he exclaimed. "Care for you? That is just the trouble! I +care for you--have always cared for you--too much. I have sacrificed my +self-respect to humor you, and it's all been a mistake. I see it now too +late." + +For a moment the two looked at each other; then the girl brushed past +him. "Very well," she said calmly, "if I must see them both, at least +permit me to see them by myself." + +The men on the porch arose as Florence appeared. Their manner of doing +so was characteristic of each. Sidwell got to his feet languidly, a bit +stiffly. He had not forgotten the past week. Ben Blair arose +respectfully, almost reverently, unconscious that he was following a +mere social form. Six months had passed since he had seen this little +woman, and his soul was in his eyes as he looked at her. + +Just without the door the girl halted, her color like the sunset. It was +the city man she greeted first. + +"I'm very glad to see you again," she said, and a dainty hand went out +to meet his own. + +Sidwell was human. He smiled, and his hand detained hers longer than was +really necessary. + +"And I'm happy indeed to have you back," he responded. "I missed you." + +The girl turned to the impassive but observing Benjamin. + +"I am glad to see you, too, Mr. Blair," she said, but the voice was as +formal as the handshake. "Papa introduced you to Mr. Sidwell, I +suppose?" + +Her reserve was quite unnecessary. Outwardly, Ben was as coldly polite +as she. He placed a chair for her deferentially and took another +himself, while Sidwell watched the scene with interest. Somewhere, some +time, if he lived, that moment would be reproduced on a printed page. + +"Yes," responded Ben, "Mr. Sidwell and I have met." He turned his chair +so that he and the girl faced each other. "You like the city, your new +life, as well as you expected, I trust?" + +They chatted a few minutes as impersonally as two chance acquaintances +meeting by accident; then again Ben arose. "I judge you were going +driving," he said simply. "I'll not detain you longer." + +Florence melted. Such delicate consideration was unexpected. + +"You must call again while you are in town," she said. + +"Thank you, I shall," Ben responded. + +Sidwell felt that he too could afford to be generous. + +"If there's anything in the way of amusement or otherwise that I can do +for you, Mr. Blair, let me know," he said, proffering his address. "I am +at your service at any time." + +Ben had reached the walk, but he turned. For a moment wherein Florence +held her breath he looked steadily at the city man. + +"We Western men, Mr. Sidwell," he said at last slowly, "are more or less +solitaries. We take our recreation as we do our work, alone. In all +probability I shall not have occasion to accept your kindness. But I may +call on you before I leave." He bowed to both, and replaced his hat. A +"good-night" and he was gone. + +Watching the tall figure as it disappeared down the street, Sidwell +smiled peculiarly. "Rather a positive person, your friend," he remarked. + +Like an echo, Florence took up the word. "Positive!" The small hands +pressed tightly together in the speaker's lap. "Positive! You didn't get +even a suggestion of him by that. I saw a big prairie fire once. It +swept over the country for miles and miles, taking everything clean; and +the men fighting it might have been so many children in arms. I always +think of it when I think of Ben Blair. They are very much alike." + +The smile left Sidwell's face. "One can start a back-fire on the +prairie," he said reflectively. "I fancy the same process might work +successfully with Blair also." + +"Perhaps," admitted Florence. The time came when both she and Sidwell +remembered that suggestion. + +But the subject was too large to be dropped immediately. + +"Something tells me," Sidwell added, after a moment, "that you are a bit +fearful of this Blair. Did the gentleman ever attempt to kidnap you--or +anything?" + +Florence did not smile. "No," she answered. + +"What was it, then? Were you in love, and he cold--or the reverse?" + +Florence dropped her chin into her hands. "To be frank with you, it +was--the reverse; but I would rather not speak of it." She was silent +for a moment. "You are right, though," she continued, rather recklessly, +"when you say I'm afraid of him. I don't dare think of him, even. I want +to forget he was ever a part of my life. He overwhelms me like sleep +when I'm tired. I am helpless." + +Unconsciously Sidwell had stumbled upon the closet which held the +skeleton. "And I--" he queried, "are you afraid of me?" + +The girl's great brown eyes peered out above her hands steadily. + +"No; with us it is not of you I'm afraid--it's of myself." She arose +slowly. "I'm ready to go driving if you wish," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +CLUB CONFIDENCES + + +Late the same evening, in the billiard-room of the "Loungers Club" +Clarence Sidwell met one Winston Hough, seemingly by chance, though in +fact very much the reverse. Big and blonde, addicted to laughter, Hough +was one of the few men with whom Sidwell fraternized,--why, only the +Providence which makes like and unlike attract each other could have +explained. However, it was with deliberate intent that Sidwell entered +the most brilliantly lighted room in the place and sought out the group +of which Hough was the centre. + +"Hello, Chad!" the latter greeted the new-comer. "I've just trimmed up +Watson here, and I'm looking for new worlds to conquer. I'll roll you +fifty points to see who pays for a lunch afterward." + +Sidwell smiled tolerantly. "I think it would be better for my reputation +to settle without playing. Put up your stick and I'm with you." + +Hough shook his head. "No," he objected, "I'm not a Weary Willie. I +prefer to earn my dole first. Come on." + +But Sidwell only looked at him. "Don't be stubborn," he said. "I want to +talk with you." + +Hough returned his cue to the rack lingeringly. "Of course, if you put +it that way there's nothing more to be said. As to the stubbornness, +however--" He paused suggestively. + +Sidwell made no comment, but led the way directly toward the street. + +"What's the matter?" queried Hough, when he saw the direction they were +taking. "Isn't the club grill-room good enough for you?" + +Sidwell pursued his way unmoved. "I said I wished to talk with you." + +"I guess I must be dense," Hough answered gayly. "I certainly never saw +any house rules that forbid a man to speak." + +Sidwell looked at his companion with a whimsical expression. "The +trouble isn't with the house rules but with you. A fellow might as well +try to monopolize the wheat-pit on the board of trade as to keep you +alone here. You're too confoundedly popular, Hough! You draw people as +the proverbial molasses-barrel attracts flies." + +The big man laughed. "Your compliment, if that's what it was, is a bit +involved, but I suppose it'll have to do. Lead on!" + +Sidwell sought out a modest little _café_ in a side street and selected +a secluded booth. + +"What'll you have?" he asked, as the waiter appeared. + +Hough's blue eyes twinkled. "Are you with me, whatever I order?" + +Sidwell nodded. + +"Club sandwiches and a couple of bottles of beer," Hough concluded. + +His companion made no comment. + +"Been some time, hasn't it, since you surprised your stomach with +anything like this?" bantered the big man, when the order had arrived +and the waiter departed. + +Sidwell smiled. "I shall have to confess it," he admitted. + +"I thought so," remarked Hough dryly. "Next time you depict a plebeian +scene you can remember this and thank me." + +This time Sidwell did not smile. "You're hitting me rather hard, old +man," he said. + +"You deserve it," laconically answered Hough. + +"But not from you!" + +Hough meditatively watched the beads bursting on the surface of the +liquor. + +"Admitted," he said; "but the people who ought to touch you up are +afraid to do so, and someone ought to." He smiled across the table. +"Pardon the brutal frankness, but it's true." + +Sidwell returned the glance. "You think it's the duty of some intimate +to perform the kindness of this--touching up process occasionally, do +you?" + +Hough drank deep and sighed with satisfaction. "Jove! that tastes good! +I limbered up my joints with a two-mile walk before I went to the club +this evening, and I've been as dry as a harvest-hand ever since. All the +wine in France or elsewhere won't touch the spot like a little good old +brew when a man is really healthy." He recalled himself. "Your pardon, +Sidwell. Seriously, I do think it's the duty of our best friends to +bring us back to earth now and then when we've strayed too far away. No +one who doesn't care for us will take the trouble." + +"Our _very_ best friends, I judge," suggested Sidwell. + +"Certainly." The big man wondered what was coming next. + +"A--wife, for instance." + +Hough straightened in his chair. His jolly face grew serious. + +"Are you in earnest, Chad," he queried, "or are you just drawing me +out?" + +"I never was more in earnest in my life." + +Hough lost sight of the original question in the revelation it +suggested. + +"Do you mean you're really going to get married at last?" + +Sidwell forced a smile. "If the matter were already settled, it would be +too late to consider the advisability of the move, wouldn't it?" he +returned. "It would be an established fact, and as such useless to +discuss. I haven't asked the lady, if that answers your question." + +Hough made a gesture of impatience. "Theoretically, yes, but +practically, no. In your individual case, desire and gratification +amount to the same. You're mighty fascinating with the ladies, Chad. Few +women would refuse you, if you made an effort to have them do the +reverse." + +"Thank you," said Sidwell, equivocally. + +His companion scowled. "Appreciation is unnecessary. I'm not even sure +the remark was complimentary." + +They sat a moment in silence, while the beer in their glasses grew +stale. + +"Suppose I were to consider marriage, as you suggest," said Sidwell at +last. "What do you think would be the result? Judging from your +expression, some opinion thereon is weighing heavily upon your mind." + +The blonde man looked up keenly. One would hardly have recognized him as +the easy-going person of a few moments before. + +"It will, of course, depend entirely upon whom you choose. That's +hackneyed. From the motions of straws, though, this Summer, I presume +it's admissible that I jump at conclusions concerning the lady." + +The other nodded. + +"In that case, Chad, as surely as night follows day it'll be a failure." +The blue eyes all but flashed. "Moreover, it's a hideous injustice to +the girl." + +Sidwell stiffened involuntarily. + +"Your prediction sounds a bit strong from one who is himself a +benedict," he returned coldly. "Upon what, if you please, do you base +your opinion?" + +Hough fidgeted in his chair. + +"You want me to be frank, brutally frank, once more?" + +"Anything you wish. I'd like to know why you spoke as you did." + +"The reason, then, is this. You two would no more mix than oil and +water." + +Sidwell's face did not change. "You and Elise seem to jog along fairly +well together," he observed. + +Hough scowled as before. "Yes, but there's no possible similarity +between the cases. You and I are no more alike than a dog and a rabbit. +To come down to the direct issue, you're city bred, and Miss Baker has +been reared in the country. She--" + +Sidwell held up his hand deprecatingly. "To return to the illustration, +Elise was originally from the country." + +"And to repeat once more," exclaimed Hough, "there's again no +similarity. Elise and I have been married eight years. We met at +college, and grew together normally. We were both young and adaptable. +Besides, at the risk of being tedious, I reiterate that you and I are +totally unlike. I'm only partially urban; you are completely so--to your +very finger-tips. I'm half savage, more than half. I like to be out in +the country, among the mountains, upon the lakes. I like to hunt and +fish, and dawdle away time; you care for none of these things. I can +make money because I inherited capital, and it almost makes itself; but +it's not with me a definite ambition. I have no positive object in life, +unless it is to make the little woman happy. You have. Your work absorbs +the best of you. You haven't much left for friendships, even mild ones +like ours. I've been with you for a good many years, old man, and I know +what I'm talking about. You are old, older than your years, and you're +not young even in them. You're selfish--pardon me, but it's +true--abominably selfish. Your character, your point of view, your +habits--are all formed. You'll never change; you wouldn't if you could. +Miss Baker is hardly more than a child. I know her--I've made it a +point to know her since I saw you were interested in her. Everything in +the world rings genuine to her as yet. She hasn't learned to detect the +counterfeit, and when the knowledge does come it will hurt her cruelly. +She'll want to get back to nature as surely as a child with a bruised +finger wants its mother; and you can't go with her. Most of all, Chad, +she's a woman. You don't know what that means--no unmarried man does +know. Even we married ones never grasp the subtleties of woman-nature +completely. I've been studying one for eight years, and at times she +escapes me. But one thing I have learned; they demand that they shall be +first in the life of the man they love. Florence Baker will demand this, +and after the first novelty has worn off you won't satisfy her. I repeat +once more, you're too selfish for that. As sure as anything can be, Chad +Sidwell, if you marry that girl it will end in disaster--in divorce, or +something worse." + +The voice ceased, and the place was of a sudden very quiet. Sidwell +tapped on his thin drinking-glass with his finger-nail. His companion +had never seen him nervous before. At last he looked up unshiftingly. +"You've given me a pretty vivid portrait of myself, of what I'm good +for, and what not," he said. "Would you like me to return the +compliment?" + +Again Hough wondered what was coming. "Yes, I suppose so," he answered +hesitatingly. + +"You've often remarked," said Sidwell, slowly, "that you knew of no work +for which you were especially adapted. I think I could fit you out +exactly to your liking. Just get a position as guard to a lake of +brimstone in the infernal regions." + +Hough laughed, but Sidwell did not. "I fancy," he continued +monotonously, "I see you now, a long needle-pointed spear in your hands, +jabbing back the poor sinners who tried to crawl out." + +"Chad!" interrupted the other reproachfully. "Chad!" But Sidwell did not +stop. + +"You'd stand well back, so that the sulphur fumes wouldn't irritate your +own nostrils, and so that when the bubbles from the boiling broke they +wouldn't spatter you, and with the finest kind of intuition and the most +delicate aim you'd select the tenderest place in your intended victim's +anatomy for your spear-point." He smiled ironically at the picture. +"Gad! you'd be a howling success there, old man!" + +An expression of genuine contrition formed on Hough's jolly face. "I'm +dead sorry I hurt you, Chad," he said, "but you asked me to be frank." + +"You certainly were frank," rejoined the other bluntly. + +"What I said, though, was true," reiterated Hough. + +Sidwell leaned a bit forward, his face, handsome in spite of its +shadings of discontent, clear in the light. + +"Perhaps," he went on. "The trouble with you is that you don't give me +credit for a single redeeming virtue. No one in this world is wholly +good or wholly bad. You forget that I'm a human being, with natural +feelings and desires. You make me out a sort of machine, cunningly +constructed for a certain work. You limit my life to that work alone. A +human being, even one born of the artificial state called civilization, +isn't a contrivance like a typewriter which you can make work and then +shut up in a box until it is wanted again. There are certain emotions, +certain wants, you can't suppress by logic. Even a dog, if you imprison +him alone, will go mad in time. I'm a living man, with red blood instead +of ink in my veins, not an abstract mathematical problem. I've had my +full share of work and unhappiness. You'll have to give me a better +reason for remaining without the gate of the promised land than you've +yet done." + +Hough looked at the speaker impotently. "You misunderstood me, Chad, if +you thought I was trying to keep you from your due, or from anything +which would really make for your happiness. I was simply trying to +prevent something I feel morally certain you'll regret. Because one +isn't entirely happy is no adequate reason why he should make himself +more unhappy. I can't say any more than I've already said; there's +nothing more to say. My best reason for disapproving your contemplated +action I gave you first, and you've not considered it at all. It's the +injustice you do to a girl who doesn't realize what she is doing. With +your disposition, Chad, you'd take away from her something which neither +God nor man can ever give her back--her trust in life." + +Sidwell's long fingers restlessly twirled the glass before him. The +remainder of the untouched beer was now as so much stagnant water. + +"If I don't undeceive her someone else will," he said. "It's inevitable. +She'll have to adjust herself to things as they are, as we all have to +do." + +Hough made a motion of deprecation. + +"Miss Baker is no longer a child," continued Sidwell. "If you've studied +her as you say you've done, you've discovered that she has very definite +ideas of her own. It's true that I haven't known her long, but she has +had an opportunity to know me well such as no one else has ever had, not +even you. No one can say that she is leaping in the dark. Time and time +again, at every opportunity, I have stripped my very soul bare for her +observation. The thing has not been easy for me; indeed, I know of +nothing I could have done that would have been more difficult. Though +the present instance seems to give the statement the lie, I am not +easily confidential, my friend. I have had a definite object in doing as +I have done with Miss Baker. I am trying, as I never tried before in my +life, to get in touch with her--as I'll never try again, no matter how +the effort results, to get in touch with a person. She knows the good +and bad of me from A to Z. She knows the life I lead, the kind of people +who make up that life, their aims, their amusements, their standards, +social and moral, as thoroughly as I can make her know them. I have +taken her everywhere, shown her every phase of my surroundings. For once +in my life at least, Hough, I have been absolutely what I +am,--absolutely frank. Farther than that I cannot go. I am not my +brothers keeper. She is an individual in a world of individuals; a free +agent, mental, moral, and physical. The decision of her future actions, +the choice she makes of her future life, must of necessity rest with +her. For some reason I cannot point to a definite explanation and say +this or that is why she is attractive to me. She seems to offer the +solution of a want I feel. No system of logic can convince me that, +after having been honest as I have been with her, if she of her own free +will consents to be my wife, I have not a moral right to make her so." + +Again Hough made a deprecatory motion. "It is useless to argue with +you," he said helplessly, "and I won't attempt it. If I were to try, I +couldn't make you realize that the very methods of frankness you have +used to make Miss Baker know you intimately have defeated their own +purpose, and have unconsciously made you an integral part of her life. I +said before that when you wish you're irresistibly fascinating with +women. All that you have said only exemplifies my statement. It does +not, however, in the least change the homely fact that oil and water +won't permanently mix. You can shake them together, and for a time it +may seem that they are one; but eventually they'll separate, and stay +separate. As I said before, though, I do not expect you to realize this, +or to apply it. I can't make what I know by intuition sufficiently +convincing. I wish I could. I feel that somehow this has been my +opportunity and I have failed." + +For the instant Sidwell was roused out of himself. He looked at his +companion with appreciation. "At least you can have the consolation of +knowing you have honestly tried," he said earnestly. + +Hough returned the look with equal steadiness. "But nevertheless I have +failed." + +Sidwell put on his hat, its broad brim shading his eyes and concealing +their expression. + +"Providence willing," he said finally, "I shall ask Miss Baker to be my +wife." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +LOVE IN CONFLICT + + +The habits of a lifetime are not changed in a day. Ben Blair was +accustomed to rising early, and he was astir next morning long before +the city proper was thoroughly awake. In the hotel where he was +stopping, the night clerk looked his surprise as he nodded a stereotyped +"Good-morning." The lobby was in confusion, undergoing its early morning +scrubbing, and the guest sought the street. The sun was just risen, but +the air was already sultry, casting oppression and languor over every +detail of the scene. The bare brick and stone fronts of the buildings, +the brown cobblestones of the pavements, the dull gray of the sidewalks, +all looked inhospitable and forbidding. Few vehicles were yet in +motion--distributors of necessities, of ice, of milk, of vegetables--and +they partook of the general indolence. The horses' ears swayed +listlessly, or were set back in dogged endurance. The drivers lounged +stolidly in their seats. Even the few passengers on the monotonously +droning cars but added to the impression of tacit conformity to the +inevitable. Poorly dressed as a rule, tired looking, they gazed at their +feet or glanced out upon the street with absent indifference. It was all +depressing. + +Ben, normal, vigorous, country bred, shook himself and walked on. He was +as susceptible as a child to surrounding influences, and to those now +about him he was distinctly antagonistic. Life, as a whole, particularly +work, the thing that does most to fill life, he had found good. That +others should so obviously find it different grated upon him. He wanted +to get away from their presence; and making inquiry of the first +policeman he met, he sought the nearest park. + +All his life he had heard of the beauty of the New York parks. The few +people he knew who had visited them emphasized this beauty above all +other features. Perhaps in consequence he was expecting the impossible. +At least, he was disappointed. Here was nature, to be sure, but nature +imprisoned under the thumb of man. The visitor had a healthy desire to +roll on the grass, to turn himself loose, to stretch every joint and +muscle; yet signs on each side gave warning to "keep off." The trees, it +must be admitted, were beautiful and natural,--they could not live and +be otherwise; but somehow they had the air of not being there of their +own free-will. + +Ben chose a bench and sat down. A listlessness was upon him that the +ozone of the prairies had never let him feel. He felt cramped for room, +as though, should he draw as full a breath as he wished, it would +exhaust the supply. A big freshly-shaven policeman strolled by, eying +him suspiciously. It gave the young man the impression of being a +prisoner out on good behavior; and in an indefinite way it almost +insulted his self-respect. For the lack of something better to do he +watched the minion of the law as he pursued his beat. Not Ben Blair +alone, but every person the officer passed, went through this +challenging inspection. The countryman had been too much preoccupied to +notice that he had companions; but now that his interest was aroused, he +began inspecting the occupants of the other benches. The person nearest +him was a little old man in a crumpled linen suit. Most of the time his +nose was close to his morning paper; but now and then he raised his face +and looked away with an absent expression in his faded near-sighted +eyes. Was he enjoying his present life? Ben would have taken his oath to +the contrary. Again there flashed over him the impression of a prison +with this fellow-being in confinement. There was indescribable pathos in +that dull retrospective gaze, and Ben looked away. In the land from +which he came there could not be found such an example of hopeless and +useless age. There the aged had occupation,--the care of their +children's children, a garden, an interest in crops and growing things, +a fame as prophets of weather,--but such apathy as this, never. + +A bit farther away was another type, also a man, badly dressed and +unshaven. His battered felt hat was drawn low over the upper half of his +face, and he was stretched flat upon the narrow bench. He was far too +long for his bed, and to accommodate his superfluous length his knees +were bent up like a jack-knife. Carrying with them the baggy +trousers,--he wore no underclothes,--they left a hairy expanse between +their ends and the yellow, rusty shoes. His chest rose and fell in the +motion of sleep. + +Ben Blair had seen many a human derelict on the frontier; the country +was full of them,--adventurers, searchers after lost health--popularly +denominated "one-lungers"--soldiers of fortune; but he had never known +such a class as this man represented,--useless cumberers of the earth, +wanderers by day, sleepers on the benches of public parks by night. Had +he been a student of sociology he might have found a certain morbid +interest in the spectacle; but it was merely depressing to him; it +destroyed what pleasure he might otherwise have taken in the place. This +man was but a step beneath those dull toilers he had seen on the cars. +They had not yet given up the struggle against the inevitable, or were +too stolid to rebel; while he-- + +Ben sprang to his feet and began retracing his steps. People bred in the +city might be callous to the miseries of their fellows; those provided +with plenty might be content to live their lives side by side with such +hopeless poverty, might even apply to their own profit the necessities +of others; but his was the hospitality and consideration of the +frontier, the democracy that shares its last loaf with its fellow no +matter who he may be, and shares it without question. The heartless +selfishness of the conditions he was observing almost made his blood +boil. He felt that he was amid an alien people: their standards were not +as his standards, their lives were not of his life, and he wanted to +hurry through with his affairs and get away. He returned to the hotel. + +Breakfast was ready by this time, and after some exploration he +succeeded in finding the dining-room. The head-waiter showed him to a +seat and held his chair obsequiously. Another, a negro of uncertain +age, fairly exuding dignity and impassive as a sphinx, poured water over +the ice in his glass with a practised hand, produced the menu, and +waited for his order. Without intending it, the countryman had selected +a rather fashionable place, and the bill of fare was unintelligible as +Sanskrit to him. He looked at it helplessly. A man across the table, +observing his predicament, smiled involuntarily. Ben caught the +expression, looked at its bearer meaningly, looked until it vanished, +and until a faint red, obviously a stranger to that face, took its +place. By a sudden inspiration Blair's hand went to his pocket and +returned with a silver coin. + +"Bring me what a healthy man usually eats at this time of day, and +plenty of it," he said. He glanced absently, blandly past his companion. + +The gentleman of color looked at the speaker as though he were a strange +animal in a "zoo." + +"Yes, sah," he said. + +While he was waiting, Ben looked around him with interest. The room was +big, high, massive of pillars and of beams. Every detail had been +carefully arranged. The heavy oak tables, the spotless linen, the +sparkling silver and glassware appealed to the sense of luxury. The +coolness of the place, due to unseen ventilating fans which he heard +faintly droning somewhere in the ceiling, and increased by the tile +floor and the skilfully adjusted shades, was delightful. The few other +people present were as immaculate as bath, laundry, tailor, and modiste +could make them. From one group at which Ben looked came the suppressed +sound of a woman's laugh; from another, a man's voice, well modulated, +illustrated a point with a story. At a small table in an alcove sat four +young men, and notwithstanding the fact that for them it was yet very +early in the day, the pop of a champagne cork was heard, and soon +repeated. Blair, fresh from a glimpse of the outer and under world, +observed it all, and drew comparisons. Again he saw the huddled figure +of the tramp on the bench; and again he heard the careless music of the +woman's laugh. He saw the dull animal stare of workers on their way to +uncongenial toil; the hands still unsteady from yesterday's excesses +lifting to dry lips the wine that would make them still more unsteady on +the morrow. Could these contrasts be forever continued? he wondered. +Would they be permitted to exist indefinitely side by side? Again, +problem more difficult, could it be possible that the condition in which +they existed was life? He could not believe it. His nature rebelled at +the thought. No; life was not an artificial formula like this. It was +broad and free and natural, as the prairies, his prairies, were natural +and free. This other condition was a delirium, a momentary oblivion, of +which the four young men in the alcove were a symbol. Transient +pleasure, the life might mean; but the reverse, the inevitable reaction +as from all intoxication, that-- + +Finishing his breakfast, Ben lit a cigar and sauntered out to the +street. He had intended spending the morning seeing the town; but for +the present he felt he had had enough--all he could mentally digest. +Without at first any definite destination, in mere excess of healthy +animal activity, he began to walk; but his principal object in coming +to the city, the object he made no effort to conceal, acted upon him +like a lodestone, and almost ere he was aware he was well out in the +residence portion of the city and headed directly for the Baker home. He +was unaware that morning was not the fashionable time to call upon a +lady. To him the fact of inclination and of presence in the vicinity was +sufficient justification; and mounting the well-remembered steps he rang +the doorbell stoutly. A prim maid in cap and diminutive apron, a recent +addition to the household, answered his ring. + +"I'd like to see Miss Baker, if you please," said Ben. + +The girl inspected the visitor critically. Beneath her surface decorum +he had a suspicion that she was inclined to smile. + +"I hardly think Miss Baker is up yet," she announced at last. "Will you +leave your card?" + +Ben looked at the sun, now well elevated in the sky, with an eye trained +in the estimate of time. He drew mental conclusions silently. + +"No," he said. "I will call later." + +He did call later,--two hours later,--to receive from Scotty himself the +intelligence that Florence was out but would soon return. Evidently the +Englishman had been instructed; for, though he added an invitation to +wait, it was only half-hearted, and being declined the matter was not +pressed. + +Ben returned to the hotel, ate his lunch, and considered the situation. +A lesser man would have given up the fight and hidden his bruise; but +Benjamin Blair was in no sense of the word a little man. He had come to +town with definite intent of seeing a certain girl alone, and see her +alone he would. At four o'clock in the afternoon he again pressed the +button on the Baker door-post, and again waited. + +Again it was the maid who answered, and at the expected query she smiled +outright. It seemed to her a capital joke that she was assisting in +playing upon this man of unusual attire. + +"Miss Baker is engaged," she announced, with the glibness of previous +preparation. + +To her surprise the visitor did not depart. Instead, he gave her a look +which sent her mirth glimmering. + +"Very well," he said. The door leading into the vestibule and from +thence into the library was open, and without form of invitation he +entered. "Tell her, please, that I will wait until she is not engaged." + +The girl hesitated. This particular exigency had not been anticipated. + +"Shall I give her a name?" she suggested, with an attempt at formality. + +Ben Blair did not turn. "Tell her what I said." + +He chose a chair facing the entrance and sat down. Departing on her +mission, he heard the maid open another door on the same floor. There +was for a moment a murmur of feminine voices, one of which he +recognized; then silence again, as the door closed. + +A half-hour passed, lengthened into an hour, all but repeated itself, +and still apparently Florence was engaged; and still the visitor sat on. +No power short of fire or an earthquake could have moved him now. Every +fragment of the indomitable perseverance of his nature was aroused, and +instead of discouraging him each minute as it passed only made his +determination the stronger. He shifted his chair so that it faced the +window and the street, crossed his legs comfortably, half closed his +eyes, resting yet watchful, and meditatively observed the growing +procession of homeward bound wage-earners in car and on foot. + +Suddenly there was the rustle of a woman's skirts, and he was conscious +that he was no longer alone. He turned as he saw who it was, sprang to +his feet, and despite the intentional slight of the long wait, a smile +flashed to his face. He started to advance, but stopped. + +"You wished to see me, I understand," a voice said coldly, as the +speaker halted just within the doorway. + +Ben Blair straightened. The hot blood mounted to his brain, throbbing at +his throat and temples. It was not easy for him to receive insult; but +outwardly he gave no sign. + +"I think I have demonstrated the fact you mention," he replied calmly. + +Florence Baker clasped her hands together. "Yes, your persistency is +admirable," she said. + +Ben Blair caught the word. "Persistency," he remarked, "seems the only +recourse when past friendship and common courtesy are ignored." + +Florence made no reply, and going forward Ben placed a chair +deferentially. "It seems necessary for me to reverse the position of +host and guest," he said. "Won't you be seated?" + +The girl did not stir. + +"I hardly think it necessary," she answered. + +"Florence," Ben Blair's great chin lifted meaningly, "I will not be +offended whatever you may do. I have something I wish to say to you. +Please sit down." + +The girl hesitated, and almost against her will looked the man fairly in +the eyes, while her own blazed. Once more she felt his dominance +controlling her, felt as she did when, in what seemed the very long ago, +he had spread his blanket for her upon the prairie earth. + +She sat down. + +Ben drew up another chair and sat facing her. "Why," he was leaning a +bit forward, his elbow on his knee, "why, Florence Baker, have you done +everything in your power to prevent my seeing you? What have I done of +late, what have I ever done, to deserve this treatment from you?" + +The girl evaded his eyes. "It is not usually considered necessary for a +lady to give her reasons for not wishing to see a gentleman," she +parried. The handkerchief in her lap was being rolled unconsciously into +a tight little ball. "The fact itself is sufficient." + +Ben's free hand closed on the chair-arm with a mighty grip. "I beg your +pardon," he said, "but I cannot agree with you. There's a certain amount +of courtesy due between a woman and a man, as there is between man and +man. It is my right to repeat the question." + +The girl felt the cord drawing tighter, felt that in the end she would +bend to his will. + +"And should I refuse?" she asked. + +"You won't refuse." + +The girl's eyes returned to his. Even now she wondered that they did so, +that try as she might she could not deny him. His dominance over her was +well-nigh absolute. Yet she was not angry. An instinct that she had felt +before possessed her; the longing of the weaker for the stronger--the +impulse to give him what he wished. Her whole womanhood went out to him, +with an entire confidence that she would never give to another human +being. Naturally, he was her mate; naturally,--but she was not natural. +She hesitated as she had done once before, a multitude of conflicting +desires and ambitions seething in her brain. If she could but eliminate +the artificial in her nature, the desire for the empty things of the +world, then--But she could not yet give them up, and he could never be +made to care for them with her. She was nearer now to giving them up, to +giving up everything for his sake, than when she had sat alone with him +out on the prairie. She realized this with an added complexity of +emotion; but even yet, even yet-- + +A minute passed in silence, a minute of which the girl was unconscious. +It was Ben Blair's voice repeating his first question that recalled her. +This time she did not hesitate. + +"I think you know the reason as well as I do. If we were mere friends or +acquaintances I would be only too glad to see you; but we are not, and +never can be merely friends. We have got to be either more or less." The +voice, brave so far, dropped. A mist came over the brown eyes. "And we +can't be more," she added. + +The man's grip on the chair-arm loosened. He bent his face farther +forward. "Miss Baker," he exclaimed. "Florence!" + +Interrupting, almost imploring, the girl drew back. "Don't! Please +don't!" she pleaded; then, as she saw the futility of words, with the +old girlish motion her face dropped into her hands. "Oh, I knew it would +mean this if I saw you!" she wailed. "You see for yourself we cannot be +mere friends!" + +The man did not stir, but his eyes changed color and seemed to grow +darker. "No," he said, "we cannot be mere friends; I care for you too +much for that. And I cannot be silent when I came away off here to see +you. I would never respect myself again if I were. You can do what you +please, say what you please, and I'll not resent it--because it is you. +I will love you as long as I live. I am not ashamed of this, because it +is you I love, Florence Baker." He paused, looking tenderly at the +girl's bowed head. + +"Florence," he went on gently, "you don't know what you are to me, or +what your having left me means. I often go over to your old ranch of a +night and sit there alone, thinking of you, dreaming of you. Sometimes +it is all so vivid that I almost feel that you are near, and before I +know it I speak your name. Then I realize you are not there, and I feel +so lonely that I wish I were dead. I think of to-morrow, and the next +day, and the next--the thousands of days that I'll have to live through +without you--and I wonder how I am going to do it." + +The girl's face sank deeper into her hands. A muffled sob escaped her. +"Please don't say any more!" she pleaded. "Please don't! I can't stand +it!" + +But the man only looked at her steadily. + +"I must finish," he said. "I may never have a chance to say this to you +again, and something compels me to tell you of myself, for you are my +good angel. In many ways it is of necessity a rough life I lead, but you +are always with me, and I am the better for it. I haven't drank a drop +since I came to know that I loved you, and we ranchers are not +accustomed to that, Florence. But I never will drink as long as I live; +for I'll think of you, and I couldn't then if I would. Once you saved me +from something worse than drink. There was a man who shot Mr. Rankin and +before this, from almost the first thought I can remember, I had sworn +that if I ever met him I would kill him. We did meet. I followed him day +after day until at last I caught up with him, until he was down and my +hands were upon his throat. But I didn't hurt him, Florence, after all; +I thought of you just in time." + +He was silent, and suddenly the place seemed as still as an empty +church. The girl's sobs were almost hysterical. The man's mood changed; +he reached over and touched her gently on the shoulder. + +"Forgive me for hurting you, Florence," he said. "I--I couldn't help +telling you." + +Involuntarily the girlish figure straightened. + +"Forgive you!" A tear-stained face was looking into his. "Forgive you! +I'll never be able to forgive myself! You are a million times too good +for me, Ben Blair. Forgive you! I ought never to cease asking you to +forgive me!" + +"Florence!" pleaded the man. "Florence!" + +But the girl, in her turn, went on. "I have felt all the while that +certain things I saw here were unreal, that they were not what they +seemed. I have prevaricated to you deliberately. I haven't really been +here long, but it seems to me now that it's been years. As you said I +would, I've looked beneath the surface and seen the sham. At first I +wouldn't believe what I saw; but at last I couldn't help believing it, +and, oh, it hurt! I never expect to be so hurt again. I couldn't be. One +can only feel that way once in one's life." The small form trembled with +the memory, and the listener made a motion as if to stop her; but she +held him away. + +"It isn't that I'm any longer blind; I am acting now with my eyes wide +open. It is something else that keeps me from you now, something that +crept in while I was learning my lesson, something I can't tell you." +Once more the girl could not control herself, and sobbing, trembling, +she covered her face. "Ben, Ben," she wailed, "why did you ever let me +come here? You could have kept me if you would--you can do--anything. I +would have loved you--I did love you all the time; only, only--" She +could say no more. + +For a second the man did not understand; then like a flash came +realization, and he was upon his feet pacing up and down the narrow +room. To lose an object one cares for most is one thing; to have it +filched by another is something very different. He was elemental, this +man from the plains, and in some phases very illogical. The ways of the +higher civilization, where man loves many times, where he dines and +wines in good fellowship with him who is the husband of a former +love--these were not his ways. White anger was in his heart, not against +the woman, but against that other man. His fingers itched to be at his +throat, regardless of custom or law. Temporarily, the rights and wishes +of the woman, the prize of contention, were forgotten. Two young bucks +in the forest do not consider the feelings of the doe that is the reward +of the victor in the contest when they meet; and Ben Blair was very like +these wild things. Only by an effort of the will could he keep from +going immediately to find that other man,--intuition made it unnecessary +to ask his name. As it was, he wanted now to be away. The tiny room +seemed all at once stifling. He wanted to be out of doors where the sun +shone, out where he could think. He seized his hat, then suddenly +remembered, paused to glance--and that instant was his undoing, and +another man's--Clarence Sidwell's--salvation. + +And Florence Baker, at whom he had glanced? She was not tearful or +hysterical now. Instead, she was looking at him out of wide-open eyes. +Well she knew this man, and knew the volcano she had aroused. + +"You won't hurt him, Ben!" she said. "You won't hurt him! For my sake, +say you won't!" + +The devil lurking in the cowboy's blue eyes vanished, but the great jaw +was still set. He reached out and caught the girl by the shoulder. +"Florence Baker," he said, "on your honor, is he worth it--is he worth +the sacrifice you ask of me? Answer!" + +But the girl did not answer, did not stir. "You won't hurt him!" she +repeated. "Say you won't!" + +A moment longer Ben Blair held her; then his hands dropped and he turned +toward the vestibule. + +"I don't know," he said. "I don't know." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +TWO FRIENDS HAVE IT OUT + + +Clarence Sidwell was alone in his down-town bachelor quarters; that is, +alone save for an individual the club-man's friends termed his "Man +Friday," an undersized and very black negro named Alexander Hamilton +Brown, but answering to the contraction "Alec." Valet, man of all work, +steward, Alec was as much a fixture about the place as the floor or the +ceiling; and, like them, his presence, save as a convenience, was +ignored. + +The rooms themselves were on the eleventh floor of a down-town +office-building, as near the roof as it had been possible for him to +secure suitable quarters. For eight years Sidwell had made them his home +when he was in town. The circle of his friends had commented, his mother +and sisters (his father had been long dead) had protested, when, a much +younger man, he first severed himself from the semi-colonial mansion +which for three generations had borne the name of Sidwell; but as usual, +he had had his own way. + +"I want to work when I feel so inclined, when the mood is on me, whether +it's two o'clock of the afternoon or of the morning,'" he had explained; +"and I can't do it without interruption here with you and your +friends." + +For the same reason he had chosen to live near the sky. There, high +above the noise and confusion, he could observe and catch the influence +of the activity which is in itself a powerful stimulant, without +experiencing its unpleasantness. Essentially, the man was an æsthete. If +he went to a race or a football game he wished to view it at a distance. +To be close by, to mingle in the dust of action, to smell the sweat of +conflict, to listen to the low-voiced imprecations of the defeated, +detracted from his pleasure. He could not prevent these +features--therefore he avoided them. + +This particular evening he was doing nothing, which was very unusual for +him. The necessity for society, or for activity, physical or mental, had +long ago become as much a part of his nature as the desire for food. +Dilettante musician as well as artist, when alone at this time of the +evening he was generally at the upright piano in the corner. Even Alec +noticed the unusual lack of occupation on this occasion, and exposed the +key-board suggestively; but, observing the action, Sidwell only smiled. + +"Think I ought to, Alec?" he queried. + +The negro rolled his eyes. Despite his long service, he had never quite +lost his awe of the man he attended. + +"Sho, yo always do that, or something, sah," he said. + +Sidwell smiled again; but it was not a pleasant smile. So this was the +way of it! Even his servant had observed his habitual restlessness, and +had doubtless commented upon it to his companions in the way servants +have of passing judgment upon their employers. And if Alec had noticed +this, then how much more probable it was that others of Sidwell's +numerous acquaintances had noticed it also! He winced at the thought. +That this was his skeleton, and that he had endeavored to keep it +hidden, Sidwell did not attempt to deny to himself. One of the reasons +he had _not_ given to his family for establishing these down-town +quarters was this very one. Time and again, when he had felt the mood of +protest strong upon him, he had come here and locked the doors to fight +it out alone. But after all, it had been useless. The fact had been +obvious, despite the trick; mayhap even more so on account of it. Like +the Wandering Jew he was doomed, followed by a relentless curse. + +He shook himself, and walking over to the sideboard poured out a glass +of Cognac and drank it as though it were wine. Sidwell did not often +drink spirits. Experience had taught him that to begin usually meant to +end with regret the following day; but to-night, with his present mood +upon him, the action was as instinctive as breathing. He moved back to +his chair by the window. + +The evening was hot, on the street depressingly so, but up here after +the sun was set there was always a breeze, and it was cool and +comfortable. The man looked out over the sooty, gravelled roofs of the +surrounding lower buildings, and down on the street, congested with its +flowing stream of cars, equipages, and pedestrians. Times without number +he had viewed the currents and counter-currents of that scene, but never +before had he so caught its vital spirit and meaning. Born of the +elect,--reared and educated among them,--the supercilious superiority of +his class was as much a part of him as his name. While he realized that +physically the high and the low were constructed on practically the same +plan, he had been wont to consider them as on totally separate mental +planes. That the clerk and the roustabout on ten dollars a week, +breathing the same atmosphere,--seeing daily, hourly, minute by minute, +from separate viewpoints, the same life,--that they should have in +common the constant need of diversion had never before occurred to him. +Multitudes of times, as a sociologist, or as a literary man in search of +realism, he had visited the haunts of the under-man. Languidly, +critically, as he would have observed at the "zoo" an animal with whose +habits he was unacquainted, he had watched this rather curious under-man +in his foolish, or worse than foolish, endeavor to find amusement or +oblivion. He had often been interested, as by a clown at a circus; but +more frequently the sight had merely inspired disgust, and he had +returned to his own diversions, his own efforts to secure the same end, +with an all but unconscious thankfulness that he was not such as that +other. To-night, for the first time, and with a wonder we all feel when +the obvious but long unseen suddenly becomes apparent, the primary fact +of human brotherhood, irrespective of caste, came home to him. To-night +and now he realized, diminutive in the distance as they were, that the +swarm of figures that he had hitherto considered mere animals vain of +display were impelled upon the street, compelled to keep moving, moving, +without a pre-arranged destination, by the same spirit of unrest that +had sent him to the buffet. At that moment he was probably nearer to his +fellow-man than ever before in his life; but the truth revealed made +him the more unhappy. He had grown to consider his own unhappiness +totally different and infinitely more acute than that of others; he had +even taken a sort of morbid, paradoxical pleasure in considering it so; +and now even this was taken from him. Not only had his own secret +skeleton been visible when he believed it concealed, but all around him +there suddenly sprang up a very cemetery of other skeletons, grinning at +his blindness and discomfiture. His was not a nature to extract content +from common discomfort, and but one palliative suggested itself,--the +dull red decanter on the sideboard. Rising again and filling a glass, he +returned and stood for a moment full before the open casement of the +window gazing down steadily. + +How long he stood there he hardly knew. Once Alec's dark face peered +into the room, and disappeared as suddenly. At last there was a knock at +the door. + +"Come in," invited Sidwell, without moving. The door opened and closed, +and Winston Hough stood inside. The big man gave one glance at the +surroundings, saw the empty glass, and backed away. "Pardon my +intrusion," he said with his hand on the knob. + +Sidwell turned. "Intrusion--nothing!" He placed the decanter with +glasses and a box of cigars on a convenient table. "Come and have a +drink with me," and the liquor flowed until both glasses were nearly +full. + +Hough hesitated in a reluctance that was not feigned. He felt that +discretion was the better part of valor, and that it would be well to +escape while he could, even at the price of discourtesy. + +"Really," he said, "I only dropped in to say hello. I--" + +"Nonsense!" interrupted Sidwell. "You must think I'm as innocent as a +new-born lamb. Come over here and sit down." + +Hough hesitated, but yielded. + +Sidwell lifted his glass. "Here's to--whatever the trouble may be that +brought you here. People don't visit me for pleasure, or unless they +have nowhere else to go. Drink deep!" + +They drank; and then Sidwell looking at Hough said, "Well, what is it +this time? Going to reform again, or something of that kind, are you?" + +Hough did not attempt evasion. He knew it would be useless. "No," he +said; "to tell you the truth, I'm lonesome--beastly lonesome." + +Sidwell smiled. "Ah, I thought so. But why, pray? Aren't you a married +man with an ark of refuge always waiting?" + +Hough made a grimace. "Yes, that's just the trouble. I'm too much +married, too thoroughly domesticated." + +The other looked blank. "I fail to understand. Certainly you and Elise +haven't at last--" + +"No, no; not that." Hough repelled the suggestion with a gesture as +though it were a tangible object. "Elise left to-day to spend a month +with her uncle up in northern Wisconsin, and I can't get out of town for +a week. I feel as I fancy a small bird feels when it has fallen out of +the nest while its mother is away. The bottom seems to have dropped out +of town and left me stranded." + +The host observed his guest humorously--a bit maliciously. "It is good +for you, you complacent benedict," he remarked unsympathetically. "You +can understand now the normal state of mind of bachelors. Perhaps after +a few more days you'll have been tortured enough to retract the argument +you made to me about matrimony. I repeat, it's poetic justice, and good +for a man now and then to have a dose of his own medicine." + +Hough smiled as at an oft-heard joke. "All right, old man, have it as +you please; only let's steer clear of a useless discussion of the +subject to-night." + +"With all my heart," said Sidwell. The decanter was once more in his +hand. "Let's drink to the very good health of Elise on her journey." + +Hough hesitated. He had a feeling that there was an obscure desecration +in the toast, but it was not tangible enough to resent. "To her very +good health," he repeated in turn. + +For a moment he looked steadily into the face of his companion, now a +trifle flushed. Again an inward monitor warned him it were better to go; +but the first flood of the liquor had reached his brain, and the +temptation to remain was strong. + +"By the way, how are you coming on with your own affair of the heart? +Have you propounded the momentous question to the lady?" + +Sidwell pulled forward the box of cigars and helped himself to one. +"No," he returned with deliberation. "I haven't had a good opportunity. +A gentleman from the West, where they wear their hair long and their +coat-tails short, has suddenly appeared like an obscuring cloud on the +Baker sky. I have a suspicion that he has aspirations for the hand of +the lady in question. Anyhow, he's haunted the house like a ghost +to-day. Mother Baker has for some reason taken a fancy to your humble +servant, and over the 'phone she has kept me informed of the stranger's +tribulations. He seems to be meeting with sufficient difficulties +without my interposition, so out of the goodness of my heart I've given +him an open field. I hope you appreciate my consideration. I fear he's +not of a stripe to do so himself." + +Hough lit his cigar. "Yes, it certainly was kind of you," he said. "Very +kind." + +With a sweep of his hand Sidwell brought the two glasses together with a +click. "I think so. Kind enough to deserve commemoration by a taste of +the elixir of life, don't you agree?" and the liquor flowed beneath a +hand steady in the first stages of intoxication. + +Hough pushed back his chair. "No," he protested. "I've had enough." + +"Enough!" The other laughed unmusically. "Enough! You haven't begun yet. +Drink, and forget your loneliness, you benedict disconsolate!" + +But again the big man shook his head. "No," he repeated. "I've had +enough, and so have you. We'll be drunk, both of us, if we keep up this +clip much longer." + +The smile left the host's face. "Drunk!" he echoed. "Since when, pray, +has that exalted state of the consciousness begun to inspire terror in +you? Drunk! Winston Hough, you're the last man I ever thought would fail +to prove game on an occasion like this! We're no nearer being babes +than we were the last time we got together, unless the termination of +life approximates the beginning. Drink!" + +But still, this time in silence, Hough shook his head. From a partially +open door leading into the adjoining room the negro's eyes peered out. + +Sidwell shifted in his seat with exaggerated deliberation and leaned +forward. His dark mobile face worked passionately, compellingly. +"Winston Hough," he challenged, "do you wish to remain my friend?" + +"I certainly do." + +"Then you know what to do." + +Deep silence fell upon the room. Not only the eyes but the whole of +Alec's face appeared through the doorway. Hough could no more have +resisted longer than he could have leaped from the open window. They +drank together. + +"Now," said Sidwell, "just to show that you mean it, we'll have +another." + +And soon the enemy that puerile man puts into his mouth to steal his +brains was enthroned. + +Sidwell sank into his chair, and lighting his cigar sent a great cloud +of smoke curling up over his head. Hand and tongue were steady, +unnaturally so, but the mood of irresponsible confidence was upon him. + +"Since you've decided to remain my friend," he said, "I'm going to tell +you something confidential, very confidential. You won't give it away?" + +"Never!" Hough shook his head. + +"On your honor?" + +The big man crossed his hands over his heart in the manner of small +boys. + +Sidwell was satisfied. "All right, then. This is the last time you and I +will ever get--this way together." + +Hough looked as solemn as though at a funeral. "Why so?" he protested. +"Are you angry with me yet?" + +"No, it's not that. I've forgiven you." + +"What is it, then?" Hough felt that he must know the reason of his lost +position, and if in his power remove it. + +"I'm going to quit drinking after to-night, for one thing," explained +Sidwell. "It isn't adequate. But even if I didn't, I don't expect we'll +ever be together again after a few days, after you go away." + +The listener looked blank. Even with his muddled brains he had an +intimation that there was more in the statement than there seemed. + +"I don't see why," he said bewilderedly. + +Again Sidwell leaned forward. Again his face grew passionate and +magnetic. + +"The reason why is this. I have had enough, and more than enough, of +this life I've been living. Unless I can find an interest, an +extenuation, I would rather be dead, a hundred times over. I've become a +nightmare to myself, and I won't stand it. In a few days you'll have +departed, and before you return I'll probably have gone too. Nothing but +an intervention of Providence can prevent my marrying Florence Baker +now. Life isn't a story-book or we who live it undiscerning clods. She +knows I am going to ask her to marry me, and I know what her answer +will be. We'll be away on our wedding-trip long before you and Elise +return in the Fall." The speaker's voice was sober. Only the heightened +color of his face betrayed him. + +"I say I'm through with this sort of thing," he repeated, "and I mean +it. I've tried everything on the face of the earth to find an +interest--but one--and Florence Baker represents that one. I hope +against hope that I'll find what I'm searching for there, but I am +skeptical. I have been disappointed too many times to expect happiness +now. This is my last trump, old man, and I'm playing it deliberately and +carefully. If it fails, Florence will probably return; but before God, I +never will! I have thought it all out. I will leave her more money than +she can ever spend--enough if she wishes to buy the elect of the elect. +She is young, and she will soon forget--if it's necessary. With me, my +actions have largely ceased to be a matter of ethics. I am desperate, +Hough, and a desperate man takes what presents itself." + +But Hough was in no condition to appreciate the meaning of the selfish +revelation of his friend's true character. Since he married his lapses +had been infrequent, and already his surroundings were becoming a bit +vague. His one ambition was to appear what he was not--sober; and he +straightened himself stiffly. + +"I see," he said, "sorry to lose you, old pal, very sorry; but what must +be must be, I s'pose," and he drew himself together with a jerk. + +Sidwell glanced at the speaker sarcastically, almost with a shade of +contempt. "I know you're sorry, deucedly sorry," he mocked. "So sorry +that you'd probably like to drown your excess of emotion in the flowing +bowl." Again the ironic glance swept the other's face. "Another smile +would be good for you, anyway. You're entirely too serious. Here you +are!" and the decanter once more did service. + +Hough picked up his glass and nodded with gravity "Yes, I always was a +sad devil." By successive movements the liquor approached his lips. +"Lots of troubles and tribulations all my--" + +The sentence was not completed; the Cognac remained untasted. At that +moment there was a knock upon the door. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE BACK-FIRE + + +When Ben Blair left the Baker home he went back to his room at the +hotel, closed and locked the door, and, throwing off coat and hat, +stretched himself full-length upon the floor, gazing up at the ceiling +but seeing nothing. It had been a hard fight for self-control there on +the prairie the day Florence rejected him, but it was as nothing to the +tumult that now raged in his brain. Then, despite his pain, hope had +remained. Now hope was lost, and in its place stood a maddening +might-have-been. Under the compulsion of his will, the white flood of +anger had passed, but it only made more difficult the solution of the +problem confronting him. Under the influence of passion the situation +would have been a mere physical proposition; but with opportunity to +think, another's wishes and another's rights--those of the woman he +loved--challenged him at every turn. + +At first it seemed that a removal of his physical presence, a going away +never to return, was adequate solution of the difficulty; but he soon +realized that it was not. Deeper than his own love was his desire for +the happiness of the girl he had known from childhood. Had he been +certain that she would be happy with the man who had fascinated her, he +could have conquered self, could have returned to his prairies, his +cattle, his work, and have concealed his hurt. But it was impossible for +him to believe she would be happy. Without volition on his part he had +become an actor in this drama, this comedy, this tragedy,--whatever it +might prove to be; and he felt that it would be an act of cowardice upon +his part to leave before the play was ended. He was not in the least +religious in the sense of creed and dogma. In all his life he had +scarcely given a thought to religion. His knowledge of the Almighty by +name had been largely confined to that of a word to conjure with in +mastering an obstreperous bronco; but, in the broad sense of personal +cleanliness and individual duty, he was religious to the core. He would +not shirk a responsibility, and a responsibility faced him now. + +Hour after hour he lay prone while his active brain suggested one course +after another, all, upon consideration, proving inadequate. Gradually +out of the chaos one fundamental fact became distinct in his mind. He +must know more of this man Clarence Sidwell before he could leave the +city, and this decision brought him to his feet. Under the +circumstances, a strategist might have employed others to gather +surreptitiously the information desired; but such was not the nature of +Benjamin Blair. One thing he had learned in dealing with his fellows, +which was that the most effective way to secure the thing one wished was +to go direct to the man who had it to give. In this case Sidwell was the +man. With a grim smile Ben remembered the invitation and the address he +had received the first night he was in town. He would avail himself of +both. + +Night had fallen long ere this; when Ben arose the room was in darkness, +save for the reflected light which came through the heavily curtained +windows from the street lamps. He turned on an electric bulb and made a +hasty toilet. In doing so his eye fell upon the two big revolvers within +the drawer of the dresser; and the same impulse that had caused him to +bring them into this land of civilization made him thrust them into his +hip pockets. It was more habit than anything else, just as a man with a +dog friend feels vaguely uncomfortable unless his pet is with him. Blair +had the vigorously recurring appetite of a healthy animal, and it +suddenly occurred to him that he had not yet dined. Descending to the +street, he sought a _café_ and ate a hearty meal. + +A half-hour later, the elevator boy of the Metropolitan Block, where +Sidwell had his quarters, was surprised, on answering the indicator, to +find a young man in an abnormally broad hat and flannel shirt awaiting +him. The youth was of vivid imagination, and knowing that a Wild West +troupe was performing in town, one glance at Ben's hat, his suspicions +became certainty. + +"Eleventh floor," he announced, when the passenger had told his +destination; then as the car moved upward he gathered courage and looked +the rancher fair in the eye. + +"Say, Mister," he ventured, "give me a pass to the show, will you?" + +For an instant Ben looked blank; then he understood, and his hand +sought his trousers' pocket. "Sorry," he explained, "but I don't happen +to have any with me. Will this do instead?" and he produced a +half-dollar. + +The boy brought the car deftly to a stop within a half-inch of the level +of the desired floor. "Thank you. Mr. Sidwell--straight ahead, and turn +to the left down the short hall," he said obligingly. + +Blair stepped out, saying, "Don't fail to be around to-morrow when I do +my stunt." + +With open-mouthed admiration the boy watched the frontiersman's long +free stride--a movement that struck the floor with the springiness of a +cat, very different from the flat-footed jar of pedestrians on paved +streets. + +"I won't!" he called after him. "I'd rather see't than a dozen +ball-games! I'll look for you, Mister!" + +At the interrupting tap upon the door, Sidwell voiced a languid "Come +in," and merely shifted in his seat; but his big companion, with the +hospitality of inebriation, had returned his glass unsteadily to the +table and arisen. He had taken a couple of uncertain steps, as if to +open the door, when, in answer to the summons, Ben Blair stepped inside. +Hough halted with a suddenness which all but cost him his equilibrium. +The expansive smile upon his face vanished, and he stared as though the +bottomless pit had opened at his feet. For a fraction of a minute not +one of the three men spoke or stirred, but in that time the steady blue +eyes of the countryman took in the details of the scene--the luxurious +furnishings, the condition of the two men--with the rapidity and +minuteness of a sensitized plate. Ironic chance had chosen an +unpropitious night for his call. Intoxication surrounding a bar, under +the stimulus of numbers, and preceding or following some exciting event, +he could understand, could, perhaps, condone; but this solitary +dissipation, drunkenness for its own sake, was something new to him. The +observing eyes fastened themselves upon the host's face. + +"In response to your invitation," he said evenly, "I've called." + +Sidwell roused himself. His face flushed. Despite the liquor in his +brain, he felt the inauspicious chance of the meeting. + +"Glad you did," he said, with an attempt at ease. "Deucedly glad. I +don't know of anyone in the world I'd rather see. Just speaking of you, +weren't we?" he said, appealing to Hough. "By the way, Mr.--er--Blair, +shake hands with Mr. Hough, Mr. Winston Hough. Mighty good fellow, +Hough, but a bit melancholy. Needs cheering up a bit now and then. +Needed it badly to-night--almost cried for it, in fact"; and the speaker +smiled convivially. + +Hough extended his hand with elaborate formality. "Delighted to meet +you," he managed to articulate. + +"Thank you," returned the other shortly. + +Sidwell meanwhile was bringing a third chair and glass. "Come over, +gentlemen," he invited, "and we'll celebrate this, the proudest moment +of my life. You drink, of course, Mr. Blair?" + +Ben did not stir. "Thank you, but I never drink," he said. + +"What!" Sidwell smiled sceptically. "A cattle-man, and not refresh +yourself with good liquor? You refute all the precedents! Come over and +take something!" + +Ben only looked at him steadily. "I repeat, I never drink," he said +conclusively. + +Sidwell sat down, and Hough followed his lead. + +"All right, all right! Have a cigar, then. At least you smoke?" + +"Yes," assented Blair, "I smoke--sometimes." + +The host extended the box hospitably. "Help yourself. They're good ones, +I'll answer for that. I import them myself." + +Ben took a step forward, but his hands were still in his pockets. "Mr. +Sidwell," he said, "we may as well save time and try to understand each +other. In some ways I am a bit like an Indian. I never smoke except with +a friend, and I am not sure you are a friend of mine. To be candid with +you, I believe you are not." + +Hough stirred in his chair, but Sidwell remained impassive save that the +convivial smile vanished. + +A quarter of a minute passed. Once the host took up his glass as if to +drink, but put it down untasted. At last he indicated the vacant chair. + +"Won't you be seated?" he invited. + +Ben sat down. + +"You say," continued Sidwell, "that I am not your friend. The statement +and your actions carry the implication that of necessity, then, we must +be enemies." + +The speaker was sparring for time. His brain was not yet normal, but it +was clearing rapidly. He saw this was no ordinary man he had to deal +with, no ordinary circumstance; and his plan of campaign was unevolved. + +"I fail to see why," he continued. + +"Do you?" said Ben, quietly. + +Sidwell lit a cigar nonchalantly and smoked for a moment in silence. + +"Yes," he reiterated. "I fail to see why. To have made you an enemy +implies that I have done you an injury, and I recall no way in which I +could have offended you." + +Ben indicated Hough with a nod of his head. "Do you wish a third party +to hear what we have to say?" he inquired. + +Sidwell looked at the questioner narrowly. Deep in his heart he was +thankful that they two were not alone. He did not like the look in the +countryman's blue eyes. + +"Mr. Hough," he said with dignity, "is a friend of mine. If either of +you must leave the room, most assuredly it will not be he." His eyes +returned to those of the visitor, held there with an effort. "By the +bye," he challenged, "what is it we have to say, anyway? So far as I can +see, there's no point where we touch." + +Ben returned the gaze steadily. "Absolutely none?" he asked. + +"Absolutely none." Sidwell spoke with an air of finality. + +The countryman leaned a bit forward and rested his elbow upon his knee, +his chin upon his hand. + +"Suppose I suggest a point then: Miss Florence Baker." + +Sidwell stiffened with exaggerated dignity. "I never discuss my +relations with a lady, even with a friend. I should be less apt to do so +in speaking with a stranger." + +The lids of Ben's eyes tightened just a shade. "Then I'll have to ask +you to make an exception to the rule," he said slowly. + +"In that case," Sidwell responded quickly, "I'll refuse." + +For a moment silence fell. Through the open window came the ceaseless +drone of the shifting multitude on the street below. + +"Nevertheless, I insist," said Ben, calmly. + +Sidwell's face flushed, although he was quite sober now. "And I must +still refuse," he said, rising. "Moreover, I must request that you leave +the room. You forget that you are in my home!" + +Ben arose calmly and walked to the door through which he had entered. +The key was in the lock, and turning it he put it in his pocket. Still +without haste he returned to his seat. + +"That this is your home, and that you were its dictator before I came +and will be after I leave, I do not contest," he said; "but temporarily +the place has changed hands. I do not think you were quite in earnest +when you refused to talk with me." + +For answer, Sidwell jerked a cord beside the table. A bell rang +vigorously in the rear of the apartments, and the big negro hurried into +the room. + +"Alec," directed the master, "call a policeman at once! At once--do you +hear?" + +"Yes, sah," and the servant started to obey; but the visitor's eye +caught his. + +"Alec," said Ben, steadily, "don't do that! I'll be the first person to +leave this room!" + +Instantly Sidwell was on his feet, his face convulsed with passion. +"Curse you!" he cried. "You'll pay for this! I'll teach you what it +means to hold up a man in his own house!" He turned to his servant with +a look that made the latter recoil. "I want you to understand that when +I give an order I mean it. Go!" + +Blair was likewise on his feet, his long body stretched to its full +height, his blue eyes fastened upon the face of the panic-stricken +darky. + +"Alec," he repeated evenly, "you heard what I said." Without a motion +save of his head he indicated a seat in the corner of the room. "Sit +down!" + +Sidwell took a step forward, his clenched fists raised menacingly. + +"Blair! you--you--" + +"Yes." + +"You--" + +"Certainly, I--" + +That was all. It was not a lengthy conversation, or a brilliant one, but +it was adequate. Face to face, the two men stood looking in each other's +eyes, each taking his opponent's measure. Hough had also risen; he +expected bloodshed; but not once did Blair stir as much as an eyelid, +and after that first step Sidwell also halted. Beneath his supercilious +caste dominance he was a physical coward, and at the supreme test he +weakened. The flood of anger passed as swiftly as it had come, leaving +him impotent. He stood for a moment, and then the clenched fist dropped +to his side. + +For the first time, Ben Blair moved. Unemotionally as before, his nod +indicated the chair in the corner. + +"Sit over there as long as I stay, Alec," he directed; and the negro +responded with the alacrity of a well-trained dog. + +Ben turned to the big man. "And you, too, Hough. My business has nothing +to do with you, but it may be well to have a witness. Be seated, +please." + +Hough obeyed in silence. Sober as Sidwell now, his mind grasped the +situation, and in spite of himself he felt his sympathy going out to +this masterful plainsman. + +Ben Blair now turned to the host, and as he did so his wiry figure +underwent a transformation that lived long in the spectators' minds. +With his old characteristic motion, his hands went into his trousers' +pockets, his chest expanded, his great chin lifted until, looking down, +his eyes were half closed. + +"You, Mr. Sidwell," he said, "can stand or sit, as you please; but one +thing I warn you not to do--don't lie to me. We're in the home of lies +just now, but it can't help you. Your face says you are used to having +your own way, right or wrong. Now you'll know the reverse. So long as +you speak the truth, I won't hurt you, no matter what you say. If you +don't, and believe in God, you'd best make your peace with Him. Do you +doubt that?" + +One glance only Sidwell raised to the towering face, and his eyes fell. +Every trace of fight, of effrontery, had left him, and he dropped weakly +into his chair. + +"No, I don't doubt you," he said. + +Ben likewise sat down, but his eyes were inexorable. + +"First of all, then," he went on, "you will admit you were mistaken when +you said there was no point where we touched?" + +"Yes, I was mistaken." + +"And you were not serious when you refused to talk with me?" + +A spasm of repugnance shot over the host's dark face. He heard the +labored breathing of the negro in the corner, and felt the eyes of his +big friend upon him. + +"Yes, I was not serious," he admitted slowly. + +Ben's long legs crossed, his hands closed on the chair-arms. + +"Very well, then," he said. "Tell me what there is between you and Miss +Baker." + +Sidwell lit a cigar, though the hand that held the match trembled. + +"Everything, I hope," he said. "I intend marrying her." + +The ranchman's face gave no sign at the confession. + +"You have asked her, have you?" + +"No. Your coming prevented. I should otherwise have done so to-day." + +The long fingers on the chair-arms tightened until they grew white. + +"You knew why I came to town, did you not?" + +Sidwell hesitated. + +"I had an intuition," he admitted reluctantly. + +Again silence fell, and the subdued roar of the city came to their ears. + +"You have not called at the Baker home to-day," continued Blair. "Was it +consideration for me that kept you away?" The thin, weather-browned face +grew, if possible, more clean-cut. "Remember to talk straight." + +Sidwell took the cigar from his lips. An exultation he could not quite +repress flooded him. His eyes met the other's fair. + +"No," he said, "it was anything but consideration for you. I knew she +was going to refuse you." + +In the corner the negro's eyes widened. Even Hough held his breath; but +not a muscle of Ben Blair's body stirred. + +"You say you knew," he said evenly. "How did you know?" + +Sidwell flicked the ash from his cigar steadily. He was regaining, if +not his courage, at least some of his presence of mind. This seeming +desperado from the West was a being upon whom reason was not altogether +wasted. + +"I knew because her mother told me--about all there was to tell, I +guess--of your relations before Florence came here. I knew if she +refused you then she would be more apt to do so now." + +Still the figure in brown was that of a statue. + +"She told you--what--you say?" + +Sidwell shifted uncomfortably. He saw breakers ahead. + +"The--main reason at least," he modified. + +"Which was--" insistently. + +Sidwell hesitated, his new-found confidence vanishing like the smoke +from his cigar. But there was no escape. + +"The reason, she said, was because you were--minus a pedigree." + +The last words dropped like a bomb in the midst of the room. Ben Blair +swiftly rose from his seat. The negro's eyes rolled around in search of +some place of concealment. With a protesting movement Hough was on his +feet. + +"Gentlemen!" he implored. "Gentlemen!" + +But the intervention was unnecessary. Ben Blair had settled back in his +seat. Once more his hands were on the chair-arms. + +"Do you," he insinuated gently, "consider the reason she gave an +adequate one? Do you consider that it had any rightful place in the +discussion?" + +The question, seemingly simple, was hard to answer. An affirmative +trembled on the city man's tongue. He realized it was his opportunity +for a crushing rejoinder. But cold blue eyes were upon him and the +meaning of their light was only too clear. + +"I can understand the lady's point of view," he said evasively. + +Ben Blair leaned forward, the great muscles of his jaw and temples +tightening beneath the skin. + +"I did not ask for the lady's point of view," he admonished, "I asked +for your own." + +Again Sidwell felt his opportunity, but physical cowardice intervened. +No power on earth could have made him say "yes" when the other looked at +him like that. + +"No," he lied, "I do not see that it should make the slightest +difference." + +"On your honor, you swear you do not?" + +Sidwell repeated the statement, and sealed it with his honor. + +Ben Blair relaxed, and Hough mopped his brow with a sigh of relief. Even +Sidwell felt the respite, but it was short-lived. + +"I think," Ben resumed, "that what you've just said and sworn to gives +the lie to your original statement that you have given me no cause for +enmity. According to your own showing you are the one existing obstacle +between Florence Baker and myself. Is it not so?" + +Like a condemned criminal, Sidwell felt the noose tightening. + +"I can't deny it," he admitted. + +For some seconds Ben Blair looked at him with an expression almost +menacing. When he again spoke the first trace of passion was in his +voice. + +"Such being the case, Clarence Sidwell," he went on, "caring for +Florence Baker as I do, and knowing you as I do, why in God's name +should I leave you, coward, in possession of the dearest thing to me in +the world?" For an instant the voice paused, the protruding lower jaw +advanced until it became a positive disfigurement. "Tell me why I should +sacrifice my own happiness for yours. I have had enough of this +word-play. Speak!" + +In every human life there is at some time a supreme moment, a tragic +climax of events; and Sidwell realized that for him this moment had +arrived. Moreover, it had found him helpless and unprepared. Artificial +to the bone, he was fundamentally disqualified to meet such an +emergency; for artifice or subterfuge would not serve him now. One hasty +glance into that relentless face caused him to turn his own away. Long +ago, in the West, he had once seen a rustler hung by a posse of +ranchers. The inexorable expression he remembered on the surrounding +faces was mirrored in Ben Blair's. His brain whirled; he could not +think. His hand passed aimlessly over his face; he started to speak, but +his voice failed him. + +Ben Blair shifted forward in his seat. The long sinewy fingers gripped +the chair like a panther ready to spring. + +"I am listening," he admonished. + +Sidwell felt the air of the room grow stifling. A big clock was ticking +on the wall, and it seemed to him the second-beats were minutes apart. +His downcast eyes just caught the shape of the hands opposite him, and +in fancy he felt them already tightening upon his throat. Like a +drowning man, scenes in his past life swarmed through his brain. He saw +his mother, his sisters, at home in the old family mansion; his friends +at the club, chatting, laughing, drinking, smoking. In an impersonal +sort of way he wondered how they would feel, what they would say, when +they heard. On the vision swept. It was Florence Baker he saw +now--Florence, all in fleecy white; the girl and himself were on the +broad veranda of the Baker home. They were not alone. Another +figure--yes, this same menacing figure now so near--was on the walk +below them, his broad-brimmed hat in his hand, but leaving. Florence +was speaking; a smile was upon her lips. + +Like a flash of lightning the images of fancy passed, the present +returned. At last came the solution once before suggested,--the +back-fire! Sidwell straightened, every nerve in his body tense. He +spoke--and scarcely recognized his own voice. + +"There is a reason," he said, "a very adequate reason, one which +concerns another more than it does us." With a supreme effort of will +the man met the blue eyes of his opponent squarely. "It is because +Florence Baker loves me and doesn't love you. Because she would never +forgive you, never, if you did--what you think of doing now." + +For an instant the listening figure remained tense, and it seemed to +Sidwell that his own pulse ceased beating; then the long sinewy body +collapsed as under a physical blow. + +"God!" said a low voice. "I forgot!" + +Not one of the three spectators stirred or spoke. Like sheep, they +awaited the lead of their master. + +And it came full soon. Stiffly, clumsily, still in silence, Ben Blair +arose. His face was drawn and old, his step was slow and halting. Like +one walking in his sleep, he made his way to the door, took the key from +his pocket, and turned the lock. Not once did he speak or glance back. +The door closed softly, and he was gone. + +Behind him for a second there was silence, inactive incredulity as at a +miracle performed; then, in a blaze of long repressed fury, Sidwell +stood beside the table. Not pausing for a glass, he raised the red +decanter to his lips and drank, drank, as though the liquor were water. + +"Curse him! I'll marry that girl now if for no other reason than to get +even with him. If it's the last act of my life, I swear I'll marry +her!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE UPPER AND THE NETHER MILLSTONES + + +Out on the street once more, Ben Blair looked about him as one awakening +from a dream. From the darkened arch of a convenient doorway he watched +the endless passing throng with a dull sort of wonder. He was surprised +that the city should be awake at that late hour; and stepping out into +the light he held up his watch. The hands indicated a few minutes past +ten, and in surprise he carried the timepiece to his ear. Yes, it was +running, and must be correct. He had seemed to be up there on the +eleventh floor for hours; but as a matter of fact it had been only +minutes. Practically, the whole night was yet before him. + +Slowly, in a listless way, he started to walk back to his hotel. Instead +of the night becoming cooler it had grown sultrier, and in places the +walk was fairly packed with human beings. More than once he had to turn +out of his way to pass the chattering groups. In so doing he was often +conscious that the flow of small talk suddenly ceased, and that, nudging +each other, the chatterers pointed his way. At first he looked about to +see what had attracted them, but he very soon realized that he himself +was the object of attention. Even here, cosmopolitan as were the +surroundings, he was a marked man, was recognized as a person from a +wholly different life; and his feeling of isolation deepened. He moved +on more swiftly. + +The sidewalk in front of his hotel was fringed with a row of chairs, in +which sat guests in various stages of negligee costume. Nearly every man +was smoking, and the effect in the semi-darkness was like that of +footlights turned low. Steps and lobby were likewise crowded; but Ben +made his way straight to his room. One idea now possessed him. His +business was finished, and he wanted to be away. Turning on a light, he +found a railroad guide and ran down the columns of figures. There was no +late night train going West; he must wait until morning. Extinguishing +the light, he drew a chair to the open window and lit a cigar. + +With physical inactivity, consciousness of his surroundings forced +themselves on his attention. Subdued, pulsating, penetrating, the murmur +of the great hotel came to his ears; the drone of indistinguishable +voices, the pattering footsteps of bell-boys and _habitués_, the purr of +the elevator as it moved from floor to floor, the click of the gate as +it stopped at his own level, the renewed monotone as it passed by. + +Continuous, untiring, the sounds suggested the unthinking vitality of a +steam-engine or of a dynamo in a powerhouse. A mechanic by nature, as a +school-boy Ben had often induced Scotty to take him to the electric +light station, where he had watched the great machines with a +fascination bordering on awe, until fairly dragged away by the prosaic +Englishman. This feeling of his childhood recurred to him now with +irresistible force. The throb of the motor of human life was pulsating +in his ears; but added to it was something more, something elusive, +intangible, but all-powerful. The moment he had arrived within the city +limits he had felt the first trace of its presence. As he approached the +centre of congestion it had deepened, had become more and more a guiding +influence. Since then, by day or by night, wherever he went, augmenting +or diminishing, it was constantly with him. And it was not with him +alone. Every human being with whom he came in contact was likewise +consciously or unconsciously under the spell. The crowds he had passed +on the streets were unthinkingly answering its guidance. The trolley +cars echoed its voice. It was the spirit of unrest--a thing ubiquitous +and all-penetrating as the air that filled their lungs--a subtle +stimulant that they took in with every breath. + +Ben Blair arose and put on his hat. He had been sitting only a few +minutes, but he felt that he could not longer bear the inactivity. To do +so meant to think; and thought was the thing that to-night he was +attempting to avoid. Moreover, for one of the few times in his life he +could remember he was desperately lonely. It seemed to him that nowhere +within a thousand miles was another of his own kind. Instinctively he +craved relief, and that alleviation could come in but one way,--through +physical activity. Again he sought the street. + +To some persons a great relief from loneliness is found in mingling with +a crowd, even though it be of strangers; but Ben was not like these. His +desire was to be away as far as possible from the maddening drone. +Boarding a street car, he rode out into the residence section, clear to +the end of the loop; then, alighting, he started to walk back. A full +moon had arisen, and outside the shadow-blots of trees and buildings the +earth was all alight. The asphalt of the pavements and the cement of the +walks glistened white under its rays. Loth to sacrifice the comparative +out-of-door coolness for the heat within, practically every house had +its group on the doorsteps, or scattered upon the narrow lawns. +Accustomed to magnificent distances, to boundless miles of surrounding +country, to privacy absolute, Ben watched this scene with a return of +the old wonder,--the old feeling of isolation, of separateness. Side by +side, young men and women, obviously lovers, kept their places, +indifferent to his observation. Other couples, still more careless, sat +with circling arms and faces close together, returning his gaze +impassively. Nothing, apparently, in the complex gamut of human nature +was sacred to these folk. To the solitary spectator, the revelation was +more depressing than even the down-town unrest; and he hurried on. + +Further ahead he came to the homes of the wealthy,--great piles of stone +and brick, that seemed more like hotels than residences. The forbidding +darkness of many of the houses testified that their owners were out of +town, at the seaside or among the mountains; but others were brilliantly +lighted from basement to roof. Before one a long line of carriages was +drawn up. Stiffly liveried footmen, impassive as automatons, waited the +erratic pleasure of their masters. A little group of spectators was +already gathered, and Ben likewise paused, observing the spectacle +curiously. + +A social event of some sort was in progress. From some concealed place +came the music of a string orchestra. Every window of the great pile was +open for ventilation, and Ben could hear and see almost as plainly as +the guests themselves. For a time, deep, insistent, throbbing in +measured beat, came the drone of the 'cello, the wail of the clarionet, +and, faintly audible beneath, the rustle of moving feet. Then the music +ceased; and a few seconds later a throng of heated dancers swarmed +through the open doorway to the surrounding veranda, and simultaneously +a chatter broke forth. Fans, like gigantic butterfly wings, vibrated to +and fro. Skilful waiters, in black and white, glanced in and out. +Laughter, thoughtless and care-free, mingled in the general scene. + +The music still, Ben Blair was about to move on, when suddenly a man and +a girl in the shadow of a window on the second floor caught and held his +attention. As far as he could see, they were alone. Evidently one or the +other of them knew the house intimately, and had deliberately sought the +place. From the veranda beneath, the flow of talk continued +uninterruptedly; but they gave it no attention. The spectator could +distinctly see the man as he leaned back in the light and spoke +earnestly. At times he gesticulated with rapid passionate motions, such +as one unconsciously uses when deeply absorbed. Now and again, with the +bodily motions that we have learned to connect with the French, his +shoulders were shrugged expressively. He was obviously talking against +time; for his every motion showed intense concentration. No spectator +could have mistaken the nature of his speech. Passion supreme, abandon +absolute, were here personified. As he spoke, he gradually leaned +farther forward toward the woman who listened. His face was no longer in +the light. Suddenly, at first low, as though coming from a distance, +increasing gradually until it throbbed into the steady beat of a waltz, +the music recommenced. It was the signal for action and for throwing off +restraint. The man leaned forward; his arm stretched out and closed +about the figure of the woman. His face pressed forward to meet hers, +again and again. + +Not Ben alone, but a half-dozen other spectators had watched the scene. +An overdressed girl among the number tittered at the sight. + +But Ben scarcely noticed. With the strength of insulted womanhood, the +girl had broken free, and now stood up full in the light. One look she +gave to the man, a look which should have withered him with its scorn; +then, gathering her skirts, she almost ran from the room. + +Only a few seconds had the girl's face been clear of the shadow; yet it +had been long enough to permit recognition, and instantly liquid fire +flowed in the veins of Benjamin Blair. His breath came quick and short +as that of a runner passing under the wire, and his great jaw set. The +woman he had seen was Florence Baker. + +With one motion he was upon the terrace leading toward the house. +Another second, and he would have been well upon his way, when a hand +grasped him from behind and drew him back. With a half-articulated +imprecation Ben turned--and stood fronting Scotty Baker. The +Englishman's face was very white. Behind the compound lenses his eyes +glowed in a way Ben had not thought possible; but his voice was steady +when he spoke. + +"I saw too, Ben," he said, "and I understand. I know what you want to +do, and God knows I want to do the same thing myself; but it would do no +good; it would only make the matter worse." He looked at the younger man +fixedly, almost imploringly. His voice sank. "As you care for Florence, +Ben, go away. Don't make a scene that will do only harm. Leave her with +me. I came to take her home, and I'll do so at once." The speaker +paused, and his hand reached out and grasped the other's with a grip +unmistakable. "I appreciate your motive, my boy, and I honor it. I know +how you feel; and whatever I may have been in the past, from this time +on I am your friend. I am your friend now, when I ask you to go," and he +fairly forced his companion away. + +Once outside the crowd, Ben halted. He gave the Englishman one long +look; his lips opened as if to speak; then, without a word, he moved +away. + +There was no listlessness about him now. He was throbbing with repressed +energy, like a great engine with steam up. His feet tapped with the +regularity of clock-ticks over mile after mile of the city walks. He +longed for physical weariness, for sleep; but the day, with its manifold +mental exaltations and depressions, prevented. It seemed to him that he +could never sleep again, could never again be weary. He could only walk +on and on. + +Down town again, he found the crowds smaller and the border of chairs in +front of his hotel largely empty. A few cigars still burned in the +half-light, but they were the last flicker of a conflagration now all +but extinguished. The restless throb of the human dynamo was lower and +more subdued. The street cars were practically empty. Instead of a +constant stream of vehicles, an occasional cab clattered past. The city +was preparing for its brief hours of fitful rest. + +Straight on Ben walked, between the towering office buildings, beside +the now darkened department-store hives, past the giant wholesale +establishments and warehouses; until, quite unintentionally on his part, +and almost before he realized it, he found himself in another world, +another city, as distinct as though it were no part of the cosmopolitan +whole. Again he came upon throbbing life; but of quite another type. +Once more he met people in abundance, noisy, chattering human beings; +but more frequently than his own he now heard foreign tongues that he +did not understand, and did not even recognize. No longer were the +pedestrians well dressed or apparently prosperous. Instead, poverty and +squalor and filth were rampant. More loth even than the well-to-do of +the suburbs to go within doors, the swarming mass of humanity covered +the steps of the houses, and overflowed upon the sidewalk, even upon the +street itself. There were men, women, children; the lame, the halt, the +blind. The elders stared at the visitor, while the youngsters, secure +in numbers, guyed him to their hearts' content. + +It was all as foreign to any previous experience of this countryman as +though he had come from a different planet. He had read of the city +slums as of Stanley's Central African negro tribes with unpronounceable +names; and he had thought of them in much the same way. To him they had +been something known to exist, but with which it was but remotely +probable he would ever come in contact. Now, without preparation or +premeditation, thrown face to face with the reality, it brought upon him +a sickening feeling, a sort of mental nausea. Ben was not a +philanthropist or a social reformer; the inspiring thought of the +inexhaustible field for usefulness therein presented had never occurred +to him. He wished chiefly to get away from the stench and ugliness; and, +turning down a cross street, he started to return. + +The locality he now entered was more modern and better lighted than the +one he left behind. The decorated building fronts, with their dazzling +electric signs, partook of the characteristics of the inhabitants, who +seemed overdressed and vulgarly ostentatious. The gaudily trapped +saloons, _cafés_, and music halls, spoke a similar message. This was the +recreation spot of the people of the quarter; their land of lethe. So +near were the saloons and drinking gardens that from their open doorways +there came a pungent odor of beer. Every place had instrumental music of +some kind. Mandolins and guitars, in the hands of gentlemen of color, +were the favorites. Pianos of execrable tone, played by youths with +defective complexions, or by machinery, were a close second. Before one +place, a crowd blocked the sidewalk; and there Ben stopped. A vaudeville +performance was going on within--an invisible dialect comedian doing a +German stunt to the accompaniment of wooden clogs and disarranged verbs. +A barker in front, coatless, his collar loosened, a black string tie +dangling over an unclean shirt front, was temporarily taking a +much-needed rest. An electric sign overhead dyed his cheeks with +shifting colors--first red, then green, then white. Despite its veneer +of brazen effrontery, the face, with its great mouth and two days' +growth of beard, was haggard and weary looking. Ben mentally pictured, +with a feeling of compassion, other human beings doing their idiotic +"stunts" inside, sweltering in the foul air; and he wondered how, if an +atom of self-respect remained in their make-up, they could fail to +despise themselves. + +But the comedian had subsided in a roar of applause, and again the +barker's hands were gesticulating wildly. + +"Now's your time, ladies and gentlemen," he harangued. "It's continuous, +you know, and Madame--" + +But Ben did not wait for more. Elbow first, he pushed into the crowd, +and as it instantly closed about him the odor of unclean bodies made him +fairly hold his breath. + +Straight ahead, looking neither to right nor to left, went the +countryman; he turned the corner of the block, a corner without a light. +Suddenly, with an instinctive tightening of his breath, he drew back. He +had nearly stepped upon a man, dead drunk, stretched half in a darkened +doorway, half on the walk. The wretch's head was bent back over one of +the iron steps until it seemed as if he must choke, and he was snoring +heavily. + +Not a policeman was in sight, and Ben, in great physical disgust, +carried the helpless hulk to one side, out of the way of pedestrians, +took off the tattered coat and rolled it into a pillow for the head, and +then moved on with the sound of the stertorous drunken breathing still +in his ears. + +Still other experiences were in store for him. He made a half block +without further interruption; then he suddenly heard at his back a +frightened scream, and a young woman came running toward him, followed +at a distance by a roughly dressed man, the latter apparently the worse +for liquor. Blair stopped, and the girl coming up, caught him by the arm +imploringly. + +"Help me, Mister, please!" she pleaded breathlessly. "He--Tom, back +there--insulted me. I--" A burst of hysterical tears interrupted the +confession. + +Meanwhile, seeing the turn events had taken, the pursuer had likewise +stopped, and now he hesitated. + +"All right," replied Ben. "Go ahead! I'll see that the fellow doesn't +trouble you again." And he started back. + +But the girl's hand was again upon his arm. "No," she protested, "not +that way, please. He's my steady, Tom is, only to-night he's drank too +much, and--and--he doesn't realize what he's doing." The grip on his arm +tightened as she looked imploringly into his face. "Take me home, +please!" A catch was in her voice. "I'm afraid." + +Ben hesitated. Even in the half-light the petitioner's face hinted +brazenly of cosmetics. + +"Where do you live?" he asked shortly. + +"Only a little way, less than a block, and it's the direction you're +going. Please take me!" + +"Very well," said Blair, and they moved on, the girl still clinging to +him and sobbing at intervals. Before a dark three-story and basement +building, with a decidedly sinister aspect, she stopped and indicated a +stairway. + +"This is the place." + +"All right," responded Ben. "I guess you're safe now. Good-night!" + +But she clung to him the tighter. "Come up with me," she insisted. +"We're only on the second floor, and I haven't thanked you yet. Really, +I'm so grateful! You don't know what it means to be a girl, and--and--" +Her feelings got the better of her again, and she paused to wipe her +eyes on her sleeve. "My mother will be so thankful too. She'd never +forgive me if I didn't bring you up. Please come!" and she led the way +up the darkened stair. + +Again Ben hesitated. He did not in the least like the situation in which +circumstances had placed him. The prospect of the girl's mother, like +herself, scattering grateful tears upon him was not alluring; but it +seemed the part of a cad to refuse, and at last he followed. + +His guide led him up a short flight of stairs and turned to the right, +down a dimly lighted hall. The ground-floor of the building was used for +store purposes. This second floor was evidently a series of apartments. +Lights from within the rooms crept over the curtained transoms. Voices +sounded; glasses clinked. A piano banged out ragtime like mad. + +At the fourth door the girl stopped. "Thank you so much for coming," she +said. "Walk right in," and throwing open the door she fairly shoved the +visitor inside. + +From out the semi-darkness, Ben now found himself in a well-lighted +room, and the change made him blink about him. Instead of the motherly +old lady in a frilled cap, whom he had expected to see, he found himself +in the company of a half-dozen coatless young men and under-dressed +women, lounging in questionable attitudes on chairs and sofas. At his +advent they all looked up. A sallow youth who had been operating the +piano turned in his seat and the music stopped. Not yet realizing the +trick that had been played upon him, Ben turned to look for his guide; +but she was nowhere in sight, and the door was closed. His eyes shifted +back and met a circle of amused faces, while a burst of mocking laughter +broke upon his ears. + +Then for the first time he understood, and his face went white with +anger. Without a word he started to leave the room. But one of the women +was already at his side, her detaining hand upon his sleeve. "No, no, +honey!" she said, insinuatingly. "We're all good fellows! Stay awhile!" + +Ben shook her off roughly. Her very touch was contaminating. But one of +the men had had time to get between him and the door; a sarcastic smile +was upon his face as he blocked the way. + +"I guess it's on you, old man!" he bantered. "About a half-dozen quarts +will do for a starter!" He nodded to a pudgy old woman who was watching +interestedly from the background. "You heard the gent's order, mother! +Beer, and in a hurry! He looks dry and hot." + +Again a gale of laughter broke forth; but Ben took no notice. He made +one step forward, until he was within arm's reach of the humorist. + +"Step out of my way, please," he said evenly. + +Had the man been alone he would have complied, and quickly. No human +being with eyes and intelligence could have misread the warning on Ben +Blair's countenance. He started to move, when the girl who had first +come forward turned the tide. + +"Aw, Charley!" she goaded. "Is that all the nerve you've got!" and she +laughed ironically. + +Instantly the man's face reddened, and he fell back into his first +position. + +"Sorry I can't oblige you, pal," he said, "but you see it's agin de +house. Us blokes has got--" + +The sentence was never completed. Ben's fist shot out and caught the +speaker fair on the point of his jaw, and he collapsed in his tracks. +For a second no one in the room stirred; then before Ben could open the +door, the other men were upon him. The women fled screaming to the +farthest corner of the room, where they huddled together like sheep. +Returning with the tray, the old woman realized an only too familiar +condition. + +"Gentlemen!" she pleaded. "Gentlemen!" + +But no one paid the slightest attention to her. Forced by sheer odds of +mass toward a corner, Ben's long arms were working like flails. Another +man fell, and was up again. The first one also was upon his feet now, +his face white, and a tiny stream of blood trickling from his bruised +jaw. A heavy beer-bottle flung by one of the women crashed on the wall +over the countryman's head, the contents spattering over him like rain. +One of the men had seized a chair and swung it high, to strike, with +murder in his eye. Attracted by the confusion, the other occupants of +the floor had rushed into the hall. The door was flung open and +instantly blocked with a mass of sinister menacing faces. + +Until then, Ben had been silent as death, silent as one who realizes +that he is fighting for life against overwhelming odds. Now of a sudden +he leaped backward like a great cat, clear of all the others. From his +throat there issued a sound, the like of which not one of those who +listened had ever heard before, and which fairly lifted their hair--the +Indian war-whoop that the man had learned as a boy. With the old +instinctive motion, comparable in swiftness to nothing save the passage +of light, the cowboy's hands went to his hips, and as swiftly returned +with the muzzles of two great revolvers protruding like elongated index +fingers. With equal swiftness, his face had undergone a transformation. +His jaw was set and his blue eyes flashed like live coals. + +"Stand back, little folks!" he ordered, while the twin weapons revolved +in circles of reflected flame about his trigger fingers. "You seem to +want a show, and you shall have it!" The whirling circles vanished. A +deep report fell upon the silence, and a gaudy vase on the mantle flew +into a thousand pieces. "Stand back, people, or you might get hurt!" + +Awed into dumb helplessness, the spectators stared with widening eyes; +but the spectacle had only begun. Like the reports of giant +fire-crackers, only seconds apart, the great revolvers spoke. A nudely +suggestive cast in the corner followed the vase. A quaintly carved clock +paused in its measure of time, its hands chronicling the minute of +interruption. A decanter of whiskey burst spattering over a table. Two +bacchanalian pictures on the wall suddenly had yawning wounds in their +centre. The portrait of a queen of the footlights leaped into the air. +One of the beer-bottles, which the madame had placed on a convenient +table, popped as though it were champagne. Fragments of glass and +porcelain fell about like hail. The place was lighted by a tuft of three +big incandescent globes; and, last of all, one by one, they crashed into +atoms, and the room was in total darkness. Then silence fell, startling +in contrast to the late confusion, while the pungent odor of burnt +gunpowder intruded upon the nostrils. + +For a moment there was inaction; then the assembly broke into motion. No +thought was there now of retaliation or revenge; only, as at a sudden +conflagration or a wreck, of individual safety and escape. The hallway +was cleared as if by magic. Within the room the men and women jostled +each other in the darkness, or jammed imprecating in the narrow doorway. +In a few seconds Ben was alone. Calmly he thrust the empty revolvers +back into his pockets and followed leisurely into the hall. There the +dim light revealed an empty space; but here and there a lock turned +gratingly, and from more than one room as he passed came the sound of +furniture being hastily drawn forward as a barricade. + +No human being ever knew what occurred behind the locked door of Ben +Blair's room at the hotel that night. Those hours were buried as deep as +what took place in his mind during the months intervening between the +coming of Florence Baker to the city and his own decision to follow her. +By nature a solitary, he fought his battles alone and in silence. That +he never once touched his bed, the hotel maids could have testified the +next morning. As to the decision that followed those sleepless hours, +his own action gave a clue. He had left a call for an early train West, +and at daylight a tap sounded on his door, while a voice announced the +time. + +"Yes," answered the guest; but he did not stir. + +In a few minutes the tap was repeated more insistently. "You've only +time to make your train if you hurry," warned the voice. + +For a moment Blair did not answer. Then he said: "I have decided not to +go." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +OF WHAT AVAIL? + + +It was late next morning, almost noon in fact, when Florence Baker +awoke; and even then she did not at once rise. A physical listlessness, +very unusual to her, lay upon her like a weight. A year ago, by this +time of day, she would have been ravenously hungry; but now she had a +feeling that she could not have taken a mouthful of food had her life +depended on it. The room, although it faced the west and was well +ventilated, seemed hot and depressing. A breeze stirred the lace +curtains at the window, but it was heated by the blocks of city +pavements over which it had come. The girl involuntarily compared this +awakening with that of a former life in what now seemed to her the very +long ago. She remembered the light morning wind of the prairies, which, +always fresh with the coolness of dew and of growing things, had drifted +in at the tiny windows of the Baker ranch-house. She recalled the sweet +scent of the buffalo grass with a vague sense of depression and +irrevocable loss. + +She turned restlessly beneath the covers, and in doing so her face came +in contact with the moistened surface of her pillow. Propping herself up +on her elbow, she looked curiously at the tell-tale bit of linen. +Obviously, she had been crying in her sleep; and for this there must +have been a reason. Until that moment she had not thought of the +previous night; but now the sudden recollection overwhelmed her. She was +only a girl-woman--a child of nature, incapable of repression. Two great +tears gathered in her soft brown eyes; with instinctive desire of +concealment the fluffy head dropped to the pillow, and the sobs broke +out afresh. + +Minutes passed; then her mother's hesitating steps approached the door. + +"Florence," called a voice. "Florence, are you well?" + +The dishevelled brown head lifted, but the girl made no motion to let +her mother in. + +"Yes--I am well," she echoed. + +For a moment Mrs. Baker hesitated, but she was too much in awe of her +daughter to enter uninvited. + +"I have a note for you," she announced. "Mr. Sidwell's man Alec just +brought it. He says there's to be an answer." + +But still the girl did not move. It was an unpropitious time to mention +the club-man's name. The fascination of such as he fades at early +morning; it demands semi-darkness or artificial light. Just now the +thought of him was distinctly depressing, like the sultry breeze that +wandered in at the window. + +"Very well," said Florence, at last. "Leave it, please, and tell Alec to +wait. I'll be down directly." + +In response, an envelope with a monogram in the corner was slipped in +under the door, and the bearer's footsteps tapped back into silence. + +Slowly the girl crawled from her bed, but she did not at once take up +the note. Instead, she walked over to the dresser, and, leaning on its +polished top, gazed into the mirror at the reflection of her +tear-stained face, with its mass of disarranged hair. It was not a happy +face that she saw; and just at this moment it looked much older than it +really was. The great brown eyes inspected it critically and +relentlessly. + +"Florence Baker," she said to the face in the mirror, "you are getting +to be old and haggard." A prophetic glimpse of the future came to her +suddenly. "A few years more, and you will not be even--good-looking." + +She stood a moment longer, then, walking over to the door, she picked up +the envelope and tore it open. + +"Miss Baker," ran the note, "there is to be an informal little +gathering--music, dancing, and a few things cool--at the Country Club +this evening. You already know most of the people who will be there. May +I call for you?--Sidwell." + +Florence read the missive slowly; then slowly returned it to its cover. +There was no need to tell her the meaning of the unwritten message she +read between the lines of those few brief sentences. It is only in +story-books that human beings do not even suspect the inevitable until +it arrives. As well as she knew her own name, she realized that in her +answer to that evening's invitation lay the choice of her future life. +She was at the turning of the ways--a turning that admitted of no +reconsideration. Dividing at her feet, each equally free, were the +trails of the natural and the artificial. For a time they kept side by +side; but in the distance they were as separate as the two ends of the +earth. By no possibility could both be followed. She must choose between +them, and abide by her decision for good or for ill. + +As slowly as she had read the note, Florence dressed; and even then she +did not leave the room. Bathing her reddened eyes, she drew a chair in +front of the window and gazed wistfully down at the handful of green +grass, with the unhealthy-looking elm in its centre, which made the +Baker lawn. Against her will there came to her a vision of the natural, +impersonated in the form of Ben Blair as she had seen him yesterday. +Masterful, optimistic, compellingly honest, splendidly vital, with loves +and hates like elemental forces of nature, he intruded upon her horizon +at every crisis. Try as she would to eliminate him from her life, she +could not do it. With a little catch of the breath she remembered that +last night, when that man had done--what he did--it was not of what her +father or Clarence Sidwell would think, if either of them knew, but of +what Ben Blair would think, what he would do, that she most cared. +Reluctant as she might be to admit it even to herself, yet in her inner +consciousness she knew that this prairie man had a power over her that +no other human being would ever have. Still, knowing this, she was +deliberately turning away from him. If she accepted that invitation for +to-night, with all that it might mean, the separation from Ben would be +irrevocable. Once more the brown head dropped into the waiting hands, +and the shoulders rocked to and fro in indecision and perplexity. + +"God help me!" she pleaded, in the first prayer she had voiced in +months. "God help me!" + +Again footsteps approached her door, and a hand tapped insistently +thereon. + +"Florence," said her father's voice. "Are you up?" + +The girl lifted her head. "Yes," she answered. + +"Let me in, then." The insistence that had been in the knock spoke in +the voice. "I wish to speak with you." + +Instantly an expression almost of repulsion flashed over the girl's +brown face. Never in his life had the Englishman understood his +daughter. He was a glaring example of those who cannot catch the +psychological secret of human nature in a given situation. From the +girl's childhood he had been complaisant when he should have been +severe, had stepped in with the parental authority recognized by his +race when he should have held aloof. + +"Some other time, please," replied Florence. "I don't feel like talking +to-day." + +Scotty's knuckles met the door-panel with a bang. "But I do feel like +it," he responded; "and the inclination is increasing every moment. You +would try the patience of Job himself. Come, I'm waiting!" and he +shifted from one foot to the other restlessly. + +Within the room there was a pause, so long that the Englishman thought +he was going to be refused point-blank; then an even voice said, "Come +in," and he entered. + +He had expected to find Florence defiant and aggressive at the +intrusion. If he did not understand this daughter of his, he at least +knew, or thought he knew, a few of her phases. But she had not even +risen from her seat, and when he entered she merely turned her head +until her eyes met his. Scotty felt his parental dignity vanishing like +smoke,--his feelings very like those of a burglar who, invading a +similar boudoir, should find the rightful owner at prayer. His first +instinct was to beat a retreat, and he stopped uncertainly just within +the doorway. + +"Well?" questioned Florence, and the pupils of her brown eyes widened. + +Scotty flushed, but memory of the impassive Alec waiting below returned, +and his anger arose. + +"How much longer are you going to keep that negro waiting?" he demanded. +"He has been here an hour already by the clock." + +A look of almost childlike surprise came over the face of the girl, an +expression implying that the other was making a mountain out of a +mole-hill. "I really don't know," she said. + +Scotty took a chair, and ran his long fingers through his hair +perplexedly. "Florence," he said, "at times you are simply maddening; +and I do not want to be angry with you. Alec says he is waiting for an +answer. What is it an answer to, please? It is my right to know." + +Again there was a pause, so long that Scotty expected unqualified +refusal: and again he was disappointed. Without a word, the girl removed +the note from the envelope and passed it over to him. + +Scotty read it and returned the sheet. + +"You haven't written an answer yet, I judge?" + +"No." + +The Englishman's fingers were tapping nervously on the edge of the +chair-seat. + +"I wish you to decline, then." + +The childish expression left the girl's eyes, the listlessness left her +attitude. + +"Why, if I may ask?" A challenge was in the query. + +Scotty arose, and for a half-minute walked back and forth across the +disordered room. At last he stopped, facing his daughter. + +"The reason, first of all, is that I do not like this man Sidwell in any +particular. If you respect my wishes you will have nothing to do with +him or with any of his class in future. The second reason is that it is +high time some one was watching the kind of affairs you attend." The +speaker looked down on the girl sternly. "I think it unnecessary to +suggest that neither of us desires a repetition of last night's +experience." + +Of a sudden, her face very red, Florence was likewise upon her feet. In +the irony of circumstances, Sidwell could not have had a more powerful +ally. Her decision was instantly formed. + +"I quite agree with you about the incident of last evening," she flamed. +"As to who shall be my associates, and where I shall go, however, I am +of age--" and she started to leave the room. + +But preventing, Scotty was between her and the door. "Florence,"--his +face was very white and his voice trembled,--"we may as well have an +understanding now as to defer it. Maybe, as you say, I have no authority +over you longer; but at least I can make a request. You know that I +love you, that I would not ask anything which was not for your good. +Knowing this, won't you at my request cease going with this man? Won't +you refuse his invitation for to-night?" + +Nearer than ever before in his life was the Englishman at that moment to +grasping the secret of control of this child of many moods. Had he but +learned it a few years, even a few months, sooner--But again was the +satire of fate manifest, the same irony which, jealously withholding the +rewards of labor, keeps the student at his desk, the laborer at his +bench, until the worse than useless prizes flutter about like Autumn +leaves. + +For a moment following Scotty's request there was absolute silence and +inaction; then, with a little appealing movement, the girl came close to +him. + +"Oh, daddy!" she cried. "Dear old daddy! You make it so hard for me! I +know you love me, and I do want to do as you wish; I want to be good; +but--but"--the brown head was upon Scotty's shoulder, and two soft arms +gripped him tight,--"but," the voice was all but choking, "I can't let +him go now. It's too late!" + + * * * * * + +The driving of his own conveyance was to Sidwell a source of pride. It +was therefore no surprise to Florence that at dusk he and his pair of +thoroughbreds should appear alone. The girl, very grave, very quiet, had +been waiting for him, and was ready almost before he stopped. With a +smile of parental pride upon her face, Mollie was on the porch to say +good-bye. At the last moment she approached and kissed her daughter on +the cheek. Not in months before had the mother done such a thing as +that; and despite herself, as she walked toward the waiting carriage, +there came to the girl the thought of another historic kiss, and of a +Judas, the betrayer. Once within the narrow single-seated buggy she +looked back, hoping against hope; but her father was nowhere in sight. + +After the first greeting, neither she nor Sidwell spoke for some +minutes. For a time Florence did not even look at her companion. She had +a suspicion that he already knew most if not all that had taken place in +the Baker home the last day; and the thought tinged her face scarlet. At +last she gave a furtive glance at him. He was not looking, and her eyes +lingered on his face. It was paler than she had ever seen it before; +there were deep circles under the eyes, and he looked nervous and tired; +but over it all there was an expression of exaltation that could have +but one meaning to her. + +"You must let me read it when you get it in shape," she began suddenly. + +Sidwell turned blankly. "Read what, please?" he asked. + +The girl smiled triumphantly. "The story you have just written. I know +by your face it must be good." + +The flame of exaltation vanished. The man understood now. + +"What if I should refute your theory?" he asked. + +"I hardly believe that is possible. I know of nothing else which could +make you look like that." + +Sidwell hesitated. "There are but few things," he admitted, "but +nevertheless I spoke the truth. It was one of them this time." + +Florence smiled interestedly. "I am very curious," she suggested. + +The brown eyes and the black met steadily. "Very well, then," said the +man, "I'll tell you. The reason was, because I have with me the +handsomest girl in the whole city." + +Instantly the brown eyes dropped; the face reddened, but not with the +flush of pleasure. Florence was not yet sufficiently artificial for such +empty compliment. + +"I'd rather you wouldn't say such things," she said simply. "They hurt +me." + +"But not when they're true," he persisted. + +There was no answer, and they drove on again in silence; the tap of the +thoroughbreds' feet on the asphalt sounding regular as the rattle of a +snare-drum, the rows of houses at either side running past like the +shifting scenes of a panorama. They passed numbers of other carriages, +and to the occupants of several Sidwell lifted his hat. Each as he did +so glanced at his companion curiously. The man was far too well known to +have his actions pass without gossip. At last they reached a semblance +of the open country, and a few minutes later Sidwell pointed out the row +of lights on the broad veranda of the big one-story club-house. The +affair had begun in the afternoon with a golf tournament, and when the +two drove up and Sidwell turned over his trotters to a man in waiting, +the entertainment was in full blast, although the hour was still early. + +The building itself, ordinarily ample for the organization's rather +exclusive membership, was fairly crowded on this occasion. The +club-house had been given up to the orchestra and dancers, and +refreshments were being served on the lawn and under the adjoining +trees. Even the veranda had been cleared of chairs. + +As Sidwell and his companion approached the place, he said in an +undertone, "Let's not get in the crush yet; if we do, we won't escape +all the evening." His dark eyes looked into his companion's face +meaningly. "I have something I wish especially to say to you." + +Florence did not meet his eyes, but she well knew the message therein. +She nodded assent to the request. + +Making a detour, they emerged into the park, and strolled back to a +place where, seeing, they themselves could not be seen. Sidwell found a +bench, and they sat down side by side. The girl offered no suggestion, +no protest. Since that row of lights had appeared in the distance she +had become passive. She knew beforehand all that was to take place; +something that she had decided to accede to, the details of which were +unimportant. An apathy which she did not attempt to explain held her. +The music heard so near, the glimpses of shifting, faultlessly dressed +figures, the loveliness of a perfect night--things that ordinarily would +have been intensely exhilarating--now passed by her unnoticed. Her +senses were temporarily in lethargy. If she had a conscious wish, it was +that the inevitable would come, and be over with. + +From without this land of unreality she was suddenly conscious of a +voice speaking to her. "Florence," it said, "Florence Baker, you know +before I say a word the thing I wish to tell you, the question I wish to +ask. You know, because more than once I've tried to speak, and at the +last moment you have prevented. But you can't stop me to-night. We have +run on understanding each other long enough; too long. I have never lied +to you yet, Florence, and I am not going to begin now. I will not even +analyze the feeling I have for you, or call it by name. I know this is +an unheard-of-way to talk to a girl, especially one so impressionable as +you; but I cannot help it. There is something about you, Florence, that +keeps me from untruth, when probably under the same circumstances I +would lie to any other woman in the world. I simply know that you +impersonate a desire of my nature ungratified; that without you I have +no wish to live." + +Strange and cold-blooded as this proposal would have seemed to a +listener, Florence heard it without a sign. It did not even affect her +with the shock of the unexpected. It was merely a part of that +inevitable something she had anticipated, and had for months watched +slowly taking form. + +"I suppose it seems unaccountable to you," the voice went on, "that I +should have been attracted to you in the first place. It has often been +so to me, and I've tried to explain it. Beautiful, you undeniably are, +Florence; but I do not believe it was that. It was, I think, because, +despite your ideals of something which--pardon me--doesn't exist, you +were absolutely natural; and the women I'd met before were the reverse +of that. Like myself, they had tasted of life and found it flat. I +danced with them, drank with them, went the round of so-called gayety +with them; but they repelled me. But you, Florence, are very different. +You make me think of a prairie anemone with the dew on its petals. I +haven't much to offer you save money, which you already have in plenty, +and an empty fame; but I'll play the game fair. I'll take you anywhere +in the world, do anything you wish." Out of the shadow an arm crept +around the girl's waist, closed there, and she did not stir. "I am +writing an English story now, and the principal character, a soldier, +has been ordered to India. To catch the atmosphere, I've got to be on +the spot. The boat I wish to take will leave in ten days. Will you go +with me as my wife?" + +The voice paused, and the face so near her own remained motionless, +waiting. Into the pause crept the music of the orchestra--beat, beat, +beat, like the throbbing of a mighty heart. Above it, distinct for an +instant, sounded the tinkle of a woman's laugh; then again silence. It +was now the girl's turn to speak, to answer; but not a sound left her +lips. She had an odd feeling that she was playing a game of checkers, +and that it was her turn to play. "Move!" said an inward monitor. "Move! +move!" But she knew not where or how. + +The man's arm tightened around her; his lips touched hers again and +again; and although she was conscious of the fact, it carried no +particular significance. It all seemed a part of the scene that was +going on in which she was a silent actor--of the game in which she was a +player. + +"Florence," said an insistent voice, "Florence, Florence Baker! Don't +sit like that! For God's sake, speak to me, answer me!" + +This time the figure stirred, the head drooped in assent. + +"Yes," she said. + +Again the circling arm tightened, and the man's lips touched her own, +again and again. The very repetition aroused her. + +"And you will sail with me in ten days?" + +Fully awake was Florence Baker now, fully conscious of all that had +happened and was happening. + +"Yes," she said. "The sooner the better. I want to have it over with." A +moment longer she sat still as death; then suddenly the mood of apathy +departed, and in infinite weakness, infinite pathos, the dark head +buried itself on the man's shoulder. "Promise me," she pleaded brokenly, +"that you will be kind to me! Promise me that you always will be kind!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +LOVE'S SURRENDER + + +Scotty Baker was not an adept at concealing his emotions, and he stared +in unqualified surprise at the long figure in brown which of a sudden +intruded into his range of vision. The morning paper upon his knees +fluttered unnoticed to the floor of the porch. + +"Ben Blair, by all that's good and proper!" he exclaimed to the man who, +without a look to either side, turned up the short walk. "Where in +heaven's name did you come from? I supposed you'd gone home a week ago." + +Blair stopped at the steps, and deliberately wiped the perspiration from +his face. + +"You were misinformed about my going," he explained. "I changed hotels, +that was all." + +Scotty stared harder than before. + +"But why?" he groped. "I inquired of the clerk, and he said you had gone +by an afternoon train. I don't see--" + +Ben mounted the steps and took a chair opposite the Englishman. + +"If you will excuse me," he said, "I would rather not go into details. +The fact's enough--I am still here. Besides--pardon me--I did not call +to be questioned, but to question. You remember the last time I saw +you?" + +Scotty nodded an affirmative. He had a premonition that the unexpected +was about to happen. + +"Yes," he said. + +Ben lit a cigar. "You remember, then, that you made me a certain +promise?" + +Scotty threw one leg over the other restlessly. "Yes, I remember," he +repeated. + +The visitor eyed him keenly. "I would like to know if you kept it," he +said. + +Scotty felt the seat of his chair growing even more uncomfortable than +before, and he cast about for an avenue of escape. One presented itself. + +"Is that what you stayed to find out?" he questioned in his turn. + +Ben blew out a cloud of smoke, and then another. + +"No, not the main reason. But that has nothing to do with the subject. I +have a right to ask the question. Did you or did you not keep your +promise?" + +The Englishman's first impulse was to refuse point-blank to answer; +then, on second thought, he decided that such a course would be unwise. +The other really did have a right to ask. + +"I--" he hesitated, "decided--" + +But interrupting, Ben raised his hand, palm outward. + +"Don't dodge the question. Yes or no?" + +Scotty hesitated again, and his face grew red. + +"No," he said. + +The visitor's hand, fingers outspread, returned to his knee. + +"Thank you. I have one more question to ask. Do you intend, without +trying to prevent it, to let your daughter throw away her every chance +of future happiness? Are you, Florence's father, going to let her marry +Sidwell?" + +With one motion Scotty was on his feet. The eyes behind the thick lenses +fairly flashed. + +"You are insulting, sir," he blazed. "I can stand much from you, Ben +Blair, but this interference in my family affairs I cannot overlook. I +request you to leave my premises!" + +Blair did not stir. His face remained as impassive as before. + +"Your pardon again," he said steadily, "but I refuse. I did not come to +quarrel with you, and I won't; but we will have an understanding--now. +Sit down, please." + +The Englishman stared, almost with open mouth. Had any one told him he +would be coerced in this way within his own home he would have called +that person mad; nevertheless, the first flash of anger over, he said no +more. + +"Sit down, please," repeated Ben; and this time, without a word or a +protest, he was obeyed. + +Ben straightened in his seat, then leaned forward. "Mr. Baker," he said, +"you do not doubt that I love Florence--that I wish nothing but her +good?" + +Scotty nodded a reluctant assent. + +"No; I don't doubt you, Ben," he said. + +The thin face of the younger man leaned forward and grew more intense. + +"You know what Sidwell is--what the result will be if Florence marries +him?" + +Scotty's head dropped into his hands. He knew what was coming. + +"Yes, I know," he admitted. + +Ben paused, and had the other been looking he would have seen that his +ordinarily passive face was working in a way which no one would have +thought possible. + +"In heaven's name, then," he said, slowly, "why do you allow it? Have +you forgotten that it is only three days until the date set? God! man, +you must be sleeping! It is ghastly--even the thought of it!" + +Surprised out of himself, Scotty looked up. The intensity of the appeal +was a thing to put life into a figure of clay. For an instant he felt +the stimulant, felt his blood quicken at the suggestion of action; then +his impotence returned. + +"I have tried, Ben," he explained weakly, "but I can do nothing. If I +attempted to interfere it would only make matters worse. Florence is as +completely out of my control as--" he paused for a simile--"as the +sunshine. I missed my opportunity with her when she was young. She has +always had her own way, and she will have it now. It is the same as when +she decided to come to town. She controls me, not I her." + +Blair settled back in his chair. The mask of impassivity dropped back +over his face, not again to lift. He was again in command of himself. + +"You expect to do nothing more, then?" he asked finally. + +Scotty did not look up. "No," he responded. "I can do nothing more. She +will have to find out her mistake for herself." + +Ben regarded the older man steadily. It would have been difficult to +express that look in words. + +"You'd be willing to help, would you," he suggested, "if you saw a way?" + +The Englishman's eyes lifted. Even the incredible took on an air of +possibility in the hands of this strong-willed ranchman. + +"Yes," he repeated. "I will gladly do anything I can." + +For half a minute Ben Blair did not speak. Not a nerve twitched or a +muscle stirred in his long body; then he stood up, the broad sinewy +shoulders squared, the masterful chin lifted. + +"Very well," he said. "Call a carriage, and be ready to leave town in +half an hour." + +Scotty blinked helplessly. The necessity of sudden action always threw +him into confusion. His mind needed not minutes but days to adjust +itself to the unpremeditated. + +"Why?" he queried. "What do you intend doing?" + +But Ben did not stop to explain. Already he was at the door of the +vestibule. "Don't ask me now. Do as I say, and you'll see!" And he +stepped inside. + +Within the entrance, he paused for a moment. He had never been in any +room of the house except the library adjoining; and after a few +seconds, walking over, he tapped twice on the door. + +There was no answer, and he stepped inside. The place was empty, but, +listening from the dining-room on the left he heard the low intermittent +murmur of voices in conversation and the occasional click of china. +Sliding doors connected the rooms, and again for an instant he +hesitated. Then, pulling them apart, he stood fairly in the aperture. + +As he had expected, Florence and her mother were at breakfast. The doors +had slid noiselessly, and for an instant neither observed him. Florence +was nearest, half-facing him, and she was the first to glance up. As she +did so, the coffee-cup in her hand shook spasmodically and a great brown +blotch spread over the white tablecloth. Simultaneously her eyes +widened, her cheeks blanched, and she stared as at a ghost. Her mother, +too, turned at the spectacle, and her color shifted to an ashen gray. + +For some seconds not one of the three spoke or stirred. It was Mrs. +Baker who first arose and advanced toward the intruder, as threateningly +as it was possible for her to do. + +"Who, if I might ask, invited you to come this way?" she challenged. + +Ben took one step inside the room and folded his arms. + +"I came without being asked," he explained evenly. + +Mollie's weak oval face stiffened. She felt instinctively that her +chiefest desires were in supreme menace. But one defense suggested +itself--to be rid of the intruder at once. + +"I trust, then, you are enough of a gentleman to return the way you +came," she said icily. + +Ben did not even glance at her. He was looking at the dainty little +figure still motionless at the table. + +"If that is the mark of a gentleman, I am not one," he answered. + +The mother's face flamed. Like Scotty, her brain moved slowly, and on +the spur of the moment inadequate insult alone answered her call. + +"I might have expected such a remark from a cowman!" she burst forth. + +Instantly Florence was upon her feet; but Ben Blair gave no indication +that he had heard. His arms still folded, he took two steps nearer the +girl, then stopped. + +"Florence," he said steadily, "I have just seen your father. We +three--he, you, and I--are going back home, back to the prairies. Our +train leaves at eleven o'clock. The carriage will be here in half an +hour. You have plenty of time if you hurry." + +Again there was silence. Once more it was the mother who spoke first. + +"You must be mad, both of you!" she cried. "Florence is to be married in +three days, and it would take two to go each way. You must be mad!" + +It was the girl's turn to grow pale. She began to understand. + +"You say you and papa evolved this programme?" she said sarcastically. +"What part, pray, did he take?" + +Blair was as impassive as before. + +"I suggested it, and your father acquiesced." + +"And the third party, myself--" The girl's eyes were very bright. + +"I undertook the task of having you ready when the carriage comes." + +One of Florence's brown hands grasped the back of the chair before her. + +"I trust you did not underestimate the difficulty," she commented +ironically. "Otherwise you might be disappointed." + +Ben said nothing. He did not even stir. + +Another group of seconds were gathered into the past. The inactivity +tugged at the girl's nerves. + +"By the way," she asked, "where are we going to stay when we arrive, and +for how long?" + +"You are to be my guests," answered Blair. "As to the length of time, +nothing has been arranged." + +Florence made one more effort to consider the affair lightly. + +"You speak with a good deal of assurance," she commented. "Did it never +occur to you that at this particular time I might decide not to go?" + +Ben returned her look. + +"No," he said. + +Beneath the trim brown figure one foot was nervously tapping the floor. + +"In other words, you expect to take me against my will,--by physical +force?" + +"No." Ben again spoke deliberately. "You will come of your own choice." + +"And leave Mr. Sidwell?" + +"Yes." + +"Without an explanation?" + +"None will be necessary, I think. The fact itself will be enough." + +"And never--marry him?" + +"And never marry him." + +"You think he would not follow?" + +"I know he would not!" + +There was a pause in the swift passage of words. The girl's breath was +coming with difficulty. The spell of this indomitable rancher was +settling upon her. + +"You really imagine I will do such an unheard-of thing?" she asked +slowly. + +"I imagine nothing," he answered quickly. "I know." + +It was the crisis, and into it Mollie intruded with clumsy tread. +"Florence," she urged, "Florence, don't listen to him any longer. He +must be intoxicated. Come with me!" and she started to drag the girl +away. + +Without a word, Ben Blair walked across to the door leading into the +room beyond, and stood with his hand on the knob. + +"Mrs. Baker," he said slowly, "I thought I would not speak an unkind +word to-day, no matter what was said to me; but you have offended too +often." His glance took in the indolently shapeless figure from head to +toe, and back again until he met her eye to eye. "You are the +personification of cowardice, of selfishness and snobbery, that makes +one despise his kind. For mere personal vanity you would sacrifice your +own daughter--your own flesh and blood. Probably we shall never meet +again; but if we should, do not dare to speak to me. Do not speak to me +now!" He swung open the door, and indicated the passage with a nod of +his head. "Go," he said, "and if you are a Christian, pray for a better +heart--for forgiveness!" + +The woman hesitated; her lips moved, but she was dumb. She wanted to +refuse, but the irresistible power in those relentless blue eyes +compelled her to obey. Without a word she left the room and closed the +door behind her. + +Ben Blair came back. The girl had not moved. + +"Florence," he said, "there are but twenty minutes left. I ask you again +to get ready." + +The girl's color rose anew; her blood flowed tumultuously, until she +could feel the beating of the pulses at her wrists. + +"Ben Blair," she challenged, "you are trying to prevent my marrying +another man! Is it not so?" + +The rancher folded his arms again. + +"I am preventing it," he said. + +Florence's brown eyes blazed. She clasped her hands together until the +fingers were white. + +"You admit it, then!" she cried, looking at her companion steadily, a +world of scorn in her face. "I never thought such a thing possible--that +you would let your jealousy get the better of you like this!" She +paused, and hurled the taunt she knew would hurt him most. "You are the +last person on earth I would have selected to become a dog in the +manger!" + +Ben did not stir, although the brown of his sun-tanned face went white. + +"I looked for that," he said simply. + +Florence's brown eyes widened in wonder--and in something +more--something she did not understand. Her heart was beating more +wildly than before. She felt her self-control slipping from her grasp, +like a rope through her hands. + +"There seems nothing more to be said, then," she said, "except that I +will not go." + +Even yet Blair did not move. + +"You will go. The carriage comes in ten minutes," he reiterated calmly. + +The small figure stiffened, the dainty chin tilted in the air. + +"I defy you to tell me how you can force me to go!" + +It was the supreme moment, but Benjamin Blair showed no trace of +excitement or of passion. His folded arms remained passive across his +chest. + +"Florence Baker, did I ever lie to you?" + +The girl's lip trembled. She knew now what to expect. + +"No," she said. + +"You are quite sure?" + +"Yes, I am quite sure." + +"Did I ever say I would do anything that I did not do?" + +The girl had an all but irrepressible desire to cry out, to cover her +face like a child. A flash of anger at her inability to maintain her +self-control swept over her. + +"No," she admitted. "I never knew you to break your word." + +"Very well, then," still no haste, no anger,--only the relentless calm +which was infinitely more terrible than either. "I will tell you why of +your own choice you will go with me. It is because you value the life of +Clarence Sidwell; because, as surely as I have not lied to you or to any +human being in the past, there is no power on earth that can otherwise +keep me away from him an hour longer." + +Realization came instantaneously to Florence Baker and blotted out +self-consciousness. The nervous tension vanished as fog before the sun. + +"You would not do it," she said, very steadily. "You could not do it!" + +Ben Blair said not a word. + +"You could not," repeated the girl swiftly; "could not, because +you--love me!" + +One of the man's hands loosened in an unconscious gesture. + +"Don't repeat that, please, or trust in it," he answered. "You misled me +once, but you can't mislead me again. It is because I love you that I +will do what I said." + +There was but one weapon in the arsenal adequate to meet the emergency. +With a sudden motion, the girl came close to him. + +"Ben, Ben Blair," her arms flashed around the man's neck, the brown +eyes--moist, sparkling--were turned to his face, "promise me you will +not do it." The dainty throat swelled and receded with her short quick +breaths. "Promise me! Please promise me!" + +For a second the rancher did not stir; then, very gently, he freed +himself and moved a step backward. + +"Florence," he said slowly, "you do not know me even yet." He drew out +his big old-fashioned silver watch, once Rankin's. "You still have four +minutes to get ready--no more, no less." + +Silence like that of a death-chamber fell over the bright little +dining-room. From the outside came the sound of Mollie's step as she +moved back and forth, back and forth, but dared not enter. A boy was +clipping the lawn, and the muffled purr of the mower, accompanied by the +bit of popular ragtime he was whistling, stole into the room. + +Suddenly a carriage drove up in front of the house, and leaping from his +seat the driver stood waiting. The door of the vestibule opened, and +Scotty himself stepped uncertainly within. At the library entrance he +halted, but the odor of the black cigar he was smoking was wafted in. + +Through it all, neither of the two in that room had stirred. It would +have been impossible to tell what Ben Blair was thinking. His eyes never +left the watch in his hand. During the first minute the girl had not +looked at her companion. Unappeasable anger seemed personified in her. +For half of the next minute she still stood impassive; then she glanced +up almost surreptitiously. For the long third minute the eyes held where +they had lifted, and slowly over the soft brown face, taking the place +of the former expression, came a look that was not of anger or of +hatred, not even of dislike, but of something the reverse, something all +but unbelievable. Her dark eyes softened. A choking lump came into her +throat; and still, in seeming paradox, she was of a sudden happier than +at any time she could remember. + +Before the last minute was up, before Ben Blair had replaced the watch, +she was in the adjoining room saying good-bye to Mollie hurriedly; +saying something more,--a thing that fairly took the mother's breath. + +"Florence Baker!" she gasped, "you shall not do it! If you do, I will +disown you! I will never forgive you--never! never!" + +But, unheeding, the girl was already back, and looking into Ben's face. +Her eyes were very bright, and there was about her a suppressed +excitement that the other did not clearly understand. + +"I am ready," she said, "on one condition." + +Blair's blue eyes looked a question. In any other mood he would have +recognized Florence, but this strange person he hardly seemed to know. + +"I am listening," he said. + +The girl hesitated, the rosy color mounting to her cheeks. Decision of +action was far easier than expression. + +"I will go with you," she faltered, "but alone." + +A suggestion of the flame on the other's face sprang to the man's also. + +"I think, under the circumstances," he stammered, "it would be better to +have your father go too." + +The dainty brown figure stiffened. + +"Very well, then--I will not go!" + +The man stood for a moment immovable, with unshifting eyes, like a +figure in clay; then, turning, without a word, he started to leave the +room. He had almost reached the door, when he heard a voice behind him. + +"Ben Blair," it said insistently, "Ben Blair!" + +He paused, glanced back, and could scarcely believe his eyes. The girl +was coming toward him; but it was a Florence he had not previously +known. Her face was rosier than before, red to her very ears and to the +waves of her hair. Her chin was held high, and beneath the thin brown +skin of the throat the veins were athrob. + +"Ben Blair," she repeated intensely, "Ben Blair, can't you understand +what I meant? Must I put it into words?" The soft brown eyes were +looking at him frankly. "Oh, you are blind, blind!" + +For a second, like the lull before the thunderclap, the man did not +move; then of a sudden he grasped the girl by the shoulders, and held +her at arm's length. + +"Florence," he cried, "are you playing with me?" + +She spoke no word, but her gaze held his unfalteringly. + +Minutes passed, but still the man could not believe the testimony of his +eyes. The confession was too unexpected, too incredible. Unconsciously +the grip of his hands tightened. + +"Am I--mad?" he gasped. "You care for me--you are willing to go--because +you love me?" + +Even yet the girl did not answer; but no human being could longer +question the expression on her face. Ben Blair could not doubt it, and +the reflection of love glowing in the tear-wet eyes flashed into his +own. The past, with all that it had held, vanished like the memory of an +unpleasant dream. The present, the vital throbbing present, alone +remained. Suddenly the tense arms relaxed. Another second, and the brown +head was upon his shoulder. + +"Florence," he cried passionately, "Florence, Florence!" + +He could say no more, only repeat over and over her dear name. + +"Ben," sobbed the girl, "Ben! Ben!" An interrupting memory drew her to +him closer and closer. "I loved you all the time!--loved you!--and yet I +so nearly--can you ever forgive me?" + +Wondering at the prolonged silence, Scotty came hesitatingly into the +library, peered in at the open doorway, and stood transfixed. + + + THE END + + + + +POPULAR COPYRIGHT BOOKS +AT MODERATE PRICES + +Any of the following titles can be bought of your +Bookseller at the price you paid for this volume + +Adventures of Captain Kettle. Cutcliffe Hyne. +Adventures of Gerard. A. Conan Doyle. +Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. A. Conan Doyle. +Alton of Somasco. Harold Bindloss. +Arms and the Woman. Harold MacGrath. +Artemus Ward's Works (extra illustrated). +At the Mercy of Tiberius. Augusta Evans Wilson. +Battle Ground, The. Ellen Glasgow. +Belle of Bowling Green, The. Amelia E. Barr. +Ben Blair. Will Lillibridge. +Bob, Son of Battle. Alfred Ollivant. +Boss, The. Alfred Henry Lewis. +Brass Bowl, The. Louis Joseph Vance. +Brethren, The. H. Rider Haggard. +By Snare of Love. Arthur W. Marchmont. +By Wit of Woman. Arthur W. Marchmont. +Cap'n Erie. Joseph C. Lincoln. +Captain in the Ranks, A. George Cary Eggleston. +Cardigan. Robert W. Chambers. +Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine. Frank R. Stockton. +Circle, The. Katherine Cecil Thurston (author of "The Masquerader," +"The Gambler"). +Conquest of Canaan, The. Booth Tarkington. +Courier of Fortune, A. Arthur W. Marchmont. +Darrow Enigma, The. 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Anna Katharine Green. +Missourian, The. Eugene P. Lyle, Jr. +My Friend the Chauffeur. C. N. and A. M. Williamson. +My Lady of the North. Randall Parrish. +Mystery of June 13th. Melvin L. Severy. +Mystery Tales. Edgar Allen Poe. +Nancy Stair. Elinor Macartney Lane. +None But the Brave. Hamblen Sears. +Order No. 11. Caroline Abbot Stanley. +Pam. Bettina von Hutten. +Pam Decides. Bettina von Hutten. +Partners of the Tide. Joseph C. Lincoln. +Phra the Phoenician. Edwin Lester Arnold. +President, The. Alfred Henry Lewis. +Princess Passes, The. C. N. and A. M. Williamson. +Private War, The. Louis Joseph Vance. +Prodigal Son, The. Hall Caine. +Queen's Advocate, The. Arthur W. Marchmont. +Quickening, The. Francis Lynde. +Richard the Brazen. Cyrus Townsend Brady and Edward Peple. +Rose of the World. Agnes and Egerton Castle. +Sarita the Carlist. Arthur W. Marchmont. +Seats of the Mighty, The. Gilbert Parker. +Sir Nigel. A. Conan Doyle. +Sir Richard Calmady. Lucas Malet. +Speckled Bird. Augusta Evans Wilson. +Spoilers, The. Rex Beach. +Sunset Trail, The. Alfred Henry Lewis. +Sword of the Old Frontier, A. Randall Parrish. +Tales of Sherlock Holmes. A. Conan Doyle. +That Printer of Udell's. Harold Bell Wright. +Throwback, The. Alfred Henry Lewis. +Trail of the Sword, The. Gilbert Parker. +Two Vanrevels, The. Booth Tarkington. +Up From Slavery. Booker T. Washington. +Vashti. Augusta Evans Wilson. +Viper of Milan, The (original edition). Marjorie Bowen. +Voice of the People, The. Ellen Glasgow. +Wheel of Life, The. Ellen Glasgow. +When I Was Czar. Arthur W. Marchmont. +When Wilderness Was King. Randall Parrish. +Woman in Grey, A. Mrs. C. N. Williamson. +Woman in the Alcove, The. Anna Katharine Green. + + * * * * * + +A. L. BURT CO., Publishers, 52-58 Duane St., New York City + + +BURT'S SERIES of STANDARD FICTION. + +RICHELIEU. A tale of France in the reign of King Louis XIII. By G.P.R. +James. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, +$1.00. + + In 1829 Mr. James published his first romance, "Richelieu," and was + recognized at once as one of the masters of the craft. + + In this book he laid the story during those later days of the great + cardinal's life, when his power was beginning to wane, but while it + was yet sufficiently strong to permit now and then of volcanic + outbursts which overwhelmed foes and carried friends to the topmost + wave of prosperity. One of the most striking portions of the story + is that of Cinq Mar's conspiracy; the method of conducting criminal + cases, and the political trickery resorted to by royal favorites, + affording a better insight into the state-craft of that day than + can be had even by an exhaustive study of history. It is a powerful + romance of love and diplomacy, and in point of thrilling and + absorbing interest has never been excelled. + + +A COLONIAL FREE-LANCE. A story of American Colonial Times. By Chauncey +C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. +Price, $1.00. + + A book that appeals to Americans as a vivid picture of + Revolutionary scenes. The story is a strong one, a thrilling one. + It causes the true American to flush with excitement, to devour + chapter after chapter, until the eyes smart, and it fairly smokes + with patriotism. The love story is a singularly charming idyl. + + +THE TOWER OF LONDON. A Historical Romance of the Times of Lady Jane +Grey and Mary Tudor. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth. Cloth, 12mo. with four +illustrations by George Cruikshank. Price, $1.00. + + This romance of the "Tower of London" depicts the Tower as palace, + prison and fortress, with many historical associations. The era is + the middle of the sixteenth century. + + The story is divided into two parts, one dealing with Lady Jane + Grey, and the other with Mary Tudor as Queen, introducing other + notable characters of the era. Throughout the story holds the + interest of the reader in the midst of intrigue and conspiracy, + extending considerably over a half a century. + + +IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING. A Romance of the American Revolution. By +Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00. + + Mr. Hotchkiss has etched in burning words a story of Yankee + bravery, and true love that thrills from beginning to end, with the + spirit of the Revolution. The heart beats quickly, and we feel + ourselves taking a part in the exciting scenes described. His whole + story is so absorbing that you will sit up far into the night to + finish it. As a love romance it is charming. + + +GARTHOWEN. A story of a Welsh Homestead. By Allen Raine. Cloth, 12mo. +with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00. + + "This is a little idyl of humble life and enduring love, laid bare + before us, very real and pure, which in its telling shows us some + strong points of Welsh character--the pride, the hasty temper, the + quick dying out of wrath.... We call this a well-written story, + interesting alike through its romance and its glimpses into another + life than ours. A delightful and clever picture of Welsh village + life. The result is excellent."--Detroit Free Press. + + +MIFANWY. The story of a Welsh Singer. By Allan Raine. Cloth, 12mo. +with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00. + + "This is a love story, simple, tender and pretty as one would care + to read. The action throughout is brisk and pleasing; the + characters, it is apparent at once, are as true to life as though + the author had known them all personally. Simple in all its + situations, the story is worked up in that touching and quaint + strain which never grows wearisome, no matter how often the lights + and shadows of love are introduced. It rings true, and does not tax + the imagination."--Boston Herald. + + +DARNLEY. A Romance of the times of Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey. By +G.P.R. James. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. +Price, $1.00. + + As a historical romance "Darnley" is a book that can be taken up + pleasurably again and again, for there is about it that subtle + charm which those who are strangers to the works of G.P.R. James + have claimed was only to be imparted by Dumas. + + If there was nothing more about the work to attract especial + attention, the account of the meeting of the kings on the historic + "field of the cloth of gold" would entitle the story to the most + favorable consideration of every reader. + + There is really but little pure romance in this story, for the + author has taken care to imagine love passages only between those + whom history has credited with having entertained the tender + passion one for another, and he succeeds in making such lovers as + all the world must love. + + +WINDSOR CASTLE. A Historical Romance of the Reign of Henry VIII., +Catharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth. Cloth. +12mo. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank. Price, $1.00. + + "Windsor Castle" is the story of Henry VIII., Catharine, and Anne + Boleyn. "Bluff King Hal," although a well-loved monarch, was none + too good a one in many ways. Of all his selfishness and + unwarrantable acts, none was more discreditable than his divorce + from Catharine, and his marriage to the beautiful Anne Boleyn. The + King's love was as brief as it was vehement. Jane Seymour, waiting + maid on the Queen, attracted him, and Anne Boleyn was forced to the + block to make room for her successor. This romance is one of + extreme interest to all readers. + + +HORSESHOE ROBINSON. A tale of the Tory Ascendency in South Carolina in +1780. By John P. Kennedy. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. +Watson Davis. Price, $1.00. + + Among the old favorites in the field of what is known as historical + fiction, there are none which appeal to a larger number of + Americans than Horseshoe Robinson, and this because it is the only + story which depicts with fidelity to the facts the heroic efforts + of the colonists in South Carolina to defend their homes against + the brutal oppression of the British under such leaders as + Cornwallis and Tarleton. + + The reader is charmed with the story of love which forms the thread + of the tale, and then impressed with the wealth of detail + concerning those times. The picture of the manifold sufferings of + the people, is never over-drawn, but painted faithfully and + honestly by one who spared neither time nor labor in his efforts to + present in this charming love story all that price in blood and + tears which the Carolinians paid as their share in the winning of + the republic. + + Take it all in all, "Horseshoe Robinson" is a work which should be + found on every book-shelf, not only because it is a most + entertaining story, but because of the wealth of valuable + information concerning the colonists which it contains. That it has + been brought out once more, well illustrated, is something which + will give pleasure to thousands who have long desired an + opportunity to read the story again, and to the many who have tried + vainly in these latter days to procure a copy that they might read + it for the first time. + + +THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. A story of the Coast of Maine. By Harriet +Beecher Stowe. Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated. Price, $1.00. + + Written prior to 1862, the "Pearl of Orr's Island" is ever new; a + book filled with delicate fancies, such as seemingly array + themselves anew each time one reads them. One sees the "sea like an + unbroken mirror all around the pine-girt, lonely shores of Orr's + Island," and straightway comes "the heavy, hollow moan of the surf + on the beach, like the wild angry howl of some savage animal." + + Who can read of the beginning of that sweet life, named Mara, which + came into this world under the very shadow of the Death angel's + wings, without having an intense desire to know how the premature + bud blossomed? Again and again one lingers over the descriptions of + the character of that baby boy Moses, who came through the tempest, + amid the angry billows, pillowed on his dead mother's breast. + + There is no more faithful portrayal of New England life than that + which Mrs. Stowe gives in "The Pearl of Orr's Island." + + +BURT'S SERIES _of_ STANDARD FICTION. + +THE SPIRIT OF THE BORDER. A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio +Valley. By Zane Grey. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00. + + A book rather out of the ordinary is this "Spirit of the Border." + The main thread of the story has to do with the work of the + Moravian missionaries in the Ohio Valley. Incidentally the reader + is given details of the frontier life of those hardy pioneers who + broke the wilderness for the planting of this great nation. Chief + among these, as a matter of course, is Lewis Wetzel, one of the + most peculiar, and at the same time the most admirable of all the + brave men who spent their lives battling with the savage foe, that + others might dwell in comparative security. + + Details of the establishment and destruction of the Moravian + "Village of Peace" are given at some length, and with minute + description. The efforts to Christianize the Indians are described + as they never have been before, and the author has depicted the + characters of the leaders of the several Indian tribes with great + care, which of itself will be of interest to the student. + + By no means least among the charms of the story are the vivid + word-pictures of the thrilling adventures, and the intense + paintings of the beauties of nature, as seen in the almost unbroken + forests. + + It is the spirit of the frontier which is described, and one can by + it, perhaps, the better understand why men, and women, too, + willingly braved every privation and danger that the westward + progress of the star of empire might be the more certain and rapid. + A love story, simple and tender, runs through the book. + + +CAPTAIN BRAND, OF THE SCHOONER CENTIPEDE. By Lieut. Henry A. Wise, +U.S.N. (Harry Gringo). Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00. + + The re-publication of this story will please those lovers of sea + yarns who delight in so much of the salty flavor of the ocean as + can come through the medium of a printed page, for never has a + story of the sea and those "who go down in ships" been written by + one more familiar with the scenes depicted. + + The one book of this gifted author which is best remembered, and + which will be read with pleasure for many years to come, is + "Captain Brand," who, as the author states on his title page, was a + "pirate of eminence in the West Indies." As a sea story pure and + simple, "Captain Brand" has never been excelled, and as a story of + piratical life, told without the usual embellishments of blood and + thunder, it has no equal. + + +NICK OF THE WOODS. A story of the Early Settlers of Kentucky. By +Robert Montgomery Bird. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. +Watson Davis. Price, $1.00. + + This most popular novel and thrilling story of early frontier life + in Kentucky was originally published in the year 1837. The novel, + long out of print, had in its day a phenomenal sale, for its + realistic presentation of Indian and frontier life in the early + days of settlement in the South, narrated in the tale with all the + art of a practiced writer. A very charming love romance runs + through the story. This new and tasteful edition of "Nick of the + Woods" will be certain to make many new admirers for this + enchanting story from Dr. Bird's clever and versatile pen. + + +GUY FAWKES. A Romance of the Gunpowder Treason. By Wm. Harrison +Ainsworth. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank. +Price, $1.00. + + The "Gunpowder Plot" was a modest attempt to blow up Parliament, + the King and his Counsellors. James of Scotland, then King of + England, was weak-minded and extravagant. He hit upon the efficient + scheme of extorting money from the people by imposing taxes on the + Catholics. In their natural resentment to this extortion, a handful + of bold spirits concluded to overthrow the government. Finally the + plotters were arrested, and the King put to torture Guy Fawkes and + the other prisoners with royal vigor. A very intense love story + runs through the entire romance. + +TICONDEROGA: A Story of Early Frontier Life in the Mohawk Valley. By +G.P.R. James. Cloth, 12mo. with four page illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00. + + The setting of the story is decidedly more picturesque than any + ever evolved by Cooper: The frontier of New York State, where dwelt + an English gentleman, driven from his native home by grief over the + loss of his wife, with a son and daughter. Thither, brought by the + exigencies of war, comes an English officer, who is readily + recognized as that Lord Howe who met his death at Ticonderoga. As a + most natural sequence, even amid the hostile demonstrations of both + French and Indians, Lord Howe and the young girl find time to make + most deliciously sweet love, and the son of the recluse has already + lost his heart to the daughter of a great sachem, a dusky maiden + whose warrior-father has surrounded her with all the comforts of a + civilized life. + + The character of Captain Brooks, who voluntarily decides to + sacrifice his own life in order to save the son of the Englishman, + is not among the least of the attractions of this story, which + holds the attention of the reader even to the last page. The tribal + laws and folk lore of the different tribes of Indians known as the + "Five Nations," with which the story is interspersed, shows that + the author gave no small amount of study to the work in question, + and nowhere else is it shown more plainly than by the skilful + manner in which he has interwoven with his plot the "blood" law, + which demands a life for a life, whether it be that of the murderer + or one of his race. + + A more charming story of mingled love and adventure has never been + written than "Ticonderoga." + + +ROB OF THE BOWL: A Story of the Early Days of Maryland. By John P. +Kennedy. Cloth, 12mo. with four page illustrations by J. Watson Davis. +Price, $1.00. + + It was while he was a member of Congress from Maryland that the + noted statesman wrote this story regarding the early history of his + native State, and while some critics are inclined to consider + "Horse Shoe Robinson" as the best of his works, it is certain that + "Rob of the Bowl" stands at the head of the list as a literary + production and an authentic exposition of the manners and customs + during Lord Baltimore's rule. The greater portion of the action + takes place in St. Mary's--the original capital of the State. + + As a series of pictures of early colonial life in Maryland, "Rob of + the Bowl" has no equal, and the book, having been written by one + who had exceptional facilities for gathering material concerning + the individual members of the settlements in and about St. Mary's, + is a most valuable addition to the history of the State. + + The story is full of splendid action, with a charming love story, + and a plot that never loosens the grip of its interest to its last + page. + + +BY BERWEN BANKS. By Allen Raine. + + It is a tender and beautiful romance of the idyllic. A charming + picture of life in a Welsh seaside village. It is something of a + prose-poem, true, tender and graceful. + + +IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING. A romance of the American Revolution. By +Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00. + + The story opens in the month of April, 1775, with the provincial + troops hurrying to the defense of Lexington and Concord. Mr. + Hotchkiss has etched in burning words a story of Yankee bravery and + true love that thrills from beginning to end with the spirit of the + Revolution. The heart beats quickly, and we feel ourselves taking a + part in the exciting scenes described. You lay the book aside with + the feeling that you have seen a gloriously true picture of the + Revolution. His whole story is so absorbing that you will sit up + far into the night to finish it. As a love romance it is charming. + + +POPULAR LITERATURE FOR THE MASSES, COMPRISING CHOICE SELECTIONS FROM THE +TREASURES OF THE WORLD'S KNOWLEDGE, ISSUED IN A SUBSTANTIAL AND +ATTRACTIVE CLOTH BINDING, AT A POPULAR PRICE + +BURT'S HOME LIBRARY is a series which includes the standard works of the +world's best literature, bound in uniform cloth binding, gilt tops, +embracing chiefly selections from writers of the most notable English, +American and Foreign Fiction, together with many important works in the +domains of History, Biography, Philosophy, Travel, Poetry and the +Essays. + +A glance at the following annexed list of titles and authors will +endorse the claim that the publishers make for it--that it is the most +comprehensive, choice, interesting, and by far the most carefully +selected series of standard authors for world-wide reading that has been +produced by any publishing house in any country, and that at prices so +cheap, and in a style so substantial and pleasing, as to win for it +millions of readers and the approval and commendation, not only of the +book trade throughout the American continent, but of hundreds of +thousands of librarians, clergymen, educators and men of letters +interested in the dissemination of instructive, entertaining and +thoroughly wholesome reading matter for the masses. + + +BURT'S HOME LIBRARY. Cloth. Gilt Tops. Price, $1.00 + +Abbe Constantin. By Ludovic Halevy. +Abbott. By Sir Walter Scott. +Adam Bede. By George Eliot. +Addison's Essays. Edited by John Richard Green. +Aeneid of Virgil. Translated by John Connington. +Aesop's Fables. +Alexander, the Great, Life of. By John Williams. +Alfred, the Great, Life of. By Thomas Hughes. +Alhambra. By Washington Irving. +Alice in Wonderland, and Through the Looking-Glass. By Lewis Carroll. +Alice Lorraine. By R. D. Blackmore. +All Sorts and Conditions of Men. By Walter Besant. +Alton Locke. By Charles Kingsley. +Amiel's Journal. Translated by Mrs. Humphrey Ward. +Andersen's Fairy Tales. +Anne of Geirstein. By Sir Walter Scott. +Antiquary. By Sir Walter Scott. +Arabian Nights' Entertainments. +Ardath. By Marie Corelli. +Arnold, Benedict, Life of. By George Canning Hill. +Arnold's Poems. By Matthew Arnold. +Around the World in the Yacht Sunbeam. By Mrs. Brassey. +Arundel Motto. By Mary Cecil Hay. +At the Back of the North Wind. By George Macdonald. +Attic Philosopher. By Emile Souvestre. +Auld Licht Idylls. By James M. Barrie. +Aunt Diana. By Rosa N. Carey. +Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. +Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. By O. W. Holmes. +Averil. By Rosa N. Carey. +Bacon's Essays. By Francis Bacon. +Barbara Heathcote's Trial. By Rosa N. Carey. +Barnaby Rudge. By Charles Dickens. +Barrack Room Ballads. By Rudyard Kipling. +Betrothed. By Sir Walter Scott. +Beulah. By Augusta J. Evans. +Black Beauty. By Anna Sewell. +Black Dwarf. By Sir Walter Scott. +Black Rock. By Ralph Connor. +Black Tulip. By Alexandre Dumas. +Bleak House. By Charles Dickens. +Blithedale Romance. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. +Bondman. By Hall Caine. +Book of Golden Deeds. By Charlotte M. Yonge. +Boone, Daniel, Life of. By Cecil B. Hartley. +Bride of Lammermoor. By Sir Walter Scott. +Bride of the Nile. By George Ebers. +Browning's Poems. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning. +Browning's Poems. (selections.) By Robert Browning. +Bryant's Poems. (early.) By William Cullen Bryant. +Burgomaster's Wife. By George Ebers. +Burn's Poems. By Robert Burns. +By Order of the King. By Victor Hugo. +Byron's Poems. By Lord Byron. +Caesar, Julius, Life of. By James Anthony Froude. +Carson, Kit, Life of. By Charles Burdett. +Cary's Poems. By Alice and Phoebe Cary. +Cast Up by the Sea. By Sir Samuel Baker. +Charlemagne (Charles the Great), Life of. By Thomas Hodgkin, D.C.L. +Charles Auchester. By E. Berger. +Character. By Samuel Smiles. +Charles O'Malley. By Charles Lever. +Chesterfield's Letters. By Lord Chesterfield. +Chevalier de Maison Rouge. By Alexandre Dumas. +Chicot the Jester. By Alexandre Dumas. +Children of the Abbey. By Regina Maria Roche. +Child's History of England. By Charles Dickens. +Christmas Stories. By Charles Dickens. +Cloister and the Hearth. By Charles Reade. +Coleridge's Poems. By Samuel Taylor Coleridge. +Columbus, Christopher, Life of. By Washington Irving. +Companions of Jehu. By Alexandre Dumas. +Complete Angler. By Walton And Cotton. +Conduct of Life. By Ralph Waldo Emerson. +Confessions of an Opium Eater. By Thomas de Quincey. +Conquest of Granada. By Washington Irving. +Conscript. By Erckmann-Chatrian. +Conspiracy of Pontiac. By Francis Parkman, Jr. +Conspirators. By Alexandre Dumas. +Consuelo. By George Sand. +Cook's Voyages. By Captain James Cook. +Corinne. By Madame de Stael. +Countess de Charney. By Alexandre Dumas. +Countess Gisela. By E. Marlitt. + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's notes: + +Punctuation normalized. + +The phrase "Box R" has been used where a literal cattle brand symbol +of the letter R inside two sides of a box was used in the original text. +Similarly, an R within a circle indicating a ranch has been rendered as +the "Circle R" ranch in this transcription. + +Page 113, "life" changed to "city" (The city was part of their life). + +Page 210, "clapsed" changed to "clasped" (girls hands were clasped). + +Page 341, "Sewall" changed to "Sewell" (Anna Sewell). + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ben Blair, by Will Lillibridge + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEN BLAIR *** + +***** This file should be named 17844-8.txt or 17844-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/8/4/17844/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ben Blair + The Story of a Plainsman + +Author: Will Lillibridge + +Release Date: February 24, 2006 [EBook #17844] + [Most recently updated: June 7, 2020] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEN BLAIR *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em;"> + <span style="font-size: 250%;">Ben Blair</span><br /> + <span style="font-size: 200%;">The Story of a Plainsman</span> + <br />by<br /> + <span style="font-size: 140%;"> + Will Lillibridge<br /> + </span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <span style="font-size: 80%"> + Author of "Where the Trail Divides," etc. + </span> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + <div class="figcenter"> + <img class="plain" src="images/title.jpg" width="80" alt="Emblem" title="Emblem" /> + </div> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + <span style="font-size: 120%"> + A. L. Burt Company, Publishers<br /> + New York + </span> +</div> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div> +<p style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em;"> + <span class="smcap">Copyright by</span><br /> + <span class="smcap">A. C. McClurg & Co.</span><br /> + <span class="smcap">a. d. 1905</span><br /> + Entered at Stationers' Hall, London<br /> + <span class="italic">All rights reserved</span> + <br /><br /> +</p> + +<table summary="publication_dates"> +<tr><td>Published October 21, 1905</td></tr> +<tr><td>Second Edition October 28, 1905</td></tr> +<tr><td>Third Edition November 29, 1905</td></tr> +<tr><td>Fourth Edition December 9, 1905</td></tr> +<tr><td>Fifth Edition December 14, 1905</td></tr> +<tr><td>Sixth Edition February 28, 1907</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<p class='center'><i>To My Wife</i></p> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px"> + <img src="images/fpiece.jpg" width="400" + alt="[Illustration: Florence touched his arm. "Ben," she pleaded, "Ben, forgive +me. I've hurt you. I can't say I love you." Page 114.]" title="" /> + <p class="photocaption">Florence touched his arm. "Ben," she pleaded, "Ben, forgive +me. I've hurt you. I can't say I love you." Page 114.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<table width="80%" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<tr><th colspan='3'><h2>Contents</h2></th></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>I. </td><td align='left'>In Rude Border Land</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II. </td><td align='left'>Desolation</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">9</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III. </td><td align='left'>The Box R Ranch</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">23</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IV. </td><td align='left'>Ben's New Home</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">37</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>V. </td><td align='left'>The Exotics</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">44</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VI. </td><td align='left'>The Soil and the Seed</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">53</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VII. </td><td align='left'>The Sanity of the Wild</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">66</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VIII. </td><td align='left'>The Glitter of the Unknown</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">74</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IX. </td><td align='left'>A Riffle of Prairie</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">83</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>X. </td><td align='left'>The Dominant Animal</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">94</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XI. </td><td align='left'>Love's Avowal</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">106</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XII. </td><td align='left'>A Deferred Reckoning</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">117</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIII. </td><td align='left'>A Shot in the Dark</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">134</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIV. </td><td align='left'>The Inexorable Trail</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">148</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XV. </td><td align='left'>In the Grip of the Law</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">164</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVI. </td><td align='left'>The Quick and the Dead</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">185</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVII. </td><td align='left'>Glitter and Tinsel</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">193</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVIII. </td><td align='left'>Painter and Picture</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">204</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIX. </td><td align='left'>A Visitor from the Plains</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">217</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XX. </td><td align='left'>Club Confidences</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">230</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXI. </td><td align='left'>Love in Conflict</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">242</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXII. </td><td align='left'>Two Friends Have It Out</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">258</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXIII. </td><td align='left'>The Back-Fire</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">270</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIV. </td><td align='left'>The Upper and the Nether Millstones</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">287</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XV. </td><td align='left'>Of What Avail?</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">304</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVI. </td><td align='left'>Love's Surrender</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">318</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span> +<h1 style="text-align: center">BEN BLAIR</h1> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> +<h3>IN RUDE BORDER-LAND</h3> +</div> + +<p>Even in a community where unsavory reputations were the rule, Mick +Kennedy's saloon was of evil repute. In a land new and wild, his +establishment was the wildest, partook most of the unsubdued, unevolved +character of its surroundings. There, as irresistibly as gravitation +calls the falling apple, came from afar and near—mainly from afar—the +malcontent, the restless, the reckless, seeking—instinctively +gregarious—the crowd, the excitement of the green-covered table, the +temporary oblivion following the gulping of fiery red liquor.</p> + +<p>Great splendid animals were the men who gathered there; hairy, powerful, +strong-voiced from combat with prairie wind and frontier distance; +devoid of a superfluous ounce of flesh, their trousers, uniformly baggy +at the knees, bearing mute testimony to the many hours spent in the +saddle; the bare unprotected skin of their hands and faces speaking +likewise of constant contact with sun and storm.</p> + +<p>By the broad glow of daylight the place was anything but inviting. The +heavy bar, made of cottonwood, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> no more elegance than the rude sod +shanty of the pioneer. The worn round cloth-topped tables, imported at +extravagant cost from the East, were covered with splashes of grease and +liquor; and the few fly-marked pictures on the walls were coarsely +suggestive. Scattered among them haphazard, in one instance through a +lithographic print, were round holes as large as a spike-head, through +which, by closely applying the eye, one could view the world without. +When the place was new, similar openings had been carefully refilled +with a whittled stick of wood, but the practice had been discontinued; +it was too much trouble, and also useless from the frequency with which +new holes were made. Besides, although accepted with unconcern by +<i>habitués</i> of the place, they were a source of never-ending interest to +the "tenderfeet" who occasionally appeared from nowhere and disappeared +whence they had come.</p> + +<p>But at night all was different. Encircling the room with gleaming points +of light were a multitude of blazing candles, home-made from tallow of +prairie cattle. The irradiance, almost as strong as daylight, but +radically different, softened all surrounding objects. The prairie dust, +penetrating with the wind, spread itself everywhere. The reflection from +cheap glassware, carefully polished, made it appear of costly make; the +sawdust of the floor seemed a downy covering; the crude heavy chairs, an +imitation of the artistic furniture of our fathers. Even the face of +bartender Mick, with its stiff unshaven red beard and its single +eye,—merciless as an electric headlight,—its broad flaming scar +leading down from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> blank socket of its mate, became less repulsive +under the softened light.</p> + +<p>With the coming of Fall frosts, the premonition of Winter, the +frequenters of the place gathered earlier, remained later, emptied more +of the showily labelled bottles behind the bar, and augmented when +possible their well-established reputation for recklessness. About the +soiled tables the fringe of bleared faces and keen hawk-like eyes was +more closely drawn. The dull rattle of poker-chips lasted longer, +frequently far into the night, and even after the tardy light of morning +had come to the rescue of the sputtering stumps in the candlesticks.</p> + +<p>On such a morning, early in November, daylight broadened upon a +characteristic scene. Only one table was in use, and around it sat four +men. One by one the other players had cashed out and left the game. One +of them was snoring in a corner, his head resting upon the sawdust. +Another leaned heavily upon the bar, a half-drained glass before him. +Even the four at the table were not as upon the night before. The hands +which held the greasy cards and toyed with the stacks of chips were +steady, but the heads controlling them wavered uncertainly; and the hawk +eyes were bloodshot.</p> + +<p>A man with a full beard, roughly trimmed into the travesty of a Vandyke, +was dealing. He tossed out the cards, carefully inclining their faces +downward, and returned the remainder of the pack softly to the table.</p> + +<p>"Pass, damn it!" growled the man at the left.</p> + +<p>"Pass," came from the next man.</p> + +<p>"Pass," echoed the last of the quartette.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> + +<p>Five blue chips dropped in a row upon the cloth.</p> + +<p>"I open it."</p> + +<p>The dealer took up the pack lovingly.</p> + +<p>"Cards?"</p> + +<p>The man at the left, tall, gaunt, ill-kempt, flicked the pasteboards in +his hand to the floor and ground them beneath his heavy boots.</p> + +<p>"Give me five."</p> + +<p>The point of the Vandyke beard was aimed straight past the speaker.</p> + +<p>"Cards?" repeated the dealer.</p> + +<p>"Five! Can't you hear?"</p> + +<p>The man braced against the bar looked around with interest. In the mask +of Mick Kennedy the single eye closed almost imperceptibly. Slowly the +face of the dealer turned.</p> + +<p>"I can hear you pretty well when you cash into the game. You already owe +me forty blues, Blair."</p> + +<p>The long figure stiffened, the face went pale.</p> + +<p>"You—mean—you—" the tongue was very thick. "You cut me out?"</p> + +<p>For a moment there was silence; then once more the beard pointed to the +player next beyond.</p> + +<p>"Cards?" for the third time.</p> + +<p>Five chips ranged in a row beside their predecessors.</p> + +<p>"Three."</p> + +<p>A hand, almost the hand of a gentleman, went instinctively to the gaunt +throat of the ignored gambler and jerked at the close flannel shirt; +then without a word the owner got unsteadily to his feet and followed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +an irregular trail toward the interested spectator at the bar.</p> + +<p>"Have a drink with me, pard," said the gambler, as he regarded the +immovable Mick. "Two whiskeys, there!"</p> + +<p>Kennedy did not stir, and for five seconds Blair blinked his dulled eyes +in wordless surprise; then his fist came down upon the cottonwood board +with a mighty crash.</p> + +<p>"Wake up there, Mick!" he roared. "I'm speaking to you! A couple of +'ryes' for the gentleman here and myself."</p> + +<p>Another pause, momentary but effective.</p> + +<p>"I heard you." The barkeeper spoke quietly but without the slightest +change of expression, even of the eye. "I heard you, but I'm not dealing +out drinks to deadbeats. Pay up, and I'll be glad to serve you."</p> + +<p>Swift as thought Blair's hand went to his hip, and the rattle of +poker-chips sympathetically ceased. A second, and a big revolver was +trained fair at the dispenser of liquors.</p> + +<p>"Curse you, Mick Kennedy!" muttered a choking voice, "when I order +drinks I want drinks. Dig up there, and be lively!"</p> + +<p>The man by the speaker's side, surprised out of his intoxication, edged +away to a discreet distance; but even yet the Irishman made no move. +Only the single headlight shifted in its socket until it looked +unblinkingly into the blazing eyes of the gambler.</p> + +<p>"Tom Blair," commanded an even voice, "Tom Blair, you white livered +bully, put up that gun!"</p> + +<p>Slowly, very slowly, the speaker turned,—all but the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> terrible +Cyclopean eye,—and moved forward until his body leaned upon the bar, +his face protruding over it.</p> + +<p>"Put up that gun, I tell you!" A smile almost fiendish broke over the +furrows of the rugged face. "You wouldn't dast shoot, unless perhaps it +was a woman, you coward!"</p> + +<p>For a fraction of a minute there was silence, while over the visage of +the challenged there flashed, faded, recurred the expression we pay good +dollars to watch playing upon the features of an accomplished actor; +then the yellow streak beneath the bravado showed, and the menacing hand +dropped to the holster at the hip. Once again Kennedy, who seldom made a +mistake, had sized his man correctly.</p> + +<p>"What do I owe you altogether, Mick?" asked a changed and subdued voice. +"Make it as easy as you can."</p> + +<p>Kennedy relaxed into his lounging position.</p> + +<p>"Thirty-five dollars. We'll call it thirty. You've been setting them up +to everybody here for a week on your face."</p> + +<p>"Can't you give me just a little more credit, Mick?" An expression meant +to be a smile formed upon the haggard face. "Just for old time's sake? +You know I've always been a good customer of yours, Kennedy."</p> + +<p>"Not a cent."</p> + +<p>"But I've got to have liquor!" One hand, ill-kept, but long of fingers +and refined of shape, steadied the speaker. "I can't get along without +it!"</p> + +<p>"Sell something, then, and pay up."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<p>The man thought a moment and shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I haven't anything to sell; you know that. It's the wrong time of the +year." He paused, and the travesty of a smile reappeared. "Next +Winter—"</p> + +<p>"You've got a horse outside."</p> + +<p>For an instant Blair's gaunt face darkened at the insult; he grew almost +dignified; but the drink curse had too strong a grip upon him and the +odor of whiskey was in the air.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've a good horse," he said slowly. "What'll you give for him?"</p> + +<p>"Seventy dollars."</p> + +<p>"He's a good horse, worth a hundred."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad of that, but I'm not dealing in horses. I make the offer just +to oblige you. Besides, as you said, it's an off season."</p> + +<p>"You won't give me more?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>Blair looked impotently about the room, but his former companions had +returned to their game. Filling in the silence, the dull clatter of +chips mingled with the drunken snores of the man on the floor.</p> + +<p>"Very well, give me forty," he said at last.</p> + +<p>"You accept, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"All right."</p> + +<p>Blair waited a moment. "Aren't you going to give me what's coming?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>Slowly the single eye fixed him as before.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you had anything coming."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why, you just said forty dollars!"</p> + +<p>There was no relenting in Kennedy's face.</p> + +<p>"You owe that gentleman over there at the table for forty blues. I'll +settle with him."</p> + +<p>Instinctively, as before, Blair's thin hand went to his throat, +clutching at the coarse flannel. He saw he was beaten.</p> + +<p>"Well, give me a drink, anyway!"</p> + +<p>Silently Mick took a big flask from the shelf and set it with a decanter +upon the bar. Filling the glass, Blair drained it at a gulp, refilled +and drained it—and then again.</p> + +<p>"A little drop to take along with me," he whined.</p> + +<p>Kennedy selected a pint bottle, filled it from the big flask, and +silently proffered it over the board.</p> + +<p>Blair took the extended favor, glanced once more about the room, and +stumbled toward the exit. Mick busied himself wiping the soiled bar with +a towel, if possible, even more filthy. At the threshold, his hand upon +the knob, Blair paused, stiffened, grew livid in the face.</p> + +<p>"May Satan blister your scoundrel souls, all of you!" he cursed.</p> + +<p>Not a man within sound of his voice gave sign that he had heard, as the +opened door returned to its casing with a crash.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> +<h3>DESOLATION</h3></div> + +<p>Ten miles out on the prairies,—not lands plane as a table, as they are +usually pictured, but rolling like the sea with waves of tremendous +amplitude—stood a rough shack, called by courtesy a house. Like many a +more pretentious domicile, it was of composite construction, although +consisting of but one room. At the base was the native prairie sod, +piled tier upon tier. Above this the superstructure, like the bar of +Mick Kennedy's resort, was of warping cottonwood. Built out from this +single room and forming a part of it was what the designer had called a +woodshed; but as no tree the size of a man's wrist was within ten miles, +or a railroad within fifty, the term was manifestly a misnomer. Wood in +any form it had never contained; instead, it was filled with that +providential fuel of the frontiersman, found superabundantly upon the +ranges,—buffalo chips.</p> + +<p>From the main room there was another and much smaller opening into the +sod foundation, and below it,—a dog-kennel. Slightly apart from the +shack stood a twin structure even less assuming, its walls and roof +being wholly built of sod. It was likewise without partition, and was +used as a barn. Hard by was a corral<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> covering perhaps two acres, +enclosed with a barbed-wire fence. These three excrescences upon the +face of nature comprised the "improvements" of the "Big B Ranch."</p> + +<p>Within the house the furnishings accorded with their surroundings. Two +folding bunks, similar in conception to the upper berths of a Pullman +car, were built end to end against the wall; when they were raised to +give room, four supports dangled beneath like paralyzed arms. A +home-made table, suggesting those scattered about country picnic +grounds, a few cheap chairs, a row of chests and cupboards variously +remodelled from a common foundation of dry-goods boxes, and a stove, +ingeniously evolved out of the cylinder and head of a portable engine, +comprised the furniture.</p> + +<p>The morning sunlight which dimmed the candles of Mick Kennedy's saloon +drifted through the single high-set window of the Big B Ranch-house, +revealing there a very different scene. From beneath the quilts in one +of the folding bunks appeared the faces of a woman and a little boy. At +the opening of the dog-kennel the head of a mottled yellow-and-white +mongrel dog projected into the room, the sensitive muzzle pointing +directly at the occupied bunk. The eyes of woman, child, and beast were +open and moved restlessly about.</p> + +<p>"Mamma," and the small boy wriggled beneath the clothes, "Mamma, I'm +hungry."</p> + +<p>The white face of the woman turned away, more pallid than before. An +unfamiliar observer would have been at a loss to guess the age of the +owner. In that haggard,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> non-committal countenance there was nothing to +indicate whether she was twenty-five or forty.</p> + +<p>"It is early yet, son. Go to sleep."</p> + +<p>The boy closed his eyes dutifully, and for perhaps five minutes there +was silence; then the blue orbs opened wider than before.</p> + +<p>"Mamma, I can't go to sleep. I'm hungry!"</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Benjamin. The horses, the rabbits, the birds,—all get +hungry sometimes." A hacking cough interrupted her words. "Snuggle close +up to me, little son, and keep warm."</p> + +<p>"But, mamma, I want something to eat. Won't you get it for me?"</p> + +<p>"I can't, son."</p> + +<p>He waited a moment. "Won't you let me help myself, then, mamma?"</p> + +<p>The eyes of the mother moistened.</p> + +<p>"Mamma," the child repeated, gently shaking his mother's shoulder, +"won't you let me help myself?"</p> + +<p>"There's nothing for you to eat, sonny, nothing at all."</p> + +<p>The blue child-eyes widened; the serious little face puckered.</p> + +<p>"Why ain't there anything to eat, mamma?"</p> + +<p>"Because there isn't, bubby."</p> + +<p>The reasoning was conclusive, and the child accepted it without further +parley; but soon another interrogation took form in his active brain.</p> + +<p>"It's cold, mamma," he announced. "Aren't you going to build a fire?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> + +<p>Again the mother coughed, and a flush of red appeared upon her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"No," she answered with a sigh.</p> + +<p>"Why not, mamma?"</p> + +<p>There was not the slightest trace of irritation in the answering voice, +although it was clearly an effort to speak.</p> + +<p>"I can't get up this morning, little one."</p> + +<p>Mysteries were multiplying, but the small Benjamin was equal to the +occasion. With a spring he was out of bed, and in another moment was +stepping gingerly upon the cold bare floor.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to build a fire for you, mamma," he announced.</p> + +<p>The homely mongrel whined a welcome to the little lad's appearance, and +with his tail beat a friendly tattoo upon the kennel floor; but the +woman spoke no word. With impassive face she watched the shivering +little figure as it hurried into its clothes, and then, with celerity +born of experience, went about the making of a fire. Suddenly a hitherto +unthought-of possibility flashed into the boy's mind, and leaving his +work he came back to the bunk.</p> + +<p>"Are you sick, mamma?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Instantly the woman's face softened.</p> + +<p>"Yes, laddie," she answered gently.</p> + +<p>Carefully as a nurse, the small protector replaced the cover at his +mother's back, where his exit had left a gap; then returned to his work.</p> + +<p>"You must have it warm here," he said.</p> + +<p>Not until the fire in the old cylinder makeshift was burning merrily did +he return to his patient; then, stand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>ing straight before her, he looked +down with an air of childish dignity that would have been comical had it +been less pathetic.</p> + +<p>"Are you very sick, mamma?" he said at last, hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"I am dying, little son." She spoke calmly and impersonally, without +even a quickening of the breath. The thin hand, lying on the tattered +cover, did not stir.</p> + +<p>"Mamma!" the old-man face of the boy tightened, as, bending over the +bed, he pressed his warm cheek against hers, now growing cold and white.</p> + +<p>At the mouth of the kennel two bright eyes were watching curiously. +Their owner wriggled the tip of his muzzle inquiringly, but the action +brought no response. Then the muzzle went into the air, and a whine, +long-drawn and insistent, broke the silence.</p> + +<p>The boy rose. There was not a trace of moisture in his eyes, but the +uncannily aged face seemed older than before. He went over to a peg +where his clothes were hanging and took down the frayed garment that +answered as an overcoat. From the bunk there came another cough, quickly +muffled; but he did not turn. Cap followed coat, mittens cap; then, +suddenly remembering, he turned to the stove and scattered fresh chips +upon the glowing embers.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, mamma," said the boy.</p> + +<p>The mother had been watching him, although she gave no sign. "Where are +you going, sonny?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"To town, mamma. Someone ought to know you're sick."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was a moment's pause, wherein the mongrel whined impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you going to kiss me first, Benjamin?"</p> + +<p>The little lad retraced his steps, until, bending over, his lips touched +those of his mother. As he did so, the hand which had lain upon the +coverlet shifted to his arm detainingly.</p> + +<p>"How were you thinking of going, son?"</p> + +<p>A look of surprise crept into the boy's blue eyes. A question like this, +with its obvious answer, was unusual from his matter-of-fact mother. He +glanced at her gravely.</p> + +<p>"I'm going afoot, mamma."</p> + +<p>"It's ten miles to town, Benjamin."</p> + +<p>"But you and I walked it once together. Don't you remember?"</p> + +<p>An expression the lad did not understand flashed over the white face of +Jennie Blair. Well she remembered that other occasion, one of many like +the present, when she and the little lad had gone in company to the +settlement of which Mick Kennedy's place was a part, in search of +someone whom after ten hours' delay they had succeeded in bringing +home,—the remnant and vestige of what was once a man.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know we did, Bennie."</p> + +<p>The boy waited a moment longer, then straightened himself.</p> + +<p>"I think I'd better be starting now."</p> + +<p>But instead of loosening its hold, the hand upon the boy's shoulder +tightened. The eyes of the two met.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You're not going, sonny. I'm glad you thought of it, but I can't let +you go."</p> + +<p>Again there was silence for so long that the waiting dog, impatient of +the delay, whined in soft protest.</p> + +<p>"Why not, mamma?"</p> + +<p>"Because, Benjamin, it's too late now. Besides, there wouldn't be a +person there who would come out to help me."</p> + +<p>The boy's look of perplexity returned.</p> + +<p>"Not if they knew you were very sick, mamma?"</p> + +<p>"Not if they knew I was dying, my son."</p> + +<p>The boy took off hat, mittens, and coat, and returned them to their +places. Never in his short life had he questioned a statement of his +mother's, and such heresy did not occur to him now. Coming back to the +bunk, he laid his cheek caressingly beside hers.</p> + +<p>"Is there anything I can do for you, mamma?" he whispered.</p> + +<p>"Nothing but what you are doing now, laddie."</p> + +<p>Tired of standing, the mongrel dropped within his tracks flat upon his +belly, and, his head resting upon his fore-paws, lay watching intently.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When the door of Mick Kennedy's saloon closed with an emphasis that +shook the very walls, it shut out a being more ferocious, more evil, +than any beast of the jungle. For the time, Blair's alcohol-saturated +brain evolved but one chain of thought, was capable of but one +emotion—hate. Every object in the universe, from its Creator to +himself, fell under the ban. The language of hate is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> curses; and as he +moved out over the prairie there dripped from his lips continuously, +monotonously, a trickling, blighting stream of malediction. Swaying, +stumbling, unconscious of his physical motions, instinct kept him upon +the trail; a Providence, sometimes kindest to those least worthy, +preserved him from injury.</p> + +<p>Half way out he met a solitary Indian astride a faded-looking mustang, +and the current of his wrath was temporarily diverted by a surly "How!" +Even this measure of friendliness was regretted when the big revolver +came out of the rancher's holster like a flash, and, head low on the +neck of the mustang, heels in the little beast's ribs, the aborigine +retreated with a yell, amid a shower of ill-aimed bullets. Long after +the figure on the pony had passed out of range, Blair stood pulling at +the trigger of the empty repeater and cursing louder than before because +it would not "pop."</p> + +<p>Two hours later, when it was past noon, an uncertain hand lifted the +wooden latch of the Big B Ranch-house door, and, heralded by an inrush +of cold outside air, Tom Blair, master and dictator, entered his domain. +The passage of time, the physical exercise, and the prairie air, had +somewhat cleared his brain. Just within the room, he paused and looked +about him with surprise. With premonition of impending trouble, the +mongrel bristled the yellow hair of his neck, and, retreating to the +mouth of his kennel, stood guard; but otherwise the scene was to a +detail as it had been in the morning. The woman lay passive within the +bunk. The child by her side, holding her hand, did not turn. The very +atmosphere of the place tingled with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> an ominous quiet,—a silence such +as one who has lived through a cyclone connects instinctively with a +whirling oncoming black funnel.</p> + +<p>The new-comer was first to make a move. Walking over to the centre of +the room, he stopped and looked upon his subjects.</p> + +<p>"Well, of all the infernally lazy people I ever saw!" he commented, "you +beat them, Jennie! Get up and cook something to eat; it's way after +noon, and I'm hungry."</p> + +<p>The woman said nothing, but the boy slid to his feet, facing the +intruder.</p> + +<p>"Mamma's sick and can't get up," he explained as impersonally as to a +stranger. "Besides, there isn't anything to cook. She said so."</p> + +<p>The man's brow contracted into a frown.</p> + +<p>"Speak when you're spoken to, young upstart!" he snapped. "Out with you, +Jennie! I don't want to be monkeyed with to-day!"</p> + +<p>He hung up his coat and cap, and loosened his belt a hole; but no one +else in the room moved.</p> + +<p>"Didn't you hear me?" he asked, looking warningly toward the bunk.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she replied.</p> + +<p>Autocrat under his own roof, the man paused in surprise. Never before +had a command here been disobeyed. He could scarcely believe his own +senses.</p> + +<p>"You know what to do, then," he said sharply.</p> + +<p>For the first time a touch of color came into the woman's cheeks, and +catching the man's eyes she looked into them unfalteringly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Since when did I become your slave, Tom Blair?" she asked slowly.</p> + +<p>The words were a challenge, the tone was that of some wild thing, +wounded, cornered, staring death in the face, but defiant to the end. +"Since when did you become my owner, body and soul?"</p> + +<p>Any sportsman, any being with a fragment of admiration for even animal +courage, would have held aloof then. It remained for this man, bred amid +high civilization, who had spent years within college halls, to strike +the prostrate. As in the frontier saloon, so now his hand went +involuntarily to his throat, clutched at the binding collar until the +button flew; then, as before, his face went white.</p> + +<p>"Since when!" he blazed, "since when! I admire your nerve to ask that +question of me! Since six years ago, when you first began living with +me. Since the day when you and the boy,—and not a preacher within a +hundred miles—" Words, a flood of words, were upon his lips; but +suddenly he stopped. Despite the alcohol still in his brain, despite the +effort he made to continue, the gaze of the woman compelled silence.</p> + +<p>"You dare recall that memory, Tom Blair?" The words came more slowly +than before, and with an intensity that burned them into the hearer's +memory. "You dare, knowing what I gave up for your sake!" The eyes +blazed afresh, the dark head was raised on the pillows. "You know that +my son stands listening, and yet you dare throw my coming to you in my +face?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> + +<p>White to the lips went the scarred visage of the man, but the madness +was upon him.</p> + +<p>"I dare?" To his own ears the voice sounded unnatural. "I dare? To be +sure I dare! You came to me of your own free-will. You were not a +child!" His voice rose and the flush returned to his face. "You knew the +price and accepted it deliberately,—deliberately, I say!"</p> + +<p>Without a sound, the figure in the rough bunk quivered and stiffened; +the hand upon the coverlet was clenched until the nails grew white, then +it relaxed. Slowly, very slowly, the eyelids closed as though in sleep.</p> + +<p>Impassive but intent listener, an instinct now sent the boy Benjamin +back to his post.</p> + +<p>"Mamma," he said gently. "Mamma!"</p> + +<p>There was no answer, nor even a responsive pressure of the hand.</p> + +<p>"Mamma!" he repeated more loudly. "Mamma! Mamma!"</p> + +<p>Still no answer, only the limp passivity. Then suddenly, although never +before in his short life had the little lad looked upon death, he +recognized it now. His mamma, his playmate, his teacher, was like this; +she would not speak to him, would not answer him; she would never speak +to him or smile upon him again! Like a thunderclap came the realization +of this. Then another thought swiftly followed. This man,—one who had +said things that hurt her, that brought the red spots to her +cheeks,—this man was to blame. Not in the least did he understand the +meaning of what he had just heard. No human being had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> suggested to him +that Blair was the cause of his mother's death; but as surely as he +would remember their words as long as he lived, so surely did he +recognize the man's guilt. Suddenly, as powder responds to the spark, +there surged through his tiny body a terrible animal hate for this man, +and, scarcely realizing the action, he rushed at him.</p> + +<p>"She's dead and you killed her!" he screamed. "Mamma's dead, dead!" and +the little doubled fists struck at the man's legs again and again.</p> + +<p>Oblivious to the onslaught, Tom Blair strode over to the bunk.</p> + +<p>"Jennie," he said, not unkindly, "Jennie, what's the matter?"</p> + +<p>Again there was no response, and a shade of awe crept into the man's +voice.</p> + +<p>"Jennie! Jennie! Answer me!" A hand fell upon the woman's shoulder and +shook it, first gently, then roughly. "Answer me, I say!"</p> + +<p>With the motion, the head of the dead shifted upon the pillow and turned +toward the man, and involuntarily he loosened his grasp. He had not +eaten for twenty-four hours, and in sudden weakness he made his way to +one of the rough chairs, and sat down, his face buried in his hands.</p> + +<p>Behind him the boy Benjamin, his sudden hot passion over, stood watching +intently,—his face almost uncanny in its lack of childishness.</p> + +<p>For a time there was absolute silence, the hush of a death-chamber; then +of a sudden the boy was conscious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> that the man was looking at him in a +way he had never looked before. Deep down below our consciousness, far +beneath the veneer of civilization, there is an instinct, relic of the +vigilant savage days, that warns us of personal danger. By this instinct +the lad now interpreted the other's gaze, and knew that it meant ill for +him. For some reason which he could not understand, this man, this big +animal, was his mortal enemy; and, in the manner of smaller animals, he +began to consider an avenue of escape.</p> + +<p>"Ben," spoke the man, "come here!"</p> + +<p>Tom Blair was sober now, and wore a look of determination upon his face +that few had ever seen there before; but to his surprise the boy did not +respond. He waited a moment, and then said sharply:</p> + +<p>"Ben, I'm speaking to you. Come here at once!"</p> + +<p>For answer there was a tightening of the lad's blue eyes and an added +watchfulness in the incongruously long childish figure; but that was +all.</p> + +<p>Another lagging minute passed, wherein the two regarded each other +steadily. The man's eyes dropped first.</p> + +<p>"You little devil!" he muttered, and the passion began showing in his +voice. "I believe you knew what I was thinking all the time! Anyway, +you'll know now. You said awhile ago that I was to blame for your mother +being—as she is. You're liable to say that again." A horror greater +than sudden passion was in the deliberate explanation and in the slow +way he rose to his feet. "I'm going to fix you so you can't say it +again, you old-man imp!"</p> + +<p>Then a peculiar thing happened. Instead of running<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> away, the boy took a +step forward, and the man paused, scarcely believing his eyes. Another +step forward, and yet another, came the diminutive figure, until almost +within the aggressor's reach; then suddenly, quick as a cat, it veered, +dropped upon all fours to the floor, and head first, scrambling like a +rabbit, disappeared into the open mouth of the dog-kennel.</p> + +<p>Too late the man saw the trick, and curses came to his lips,—curses fit +for a fiend, fit for the irresponsible being he was. He himself had +built that kennel. It extended in a curve eight feet into the solid sod +foundation, and to get at the spot where the boy now lay he would have +to tear down the house itself. The temper which had made the man what he +now was, a drunkard and fugitive in a frontier country, took possession +of him wholly, and with it came a madman's cunning; for at a sudden +thought he stopped, and the cursing tongue was silent. Five minutes +later he left the place, closing the door carefully behind him; but +before that time a red jet of flame, like the ravenous tongue of a +famished beast, was lapping at a hastily assembled pile of tinder-dry +furniture in one corner of the shanty.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> +<h3>THE BOX R RANCH</h3></div> + +<p>Mr. Rankin moved back from a well-discussed table, and, the room being +conveniently small, tilted his chair back against the wall. The +protesting creak of the ill-glued joints under the strain of his +ponderous figure was a signal for all the diners, and five other men +likewise drew away from around the board. Rankin extracted a match and a +stout jack-knife from the miscellaneous collection of useful articles in +his capacious pocket, carefully whittled the bit of wood to a point, and +picked his teeth deliberately. The five "hands," sun-browned, unshaven, +dissimilar in face as in dress, waited in expectation; but the +housekeeper, a shapeless, stolid-looking woman, wife of the foreman, +Graham, went methodically about the work of clearing the table. Rankin +watched her a moment indifferently; then without turning his head, his +eyes shifted in their narrow slits of sockets until they rested upon one +of the cowboys.</p> + +<p>"What time was it you saw that smoke, Grannis?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The man addressed paused in the operation of rolling a cigarette.</p> + +<p>"'Bout an hour ago, I should say. I was just thinking of coming in to +dinner."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> + +<p>The lids met over Rankin's eyes, then the narrow slit opened.</p> + +<p>"It was in the no'thwest you say, and seemed to be quite a way off?"</p> + +<p>Grannis nodded.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I couldn't make out any fire, only the smoke, and that didn't last +long. I thought at first maybe it was a prairie fire, and started to +see; but it was getting thinner before I'd gone a mile, so I turned +round and by the time I got back to the corral there wasn't nothing at +all to see."</p> + +<p>Two of the other hands solemnly exchanged a wink.</p> + +<p>"Think you must have eaten too many of Ma Graham's pancakes this +morning, and had a blur over your eyes," commented one, slyly. "Prairie +fires don't stop that sudden when the grass is like it is now."</p> + +<p>The portly housewife paused in her work to cast a look of scorn upon the +speaker, but Grannis rushed into the breach.</p> + +<p>"Don't you believe it. There was a fire all right. Somebody stopped it, +or it stopped itself, that's all."</p> + +<p>Tilting his chair forward with an effort, Rankin got to his feet, and, +as usual, his action brought the discussion to an end. The woman +returned to her work; the men put on hats and coats preparatory to going +out of doors. Only the proprietor stood passive a moment absently +drawing down his vest over his portly figure.</p> + +<p>"Graham," he said at last, "hitch the mustangs to the light wagon."</p> + +<p>"All right."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And, Graham—"</p> + +<p>The man addressed paused.</p> + +<p>"Throw in a couple of extra blankets."</p> + +<p>"All right."</p> + +<p>Out of doors the men took up the conversation where they had left off.</p> + +<p>"You better begin to hope the old man finds something that's been afire +up there, Grannis," said the joker of the house. "If he don't, you've +cooked your goose proper."</p> + +<p>Grannis was a new-comer, and looked his surprise.</p> + +<p>"Why so?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"You'll find out why," retorted the other. "Fire here's 'most as +uncommon as rain, and the boss don't like them smoky jokes."</p> + +<p>"But I saw smoke, I tell you," reiterated Grannis, defensively; "smoke, +dead sure!"</p> + +<p>"All right, if you're certain sure."</p> + +<p>"Marcom knows what he's talking about, Grannis," said Graham. "He tried +to ginger things up a bit when he was new here, like you are; found a +litter of coyotes one September—thought they were timber wolves, I +guess, and braced up with his story to the old man." The speaker paused +with a reflective grin.</p> + +<p>"Well, what happened?" asked Grannis.</p> + +<p>"What happened? The boss sent me dusting about forty miles to get some +hounds. Nearly spoiled a good team to get back inside sixteen hours, +and—they found out Bill here in the next thirty minutes, that was all!" +Once more the story ended in a grin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What'd Rankin say?" asked Grannis, with interest.</p> + +<p>"How about it, Bill?" suggested Graham.</p> + +<p>The big cowboy looked a trifle foolish.</p> + +<p>"Oh, he didn't say much; 'tain't his way. He just remarked, sort of +off-hand, that as far as I was concerned the next year had only about +four pay-months in it. That was all."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing at once. This was the +motto of the master of the Box R Ranch. In ten minutes' time Rankin's +big shapeless figure, seated in the old buckboard, was moving northwest +at the steady jog-trot typical of prairie travel, and which as the hours +pass by annihilates distance surprisingly. Simply a fat, an abnormally +fat, man, the casual observer would have said. It remained for those who +came in actual contact with him to learn the force beneath the +forbidding exterior,—the relentless bull-dog energy that had made him +dictator of the great ranch, and kept subordinate the restless, roving, +dissolute men-of-fortune he employed,—the deliberate and impartial +judgment which had made his word as near law as it was possible for any +mandate to be among the motley inhabitants within a radius of fifty +miles. Had Rankin chosen he could have attained honor, position, power +in his native Eastern home. No barrier built of convention or of +conservatism could have withstood him. Society reserves her prizes +largely for the man of initiative; and, uncomely block as he was, Rankin +was of the true type. But for some reason, a reason known to none of his +associates, he had chosen to come to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> West. Some consideration or +other had caused him to stop at his present abode, and had made him +apparently a fixture in the midst of this unconquered country.</p> + +<p>There was no road in the direction Rankin was travelling,—only the +unbroken prairie sod, eaten close by the herds that grazed its every +foot. Even under the direct sunlight the air was sharp. The regular +breath of the mustangs shot out like puffs of steam from the exhaust of +an engine, and the moisture frosted about their flanks and nostrils. But +the big man on the seat did not notice temperature. He had produced a +pipe from the depths beneath the wagon seat, and tobacco from a jar +cunningly fitted into one corner of the box, both without moving from +his place, the seat being hinged and divided in the centre to facilitate +the operation. More a home to him than the ranch-house itself was that +battered buckboard. Here, on an average, he spent eight hours out of the +twenty-four, and that seat-box was a veritable storehouse of articles +used in his daily life. As the jog-trot measured off the miles he +replenished the pipe again and again, leaving behind him the odor of +strong tobacco.</p> + +<p>Not until he was within a mile of the "Big B" property, and a rise in +the monotonous roll of the land brought him in range of vision, did +Rankin show that he felt more than ordinary interest in his expedition; +then, shading his eyes, he looked steadily ahead. The sod barn stood in +its usual place; the corral, with its posts set close together, +stretched by its side; but where the house had stood there could not be +distinguished even a mound. The hand on the reins tightened meaningly, +and in sympa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>thy the mustangs moved ahead at a swifter pace, leaving +behind a trail of tobacco-smoke denser than before.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When the little Benjamin Blair, fugitive, had literally taken to the +earth, it was with definite knowledge of the territory he was entering. +He had often explored its depths with childish curiosity, to the +distress of his mother and the disgust of the rightful owner, the +mongrel dog. Retreating to the farther end of the cave, the instinct of +self-preservation set hands and feet to work like the claws of a gopher, +filling with loose dirt the narrow passage through which he had entered. +Panting and perspiring with the effort, choked with the dust he raised, +all but suffocated, he dug until his strength gave out; then, curling up +in his narrow quarters, he lay listening. At first he heard nothing, not +even a sound from the dog; and he wondered at the fact. He could not +believe that Tom Blair would leave him in peace, and he breathlessly +awaited the first tap of an instrument against his retreat. A minute +passed, lengthened to five—to ten—and with the quick impatience of +childhood he started to learn the reason of the delay. His active little +body revolved in its nest. In the darkness a wiry arm scratched at the +recently erected barricade. A head with a tousled mass of hair poked its +way into the opening, crowded forward a foot—two feet, then stopped, +the whole body quivering. He had passed the curve, and of a sudden it +was as though he had opened the door of a furnace and gazed inside. +Instead of the familiar room, a great sheet of flame walled him in. +Instead of silence, a roar as of a hurricane was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> in his ears. Never in +his life had he seen a great fire, but instantly he understood. +Instantly the instinctive animal terror of fire gripped him; he +retreated to the very depths of the kennel, and burying his small head +in his arms lay still. But not even then, child though he was, did he +utter a cry. The endurance which had made Jennie Blair stare death +impassively in the face was part and parcel of his nature.</p> + +<p>For the space of perhaps a minute Ben lay motionless. Louder than before +came to his ears the roar of the fire. Occasionally a hot tongue of +flame intruded mockingly into the mouth of his retreat. The confined air +about him grew close, narcotic. He expected to die, and with the +premonition of death an abnormal activity came to the child-brain. +Whatever knowledge he possessed of death was connected with his mother. +It was she who had given him his vague impression of another life. She +herself, as she lay silent and unresponsive, had been the first concrete +example of it. Inevitably thought of her came to him now,—practical, +material thought, crowding from his brain the blind terror that had been +its predecessor. Where was his mother now? He pictured again the furnace +into which he had gazed from the mouth of the kennel. Though perhaps she +would not feel it, she would be burned—burned to a crisp—destroyed +like the fuel he had tossed into the makeshift stove! Instinctively he +felt the sacrilege, and the desire to do something to prevent it. +Something—yes, but what? He was himself helpless; he must seek outside +aid—but where? Suddenly there occurred to the child-mind a suggestion +appli<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>cable to his difficulty, an adequate solution, for it involved +everything he had learned to trust in life. He remembered a Being more +powerful than man, more powerful than fire or cold,—a Being whom his +mother had called God. Believing in Him, it was necessary only to ask +for whatever one wished. For himself, even to save his life, he would +not call upon this Being; but for his mamma! In childish faith he folded +his hands and closed his eyes in the darkness.</p> + +<p>"God," he prayed, "please put out this fire and save my mamma from +burning!"</p> + +<p>The small hands loosened and the lips parted to hear the first +diminution in the growl of the flame. But it roared on.</p> + +<p>"God!" The hands were clasped again, the voice vibrant with pleading. +"God, please put out the fire! Please put it out!"</p> + +<p>Silence again within, but without only the steady roaring crackle. Could +it be possible the petition had not been heard? The childish hands met +more tightly than before. The small body fairly writhed.</p> + +<p>"God! God!" he implored for the third time. "Listen to me, please! Save +my mamma, my mamma!"</p> + +<p>For a moment the little figure lay still. Surely there would be an +answer now. His mamma had said there would be, and whatever his mamma +had told him had always come true. The air about him was so close he +could scarcely breathe; but he did not notice it. Reversing head and +feet, he started out of the kennel. It was certainly time to leave. The +roar he had heard must have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> been of the wind. Assuredly God had acted +before this. Head first, gasping, he moved on, reached the curve, and +looked out.</p> + +<p>Indignation took possession of the little figure. The fingers clinched +until the nails bit deep into the soft palms. The whole body trembled in +impotent anger and outraged self-respect. Upon the face of the small man +was suddenly written the implacable defiance which one sees in carnivora +when wounded and cornered—intensified as an expression can only be +intensified upon a human face—as, almost unconsciously, he returned to +the hollow he had left, and fairly thrust his tousled head into the +kindly earth.</p> + +<p>How long he remained there he did not know. The stifling atmosphere of +the place gradually overcame him. Anger, wonder, the multitude of +thoughts crowding his child-brain, slowly faded away; consciousness +lapsed, and he slept.</p> + +<p>When he awoke it was with a start and a vague wonder as to his +whereabouts. Then memory returned, and he listened intently. Not a sound +could he distinguish save his own breathing, as he slowly made his way +to the mouth of the kennel. Before him was the opposite sod wall of the +house standing as high as his head; above that, the blue of the sky; +upon what had been the earthen floor, a strewing of ashes; over all, +calm, glorious, the slanting rays of the low afternoon sun. A moment the +boy lay gazing out; then he crawled to his feet, shaking off the dirt as +a dog does. One glance about, and the blue eyes halted. A moisture came +into them, gathered into drops,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> and then, breaking over the barrier of +the long lashes, tears flowed through the accumulated grime, down the +thin cheeks, leaving a clean pathway behind. That was all, for an +instant; then a look—terrible in a mature person and doubly so in a +child—came over the long face,—an expression partaking of both hate +and vengeance. It mirrored an emotion that in a nature such as that of +Benjamin Blair would never be forgotten. Some day, for some one, there +would be a moment of reckoning; for the child was looking at the +charred, unrecognizable corpse of his mother.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A half-hour later, Rankin, steaming into the yard of the Big B Ranch, +came upon a scene that savored much of a play. It was so dramatic that +the big man paused in contemplation of it. He saw there the sod and +ashes of what had once been a home. The place must have burned like +tinder, for now, but a few hours from the time when Grannis had first +given the alarm, not an atom of smoke ascended. At one end of the +quadrangular space enclosed by the walls stood the makeshift stove, +discolored with the heat, as was the length of pipe by its side. Near by +was a heap of warped iron and tin cooking utensils. At one side, covered +by an old gunny-sack and a boy's tattered coat, was another object the +form of which the observer could not distinguish.</p> + +<p>In the middle of the plat, standing a few inches below the surface, was +a small boy, and in his hands a very large spade. He wore a man's +discarded shirt, with sleeves rolled up at the wrist, and neck-band +pinned tight at one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> side. Obviously, he had been digging, for a small +pile of fresh dirt was heaped at his right. Now, however, he was +motionless, the blue eyes beneath the long lashes observing the +new-comer inquiringly. That was all, save that to the picture was added +the background of the unbroken silence of the prairie.</p> + +<p>The man was the first to break the spell. He got out of the wagon +clumsily, walked around the wall, and entered the quadrangle by what had +been the door.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Digging," replied the boy, resuming his work.</p> + +<p>"Digging what?"</p> + +<p>The boy lifted out a double handful of dirt upon the big spade.</p> + +<p>"A grave."</p> + +<p>The man glanced about again.</p> + +<p>"For some pet?"</p> + +<p>The boy shook his head.</p> + +<p>"No—sir," the latter word coming as an after-thought. His mother had +taught him that title of respect.</p> + +<p>Rankin changed the line of interrogation.</p> + +<p>"Where's Tom Blair, young man?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, sir."</p> + +<p>"Your mother, then, where is she?"</p> + +<p>"My mother is dead."</p> + +<p>"Dead?"</p> + +<p>The child's blue eyes did not falter.</p> + +<p>"I am digging her grave, sir."</p> + +<p>For a time Rankin did not speak or stir. Amid the stubbly beard the +great jaws closed, until it seemed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> pipe-stem must be broken. His +eyes narrowed, as when, before starting, he had questioned the cowboy +Grannis; then of a sudden he rose and laid a detaining hand upon the +worker's shoulder. He understood at last.</p> + +<p>"Stop a minute, son," he said. "I want to talk with you."</p> + +<p>The lad looked up.</p> + +<p>"How did it happen—the fire and your mother's death?"</p> + +<p>No answer, only the same strangely scrutinizing look.</p> + +<p>Rankin repeated the question a bit curtly.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair calmly removed the man's hand from his shoulder and looked him +fairly in the eyes.</p> + +<p>"Why do you wish to know, sir?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The big man made no answer. Why did he wish to know? What answer could +he give? He paced back and forth across the narrow confines of the four +sod walls. Once he paused, gazing at the little lad questioningly, not +as one looks at a child but as man faces man; then, tramp, tramp, he +paced on again. At last, as suddenly as before, he halted, and glanced +sidewise at the uncompleted grave.</p> + +<p>"You're quite sure you want to bury your mother here?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The lad nodded silently.</p> + +<p>"And alone?"</p> + +<p>Again the nod.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I heard her say once she wished it so."</p> + +<p>Without comment, Rankin removed his coat and took the spade from the +boy's hand.</p> + +<p>"I'll help you, then."</p> + +<p>For a half-hour he worked steadily, descending lower<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> and lower into the +dry earth; then, pausing, he wiped the perspiration from his face.</p> + +<p>"Are you cold, son?" he asked directly.</p> + +<p>"Not very, sir." But the lad's teeth were chattering.</p> + +<p>"A bit, though?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," simply.</p> + +<p>"All right, you'll find some blankets out in the wagon, Ben. You'd +better go out and get one and put it around you."</p> + +<p>The boy started to obey. "Thank you, sir," he said.</p> + +<p>Rankin returned to his work. In the west the sun dropped slowly beneath +the horizon, leaving a wonderful golden light behind. The waiting +horses, too well trained to move from their places, shifted uneasily +amid much creaking of harness. Within the grave the digger's head sunk +lower and lower, while the mound by the side grew higher and higher. The +cold increased. Across the prairie, a multitude of black specks +advanced, grew large, whizzed overhead, then retreated, their wings +cutting the keen air, and silence returned.</p> + +<p>Darkness was falling when at last Rankin clambered out to the surface.</p> + +<p>"Another blanket, Ben, please."</p> + +<p>Without a glance beneath, he wrapped the object under the old gunny-sack +round and round with the rough wool winding-sheet, and, carrying it to +the edge of the grave, himself descended clumsily and placed it gently +at his feet. The pit was deep, and in getting out he slipped back twice; +but he said nothing. Outside, he paused a moment, looking at the boy +gravely.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Anything you wish to say, Benjamin?"</p> + +<p>The lad returned the gaze with equal gravity.</p> + +<p>"I don't know of anything, sir."</p> + +<p>The man paused a moment longer.</p> + +<p>"Nor I, Ben," he said gently.</p> + +<p>Again the spade resumed its work; and the impassive earth returned dully +to its former resting-place. Dusk came on, but Rankin did not look about +him until the mound was neatly rounded; then he turned to where he had +left the little boy so bravely erect. But the small figure was not +standing now; instead, it was prone on the ground amid the dust and +ashes.</p> + +<p>"Ben!" said Rankin, gently. "Ben!"</p> + +<p>No answer.</p> + +<p>"Ben!" he repeated.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>For a moment a small thin face appeared above the dishevelled figure, +and a great sob shook the little frame. Then the head disappeared again.</p> + +<p>"I can't help it, sir," wailed a muffled voice. "She was my mamma!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<h3>BEN'S NEW HOME</h3></div> + +<p>Supper was over at the Box R Ranch. From the tiny lean-to the muffled +rattle of heavy table-ware proclaimed the fact that Ma Graham was +putting things in readiness for breakfast. Beside the sheet-iron heater +in the front room, her husband, carefully swaddled in a big checked +apron with the strings tied in a bow under his left ear, was busily +engaged in dressing the half-dozen prairie chickens he had trapped that +day. As fast as he removed the feathers he thrust them into the stove, +and the pungent odor mingled with the suggestive tang of the bacon that +had been the foundation of the past supper, and with the odor of +cigarettes with which the other four men were permeating the place.</p> + +<p>Graham critically held up to the light the bird upon which he had just +been operating, removed a few scattered feathers, and, with practised +hand, attacked its successor.</p> + +<p>"If I were doing this job for myself," he commented, "I'd skin the +beasts. Life is too blamed short to waste it in pulling out feathers!"</p> + +<p>Grannis, the new-comer from no one knew where, smiled.</p> + +<p>"It would look to me that you were doing it," he remarked. "I'd like to +ask for information, who is if you ain't?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> + +<p>The clatter of dishes suddenly ceased, and Graham's labor stopped in +sympathy.</p> + +<p>"My boy," he asked in reply, "were you ever married?"</p> + +<p>Beneath its coat of tan, Grannis's face flushed; but he did not answer.</p> + +<p>A second passed; then the plucking of feathers was continued.</p> + +<p>"I reckon you've never been, though," Graham went on, "else you'd never +ask that question."</p> + +<p>During the remainder of the evening, Grannis sought no further +information; and to Ma Graham's narrow life a new interest was added.</p> + +<p>Ordinarily the cowboys went to their bunks in an adjoining shed almost +directly after supper, but this evening, without giving a reason, they +lingered. The housekeeper finished her work, and, coming into the main +room, took a chair and sat down, her hands folded in her lap. The grouse +dressed, Graham ranged them in a row upon the lean-to table, removed the +apron, and lit his pipe in silence. The cowboys rolled fresh cigarettes +and puffed at them steadily, the four stumps close together glowing in +the dimness of the room. As everywhere upon the prairie, the quiet was +almost a thing to feel.</p> + +<p>At last, when the silence had become oppressive, the foreman took the +pipe from his mouth and blew a short puff of smoke.</p> + +<p>"Seems like the boss ought to've got back before this," he said with a +sidelong glance at his wife.</p> + +<p>Ma Graham nodded corroboration.</p> + +<p>"Yes; must have found something wrong, I guess."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> She refolded her +hands, and once more relapsed into silence.</p> + +<p>It was the breaking of the ice, however.</p> + +<p>"Where d'ye suppose the trouble could have been, Graham?" It was another +late-comer, Bud Buck, young and narrow of hips, who spoke.</p> + +<p>"At Blair's," was the answer. "The Big B is the closest."</p> + +<p>"Blair?" The questioner puffed at his cigarette thoughtfully. "Guess I +never heard of him."</p> + +<p>"Must be a stranger in these parts, then," said Marcom. "Most everybody +knows Tom Blair." He paused to give an all-including glance. "At least +well enough to get a slice of his dough," he finished with a sarcastic +laugh.</p> + +<p>"Does he handle the pasteboards?" asked Buck, with interest.</p> + +<p>"Tries to," contemptuously.</p> + +<p>The curiosity of the youthful Bud was now thoroughly aroused.</p> + +<p>"What kind of a fellow is he, anyway?" he went on. "Does he go it alone +up at his ranch?"</p> + +<p>At the last question Bill Marcom, discreetly silent, shifted his eyes in +the direction of the foreman, and, following them, Bud surprised a +covert glance between Graham and his wife. It was the latter who finally +answered.</p> + +<p>"Not <i>exactly</i>."</p> + +<p>Buck was not without intuition, and he shifted to safer ground.</p> + +<p>"Got much of a herd, has he?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> + +<p>Marcom rolled a fresh cigarette skilfully, and drew the string of the +tobacco pouch taut with his teeth.</p> + +<p>"He did have, one time, but I don't believe he's got many left now. +There's been a bunch lost there every storm I can remember. He don't +keep any punchers to look after 'em, and he's never on hand himself. The +woman and the kid," with a peculiar glance at the stout housekeeper, +"saved 'em part of the time, but mostly they just drifted." The speaker +blew a great cloud of smoke, and the veins at his temples swelled. "It's +a shame, the way he neglects his stock and lets 'em starve and freeze!"</p> + +<p>The blood coursed hot in the veins of Bud Buck.</p> + +<p>"Why don't somebody step in?"</p> + +<p>There was a meaning silence, broken at last by Graham.</p> + +<p>"We would've—with a rope—if it hadn't been for the boss. He tried to +help the fellow; went over there lots of times himself—weather colder +than the devil, too, and with the wind and sleet so bad you couldn't see +the team ahead of you—until one time last Winter Blair came home full, +and caught him there." The narrative paused, and the black pipe puffed +reminiscently. "The boss never said much, but I guess they must have had +quite a session. Anyway, Rankin never went again, and from the way he +looked when he got back here, half froze, and the mustangs beat out, I +reckon Blair never knew how close he come to a necktie party that day."</p> + +<p>Again silence fell, and remained unbroken until Graham suddenly sprang +to his feet, and with "That's him now!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> I could tell that old buckboard +if I was in my grave!" hurried on coat and hat and disappeared into the +night. A minute more and the door through which he had passed opened +slowly, and the figure of a small boy, wrapped like an Indian in a big +blanket, stepped timidly inside and stood blinking in the light.</p> + +<p>In anticipation of a very different arrival the housekeeper had risen to +her feet, and now in surprise, arms akimbo, she stood looking curiously +at the stranger. In this land at this time the young of every other +animal native thereto was common, but a child, a white child, was a +novelty indeed. Many a cow-puncher, bachelor among bachelors, could +testify that it had been years since he had seen the like. But Ma Graham +was not a bachelor, and in her the maternal instinct, though repressed, +was strong. It was barely an instant before she was at the little lad's +side, unwinding the blanket with deft hands.</p> + +<p>"Who be you, anyway, and where'd you come from?" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>The child observed her gravely.</p> + +<p>"Benjamin Blair's my name. I came with the man."</p> + +<p>The husk was off the lad ere this, and the woman was rubbing his small +hands vigorously.</p> + +<p>"Cold, ain't you? Come right over to the fire!" herself leading the way. +"And hungry—I'll bet you're hungrier than a wolf!"</p> + +<p>The lad nodded. "Yes, ma'am."</p> + +<p>The woman straightened up and looked down at her charge.</p> + +<p>"Of course you are. All little boys are hungry." She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> cast a challenging +glance around the group of interested spectators.</p> + +<p>"Fix the fire, one of you, while I get something hot for the kid," she +said, and ambled toward the lean-to.</p> + +<p>If the men thought to have their curiosity concerning the youngster +satisfied by word of mouth, however, they were doomed to be +disappointed; for when Rankin himself entered it was as though nothing +out of the ordinary had happened. He hung up his coat methodically, and, +with the boy by his side, partook of the hastily prepared meal +impassively, as was his wont. It could not have escaped him that the +small Benjamin ate and ate until it seemed marvellous that one stomach +could accommodate so much food; but he made no comment, and when at last +the boy succumbed to a final plateful, he tilted back against the wall +for his last smoke for the day. This was the usual signal of dismissal, +and the hands put on their hats and filed silently out.</p> + +<p>Without more words the foreman and his wife prepared for the night. The +dishes were cleared away and piled in the lean-to. From either end of +the room bunks, broad as beds, were let down from the wall, and the +blankets that formed their linings were carefully smoothed out. Along +the pole extending across the middle of the room, another set was drawn, +dividing the room in two. Then the two disappeared with a simple +"Good-night."</p> + +<p>Rankin and the boy sat alone looking at each other. From across the +blanket partition there came the muffled sound of movement, the impact +of Graham's heavy boots, as they dropped to the floor, and then +silence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Better go to bed, Ben," suggested Rankin, with a nod toward the bunk.</p> + +<p>The boy at once went through the process of disrobing, and, crawling in +between the blankets, pulled them up about his chin. But the blue eyes +did not close. Instead, they rested steadily upon the man's face. Rankin +returned the look, and then the stubby pipe left his mouth.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Ben?"</p> + +<p>The boy hesitated. "Am I to—to stay with you?" he asked at last.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>For an instant the questioner seemed satisfied; then the peculiar +inquiring look returned.</p> + +<p>"Anything else, son?"</p> + +<p>The lad hesitated longer than before. Beneath the coverings his body +moved restlessly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, I want to know why nobody would come to help my mamma if +she'd sent for them. She said they wouldn't."</p> + +<p>The pipe left Rankin's mouth, his great jaws closing with an audible +click.</p> + +<p>"You wish to know—what did you say, Ben?"</p> + +<p>The boy repeated the question.</p> + +<p>For a minute, and then another, Rankin said nothing; then he knocked the +ashes from the bowl of his brier and laid it upon the table.</p> + +<p>"Never mind now why they wouldn't, son." He arose heavily and drew off +his coat. "You'll find out for yourself quickly enough—too quickly, my +boy. Now go to sleep."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'>num'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> +<h3>THE EXOTICS</h3></div> + +<p>Some men acquire involuntary prominence by being democratic amid +aristocratic surroundings. Others, on the contrary, but with the same +result, continue to live the life to which they were born, even when +placed amid surroundings that make their actions all but grotesque. An +example of this latter class was Scotty Baker, whose ranch, as the wild +goose flies, was thirteen miles west of the Box R.</p> + +<p>Scotty was a very English Englishman, with an inborn love of fine +horse-flesh and a guileless nature. Some years before he had fallen into +the hands of a promoter, and had bartered a goodly proportion of his +worldly belongings for a horse-ranch in Dakota, to be taken possession +of immediately. Long indeed was the wail which went up from his home in +Sussex when the fact was made known. Neighbors were fluent in +denunciation, relatives insistent in expostulation; his wife, and in +sympathy their baby daughter, copious in the argument of tears; but the +die was irrevocably cast. Go he would,—not from voluntary stubbornness, +but because he must.</p> + +<p>The actual departure of the Bakers was much like the sailing of +Columbus. Probably not one of the friends<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> who saw them off for their +new home expected ever to see the family again. Indians they were +confident were rampant, and frantic for scalps. Should any by a miracle +escape the savages, the tremendous herds of buffalo, running amuck, here +and there, could not fail to trample the survivors into the dust of the +prairie. By comparison, war was a benignant prospect; and sighs mingled +until the sound was as the wailing of winds.</p> + +<p>Scotty was very cheerful through it all, very encouraging even in the +face of incontestibly unfavorable evidence, until, with the few remnants +of civilization they had brought with them, the family arrived at the +wind-beaten terminus, a hundred miles from his newly acquired property. +Then for the first time he wilted.</p> + +<p>"I've been an ass," he admitted bitterly, as he glanced in impotent +contempt at the handful of weather-stained buildings which on the map +bore the name of a town; "an ass, an egregious, abominable, blethering +ass!"</p> + +<p>But, notwithstanding his lack of the practical, Scotty was made of good +stuff. It was not an alternative but a necessity that faced him now, and +he arose right manfully to the occasion. Despite his wife's assertion +that she "never, never would go any farther into this God-forsaken +country," he succeeded in getting her into a lumber-wagon and headed for +what he genially termed "the interior." At last he even succeeded in +making her smile at his efforts to make the disreputable mule pack-team +he had secured move faster than a walk.</p> + +<p>Once in possession of his own, however, he returned to his customary +easy manner of life. It took him a very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> short time to discover that he +had purchased a gold brick. Horses, especially fine horses, were in no +demand there; but this fact did not alter his course in the least. A +horse-ranch he had bought, a horse-ranch he would run, though every man +west of the Mississippi should smile. He enlarged his tiny shack to a +cottage of three rooms; put in floor and ceiling, and papered the walls. +Out of poles and prairie sod he fashioned a serviceable barn, and built +an admirable horse paddock. Last of all he planted in his dooryard, in +artistic irregularity, a wagon-load of small imported trees. The fact +that within six months they all died caused him slight misgiving. He at +least had done what he could to beautify the earth; that he failed was +nature's fault, not his.</p> + +<p>Once settled, he began to make acquaintances. Methodically, to the +members of one ranch at a time, he sent invitations to dinner, and upon +the appointed date he confronted his guests with a spectacle which made +them all but doubt their identity, the like of which most of them had +never even seen before. Fancy a cowboy rancher, clad in flannel and +leather, welcomed by a host and hostess in complete evening dress, +ushered into a room which contained a carpet and a piano, and had lace +curtains at the windows; seated later at a table covered with pure linen +and set with real china and cut-glass. The experience was like a dream +to the visitor. Temporarily, as in a dream, the evening would pass +without conscious volition upon the latter's part; and not until later, +when he was at home, would the full significance of the experience +assert itself, and his wonder and admiration find vent in words. Then +indeed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> would the fame of Scotty Baker, his wife, and little daughter, +be heard in the land.</p> + +<p>Early in his career, Scotty began to cultivate the impassive Rankin. He +fairly bombarded the big rancher with courtesies and invitations. No +holiday (and Scotty was an assiduous observer of holidays) was complete +unless Rankin was present to help celebrate. No improvement about the +ranch was definitely undertaken until Rankin had expressed a favorable +opinion concerning the project. Gradually, so gradually that the big man +himself did not realize the change, he fell under Scotty's influence, +and more and more frequently he was to be found headed toward the cosey +Baker cottage. Now, for a year or more, scarcely a Sunday had passed +without one or the other of the men finding it possible to traverse the +thirty miles intervening between them, to spend a few hours in each +other's company.</p> + +<p>It was in pursuance of this laudable intention that on the second +morning following Ben Blair's adoption into the Box R Ranch—a +Sunday—the Englishman hitched a team of his best blooded trotters to +the antiquated phaeton, which was the only vehicle he possessed, and +started across country at a lively clip. Thus it came to pass that about +two hours later, having tied his team at the barn and started for the +ranch-house, the visitor saw squarely in his path upon the sunny south +doorstep an object that made him pause and blink his near-sighted eyes. +Under the concentration of his vision, the object resolved itself into a +small boy perched like a frog upon a rock, his fingers locked across his +shins, his chin upon his knees. For an instant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> the Englishman +hesitated. Courtesy was instinctive with him.</p> + +<p>"Can you tell me whether Mr. Rankin is at home?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The lad calmly disentangled himself and stood up.</p> + +<p>"You mean the big man, sir?"</p> + +<p>Again Scotty was guilty of a breach of etiquette. He stared.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," he replied at last.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair stepped out of the way.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, he is."</p> + +<p>Within the ranch-house Scotty dropped into the nearest chair.</p> + +<p>"Tell me, Rankin," he began, "who is the new-comer, and where did you +get him?" A long leg swung comfortably over its mate. "And, by the way, +while you're about it, is he six or sixty? By Jove, I couldn't tell!"</p> + +<p>The host looked at his visitor quizzically.</p> + +<p>"Ben, I suppose you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Ben, or <i>Tom</i>, I don't know. I mean the gentleman on the front steps, +the one who didn't know your name," and the Englishman related the +recent conversation.</p> + +<p>The corners of Rankin's eyes tightened into an unwonted smile as he +listened, and then contracted until the corner of the large mouth drew +upward in sympathy.</p> + +<p>"I'm not surprised, Baker," he admitted, "that you're in doubt about +Ben's age. He's eight; but I'd be uncertain myself if I didn't +absolutely know. As to his not knowing my name—it's just struck me that +I've never introduced myself to the little fellow."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But how did you come to get him? This isn't a country where one sees +many children roaming around."</p> + +<p>"No," the big mouth dropped back into its normal shape; "that's a fact. +He didn't just drop in. I got him by adoption, I suppose; least ways, I +asked him to come and live with me, and he accepted." The speaker turned +to his companion directly. "You knew Jennie Blair, did you?"</p> + +<p>Scotty looked interested.</p> + +<p>"Knew of her, but never had the pleasure of an acquaintance. I always—"</p> + +<p>"Well," interrupted Rankin impassively, "Ben's her son. She died awhile +ago, you remember, and somehow it seemed to break Blair all up. He +wouldn't stay here any longer, and didn't want to take the kid with him, +so I took the youngster in. As far as I know, the arrangement will +stick."</p> + +<p>For a minute there was silence. Scotty observed his host shrewdly, +almost sceptically.</p> + +<p>"That's all of the story, is it?" he asked at last.</p> + +<p>"All, as far as I know."</p> + +<p>Scotty continued his observation a moment longer.</p> + +<p>"But not all the kid knows, I judge."</p> + +<p>The host made no comment, and in a distinctively absent manner the +Englishman removed his glasses and cleaned the lenses upon the tail of +his Sunday frock-coat.</p> + +<p>"By the way,"—Scotty returned the glasses to his nose and sprung the +bows over his ears with a snap,—"what day was it that Blair left? Did +it happen to be Friday?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Friday."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And he doesn't intend ever to return?"</p> + +<p>"I believe not."</p> + +<p>The visitor's eyes flashed swiftly around the room. The two men were +alone.</p> + +<p>"I think, then, I see through it." The voice was lower than before. "One +of my best mares disappeared night before last, and I haven't been able +to get trace of a hoof or hair since."</p> + +<p>"What?" Rankin was interested at last.</p> + +<p>Scotty repeated the statement, and his host eyed him a full half minute +steadily.</p> + +<p>"And you just—tell of it?" he said at last.</p> + +<p>The Englishman shifted uneasily in his seat.</p> + +<p>"Yes." Forgetting that he had just polished his glasses, he took them +off and went through the process again.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I may as well be honest, I've seen a bit of these Westerners about +here, and I don't really agree with their scheme of justice. They're apt +to put two and two together and make eight where you know it's only +four." For the second time he sprung the bows back over his ears. "And +when they find out their beastly mistake—why—oh—it's too late then, +perhaps, for some poor devil!"</p> + +<p>For another half minute Rankin hesitated; then he reached over and +grasped the other man by the hand.</p> + +<p>"Baker," he said, "you ain't very practical, but you're dead square." +And he shook the hand again.</p> + +<p>Of a sudden a twinkle came into the Britisher's eyes and he tore himself +loose with an effort.</p> + +<p>"By the way," he said, "I'd like to ask a question for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> future guidance. +What would you have done if you'd been in my place?"</p> + +<p>Rankin stiffened in his seat, and a color almost red surged beneath the +tan of his cheeks; then, as suddenly as his companion had done, he +smiled outright.</p> + +<p>"I reckon I'd have done just what you did," he admitted; and the two men +laughed together.</p> + +<p>"Seriously, though," said Scotty, after a moment, "and as long as I've +told you anyway, what ought I to do under the circumstances? Should I +let Blair off, do you think?"</p> + +<p>For a moment Rankin did not answer; then he faced his questioner +directly, and Scotty knew why the big man's word was so nearly law in +the community.</p> + +<p>"Under the circumstances," he repeated, "I'd let him go; for several +reasons. First of all, he's got such a start of you now that you +couldn't catch him, anyway. Then he's a coward by nature, and it'll be a +mighty long time before he ever shows up here again. And last of all," +the speaker hesitated, "last of all," he repeated slowly, "though I +don't know, I believe you were right when you said the boy could tell +more about it than the rest of us; and if what we suspect is true, I +think by the time he comes back, if he ever does come, Ben will be old +enough to take care of him." Again the speaker paused, and his great +jowl settled down into his shirt-front. "If he doesn't, I can't read +signs when I see 'em."</p> + +<p>For a moment the room was silent; then Scotty sprang to his feet as if a +load had been taken off his mind.</p> + +<p>"All right," said he, "we'll forget it. And, speaking of forgetting, +I've nearly got myself into trouble already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>. I have an invitation from +Mrs. Baker for you to take dinner with us to-day. In fact, I was sent on +purpose to bring you. Not a word, not a word!" he continued, at sight of +objections gathering on the other's face; "a lady's invitations are +sacred, you know. Get your coat!"</p> + +<p>Rankin arose with an effort and stood facing his visitor.</p> + +<p>"You know I'm always glad to visit you, Baker," he said. "I wasn't +thinking of holding off on my own account, but I've got someone else to +consider now, you know. Ben—"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, certainly!" Scotty's voice was eloquent of comprehension. +"Throw the kiddie in too. He can play with Flossie; they're about of an +age, and she'll be tickled to death to have him."</p> + +<p>Rankin looked at his friend a moment peculiarly. "I know Ben's going +would be all right with you, Baker," he explained at last, "but how +about your wife? Considering—everything—she might object."</p> + +<p>The smile left the Englishman's face, and a look of perplexity took its +place.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he said, "you're right! I never thought of that." He shifted +from one foot to the other uneasily. "But, pshaw! What's the use of +saying anything whatever about the boy's connections? He's nothing but a +youngster,—and, besides, his mother's actions are no fault of his."</p> + +<p>Rankin took his top-coat off its peg deliberately.</p> + +<p>"All right," he said. "I'll call Ben." At the door he paused, looking +back, the peculiar expression again upon his face. "As you say, the +faults of Ben's mother are not his faults, anyway."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'>num'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<h3>THE SOIL AND THE SEED</h3></div> + +<p>Within the Baker home three persons, a woman and two men, were sitting +beside a well-discussed table in the perfect content that follows a good +meal. Strange to say, in this frontier land, the men had cigars, and +their smoke curled slowly toward the ceiling. Intermittently, with the +unconscious attitude of indifference we bestow upon happenings remote +from our lives, they were discussing the month-old news of the world, +which the messenger from town, who supplied at stated intervals the +family wants, had brought the day before.</p> + +<p>Out of doors, in the warm sunny plat south of the barn, a small boy and +a still smaller girl were engaged in the fascinating occupation of +becoming acquainted. The little girl was decidedly taking the +initiative.</p> + +<p>"How's it come your name is Blair?" she asked, opening fire as soon as +they were alone.</p> + +<p>The boy pondered the question. It had never occurred to him before. Why +should he be called Blair? No adequate reason suggested itself.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he admitted.</p> + +<p>The little girl wrinkled her forehead in thought.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's funny, isn't it?" she said. "Now, my papa's name is Baker, and my +name's Florence Baker. You ought to be Ben Rankin—but you aren't." She +stroked a diminutive nose with a fairy forefinger. "It's funny," she +repeated.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" commented Benjamin. He understood now, but explanations were not a +part of his philosophy. "Oh!" and the subject dropped.</p> + +<p>"Let's play duck on the rock," suggested Florence.</p> + +<p>The boy's hands were deep in the recesses of his pockets.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how."</p> + +<p>"That's nothing." The small brunette had the air of one to whom +difficulties were unknown. "I'll show you. Papa and I play, and it's +lots of fun—only he beats me." She looked about for available material.</p> + +<p>"You get that little box up by the house," she directed, "and we'll have +that for the rock."</p> + +<p>Ben did as ordered.</p> + +<p>"Now bring two tin cans. You'll find a pile back of the barn."</p> + +<p>Once more the boy departed, to return a moment later with a pair of +"selects," each bearing in gaudy illumination a composite picture of the +ingredients of succotash.</p> + +<p>"Now watch me," said Florence.</p> + +<p>She carried the box about a rod away and planted it firmly on the +ground. "This is the rock," she explained. On the top of the box she +perched one of the cans, open end up. "And this is the duck—my duck. Do +you see?"</p> + +<p>The boy had watched the proceedings carefully. "Yes, I see," he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + +<p>Florence came back to the barn. "Now the game is for you to take this +other can and knock my duck off. Then we both run, and if you get your +can on the box ahead of me, I'm <i>it</i>, and I'll have to knock off your +duck. Are you ready?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"All right." And the sport was on.</p> + +<p>Ben poised his missile and carefully let fly.</p> + +<p>"He, he!" tittered Florence. "You missed!"</p> + +<p>He retrieved his duck without comment.</p> + +<p>"Try again; you've got three chances."</p> + +<p>More carefully than before Ben took aim and tossed his can.</p> + +<p>"Missed again!" exulted the little brunette. "You've only one more try." +And the brown eyes flashed with mischief.</p> + +<p>For the last time Ben stood at position.</p> + +<p>"Be careful! you're out if you miss."</p> + +<p>Even more slowly than before the boy took aim, swung his arm overhead +clear from the shoulder, and threw with all his might. There was a flash +of gaudy paper through the air, a resounding impact of tin against wood, +and the make-believe duck skipped away as though fearful of danger.</p> + +<p>For a moment Florence stood aghast, but only for a moment; then she +stamped a tiny foot imperiously.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you naughty boy!" she exclaimed. "You naughty, naughty boy!"</p> + +<p>Once more Ben's hands were in his pockets. "Why?" he asked innocently.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Because you don't play right!"</p> + +<p>"You told me to knock the duck off, and I did!"</p> + +<p>"But not that way." Florence's small chin was high in the air. "I'm +going in the house."</p> + +<p>Ben made no motion to follow her, none to prevent her going.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," he said simply.</p> + +<p>The little girl took two steps decidedly, a third haltingly, a fourth, +then stopped and looked back out of the corner of her eye.</p> + +<p>"Are you very sorry?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Ben nodded his head gravely.</p> + +<p>There was a moment of indecision. "All right," she said, with apparent +reluctance; "but we won't play duck any more. We'll play drop the +handkerchief."</p> + +<p>The boy discreetly ignored the change of purpose.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how," he admitted once more.</p> + +<p>Such deplorable ignorance aroused her sympathy.</p> + +<p>"Don't Mr. Rankin, or—or anyone—play with you?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Ben shook his head.</p> + +<p>"All right, then," she said obligingly, "I'll show you."</p> + +<p>With her heel she drew upon the ground a rough circle about ten feet in +diameter.</p> + +<p>"You can't cross that place in there," she said.</p> + +<p>The boy looked at the bare ground critically. No visible barrier +presented itself to his vision.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Florence made a gesture of disapproval. "Because you can't," she +explained. Then, some further reason seeming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> necessary, she added, +"Perhaps there are red-hot irons or snakes, or something, in there. +Anyway, you can't cross!"</p> + +<p>Ben made no comment, and his instructor looked at him a moment +doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"Now," she went on, "I stand right here close to the line, and you take +the handkerchief." She produced a dainty little kerchief with a "B" +embroidered in the corner. "Drop it behind me, and get in my place if +you can before I touch you. If you get clear around and catch me before +I notice you—you can kiss me. Do you see?"</p> + +<p>Ben could see.</p> + +<p>"All right, then." And the little girl stood at attention, very prim, +apparently very watchful, toes touching the line.</p> + +<p>The nature of Benjamin Blair was very direct. The first time he passed, +he dropped the handkerchief and proceeded calmly on his journey. His +back toward her, the little girl turned and gave a surreptitious glance +behind; then quickly shifted to her original position, a look of +innocence upon her face. Straight ahead went Ben around the circle—that +contained hot irons, or snakes, or something—back to his +starting-point, touched the small fragment of femininity upon the +shoulder gingerly, as though afraid she would fracture.</p> + +<p>"Here's your handkerchief," he said, stooping to recover the bit of +linen. "You're it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear!" she said, in mock despair; "you dropped it the first time, +didn't you?"</p> + +<p>Ben agreed to the statement.</p> + +<p>An unaccountable lull followed. In it he caught a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> curious sidelong +glance from the brown eyes under the drooping lashes.</p> + +<p>"I didn't suppose you'd do that the first time," said the little girl. +"Papa never does."</p> + +<p>The observation seemed irrelevant to Ben Blair, at least inadequate to +halt the game; but he made no comment.</p> + +<p>Again there was a lull.</p> + +<p>"Well," suggested Florence, and a tinge of red surged beneath the soft +brown skin.</p> + +<p>Ben began to feel uncomfortable. He had a premonition that all was not +well.</p> + +<p>"You're <i>it</i>, ain't you?" he hesitated at last.</p> + +<p>This time, full and fair, the tiny woman looked at him. The color which +before had stood just beneath the skin rose burning to her ears, to the +roots of her hair. Her big brown eyes flashed fire.</p> + +<p>"Ben Blair," she flamed, "you're a 'fraid cat!" Tears welled up into her +voice, into her eyes, and she made a motion as if to leave; but the +sudden passion of a spoiled child was too strong upon her, the mystified +face of the other too near, too tempting. With a motion which was all +but involuntary, a tiny brown hand shot out and struck the boy fair on +the mouth. "A 'fraid cat, 'fraid cat, and I hate you!"</p> + +<p>Never before in his short life had Benjamin Blair met a girl. The ethics +of sex was a thing unknown to him, but nevertheless some instinct +prevented his returning the insult. Except for the red mark upon his +lips, his face grew very white.</p> + +<p>"What am I afraid of?" he asked steadily.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<p>Defiant still, the girl held her ground.</p> + +<p>"Afraid of what?" she jeered. "You're afraid of everything! 'Fraid cats +always are!"</p> + +<p>"But what?" pressed the boy. "Tell me something I'm afraid of."</p> + +<p>Florence glanced about her. The tall roof of the barn caught her vision.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't dare jump off the roof there, for one thing," she +ventured.</p> + +<p>Ben looked up. The point mentioned arose at least sixteen feet, and the +earth beneath was frozen like asphalt, but he did not hesitate. At the +north end, a stack of hay piled against the wall formed a sort of +inclined plane, and making a detour he began to climb. Half-way up he +lost his footing and came tumbling to the ground; but still he said +nothing. The next time he was more careful, and reached the ridge-pole +without accident. Below, the little girl, brilliant in her red jacket, +stood watching him; but he never even glanced at her. Instead, he raised +himself to his full height, looked once at the ground beneath, and +jumped.</p> + +<p>That instant a wave of contrition swept over Florence. In a sort of +vision she saw the boy lying injured, perhaps dead, upon the frozen +ground,—and all through her fault! She shut her eyes, and clasped her +hands over her face.</p> + +<p>A few seconds passed, bringing with them no further sound, and she +slowly opened her fingers. Through them, instead of a prostrate corpse, +she saw the boy standing erect before her. There was a smear of dust +upon his coat and face where he had fallen, and a scratch upon his +cheek,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> which bled a bit, but otherwise he was apparently unhurt. From +beneath his long lashes as she looked, the blue eyes met hers, +deliberate and unsmiling.</p> + +<p>As swiftly as it had come, the mood of contrition passed. In an +indefinite sort of way the girl experienced a sensation of +disappointment,—a feeling of being deprived of something which was her +due. She was only a child, a spoiled child, and her defiance arose anew. +A moment so the children faced each other.</p> + +<p>"Do you still think I'm afraid?" asked the boy at last.</p> + +<p>Again the hot color flamed beneath the brown skin.</p> + +<p>"Pooh!" said the girl, "<i>that</i> was nothing!" She tossed her head in +derision. "Anyone could do that!"</p> + +<p>Ben slowly took off his cap, slapped it against his knee to shake off +the dust, and put it back upon his head. The action took only a half +minute, but when the girl looked at him again it hardly seemed he was +the same boy with whom she had just played. His eyes were no longer +blue, but gray. The chin, too, with an odd trick,—one she was destined +to know better in future,—had protruded, had become the dominant +feature of his face, aggressive, almost menacing. Except for the size, +one looking could scarcely have believed Ben's visage was that of a +child.</p> + +<p>"What," the boy's hands went back into his pockets, "what wouldn't +anyone do, then?" he asked directly.</p> + +<p>At that moment Florence Baker would have been glad to occupy some other +person's shoes. Obviously, the proper thing for her to do was to admit +her fault and clear the atmosphere, but that did not accord with her +disposition, and she looked about for a suggestion. One<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> came promptly, +but at first she did not speak. Then the brown head tossed again.</p> + +<p>"Some folks would be afraid to ride one of those colts out there!" She +indicated the pasture near by. "Papa said the other day he'd rather not +be the first to try."</p> + +<p>The colts mentioned were a bunch of four-year-olds that Scotty had just +imported from an Eastern breeder. They were absolutely unbroken, but +every ounce thoroughbreds, and full to the ear-tips of what the +Englishman expressively termed "ginger."</p> + +<p>To her credit be it said, the small Florence had no idea that her +challenge would be accepted. Implicit trust in her father was one of her +virtues, and the mere suggestion that another would attempt to do what +he would not, was rankest heresy. But the boy Benjamin started for the +barn, and, securing a bridle and a pan of oats, moved toward the gate. +Instinctively Florence took a step after him.</p> + +<p>"Really, I didn't mean for you to try," she explained in swift +penitence. "I don't think you're afraid!"</p> + +<p>Ben opened and closed the gate silently.</p> + +<p>"Please don't do it," pleaded the girl. "You'll be hurt!"</p> + +<p>But for all the effect her petition had, she might as well have asked +the sun to cease shining. Nothing could stop that gray-eyed boy. Without +a show of haste he advanced toward the nearest colt, shook the oats in +the pan, and whistled enticingly. Full often in his short life he had +seen the trick done before, and he waited expectantly.</p> + +<p>Florence, forgetting her fears, watched with interest.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> At first the +colt was shy, but gradually, under stimulus of its appetite, it drew +nearer, then ran frisking away, again drew near. Ben held out the pan, +shook it at intervals, displaying its contents to the best advantage. +Colt nature could not resist the appeal. The sleek thoroughbred cast +aside all scruples, came close, and thrust a silken muzzle deep into the +grain.</p> + +<p>Still without haste, the boy put on the bridle, holding the pan near the +ground to reach the straps over the ears; then, pausing, looked at the +back far above his head. How he was to get up there would have perplexed +an observer. For a moment it puzzled the boy; then an idea occurred to +him. Once more holding the remnants of the oats near the ground, he +waited until the hungry nose was deep amongst them, the head well +lowered; then, improving his opportunity, he swung one leg over the +sleek neck and awaited developments.</p> + +<p>He was not long in suspense. The action was like touching flame to +powder; the resulting explosion was all but simultaneous. With a snort, +the head went high in air, tossing the grain about like seed, and down +the inclined plane of the neck thus formed the long-legged Benjamin slid +to the slippery back. Once there, an instinct told him to grip the +rounding flank with his ankles, and clutch the heavy mane.</p> + +<p>And he was none too quick. For a moment the colt paused in pure wonder +at the audacity of the thing; then, with a neigh, half of anger and half +of fear, it sprang away at top speed, circling and recircling, flashing +in and out among the other horses, the fragment of humanity on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> its back +meanwhile clinging to his place like a monkey. For a minute, then +another, the youngster kept his seat, pulling upon the reins at +intervals, gripping together his small knees until the muscles ached. +Then suddenly the colt, changing its tactics, planted its front feet +firmly into the ground, stopped short, and the small Benjamin shot +overhead, to strike the turf beyond with an impact which fairly drove +the breath from his body. But even then, half unconscious as he was, he +wouldn't let loose of the reins. Not until the now thoroughly aroused +colt had dragged him for rods, did the leather break, leaving the boy +and the bridle in a most disreputable-looking heap upon the earth.</p> + +<p>Florence had watched the scene with breathless interest. While Ben was +making his mount, she observed him doubtfully. While he retained his +seat, she clapped her hands in glee. Then, with his downfall, a great +lump came chokingly into her throat, and, without waiting to see the +outcome, she ran sobbing to the house. A moment later she rushed into +the little parlor where her father and Rankin, their cigars finished, +were sitting and chatting.</p> + +<p>"Papa," she pleaded, "papa, go quick! Ben's killed!"</p> + +<p>"Great Cæsar's ghost!" exclaimed Scotty, springing up nervously, and +holding the little girl at arm's length. "What's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Ben, Ben, I told you! He tried to ride one of the colts, and he's +killed—I know he is!"</p> + +<p>"Holy buckets!" Genuine apprehension was in the Englishman's voice. +Without waiting for further expla<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>nation he shot out of the door, and +ran full tilt to the paddock behind the barn. There he stopped, and +Rankin coming up a moment later, the two men stood side by side watching +the approach of a small figure still some rods away. The boy's face and +hands were marked with bloodstains from numerous scratches; one leg of +his trousers was torn disclosing the skin, and upon that side when he +walked he limped noticeably. All these things the two men observed at a +distance. When he came closer, they were forgotten in the look upon his +small face. The odd trick the boy had of throwing his lower jaw forward +was now emphasized until the lower teeth fairly overshot the upper. In +sympathy, the eyes had tightened, not morosely or cruelly, but with a +fixed determination which was all but uncanny. Scotty shifted a bit +uncomfortably.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he remarked, with his usual unconscious expletive, "I'd +rather have a tiger-cat on my trail than that youngster, if he was to +look that way. What do you suppose he's got in his cranium now?"</p> + +<p>Rankin shook his head. "I don't know. He's beyond me."</p> + +<p>Scarcely a minute passed before the boy returned. He had another bridle +in his hand and a fresh pan of oats. As before, he started to pass +without a word, but Rankin halted him. "What's the matter with your +clothes, Ben?" he queried.</p> + +<p>The lad looked at his questioner. "Horse threw me, sir."</p> + +<p>"And what are you going to do now?"</p> + +<p>"Going to try to ride him again, sir."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> + +<p>Rankin paused, his face growing momentarily more severe.</p> + +<p>"Ben," he said at last, "did Mr. Baker hire you to break his horses? If +I were you I'd put those things away and ask his pardon."</p> + +<p>The boy looked from one man to the other uncertainly. Obviously, this +phase of the matter had not occurred to him. Obviously, too, the point +of view must be correct, for both Rankin and Scotty were solemn as the +grave. The lad shot out toward the pasture a glance that spoke volumes; +then he turned to Baker.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, sir," he said.</p> + +<p>Scotty caught his cue. "Granted—this time," he answered.</p> + +<p>A half-hour later, Rankin and Ben, the latter carefully washed, the +rents in his trousers temporarily repaired, were ready to go home. Not +until the very last moment did Florence appear; then, her face a bit +flushed, she came out to the buckboard.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," she said simply. There was a moment's pause; then, with a +deepening color, she turned to Ben Blair. "Come again soon," she added +in a low tone.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<h3>THE SANITY OF THE WILD</h3></div> + +<p>Summer, tan-colored, musical with note of katydid and cicada, and the +constant purr of the south wind, was upon the prairie country. Under the +eternal law of necessity,—the necessity of sunburnt, stunted +grass,—the boundaries of the range extended far in every direction. The +herds bearing the Box R brand no longer fed in one body, but scattered +far and wide. Often for a week at a time the men did not sleep under +cover. Morning and night, when a semblance of dew was upon the blighted +grass, the cattle grazed. The life was primitive and natural almost +beyond belief in a world of artificial civilization; but it was +independent, care-free, and healthy.</p> + +<p>The land surrounding the ranch-house was now almost as bare as the palm +of a hand. Only one object relieved the impression of desolation, and +that was a tree. It stood carefully fenced about in the drain from the +big artesian well,—a vivid blot of green against the dun background. +The first year after he came, Rankin had imported it,—a goodly sized +soft maple; and in the pathway of constantly trickling water, it had +grown and prospered. It was the only tree for miles and miles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> about, +except the scrawny scrub-oaks, cotton-woods, and wild plums that flanked +the infrequent creeks,—creeks which in Summer, save in deepest holes, +reverted to mere dry runs. Beneath its shade Rankin had constructed a +rough bench, and therein Ma Graham, day after day when her housework was +finished, dozed and sewed and dozed again, apparently as forgetful as +the cowboys upon the prairies that beyond her vision were great cities +where countless thousands of human beings sweltered and struggled in +desperate competition for daily bread.</p> + +<p>So much for the day. With the coming of dusk, a coolness like a +benediction took the place of heat. The south wind gradually died down +with the descending sun, until immediately following the setting it was +absolutely still; now it sprang up anew, and wandered on until the break +of day.</p> + +<p>Such an evening in late July found Rankin and Baker stretched out like +boys upon a pile of hay in the latter's yard. The big man had just +arrived; the old buckboard, with its mouse-colored mustangs, stood just +as he had driven it up. Scotty knew him well enough to know that he had +come for a purpose, and he awaited its revelation. Rankin slowly filled +and lit his pipe, drew thereon until the glow from the bowl was +reflected upon his face, and blew a great cloud of smoke out into the +gathering dusk.</p> + +<p>"Baker," he asked at last, "what are we going to do for the education of +these youngsters of ours? We can't let them grow up here like savages."</p> + +<p>Scotty rolled over on his side, and leaned his head comfortably in his +hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I've thought of that," he answered, "and there seems to me only one of +two things to do—either move into civilization, or import a pedagogue." +A pause, and a whimsical inflection came into his voice. "Unfortunately, +however, neither plan seems exactly practical at this time."</p> + +<p>Rankin smoked a minute in silence. "How would it do to move into +civilization six months of the year—the Winter six?" he suggested.</p> + +<p>Scotty considered for a moment. "Do you mean that seriously?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>By the sense of feeling alone, the Englishman rolled a cigarette +skilfully. "How about the stock here while we're gone," he said +hesitatingly. "Do you suppose we'd find anything left when we came back +in the Spring?"</p> + +<p>Rankin crowded the half-burned tobacco down into the pipe-bowl with his +little finger. "I don't think you got the idea," he explained. "My plan +was for you to go East in the Fall and put the kids in school. I'd stay +here and see that everything ran smoothly while you were gone. Mrs. +Baker has said a dozen times that she wanted a change—for a time, +anyway."</p> + +<p>Scotty threw one long leg over the other. "As usual you're right, +Rankin," he said slowly. "The Lord knows Mollie gets restless enough at +times. People were like ants in a hill where she was raised, and that +life was a part of her." He took a last puff at the cigarette, and with +a toss sent the smoking stump spinning like a firefly into the darkness. +"And Flossie can't grow up wild—I know that. I'll talk your suggestion +over with Mollie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> first, but I think I'd be safe in saying right now +that we'll accept."</p> + +<p>For a moment Rankin did not speak; then he knocked the ashes out of his +pipe upon his heel.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me if I keep going back to something unpleasant, Baker," he said +slowly, "but in considering the matter there's one thing I don't want +you to forget." Then, after a meaning pause, he went on: "It's the same +reason I had for not introducing Ben in the first place."</p> + +<p>Scotty drew out his book of rice-paper again almost involuntarily.</p> + +<p>"I'd thought of that this time," he said; then paused to finger a gauzy +sheet absently. "I don't see why I should consider it now, +though—seeing I didn't before."</p> + +<p>Rankin said nothing, and conversation lapsed. Irresistibly, but so +gradually as to be all but unconscious, the spirit of the prairie +night—a sensation, a conception of infinite vastness, of unassailable +serenity—stole over and took possession of the men. The ambitious and +manifold artificial needs for which men barter their happiness, their +sense of humanity, even life itself, seemed beyond belief out there +alone with the stars, with the prairie night-wind singing in the ears; +seemed so puny that they elicited only a smile. The lust of show, of +extravagance, follies, wisdoms, man's loves and hates—how their true +proportions stand revealed against the eternal background of +immeasurable distance, in nature's vast scheme!</p> + +<p>Scotty cleared his throat. "I used to think, when I first came here, +that I'd been a fool; but now, somehow, at times like this, I wonder if +I didn't blunder into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> wisest act of my life." The prairie spirit +had taken hold of him. "And the longer I stay the more it grows upon me +that such a life as this, where one's success is not the measure of +another's failure, is the only one to live. It is the only life," he +added after a pause.</p> + +<p>Rankin said nothing.</p> + +<p>Scotty was silent for a moment, but the mood was too strong for him to +remain so, and he went on.</p> + +<p>"I know the ordinary person would laugh if I said it, but really, I +believe I'm developing a distaste for money. It's simply another term +for caste; and that word, with the unreasoning superiority it implies, +has somehow become hateful to me." He looked up into the night.</p> + +<p>"I used to think I was happy back in England. I had my home and my +associates; born so, because their fathers were friends of my father, +their grandfathers of my grandfather's class. As a small landlord I had +my gentlemanly leisure; but as well as I know my name, I realize now +that I could never return to that life again. Looking back, I see its +intolerable narrowness, its petty smugness. By comparison it's like the +relative clearness of the atmosphere there and here. There, perhaps I +could see a few miles: here, I look away over leagues and leagues of +distance. It's symbolic." The voice paused; the face, turned directly +toward his companion's, tried in the half-darkness to read its +expression. "I've been in this prairie country long enough now to +realize that financially I've made a mistake. I can earn a living, and +that's all; but nevertheless I'm happy—happier than I ever realized it +was possible for me to be. I've got enough—more would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> be a burden to +me. If I have a trouble in the world, it's because I see the inevitable +prospect of money in the future,—money I don't want, for I'm an only +son and my father is comparatively wealthy. Without turning his hand, +his rent-roll is five thousand pounds a year. He's getting along in +life. Some day—it may be five years, it may be fifteen—he will die and +leave it to me. I am to maintain and pass on the family name, the family +dignity. It was all cut and dried generations back, generations before I +was born."</p> + +<p>Still Rankin said nothing. For any indication he gave, the other's +revelation might have been only that he had a hundred dollars deposited +in the savings bank against a rainy day.</p> + +<p>But Scotty was now fairly under headway. He stripped his reserve and +confidence bare.</p> + +<p>"You see now why I'm glad to consider your proposition. Whatever I +believe myself must be of secondary importance. I've others to think +about—Florence and her mother. Flossie is only a child, but Mollie is a +woman, and has lived her life in sight of the brazen calf. She doesn't +realize, she never can realize, that it is of brass and not of gold. +Personally, I believe, as I believe in my own existence, that Flossie +would be immeasurably happier if she never saw the other side of +life,—the artificial side,—but lived right here, knowing what we +taught her and developing like a healthy animal; perhaps, when the time +came, marrying a rancher, having her own home, her own family interests, +and living close to nature. But it can't be. I've got to develop her, +cultivate her, fit her for any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> society." The voice paused, and the +speaker turned his face away.</p> + +<p>"God knows,—and He knows also that I love her dearly,—that looking +into the future I wish sometimes she were the daughter of another man."</p> + +<p>The minutes passed. The ponies shifted restlessly and then were still. +In the lull, the soft night-breeze crooned its minor song, while near or +far away—no human ear could measure the distance—a prairie owl gave +its weird cry. Then silence fell as before.</p> + +<p>Once more Scotty turned, facing his companion.</p> + +<p>"I've a question to ask you, Rankin; may I ask it without offence?"</p> + +<p>The big man nodded. By the starlight Baker caught the motion.</p> + +<p>"You told me once that you were a college man, and that you had a +Master's degree. From the very first you started cattle-raising on a big +scale. You must have had money. Still, such being the case, you left +culture and civilization far behind and came here to choose a life +absolutely different. I have told you why I wish to educate my daughter. +But why, feeling as you must have felt and must still feel, since you're +here, why do you wish to educate this waif boy you've picked up? By all +the standards of convention, he is at the very bottom of the social +scale. Why do you want to do this?"</p> + +<p>It was a psychological moment. Even in the semi-darkness, Rankin felt +the other's eyes fixed piercingly upon him. He passed his hand over his +face; he seemed about to speak. But the habit of reticence was too +strong<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> upon him. Even the inspiration of the Englishman's confidence +was not sufficient to break the seal of his own reserve. He arose slowly +and shook the clinging wisps of hay from his clothes.</p> + +<p>"For somewhat the same reason as your own," he answered at last. "Ben, +like Flossie, is a child, an odd old child to be sure, but nevertheless +a child. I have no reason to know that when he grows up his beliefs will +be my beliefs. He must see both sides of the coin, and judge for +himself."</p> + +<p>The speaker paused, then walked slowly over to the old buckboard. "It's +getting late, and I've got a long drive home." With an effort he mounted +into the seat and picked up the reins. "Good-night."</p> + +<p>Scotty hesitated a moment, and then said, "Good-night."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<h3>THE GLITTER OF THE UNKNOWN</h3></div> + +<p>Twelve years slipped by. Short as they seemed to those actually living +them, they had brought great material changes. No longer did the ranch +cattle graze at the will of their owners, but, under stress of +competition, they browsed within the confines of miles upon miles of +galvanized fencing. Neighbors, as Rankin said, were near now. There were +four within a radius of twenty miles. To be sure, there was still plenty +of land west of them, beyond the broad muddy Missouri,—open rough land, +gradually rising in elevation, where a traveller could journey for days +and days without seeing a human face. But this was not then a part of +the so-called "cattle ranges." In the parlance of the country, that was +"West,"—a place to hunt in, a refuge for criminals, but as yet giving +no indication of ever becoming of practical use.</p> + +<p>The Box R Ranch had evolved along with the others, and always well in +advance. The house now boasted six rooms; the barn and stock-sheds had +at a distance the appearance of a town in themselves; the collection of +haying implements—mowers, loaders, stackers—was almost complete enough +to stock a jobbing house. The herd itself had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> augmented, despite its +annual reduction, until one artesian well was inadequate to supply +water; and fifteen miles north, at the extreme limit of his home-ranch, +Rankin had sunk another well, making a sort of sub-station of that +point. From it an observer with good eyes could see the outlines of the +modern Big B Ranch property, built on the old site, and ostensibly +operated by a long-legged Yankee, Rob Hoyt by name, but in reality +owned, as had been the remnant of stock Tom Blair left behind him, by +saloon-keeper Mick Kennedy.</p> + +<p>The ranch force had changed very little. Rankin, stouter by a +quarter-hundred weight, shaggier of eyebrows and with an accentuated +droop in the upper eyelids, and if possible an increased taciturnity, +still lived his daytime life mainly on wheels. The old buckboard had +finally succumbed, but its counterpart, mud-spattered and +weather-bleached, had taken its place. In the kitchen, Ma Graham still +presided, her accumulated avoirdupois seeming to have been gathered at +the expense of her lord, who in equal ratio thinner and more weazened, +danced attendance as of old. Only one of the former cowboys now +remained. That one, strange to say, was Grannis, the "man from nowhere," +who had apparently taken root at last. Regularly on the last day of each +month he drew his pay, and without a word of explanation or comment +disappeared upon the back of a cow-pony, to reappear, perhaps in ten +hours, perhaps in sixty, dead broke, with a thirst seemingly +unappeasable, but quite non-committal concerning his experience, +apparently satisfied and ready to take up the dull routine of his life +again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + +<p>Last of all, Benjamin Blair. Precisely as the boy had given promise, the +youth had developed. He was now mature in size, in poise, in action. +Long of leg, long of arm, long of face, he stood a half head above +Rankin, who had been the tallest man upon the place. Yet he was not +awkward. Physically he was of the type, but magnified, to which all +cowboys belong; and no one would ever call him awkward or uncouth.</p> + +<p>There had been less change upon the Baker ranch. Scotty was not an +expansionist. Scarcely a score more horses grazed in his paddock than of +old. The barn, though often repaired, was still of sod and thatch. The +house contained the original number of rooms. The experiment with trees +had never been repeated. If possible, the man himself had altered even +less than his surroundings. Scrupulously fresh-shaven each day, +fortified beyond the compound lenses of his spectacles, a stranger would +have guessed him anywhere from thirty-five to fifty.</p> + +<p>Time had not dealt as kindly with Mrs. Baker. She seemed to have aged +enough for both herself and her husband. Notwithstanding the fact that +for the first eight years of the twelve, the family had spent half their +time in the East, she had grown careless of her appearance. True to his +instincts, Scotty still dressed for dinner in his antiquated evening +clothes; but pathetic as was the example, it had long ceased to +stimulate her. The last four years had been dead years with Mollie +Baker. The future held but one promise. She referred to it daily, almost +hourly; and at such times only would a trace of youth and beauty return +to the one-time winsome face. She looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> forward and dreamed of an +event after which she would do certain things upon which she had set her +heart; when, as she said, she would begin to live. It seemed to Scotty +ghastly to speak about that event, for it was the death of his father.</p> + +<p>The last member of the family had developed with the child's promise, +and at seventeen Florence was beautiful; not with a conventional +prettiness, but with a vital feminine attraction. All that the mother +had been, with her dark, oval face, her mass of walnut-brown hair, her +great dark eyes, her uptilted chin, the daughter was now; but with added +health and an augmented femininity that the mother had never known. +Moreover, she had an independence, a dominance, born perhaps of the wild +prairie influence, that at times made her parents almost gasp. Except in +the minute details of their daily existence, which habit had made +unchangeable, she ruled them absolutely. Even Rankin had become a +secondary factor. Scotty probably would have denied the assertion +emphatically, yet at the bottom of his consciousness he realized that +had she told him to sell everything he possessed for what he could get +and return to old Sussex he would have complied. Considering Mollie's +daily plaint, it was a constant source of wonder to him that the girl +did not do this; but she seemed wholly satisfied with things as they +were. For exercise and excitement she rode almost every horse upon the +place—rode astride like a man. For amusement she read everything she +could lay hands upon, both from the modest Baker library and from the +larger and more creditable collection which Rankin had imported<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> from +the East. This was the first real library that had ever entered the +State, and, subject for speculation, it had uniformly the front +fly-leaves remaining as mere stubs, as though the pages had been torn +out by a hurried hand. What name was it that had been in those hundreds +of volumes? For what reason had it been so carefully removed? The girl +had often speculated thereon, and fitted theory after theory; but never +yet, wilful as she was, had she had the temerity to ask the only person +who could have given explanation,—Rankin himself.</p> + +<p>In common with her sisters everywhere, Florence had an instinctive love +of a fad. Realizing this fact, Scotty was not in the least deceived +when, during a lull at the dinner-table one evening late in the Fall, +she broke in with an irrelevant though seemingly innocent remark.</p> + +<p>"I saw several big jack-rabbits when I was out riding this morning." The +dark eyes turned upon her father quizzically, humorously. "They seem to +be very plentiful."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Scotty; "they always are in the Fall."</p> + +<p>Florence ate for a moment in silence.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever think how much sport we could have if we owned a couple of +hounds?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Scotty was silent; but Mollie threw up her hands in horror. "You don't +really mean that you want any of those hungry-looking dogs around, do +you, Flossie?" she protested pettishly. "Seems as though you'd be +satisfied with riding the horses tomboy style without going to hunting +rabbits that way."</p> + +<p>The daughter's color heightened and the matter dropped; but Scotty knew +the main attack was yet to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> come. He had learned from experience the +methods of his daughter in attaining an object.</p> + +<p>Later in the evening father and daughter were alone beside a well-shaded +lamp in the cosey sitting-room. Mollie had retired early, complaining of +a headache, and carrying with her an air of martyrdom even more +pronounced than usual; so noticeable, in fact, that, absently watching +the door through which she had left, an expression of positive gloom +formed over Scotty's thin face. Two strong young arms fell suddenly +about his neck and abruptly changed his thoughts. A soft warm cheek was +laid against his own.</p> + +<p>"Poor old daddy!" whispered a caressing voice.</p> + +<p>For a moment Scotty did not move; then, turning, he looked into the +brown eyes. "Why?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Because,"—her voice was low, her answering look was steady,—"because +it won't be but a little while until he'll have to move away—move back +into civilization."</p> + +<p>For a moment neither spoke; then, with a last pressure of her cheek +against her father's, the girl crossed the room and took another chair. +Scotty followed her with his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Are you against me, too, little girl?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Florence reached over to the table, took up an ever-ready strip of +rice-paper, and, rolling a cigarette, tendered it with the air of a +peace-offering.</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not against you; but it's got to come. Mamma simply can't +change. She can't find anything here to interest her, and we've got to +take her away—for good."</p> + +<p>Scotty slowly struck a sulphur match, waited until the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> flame had burned +well along the wood, then deliberately lit his cigarette and burned it +to a stump.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you happy here, Flossie?" he asked gently.</p> + +<p>The girl's hands were folded in her lap, her eyes looked past him +absently.</p> + +<p>"Really, for once in my life," she answered seriously, "I spoke quite +unselfishly. I was thinking only of mamma." There was a pause, and a +deeper concentration in the brown eyes. "As for myself, I hardly know. +Yes, I do know. I'm happy now, but I wouldn't be long. The life here is +too narrow; I'd lose interest in it. At last I'd have a frantic desire, +one I couldn't resist, to peep just over the edge of the horizon and +take part in whatever is going on beyond." She smiled. "I might run +away, or marry an Indian, or do something shocking!"</p> + +<p>Scotty flicked off a bit of ashes with his little finger.</p> + +<p>"Can't you think of anything that would interest you and broaden your +life enough to make it pleasant?" he ventured.</p> + +<p>This time mirth shone upon the girl's face, and a laugh sounded in her +voice.</p> + +<p>"Papa, papa," she said, "I didn't think that of you! Are you so anxious +to get rid of your daughter?" As swiftly as it had come, the smile +vanished, leaving in its place a softer and warmer color.</p> + +<p>"I'm not enough of a hypocrite," she added slowly, "to pretend not to +understand what you mean. Yes, I believe if there is a man in the world +I could care enough for to marry, I could live here or anywhere with him +and be per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>fectly happy; but that isn't possible. I'm of the wrong +disposition." The soft color in the cheek grew warmer, the brown eyes +sparkled. "I know myself well enough to realize that any man I could +care for wouldn't live out here. He'd be one who did things, and did +them better than others; and to do things he'd have to be where others +are. No, I never could live here."</p> + +<p>Scotty dropped the dead cigarette stump into an ash-tray, and brushed a +stray speck of dust from his sleeve.</p> + +<p>"In other words, you could never care for such a man as your father," he +remarked quietly.</p> + +<p>The girl instantly realized what she had said, and springing up she +threw her arms impulsively about her father's neck.</p> + +<p>"Dear old daddy!" she said. "There isn't another man in the world like +you! I love you dearly, dearly!" The soft lips touched his cheek again +and again. But for the first time in her life that Florence could +remember, her father did not respond. Instead, he gently freed himself.</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless," he said, steadily, "the fact remains. You could never +marry a man like your father,—one who had no desire to be known of men, +but who simply loved you and would do anything in his power to make you +happy. You have said it." Scotty rose slowly, the youthfulness of his +movements gone, the expression of age unconsciously creeping into the +wrinkles at his temples and at the corners of his mouth. "You have hurt +me, Florence."</p> + +<p>The girl was at once repentant, but her repentance came too late. She +dropped her face into her hands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, daddy, daddy!" she pleaded, but could not say another word. Indeed, +there was nothing to be said.</p> + +<p>Scotty moved silently about the room, closed a book he had laid face +downward upon the table, picked up a paper which had fallen to the +floor, and wound the clock for the night. At the doorway to his +sleeping-room he paused.</p> + +<p>"You said something at dinner to-night about wanting some hounds, +Florence. I know where I can buy a pair, and I'll see that you have +them." He opened the door slowly, then quietly closed it. "And about our +leaving here. I have always expected to go sometime, but I hoped it +wouldn't be necessary for a while yet." He paused, fingering the knob +absently. "I'm ready, though, whenever you and your mother wish."</p> + +<p>This time the door closed behind him, and, alone within the room, the +girl sobbed as though her heart would break.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<h3>A RIFFLE OF PRAIRIE</h3></div> + +<p>Florence got her dogs promptly. They were two big mouse-colored +grayhounds, with tails like rats and protruding ribs. They were named +"Racer" and "Pacer," and were warranted by their late owner to +out-distance any rabbit that ever drew breath. The girl felt that an +event as important as a coursing should be the occasion of a gathering +of the neighboring ranchers; but at the mere suggestion her conventional +mother threw up her hands in horror. It was bad enough for her daughter +to go out alone, but as the one woman among all that lot of cowboys—it +was too much for her to endure. Finally, as a compromise, Florence +agreed to invite only the people of the Box R Ranch to the first event. +So the invitations for a certain day, composed with fitting formality, +were sent, and in due time were ceremoniously accepted.</p> + +<p>The chase was scheduled to begin soon after daybreak, and before that +time Rankin and Ben Blair were at the Baker house. They wore their +ordinary clothes of wool and leather, but Scotty appeared in a wonderful +red hunting-coat, which, though a bit moth-eaten in spots, nevertheless +showed glaringly against the brown earth of the ranch-house yard.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + +<p>With the exception of the dogs, which were kept properly hungry for the +hunt, and Mollie, who had washed her hands of the whole affair, the +party all had breakfast, Scotty himself serving the coffee with the +skill of a head-waiter. Then the old buckboard, carefully oiled and +tightened for the occasion, was gotten out, a team of the fastest, +wiriest mustangs the Box R possessed was attached, and Rankin and Baker +upon the seat, Florence and Ben, well-mounted, trailing behind, the +party sallied forth. In order to avoid fences they had agreed to go ten +miles to the south before beginning operations. There a great tract of +government land, well grazed but untouched by the hand of man, gave all +but unlimited room.</p> + +<p>The morning was beautiful and clear beyond the comprehension of city +dwellers, a typical day of prairie Dakota in late Fall. Far out over the +broad expanse, indefinite as to distance, the rising sun seemed resting +upon the very rim of the world. All about, near at hand, stretching into +the horizon, glistening, sparkling, innumerable frost crystals, product +of the past night, gleamed like scattered gems, showing in their +coloring every blended shade of the rainbow. The glory of it all +appealed to the girl, and throwing back her head she drew in deep +breaths of the tonic air.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to miss these mornings terribly when I'm gone," she said +soberly.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair scrutinized the backs of the two men in the buckboard with +apparent interest.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you intended leaving," he said. "Where are you going?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<p>Florence regarded her companion from the corner of her eye.</p> + +<p>"I'm going away for good," she said.</p> + +<p>Ben shifted half around in the saddle and folded back the rim of his big +sombrero.</p> + +<p>"For good, you say?"</p> + +<p>The girl's brown eyes were cast down demurely. "Yes, for good," she +repeated.</p> + +<p>They had been losing ground. Now in silence they galloped ahead, the +regular muffled patter of their horses' feet upon the frozen sod +sounding like the distant rattle of a snare-drum. Once again even with +the buckboard, they lapsed into a walk.</p> + +<p>"You haven't told me where you're going," repeated Blair.</p> + +<p>The question seemed to be of purest politeness, as a host inquires if +his visitor has rested well; yet for a dozen years they two had lived +nearest neighbors, and had grown to maturity side by side. She concluded +there were some phases of this silent youth which she had not yet +learned.</p> + +<p>"We haven't decided where we're going yet," she replied. "Mamma wants to +go to England, but papa and I refuse to leave this country. Then daddy +wants to live in a small town, and I vote for a big one. Just now we're +at deadlock."</p> + +<p>A smile started in Ben's blue eyes and spread over his thin face.</p> + +<p>"From the way you talk," he said, "I have a suspicion the deadlock won't +last long. If I stretch my imagination a little I can guess pretty close +to the decision."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> + +<p>Florence was sober a moment; then a smile flashed over her face and left +the daintiest of dimples in either cheek.</p> + +<p>"Maybe you can," she said.</p> + +<p>For the second time they galloped ahead and caught up with the slower +buckboard.</p> + +<p>"Florence," Ben threw one leg over the pommel of his saddle and faced +his companion squarely, "I've heard your mother talk, and of course I +understand why she wants to go back among her folks, but you were raised +here. Why do you want to leave?"</p> + +<p>The girl hesitated, and ran her fingers through her horse's mane.</p> + +<p>"Mamma's been here against her will for a good many years. We ought to +go for her sake."</p> + +<p>Ben made a motion of deprecation. "What I want to know is the real +reason,—your own reason," he said.</p> + +<p>The warm blood flushed Florence's face. "By what right do you ask that?" +she retorted. "You seem to forget that we've both grown up since we went +to school together."</p> + +<p>Ben looked calmly out over the prairie.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't forget; and I admit I have no right to ask. But I may ask +as a friend, I am sure. Why do you want to go?"</p> + +<p>Again the girl hesitated. Logically she should refuse to answer. To do +otherwise was to admit that her first answer was an evasion; but +something, an influence that always controlled her in Ben's presence, +prevented refusal. Slow of speech, deliberate of movement as he was, +there was about him a force that dominated her, even as she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> dominated +her parents, and, worst of all—to her inmost self she admitted the +fact—it fascinated her as well. With all her strength she rebelled +against the knowledge and combated the influence, but in vain. Instead +of replying, she chirruped to her horse. "It seems to me," she said, +"it's just as well to begin hunting here as to go further. I'm going on +ahead to ask papa and Mr. Rankin."</p> + +<p>With a grave smile, Blair reached over and caught her bridle-rein, +saying carelessly: "Pardon me, but you forget something you were going +to tell me."</p> + +<p>The girl's brown cheeks crimsoned anew, but this time there was no +hesitation in her reply.</p> + +<p>"Very well, since you insist, I'll answer your question; but don't be +surprised if I offend you." A dainty hand tugged at the loosened button +of her riding-glove. "I'm going away, for one reason, because I want to +be where things move, and where I don't always know what is going to +happen to-morrow." She turned to her companion directly. "But most of +all, I'm going because I want to be among people who have ambitions, who +do things, things worth while. I am tired of just existing, like the +animals, from day to day. I was only a young girl when we were going to +school, but now I know why I liked that life so well. It was because of +the intense activity, the constant movement, the competition, the +evolution. I like it! I want to be a part of it!"</p> + +<p>"Thank you for telling me," said Ben, quietly.</p> + +<p>But now the girl was in no hurry to hasten on. She forgot that her +explanation was given under protest. It had become a confession.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Up to the last few years I never thought much about the future—I took +it for granted; but since then it has been different. Unconsciously, +I've become a woman. All the little things that belong to women's lives, +too small to tell, begin to appeal to me. I want to live in a good house +and have good clothes and know people. I want to go to shops and +theatres and concerts; all these things belong to me and I intend to +have them."</p> + +<p>"I think I understand," said Ben, slowly. "Yes, I'm sure I understand," +he repeated.</p> + +<p>But the girl did not heed him. "Last of all, there's another reason," +she went on. "I don't know why I shouldn't speak it, as well as think +it, for it's the greatest of all. I'm a young woman. I won't remain such +long. I don't want to be a spinster. I know I'm not supposed to say +these things, but why not? I want to meet men, men of my own class, my +parents' class, men who know something besides the weight of a steer and +the value of a bronco,—some man I could respect and care for." Again +she turned directly to her companion. "Do you wonder I want to change, +that I want to leave these prairies, much as I like them?"</p> + +<p>It was long before Ben Blair spoke. He scarcely stirred in his seat; +then of a sudden, rousing, he threw his leg back over the saddle.</p> + +<p>"No," he said slowly, "I don't wonder—looking at things your way. It's +all in the point of view. But perhaps yours is wrong, maybe you don't +think of the other side of that life. There usually is another side to +everything, I've noticed." He glanced ahead. A half-mile on,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> the +blackboard had stopped, and Scotty was standing up on the seat and +motioning the laggards energetically.</p> + +<p>"I think we'd better dust up a little. Your father seems to have struck +something interesting."</p> + +<p>Florence seemed inclined to linger, but Scotty's waving cap was +insistent, and they galloped ahead.</p> + +<p>They found Rankin sitting upon the wagon seat, smoking impassively as +usual; but the Englishman was upon the ground holding the two hounds by +the collars. Behind the big compound lenses his eyes were twinkling +excitedly, and he was smiling like a boy.</p> + +<p>"Look out there!" he exclaimed with a jerk of his head, "over to the +west. We all but missed him! Are you ready?"</p> + +<p>They all looked and saw, perhaps thirty rods away, a grayish-white +jack-rabbit, distinct by contrast with the brown earth. The hounds had +also caught sight of the game and pulled lustily at their collars.</p> + +<p>Instantly Florence was all excitement. "Of course we're ready! No, wait +a second, until I see about my saddle." She dismounted precipitately. +"Tighten the cinch a bit, won't you, Ben? I don't mind a tumble, but it +might interfere at a critical moment." She put her foot in his extended +hand, and sprang back into her seat. "Now, I'm ready. Come on, Ben! Let +them go, papa! Be in at the finish if you can!" and, a second behind the +hounds, she was away. Simultaneously, the great jack-rabbit, scenting +danger, leaped forward, a ball of animate rubber, bounding farther and +farther as he got under full motion, speeding away toward the blue +distance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + +<p>The chase that followed was a thing to live in memory. From the nature +of the land, gently rolling to the horizon without an obstruction the +height of a man's hand, there was no possibility of escape for the +quarry. The outcome was as mathematically certain as a problem in +arithmetic; the only uncertain element was that of time. At first the +jack seemed to be gaining, but gradually the greater endurance of the +hounds began to count, and foot by foot the gap between pursuers and +pursued lessened. In the beginning the rabbit ran in great leaps, as +though glorying in the speed that it would seem no other animal could +equal, but very soon his movements changed; his ears were flattened +tight to his head, and, with every muscle strained to the utmost, he ran +wildly for his life.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the four hunters were following as best they might. In the +all but soundless atmosphere, the rattle of the old buckboard could be +heard a quarter of a mile. Alternately losing and gaining ground as they +cut off angles and followed the diameter instead of the circumference of +the great circles the rabbit described, the drivers were always within +sight. Closer behind the hounds and following the same course, Florence +rode her thoroughbred like mad, with Ben Blair at her side. The pace was +terrific. The rush of the crisp morning air sang in their ears and cut +keenly at their faces. The tattoo of the horses' feet upon the hard +earth was continuous. Beneath her riding-cap, the girl's hair was +loosened and swept free in the wind. Her color was high, her eyes +sparkled. Never before had the man at her side seen her so fair to gaze +upon; but despite the excitement, despite the rush of action, there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> was +a jarring note in her beauty. Deep in his nature, ingrained, elemental, +was the love of fair play. Though he was in the chase and a part of it, +his sympathies were far from being with the hounds. That the girl should +favor the strong over the weak was something he could not understand—a +blemish that even her beauty did not excuse.</p> + +<p>A quarter-hour passed. The sun rose from the lap of the prairie and +scattered the frost-crystals as though they had been mist. The chase was +near its end. All moved more slowly. A dozen times since they had +started, it seemed as if the hounds must soon catch their prey, that in +another second all would be over; but each time the rabbit had escaped, +had at the last instant shot into the air, while the hounds rushed +harmlessly beneath, and, ere they recovered, had gained a goodly lead +again in a new course. But now that time was past, and he was tired and +weak. It was a straight-away race, with the hounds scarcely twenty feet +behind. Back of the latter, perhaps ten rods, were the riders, still +side by side as at first. Their horses were covered with foam and +blowing steadily, but nevertheless they galloped on gallantly. Bringing +up the rear, just in sight but now out of sound, was the buckboard. Thus +they approached the finish.</p> + +<p>Inch by inch the dogs gained upon the rabbit. Standing in his stirrups, +Ben Blair, the seemingly stolid, watched the scene. The twenty feet +lessened to eighteen, to fifteen, and, turning his head, the man looked +at his companion. Beautiful as she was, there now appeared to his eye an +expression of anticipation,—anticipation of the end, anticipation of a +death,—the death of a weaker animal!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> + +<p>A determination which had been only latent became positive with Blair. +He urged on his horse to the uttermost and sprang past his companion. +His right hand went to his hip and lingered there. His voice rang out +above the sound of the horses' feet and of their breathing.</p> + +<p>"Hi, there, Racer, Pacer!" he shouted. "Come here!"</p> + +<p>There was no response from the hounds; no sign that they had heard him. +They were within ten feet of the rabbit now, and no voice on earth could +have stopped them.</p> + +<p>"Pacer! Racer!" shouted Ben. There was a pause, and then the quick bark +of a revolver. A puff of dust arose before the nose of the leading dog.</p> + +<p>Again no response, only the steadily lessening distance.</p> + +<p>For a second Ben Blair hesitated; but it was for a second only. Florence +watched him, too surprised to speak, and saw what for a moment made her +doubt her own eyes. The hand that held the big revolver was raised, +there was a report, then another, and the two dead hounds went tumbling +over and over with their own momentum upon the brown prairie. Beyond +them the rabbit bounded away into distance and safety.</p> + +<p>Without a word Ben Blair drew rein, returned the revolver to its +holster, and came back to where the girl had stopped.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," he said. "I'll pay you for the dogs, if you like." +A pause and a straight glance from out the blue eyes. "I couldn't help +doing what I did."</p> + +<p>Having in mind the look he had last seen upon the girl's face, he +expected an explosion of wrath; but he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> destined to surprise. There +was silence, instead, while two great tears gathered slowly in her soft +eyes, and brimmed over upon the brown cheeks.</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to pay for the dogs; I'm glad they're gone." She +brushed back a straggling lock of hair. "It's a horrid sport, and I'll +never have anything to do with it again." A look that set the youth's +heart bounding shot out sideways from beneath the long lashes. "I'm very +glad you did—what you did."</p> + +<p>Just then the noisy old buckboard, with Rankin and Scotty clinging to +the seat, drove up and stopped short, with a protest from every joint of +the ancient vehicle.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> +<h3>THE DOMINANT ANIMAL</h3></div> + +<p>The chance to sell his stock, ostensibly his reason for delaying +departure, came to Scotty Baker much more quickly than he had +anticipated. Within a week after the hunt—in the very first mail he +received, in fact—came an offer from a Minneapolis firm to take every +scrap of horse-flesh he could spare. With much compunction and a doleful +face he read the letter aloud in the family council.</p> + +<p>"That means 'go' for sure, I suppose," he commented at its conclusion.</p> + +<p>Involuntarily Florence laughed. "You look as though you'd just got word +that the whole herd had stampeded over a ravine, instead of having had a +wave of good fortune," she bantered. "I believe you'd still back out if +you could."</p> + +<p>Scotty's face did not lighten. "I know I would," he admitted.</p> + +<p>"We'll not give you the chance, though," broke in Mollie, with the first +indication of enthusiasm she had shown in many a day. "Florence and I +will begin packing right away, and you can carry the things along with +you when you drive the horses to town."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<p>Scotty looked at his wife steadily and caught the trace of excitement in +her manner.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is a good suggestion," he replied slowly. "It's liable to +turn cold any time now, and as long as we're going it may as well be +before Winter sets in." He filled a stubby meerschaum pipe with tobacco, +and put on cap and coat preparatory to going out of doors. "I spoke to +Rankin about the place the other day," he added, "and he says he'll take +it and pay cash whenever I'm ready. I'll drive over and see him this +morning."</p> + +<p>Rankin was not at home—so Ma Graham told Scotty when he arrived—and +probably he wouldn't return till afternoon; but Ben was around the barn +somewhere, more than likely out among the broncos. He usually was, when +he had nothing else in particular to do.</p> + +<p>Following her direction the Englishman loitered out toward the stock +quarters, looked with interest into the big sheds where the haying +machinery was kept, stopped to listen to the rush of water through the +four-inch pipe of the artesian well, lit his pipe afresh, and moved on +reflectively to the first of the great stock-yards that stretched +beyond. A tight board fence, ten feet high, built as a windbreak on two +sides, obstructed his way; and he started to walk around it. At the end +the windbreak merged into a well-built fence of six wires, and, a +wagon's breadth between, a long row of haystacks, built as a further +protection against the wind. These, together with the wires, formed the +third side of the yard. Leaning on the latter, Scotty looked into the +enclosure, at first carelessly, then with interest. A moment later, +without making his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> presence known, he stepped back to the hay, and, +selecting a pile of convenient height, sat down in the sunshine to +watch.</p> + +<p>What he saw was a tall slim young man, in chaparejos and sombrero, the +inevitable "repeater" at his hip, solitarily engaged in the process of +breaking a bronco. Ordinarily in this cattle-country the first time one +of these wiry little ponies is ridden is on a holiday or a Sunday, +whenever a company of spectators can be secured to assist or to applaud; +but this was not Ben Blair's way. By nature solitary, whenever possible +he did his work as he took his pleasure, unseen of men. At present, as +he went methodically about his business, he had no idea that a person +save Ma Graham was within miles, or that anyone anywhere had the +slightest interest in what he was doing.</p> + +<p>"Yard One," as the cowboys designated this corral, was the most used of +any on the ranch. Save for a single stout post set solidly in its +centre, it was entirely clear, and under the feet of hundreds of cattle +had been tramped firm as a pavement. At present it contained a +half-dozen horses, and one of these, a little mustang that was Ben's +particular pride, he was just saddling when Scotty appeared; the others, +a wild-eyed, evil-looking lot, scattering meantime as far as the +boundaries of the corral would permit.</p> + +<p>Very deliberately Ben mounted the pony, hitched up the legs of his +leather trousers, folded back the brim of the big sombrero, and +critically inspected the ponies before him. One of them, a demoniacal +looking buckskin, appeared more vixenish than the others, and very +promptly the youth made this selection; but to get in touch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> of the wily +little beast was another matter. Every time the rancher made a move +forward the herd found it convenient likewise to move, and to the limit +of the corral fence. Once clear around the yard the rider humored them; +and Scotty, the spectator, felt sure he must be observed. But Ben never +looked outside the fence.</p> + +<p>Starting to make the circle a second time, the rancher spoke a single +word to the little mustang and they moved ahead at a gallop. Instantly +responsive, the herd likewise broke into a lope, maintaining their lead. +Twice, three times, faster and faster, the rider and the riderless +completed the circle, the hard ground ringing with the din, the dust +rising in a filmy cloud; then of a sudden the figure on the mustang +passed from inaction into motion, the left hand on the reins tightened +and turned the pony's head to the side, straight across the diameter of +the circle. Simultaneously the right dropped to the lariat coiled on the +pummel of the saddle, loosed it, and swung the noose at the end freely +in air. On galloped the broncos, unmindful of the trick—on around the +limiting fence, until suddenly they found almost in their midst the +animal, man, whom they so feared, whom they were trying so to escape. +Then for a moment there was scattering, reversal, confusion, a denser +cloud of dust; but for one of their number, the buckskin, it was too +late. Ben Blair rose in his stirrups, the rawhide rope that had been +circling above his sombrero shot out, spread, dropped over the uplifted +yellow head. The little mustang the man rode recognized the song of the +lariat; well he knew what would follow. In anticipation he stopped dead; +his front legs stiffened.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> There was a shock, a protest of straining +leather which Scotty could hear clear beyond the corral, as, checked +under speed, the buckskin rose on his hind-feet and all but lost his +balance. That instant was Blair's opportunity. He turned his mustang +swiftly and headed straight for the centre-post, dragging the struggling +and half-strangled bronco; he rode around the post, sprang from the +saddle, took a skilful half-hitch in the lariat—and the buckskin was a +prisoner.</p> + +<p>Scotty polished his glasses excitedly. He was wondering how the sleek +young men with whom he would soon be mingling in the city would go at a +job like that; and he smiled absently.</p> + +<p>To "snub" the bronco up to the post so that he could scarcely turn his +head was an easy matter. To exchange the bridle to the new mount was +also comparatively simple. To adjust the great saddle, with the +unwilling victim struggling like mad, was a more difficult task; but +eventually all these came to pass, and Ben paused a moment to inspect +his handiwork. To a tenderfoot observer it might have seemed that the +battle was about over; but as a matter of fact it had scarcely begun. To +chronicle on paper that a certain person on a certain day rode a certain +bronco for the first time sounds commonplace; but to one who has seen +the deviltry lurking in those wild prairie ponies' eyes, who knows their +dogged fighting disposition, the reality is very different.</p> + +<p>Only a moment Ben Blair paused. Almost before Scotty had got his +spectacles back to his nose he saw the long figure spring into the +saddle, observed that the lariat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> which had held the bronco helpless to +the post had been removed, and knew that the fight was on in earnest.</p> + +<p>And emphatically it was on. With his first leap the pony went straight +into the air, to come down with a mighty jolt, stiff-legged; but Ben +Blair sat through it apparently undisturbed. If ever an animal showed +surprise it was the buckskin then. For an instant he paused, looked back +at the motionless rider with eyes that seemed almost green, then +suddenly started away at full speed around the corral as though Satan +himself were in pursuit.</p> + +<p>Instantly with the diminutive horse swift anger took the place of +surprise. Scotty, the spectator, could read it in the tightening of the +rippling muscles beneath the skin, in the toss of the sleek head. Fear +had passed long ago, if the little beast had ever really known the +sensation. It was now merely animal against animal, dogged obstinacy +against dogged tenacity, a fight until one or the other gave in, no +quarter asked or accepted.</p> + +<p>As before, the bronco was the aggressor. One by one, so swiftly that +they formed a continuous movement, he tried all the tricks which +instinct or ingenuity suggested. He bucked, his hind-quarters in the air +until it seemed he would reverse. He reared up until his front feet were +on the level of a man's head, until Scotty held his breath for fear the +animal would lose his balance backward; but when he resumed the normal +he found the man, ever relentless, firmly in place, impassively awaiting +the next move. He grew more furious with each failure. The sweat oozed +out in drops that became trickling streams beneath the short hair. His +breath came more quickly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> whistling through the wide nostrils. A new +light came into the gray-green eyes and flashed from them fiendishly. As +suddenly as he had made his previous attacks he played his last trump. +Like a ball of lead he dropped in his tracks and tried to roll; but the +great saddle prevented, and when he sprang up again, there, as firmly +seated as before, was the hated man upon his back.</p> + +<p>Then overpowering and unreasoning anger, the wrath of a frenzied lion in +a cage, of a baited bull in a ring, took possession of the buckskin. He +went through his tricks anew, not methodically as before, but furiously, +desperately. The sweat churned into foam beneath the saddle and between +his legs. He screamed like a demon, until the other broncos retreated in +terror, and Scotty's hair fairly lifted on his head. But one idea +possessed him—to kill this being on his back, this hated thing he could +not move or dislodge. A suggestion of means came to him, and straight as +a line he made for the high board fence. There was no misunderstanding +his purpose.</p> + +<p>Then for the first time Ben Blair roused himself. The hand on the rein +tightened, as the lariat had tightened, until the small head with the +dainty ears curled back in a half-circle. Simultaneously the long rowels +of a spur bit deep into the foaming flank, the swish of a quirt sounded +keenly, a voice broke out in one word of command, "Whoa!" and repeated, +"Whoa!"</p> + +<p>It was like thunder out of a clear sky, like an unseen blow in the dark. +Within three feet of the fence the bronco stopped and stood trembling in +every muscle, expecting he knew not what.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was the man's time now—the beginning of the end.</p> + +<p>"Get up!" repeated the same authoritative voice, and the hand on the bit +loosened. "Get up!" and rowel and quirt again did their work.</p> + +<p>In terror this time the bronco plunged ahead, felt the guiding rein, and +started afresh around the circle of the corral fence. "Get up!" repeated +Ben, and like a streak of yellowish light they spun about the trail. +Round and round they went, the body of the man and horse alike tilted in +at an angle, the other ponies plunging to clear the way. Scotty counted +ten revolutions; then he awaited the end. It was not long in coming. Of +a sudden, as before, directly in front of where he sat, the bridle-reins +tightened, and he heard the one word, "Whoa!" and pony and rider stopped +like figures in clay. For a moment they stood motionless, save for their +labored breathing; then very deliberately Ben Blair dismounted. Not a +movement did the buckskin make, either of offence or to escape; he +merely waited. Still deliberately, the man removed the saddle and +bridle, while not a muscle of the bronco's body stirred. Scotty watched +the scene in fascination. Every trace of anger was out of the pony's +gray-green eyes now, every indication of terror as well. Dozens of +horses the Englishman had seen broken; but one like this—never before. +It was as though in the last few minutes an understanding had come about +between this fierce wild thing and its conqueror; as though, like every +human being with whom he came in contact, the latter had dominated by +the sheer strength of his will. It was all but uncanny.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p> + +<p>Slowly Blair laid the bridle beside the saddle, and stepping over to his +late mount he patted the damp neck and gently stroked the silken muzzle.</p> + +<p>"I think, old boy, you'll remember me when we meet again," Scotty heard +him say. "Good luck to you meantime," and with a last pat he picked up +his riding paraphernalia and started for the sheds.</p> + +<p>Scotty stood up. "Hello," he called.</p> + +<p>Ben halted and turned about, looking his surprise.</p> + +<p>"Well, in the name of all that's proper!" he ejaculated slowly; "where'd +you drop down from?"</p> + +<p>Scotty smiled broadly; frank admiration for the dusty cowboy was in his +gaze.</p> + +<p>"I didn't drop down at all; I walked around here about half an hour ago. +You were rather preoccupied at the time and didn't notice me."</p> + +<p>Blair came back to the fence and swung over the saddle and bridle. "You +took in the whole show then?" he asked. A trace of color came into his +face, as he vaulted over the rails. "I hope you enjoyed it."</p> + +<p>Scotty observed the latest feat, unconscious as its predecessor, with +augmented admiration. "I certainly did," he said, and the subject was +dropped.</p> + +<p>The two men walked together toward the ranch-house.</p> + +<p>"I came over to see Rankin," remarked the Englishman, "but I'm afraid +I'll have to wait a bit."</p> + +<p>"I guess you will," replied Ben. "He went up to the north well this +morning. They're building some sheds up there, and he's superintending +the job. He's as liable to forget about dinner as not. Nothing I can do +for you, is there?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> + +<p>Scotty thrust his hands into his pockets.</p> + +<p>"No, I guess not. I came over to see about selling him my place. We're +going to leave in a few days."</p> + +<p>Ben Blair made no comment, and for a moment they walked on in silence; +then an idea suddenly occurred to the Englishman.</p> + +<p>"Come to think of it," he said, "there is something you can do for me. +Bill and I have got to drive all the stock over to the station. I'd be a +thousand times obliged if you would help us."</p> + +<p>For a half-dozen steps Blair did not answer; then he turned fairly to +his companion.</p> + +<p>"You won't be offended if I refuse?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No, certainly not."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I don't want to help you myself, but I'll get Grannis to go +with you. He'll be just as useful."</p> + +<p>Ordinarily, despite his assertion to the contrary, Scotty would have +been offended; but he knew this long youth quite too well to +misunderstand.</p> + +<p>"Would you mind telling me why you refuse?" he said at last.</p> + +<p>Ben shifted the heavy saddle to his other shoulder.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't mind," he said bluntly. "I won't help you because I don't +want you to go."</p> + +<p>Scotty pondered, and a light dawned on his slow-moving brain. He looked +at Ben sympathetically. "My boy," he said, "I'm sorry for you; by Jove! +I am."</p> + +<p>They were even with the horse-barn now, and without a word Ben went in +and hung up the saddle, each stirrup<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> upon a nail. Relieved of his load +he came back, slapping the dust from his clothes with his big gauntlets.</p> + +<p>"If it's a fair question," he asked, "why do I merit your sympathy?"</p> + +<p>The Englishman's hands went deeper into his pockets.</p> + +<p>"Why?" He all but stared. "Because you haven't a ghost of a chance with +Florence. She'd laugh at you!"</p> + +<p>Ben's blue eyes were raised to a level with the other's glasses. "She'd +laugh at me, you think?" he asked quietly.</p> + +<p>Scotty shifted uneasily. "Well, perhaps not that," he retracted, "but +anyway, you haven't a chance. I like you, Ben, and I'm dead sorry that +she is different. She comes, if I do say it, of a good family, and +you—" of a sudden the Englishman found himself floundering in deep +water.</p> + +<p>"And I am—an unknown," Ben finished for him.</p> + +<p>At that moment Scotty heartily wished himself elsewhere, but wishing did +not help him. "Yes, to put it baldly, that's the word. It's unfortunate, +damned unfortunate, but true, you know."</p> + +<p>Ben's eyes did not leave the other man's face. "You've talked with her, +have you?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Scotty fidgeted more than before, and swore silently that in future he +would keep his compassions to himself.</p> + +<p>"No, I've never thought it necessary so far; but of course—"</p> + +<p>Ben Blair lifted his head. "Don't worry, Mr. Baker, I'll tell her my +pedigree myself. I supposed she already knew—that everybody who had +ever heard of me knew."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<p>Scotty forgot his nervousness. "You'll—tell her yourself, you say?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>The Englishman said nothing. It seemed to him there was nothing to say.</p> + +<p>For a moment there was silence. "Mr. Baker," said Blair at last, "as +long as we've started on this subject I suppose we might as well finish +it up. I love your daughter; that you've guessed. If I can keep her +here, I'll do so. It's my right; and if there's a God who watches over +us, He knows I'll do my best to make her happy. As to my mother, I'll +tell her about that myself—and consider the matter closed."</p> + +<p>Again there was silence. As before, there seemed to the Englishman +nothing to say.</p> + +<p>Blair turned toward the ranch-house. "I saw Ma Graham motioning for +dinner quite a while ago," he said. "Let's go in and eat."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<h3>LOVE'S AVOWAL</h3></div> + +<p>A distinct path, in places almost a beaten road, connected the Box R and +the Baker ranches. Along it a tall slim youth was riding a buckskin +pony. He was clean-shaven and clean-shirted; but the shirt was of rough +brown flannel. His leather trousers were creased and baggy at the knees. +At his hip protruded the butt of a big revolver. Upon his head, +seemingly a load in itself, was a broad sombrero; and surrounding it, +beneath a band which at one time had been very gaudy but was now sobered +by sun and rain, were stuck a score or more of matches. Despite the +motion of the horse the youth was steadily smoking a stubby bull-dog +pipe.</p> + +<p>The time was morning, early morning; it was Winter, and the sun was +still but a little way up in the sky. The day, although the month was +December, was as warm as September. There had not even been a frost the +previous night. Mother Nature was indulging in one of her many whims, +and seemed smiling broadly at the incongruity.</p> + +<p>Though the rider was out thus early, his departure had been by no means +surreptitious. "I'm going over to Baker's, and may not be back before +night," he had said at the breakfast table; and, impassive as usual, the +older<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> man had made no comment, but simply nodded and went about his +work. Likewise there was no subterfuge when the youth arrived at his +destination. "I came to see Florence," he announced to Scotty in the +front yard; then, as he tied the pony, he added: "I spoke to Grannis, +and he said he'd come over and help you. Do you know exactly when you'll +want him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, day after to-morrow. This weather is too good to waste."</p> + +<p>Ben turned toward the house. "All right. I'll see that he's over here +bright and early."</p> + +<p>The visitor found the interior of the Baker home looking like a corner +in a storage warehouse. Florence, in a big checked apron reaching to her +chin, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, was busily engaged in still +further dismantling the once cosey parlor. Amidst the confusion, and +apparently a part of it, Mrs. Baker wandered aimlessly about. The front +door was wide open, letting in a stream of sunlight.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning," said Ben, appearing in the doorway.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Baker stopped long enough to nod, and Florence looked up from her +work.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning," she replied. A deliberate glance took in the new-comer's +dress from head to foot, and lingered on the exposed revolver hilt. "Are +you hunting Indians or bear?"</p> + +<p>Ben Blair returned the look, even more deliberately.</p> + +<p>"Bear, I judge from the question. I came in search of you."</p> + +<p>There was no answer, and the man came in and sat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> down on the corner of +a box. "You seem to be very busy," he said.</p> + +<p>The girl went on with her packing. "Yes, rather busy," she said +indifferently.</p> + +<p>Ben dangled one long leg over the side of the box.</p> + +<p>"Are you too busy to take a ride with me? I want to talk with you."</p> + +<p>"I'm pretty busy," non-committally.</p> + +<p>"Suppose I should ask it as a favor?"</p> + +<p>"Suppose I should decline?"</p> + +<p>The long leg stopped its swinging. "You wouldn't, though."</p> + +<p>The girl's brown eyes flashed. "How do you know I wouldn't?"</p> + +<p>Ben stood up and folded his arms. "Because it would be the first favor I +ever asked of you, and you wouldn't refuse that."</p> + +<p>They eyed each other a moment.</p> + +<p>"Where do you want to go?" temporized Florence.</p> + +<p>"Anywhere, so it's with you."</p> + +<p>"You don't want to stay long?"</p> + +<p>"I'll come back whenever you say."</p> + +<p>Florence rolled down her sleeves and sighed with assumed regret. "I +ought to stay here and work."</p> + +<p>"I'll help you when we come back, if you like."</p> + +<p>"Very well." She said it hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"All right. I'll get your horse ready for you."</p> + +<p>Scotty watched them peculiarly, Molly doubtfully, as they rode out of +the ranch yard; but neither made any comment, and they moved away in +silence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's an odd looking pony you've got there," remarked the girl +critically, when they had turned into the half-beaten trail which led +south. "How does it happen you're on him instead of the other?"</p> + +<p>Ben patted the smooth neck before him, and the pony twitched his ears +appreciatively.</p> + +<p>"Buckskin and I had the misfortune not to meet until lately. We just got +acquainted a few days ago."</p> + +<p>The girl glanced at her companion quickly and caught the look upon his +face.</p> + +<p>"I believe you're fonder of your horses and cattle and things than you +are of people," she flashed.</p> + +<p>The man's hand continued patting the pony's yellow neck.</p> + +<p>"More fond than I am of some people, maybe you meant to say."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps so," she conceded.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think I am," he admitted. "They're more worthy. They never abuse +a kindness, and never come down to the insult of class distinctions. +They're the same to-day, to-morrow, a year from now. They'll work +themselves to death for you, instead of sacrificing you to their +personal gain. Yes, they make better friends than some people."</p> + +<p>Florence smiled as she glanced at her companion.</p> + +<p>"Is that what you want to tell me? If it is, seeing I've just made my +choice and decided to return to civilization and mingle with human +beings of whom you have such a poor opinion, I think we may as well go +back. Mamma and I have been racking our brains for two days<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> to find a +place for the china, and I've just thought of one."</p> + +<p>Blair was silent a moment; then he said, "I promised to return whenever +you wished, but I've not said what I wanted to say yet."</p> + +<p>Florence looked at the speaker with feigned surprise. "Is that so? I'm +very curious to hear!"</p> + +<p>Ben returned the look deliberately. "You'd like to hear now what I have +to say?"</p> + +<p>The girl's breath came more quickly, but she persisted in her banter. "I +can scarcely wait!"</p> + +<p>The line of the youth's big jaw tightened, "I won't keep you in suspense +any longer then. First of all, I want to relate a little personal +history. I was eight years old, as you know, when I was taken into the +Box R ranch. In those eight years, as far as I can remember, not one +person except Mr. Rankin ever called at my mother's home."</p> + +<p>Again the girl felt a thrill of anticipation, but the brown eyes opened +archly. "You must have kept a big fierce dog, or—or something."</p> + +<p>"No, that was not the reason."</p> + +<p>"I can't imagine what it could be, then."</p> + +<p>"The explanation is simple. My mother and Tom Blair were never married."</p> + +<p>Swiftly the color mounted into Florence's cheeks, and she drew up her +horse with a jerk.</p> + +<p>"So that is what you brought me out here to tell me!" she blazed.</p> + +<p>Ben drew up likewise, and wheeled his pony facing hers.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, but I'm not to blame for the way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> I told you—of +myself. You forced it. For once in my life at least, Florence, I'm in +dead earnest to-day."</p> + +<p>The girl hesitated. Tears of anger, or of something else, came into her +eyes. "I'm going home," she announced briefly, and turned back the way +they had come.</p> + +<p>The man silently wheeled his buckskin and for five minutes, ten minutes, +they rode toward home together.</p> + +<p>"Florence," said the youth steadily, "I had something more I wished to +say to you; will you listen?"</p> + +<p>No answer—only the sound of the solid steps of the thoroughbred and the +daintier tread of the mustang.</p> + +<p>"Florence," he repeated, "I asked you a question."</p> + +<p>The girl's face was turned away. "Oh, you are cruel!" she said.</p> + +<p>Ben touched his pony, advanced, caught the bridle of the girl's horse, +and brought both to a standstill. The girl did not turn her head to look +at him, but she did not resist. Deliberately the man dismounted, loosed +the rolled blanket he carried back of his saddle, spread it upon the +ground, then looked fairly up into her brown eyes.</p> + +<p>"Florence," he said, as he held out his hand to assist her to dismount, +"I've something I wish very much to say to you. Won't you listen?"</p> + +<p>Florence Baker looked steadily down into the clear blue eyes. Why she +did not refuse she could not have told, could never tell. As well as she +knew her own name she realized what was coming—what it was the man +wished to say to her; but she did not refuse to listen.</p> + +<p>"Florence," he said gently, "I'm waiting," and as in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> dream she +stepped into the proffered hand, felt herself lowered to the ground, +followed the young man over to the blanket, and sat down. The sun, now +high above them, shone down warmly and approvingly. Scarcely a breath of +air was stirring. Not a sound came from over the prairies. As completely +as though they were the only two people on the earth, they were alone.</p> + +<p>The man stretched himself at his companion's feet, where he could look +into her face and catch its every expression.</p> + +<p>"Florence Baker," his voice came to her ears like the sound of one +speaking afar off, "Florence Baker, I love you. In all that I'm going to +say, bear this in mind; don't forget it for a moment. To me you will +always be the one woman on earth. Why I haven't told you this before, +why I waited until you were passing from my life before I said it, I +don't know; but now I'm as sure as that I'm looking at you that it is +so." The blue eyes never shifted. Presently one big strong hand reached +over and enfolded within its grasp another tiny resistless hand, which +lay there passive.</p> + +<p>"You're getting ready to go away, Florence," he went on, "leaving this +country where you've spent almost your life, changing it for an +uncertainty. Don't do it—not for my sake, but for your own. You know +nothing of the city, its pleasures, its rush, its excitement, its +ambitions. Granted that you've been there, that we've both been there; +but we were only children then and couldn't see beneath the thinnest +surface. Yet there must be something beneath the glitter, something +you've never thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> of and cannot realize; something which makes the +life hateful to those who have felt and known it. I don't know what it +is, you don't; but it must be there. If it weren't so, why would men +like your father, like Mr. Rankin, college men, men of wealth, men who +have seen the world, leave the city and come here to stay? They were +born in cities, raised in cities. The +<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'life'">city</ins> +was a part of their life; but +they left it, and are glad." The man clasped the little hand more +tightly, shook it gently. "Florence, are you listening?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm listening."</p> + +<p>"I repeat then, don't go. You belong here. This life is your life. +Everything that is best for your happiness you will find here. You spoke +the other day of your birthright—to love and to be loved—as though +this could only be realized in a city. Do you think I don't care for you +as much as though my home were in a town?"</p> + +<p>Passive, motionless, Florence listened, feeling the subtle sympathy +which ever existed between her and this boy-man drawing them closer +together. His strong magnetism, never before so potent, gripped her +almost like a physical force. His personality, original, masterful, +convincing, fascinated her. For the time the tacit consent of her +position never occurred to her. It seemed but natural and fitting that +he should hold her hand. She had no desire to speak or move, merely to +listen.</p> + +<p>"Florence," the voice was very near now, and very low. "Florence, I love +you. I can't have you go away, can't have you pass out of my life. I'll +do anything for you,—live for you, die for you, fight for you, slave +for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> you,—anything but give you up." Of a sudden his arms were about +her, his lips touched her cheek. "Can't you love me in return? Speak to +me, tell me—for I love you, Florence!"</p> + +<p>The girl started, and drew away involuntarily. "Oh, don't, don't! please +don't!" she pleaded. The dream faded, and she awoke to the reality of +her position. The brown head bowed, dropped into her hands. Her whole +body shook. "Oh, what have I done!" she sobbed. "Oh, what have I done! +Oh—oh—oh—"</p> + +<p>For a time, neither of them realized nor cared how long, they sat side +by side, though separate now. Warmly and brightly as before, the sun +shone down upon them. A breath of breeze, born of the heated earth, +wandered gently over the land. The big thoroughbred shifted on its feet +and whinnied suggestively.</p> + +<p>Gradually the girl's hysterical weeping grew quieter. The sobs came less +frequently, and at last ceased. Ben Blair slowly arose, folded his arms, +and waited. Another minute passed. Florence Baker, the storm over, +glanced up at her companion—at first hesitatingly, then openly and +soberly. She stood up, almost at his side; but he did not turn. Awe, +contrition, strange feelings and emotions flooded her anew. She reached +out her hand and touched him on the arm; at first hesitatingly, then +boldly, she leaned her head against his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Ben," she pleaded, "Ben, forgive me. I've hurt you terribly; but I +didn't mean to. I am as I am; I can't help it. I can't promise to do +what you ask—can't say I love you now, or promise to love you in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> +future." She looked up into his face. "Won't you forgive me?"</p> + +<p>Still the man did not turn. "There's nothing to forgive, Florence," he +said sadly. "I misunderstood it all."</p> + +<p>"But there is something for me to say," she went on swiftly. "I knew +from the first what you were going to tell me, and knew I couldn't give +you what you asked; yet I let you think differently. It's all my fault, +Ben, and I'm so sorry!" She gently and timidly stroked the shoulder of +the rough flannel shirt. "I should have stopped you, and told you my +reasons; but they seemed so weak, and somehow I couldn't help listening +to you." There was a hesitating pause. "Would you like to hear my +reasons now?"</p> + +<p>"Just as you please." There was no unkindness in the voice—only +resignation and acceptance of the hard fact she had already made known +to him.</p> + +<p>Florence hesitated. A catch came into her throat, and she dropped her +head to the broad shoulder as before.</p> + +<p>"Ben, Ben!" she almost sobbed, "I can't tell you, after all. It'll only +hurt you again."</p> + +<p>He was looking out over the prairies, watching the heat-waves that arose +in fantastic circles, as in Spring. "You can't hurt me again," he said +wearily.</p> + +<p>The vague feeling of irreparable loss gripped the girl anew; but this +time she rushed on desperately, in spite of it. "Oh, why couldn't I have +met you somewhere else, under different circumstances?" she wailed. "Why +couldn't your mother have been—different?" She paused, the brown head +raised, the loosened hair tossed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> back in abandon. "Maybe, as you say, +it's a rainbow I'm seeking. Maybe I'll be sorry; but I can't help it. I +want them all—the things of civilization. I want them all," she +finished abruptly.</p> + +<p>Gently the man disengaged himself. "Is that all you wished to say?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," hesitatingly, "I guess that's all."</p> + +<p>Ben picked up the blanket and returned it to his saddle; then he led the +horse to the girl's side. "Can I help you up?"</p> + +<p>His companion nodded. The youth held down his hand, and upon it Florence +mounted to the saddle as she had done many times before. The thought +came to her that it might be the last time.</p> + +<p>Not a word did Ben speak as they rode back to the ranch-house; not once +did he look at his companion. At the door he held out his hand.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," he said simply.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," she echoed feebly.</p> + +<p>Ben made his adieu to Mrs. Baker, and then rode out to the barn where +Scotty was working. "Good-bye," he repeated. "We'll probably not meet +again before you go." The expression upon the Englishman's face caught +his eye. "Don't," he said. "I'd rather not talk now."</p> + +<p>Scotty gripped the extended hand and shook it heartily.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," he said, with misty eyes.</p> + +<p>The youth wheeled the buckskin and headed for home. Florence and her +mother were still standing in the doorway watching him, and he lifted +his big sombrero; but he did not glance at them, nor turn his head in +passing.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<h3>A DEFERRED RECKONING</h3></div> + +<p>Time had dealt kindly with the saloon of Mick Kennedy. A hundred +electric storms had left it unscathed. Prairie fires had passed it by. +Only the relentless sun and rain had fastened the mark of their +handiwork upon it and stained it until it was the color of the earth +itself. Within, man had performed a similar office. The same old +cottonwood bar stretched across the side of the room, taking up a third +of the available space; but no stranger would have called it cottonwood +now. It had become brown like oak from continuous saturation with +various colored liquids; and upon its surface, indelible record of the +years, were innumerable bruises and dents where heavy bottles and +glasses had made their impress under impulse of heavier hands. The +continuous deposit of tobacco smoke had darkened the ceiling, modulating +to a lighter tone on the walls. The place was even gloomier than before, +and immeasurably filthier under the accumulated grime of a dozen years. +Once in their history the battered tables had been recovered, but no one +would have guessed it now. The gritty decks of cards had been often +replaced, but from their appearance they might have been those with +which Tom Blair long ago bartered away his honor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> + +<p>Time had left its impress also on bartender Mick. A generous sprinkling +of gray was in his hair; the single eye was redder and fiercer, seeming +by its blaze to have consumed the very lashes surrounding it; the cheeks +were sunken, the great jaw and chin prominent from the loss of teeth. +Otherwise Mick was not much changed. The hand which dealt out his wares, +which insisted on their payment to the last nickel, was as steady as of +yore. His words were as few, his control of the reckless and often +drunken frequenters was as perfect. He was the personified spirit of the +place—crafty, designing, relentless.</p> + +<p>Bob Hoyt, the foreman, shambled into Mick's lair at the time of day when +the lights were burning and smoking on the circling shelf. He peered +through the haze of tobacco smoke at the patrons already present, +received a word from one and a stare from another, but from none an +invitation to join the circle.</p> + +<p>Bob sidled up to the bar where Kennedy was impassively waiting. "Warmer +out," he advanced.</p> + +<p>Mick made no comment. "Something?" he suggested.</p> + +<p>Bob's colorless eyes blinked involuntarily. "Yes, a bit of rye."</p> + +<p>Mick poured a very small drink into a whiskey glass, set it with another +of water before the customer, on a big card tacked upon the wall added a +fresh line to those already succeeding the other's name, and leaned his +elbows once more upon the bar.</p> + +<p>Upon the floor of his mouth Bob Hoyt laid a foundation of water, over +this sent down the fiery liquor with a gulp,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> and followed the retreat +with the last of the water, unconsciously making a wry face.</p> + +<p>Kennedy whisked the empty glasses through the doubtful contents of a +convenient pail, and set them dripping upon a perforated shelf. "Found +the horses yet?" he queried, in an undertone.</p> + +<p>Bob shifted uncomfortably and searched for a place for his hands, but +finding none he let them hang awkwardly over the rail of the bar.</p> + +<p>"No, not even a trail."</p> + +<p>"Looked, have you?" The single searchlight turned unwinkingly upon the +other's face.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've been out all day. Made a circle of the places within forty +miles—Russel's of the Circle R, Stetson's of the 'XI,' Frazier's, +Rankin's—none of them have seen a sign of a stray."</p> + +<p>"That settles it, then. Those horses were stolen." The red face with its +bristle of buff and gray came closer. "I didn't think they'd strayed. +The two best horses on a ranch don't wander off by chance; if they'd +been broncos it might have been different. It's the same thing as three +years ago; pretty nearly the same date too—early in January it was, you +remember!"</p> + +<p>Bob's long head nodded confirmation. "Yes. We thought then they'd come +around all right in the next round up, but they didn't, and never have."</p> + +<p>Kennedy stepped back, spread his hands palm down upon the bar, leaned +his full weight upon them, and gazed meditatively at the other occupants +of the room. A question was in his mind. Should he take these men into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +his confidence and trust to their well-known method of dealing with +rustlers—a method very effective when successful in catching the +offender, but infinitely deficient in finesse—or depend wholly upon his +own ingenuity? He decided that in this instance the latter offered +little hope. His province was in dealing with people at close range.</p> + +<p>"Boys,"—his voice was normal, but not a man in the room failed to give +attention,—"boys, line up! It's on the house."</p> + +<p>Promptly the card games ceased. In one, the pot lay as it was, its +ownership undecided, in the centre of the table. The loungers' feet +dropped to the floor. An inebriate, half dozing in the corner, awoke. +Well they knew it was for no small reason that Mick interrupted their +diversions. Up they came—Grover of the far-away "XXX" ranch, who had +been here for two days now, and had lost the price of a small herd; +Gilbert of the "Lost Range," whose brand was a circle within a circle; +Stetson of the "XI," a short heavy-set man, with an immovable pugilist's +face, to-night, as usual, ahead of the game; Thompson, one-armed but +formidable, who drove the stage and kept the postoffice and inadequate +general store just across to the north of the saloon; McFadden, a wiry +little Scotchman with sandy whiskers, Rankin's nearest neighbor to the +south; a half-dozen lesser lights, in distinction from the big ranchers +called by their first names, "Buck" or "Pete" or "Bill" as the case +might be, mere cowmen employed at a salary. Elbow to elbow they leaned +upon the supporting bar, awaiting with interest the something they knew +Kennedy had to say.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<p>Kennedy did not ask a single man what he would have. It was needless. +Silently he placed a glass before each, and starting a bottle of red +liquor at one end of the line, he watched it, as, steadily emptying, it +passed on down to the end.</p> + +<p>"I never use it, you know," he explained, as, the preparation complete, +they looked at him expectantly.</p> + +<p>"Take something else, then," pressed McFadden.</p> + +<p>Mick poured out a glass of water and set it on the bar before him; but +not an observer smiled. They knew the man they were dealing with.</p> + +<p>"All right, boys,"—McFadden's glass went up on a level with his eye, +and one and all the others followed the motion,—"all right, boys! +Here's to you, Kennedy!"—mouthing the last word as though it were a hot +pebble, and in unison the dozen odd hands led the way to their +respective owners' mouths. There was a momentary pause; then a musical +clinking, as the empty glasses returned to the board. Silence, expectant +silence, returned.</p> + +<p>"Boys,"—Mick looked from face to face intimately,—"we've got work +ahead. Hoyt here reported this morning that two of the best horses on +the Big B were missing. He's made a forty-mile circuit to-day, and no +one has seen anything of them. You all know what that means."</p> + +<p>Stetson turned to the foreman. "What time did you see them last, Hoyt?"</p> + +<p>"About nine last evening."</p> + +<p>"Sure?"</p> + +<p>Bob's long head nodded emphatically. "Yes, one of the boys had the team +out mending fence in the afternoon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> and when he was through he turned +them into the corral with the broncos. I'm sure they were there."</p> + +<p>"I'm not surprised," commented Thompson, swinging on his single elbow to +face the others. "It's been some time now since we've had a necktie +party and it's bound to come. The wonder is it hasn't come before."</p> + +<p>Gilbert and Grover, comparatively elderly men, said nothing, looked +nothing; but upon the faces of the half-dozen cowboys there appeared +distinct anticipation. The hunt of a "rustler" appealed to them as a +circus does to a small boy, as the prospect of a football game does to a +college student.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, McFadden had been thinking. One could always tell when this +process was taking place with the Scotchman, from his habit of tapping +his chest with his middle finger as though beating time to the movement +of his mental machinery.</p> + +<p>"Got any plan, Kennedy?" he queried. "Whoever's done you has got a good +start by this time; but if we're going to do anything, there's no use in +giving him longer. How about it?"</p> + +<p>Mick's single eye shifted as before, and went from face to face. "No, I +haven't; but I've got an idea." A pause. "How many of you boys remembers +Tom Blair?" he digressed.</p> + +<p>"I do," said Grover.</p> + +<p>"Same here." It was Gilbert of the Lost Range who spoke.</p> + +<p>"I've heard of him," commented one of the cowboys.</p> + +<p>"I guess we all have," added another.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>Again Mick's eye, like a flashlight, passed from man to man.</p> + +<p>"Well," he announced, "I may be wrong, but I've got reason to believe it +was Tom Blair who did the job last night, and that he's somewhere this +side the river right now."</p> + +<p>For a moment there was silence, while the idea took root.</p> + +<p>"I supposed he was dead long ago," remarked Stetson at last.</p> + +<p>"So did I, until a month ago—until the last time I was in town stocking +up. I met a fellow there then from the country west of the river, and it +all came out. Blair's been stampin' that range for a year, and they're +suspicious of him. He disappears every now and then, and they think he +keeps in with a gang of rustlers who have their headquarters over in the +Johnson's Hole country in Wyoming. The fellow said he kept up +appearances by claiming he owned a ranch on this side—the Big B. That's +how we came to speak of him."</p> + +<p>"Queer," commented Stetson, "that if it's Blair, he hasn't been around +before. It's been ten years now since he disappeared, hasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"More than that," corrected Mick. "That's another reason I believe it's +him; that, and the fact that I didn't do nothin' the last time I was +held up. It must be one lone rustler who's operating or there'd be +more'n a couple of hosses missing. Then it must be some feller that +knows the Big B, and has a particular grudge against it, or why would +they have passed the Broken Kettle or the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> Lone Buffalo on the west? +Morris has a whole herd, and his main hoss sheds are in an old creek-bed +a mile away from the ranch-house. I tell you it's some feller who knows +this country and knows me."</p> + +<p>"I believe you're right about him being this side of the river," broke +in Thompson. "When I was over after the mail two days ago there was +water running on the ice; and it's been warmer since. It must be wide +open in spots now. A man who knows the crossings might make it afoot, +but he couldn't take a hoss over."</p> + +<p>Mick's lone eye burned more ominously than before. "Of course he can't. +He's run into a trap, and all we've got to do is to make a spread and +round him up. I'll bet a hundred to one we find him somewhere this side, +waiting for a freeze." Again the half-emptied bottle came from the shelf +and passed to the end of the line. "Have another whiskey on me, boys."</p> + +<p>They silently drank. Then grim Stetson suggested that they drink +again—"to our success"; and cowboy Buck, not to be outdone, proposed +another toast—"to the necktie party—after." The big bottle, empty now, +dinned on the surface of the bar.</p> + +<p>"By God! I hope we get him," flamed Grover. "He ought to be hung, +anyway. He killed his wife and burned up the body, they say, before he +left!"</p> + +<p>"Someone must call for Rankin and Ben," suggested another, "Ben +particularly. He ought to be there at the finish. Lord knows he's got +grudge enough."</p> + +<p>"We'll let him pull the trap," broke in Stetson grimly.</p> + +<p>Of a sudden above the confusion there sounded a snarl,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> almost like the +cry of an animal. Surprised, for the moment silenced, the men turned in +the direction whence it had come.</p> + +<p>"Rankin!" It was Mick Kennedy who spoke, but it was Mick transformed. +"Rankin!" The great veins of the bartender's neck swelled; the red face +congested until it became all but purple. "No! We won't go near him! +He'd put a stop to the whole thing. What we want is men, not cowards!"</p> + +<p>A moment only the silence lasted. "All right," agreed Stetson. "Have +another, boys! We'll drop Rankin!"</p> + +<p>Anew, louder than before, broke forth the confusion. The games of a +short time ago were forgotten. A heap of coin lay on the shelf behind +the bar where Mick, the banker, had placed it; but winner and loser +alike ignored its existence. The savage, ever so near the surface of +these rough frontiersmen, had taken complete possession of them. Drop +Rankin—forget civilization—ignore the slow practices of law and order!</p> + +<p>"Come on!" someone yelled. "We're enough to do the business. To the +river!"</p> + +<p>Instantly the crowd burst through the single front door. Momentarily +there followed a lull, while in the half darkness each rider found his +mount. Then sounded an "All ready!" from cowboy Buck, first in motion, a +straining of leather, a swish of quirts, a grunting of ponies as the +spurs dug into their flanks, a rush of leaping feet, a wild medley of +yells, and westward across the prairie, beneath the stars, there passed +a swiftly moving black shadow that grew momentarily lighter, and back +from which came a patter,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> patter, patter, that grew softer and softer; +until at last over the old saloon and its companion store fell silence +absolute.</p> + +<p>It was 10:28 when they left Kennedy's place. It was 12:36 when, without +having for a moment stopped their long swinging gallop, they pulled up +at the "Lone Buffalo" ranch, twenty-five miles away, and the last ranch +before they reached the river. The house was dark and silent as the +grave at their approach; but it did not remain so long. The display of +fireworks with which they illumined the night would have done credit to +an Independence Day celebration. The yells which accompanied it were +hair-raising as the shrieks from a band of maniacs. Instantly lights +began to burn, and the proprietor himself, Grey—a long Southerner with +an imperial—came rushing to the door, a revolver in either hand.</p> + +<p>But the visitors had not waited for him. With one impulse they had +ridden straight into the horse corral, had thrown off saddles and +bridles from their steaming mounts, and, every man for himself, had +chosen afresh from the ranch herd. Passing out in single-file through +the gate, they came upon Grey; but still they did not stop. The one word +"rustler" was sufficient password, and not five minutes from the time +they arrived they were again on the way, headed straight southwest for +their long ride to the river.</p> + +<p>Hour after hour they forged ahead. The mustangs had long since puffed +themselves into their second wind, and, falling instinctively into their +steady swinging lope, they moved ahead like machines. The country grew +more and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> more rolling, even hilly. From between the tufts of buffalo +grass now and then protruded the white face of a rock. Over one such, +all but concealed in the darkness, Grover's horse stumbled, and with a +groan, the rancher beneath, fell flat to earth. By a seeming miracle the +man arose, but the horse did not, and an examination showed the jagged +edge of a fractured bone protruding through the hide at the shoulder. +There was but one thing to do. A revolver spoke its message of relief, a +hastily-cast lot fell to McFadden, and without a word he faced his own +mount back the way they had come, assisted Grover to a place behind him, +turned to wish the others good luck, and found himself already too late. +Where a minute ago they had been standing there was now but vacancy. The +night and the rolling ground had swallowed the avengers up as completely +as though they had never existed; and the Scotchman rode slowly back.</p> + +<p>It was yet dark, but the eastern sky was reddening, when they reached +the chain of bluffs bordering the great river. They had made their plans +before, so that now without hesitating they split as though upon the +edge of a mighty wedge, half to the right, half to the left, each +division separating again into its individual members, until the whole, +like two giant hands whereof the cowboys, half a mile apart from each +other, were the fingers, moved forward until the end finger all but +touched the river itself.</p> + +<p>Still there was no pause. The details had been worked out to a nicety. +They had bent far to the south, miles farther than any man aiming at the +Wyoming border<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> would have gone, and now, having arrived at the barrier, +they wheeled north again. It was getting daylight, and cowboy Pete,—in +our simile the left little finger,—first to catch sight of the surface +of the stream, waved in triumph to the nearest rider on his right.</p> + +<p>"We've got him, sure!" he yelled. "She's open in spots"; and though the +others could not hear, they understood the meaning, and the message went +on down the line.</p> + +<p>On, on, more swiftly now, at a stiff gallop, for it was day, the riders +advanced. As they moved, first one rider and then another would +disappear, as a depression in the uneven country temporarily swallowed +them up—but only to reappear again over a prominent rise, still +galloping on. They watched each other closely now, searching the +surrounding country. They were nearing a region where they might expect +action at any moment,—the remains of a camp-fire, a clue to him they +sought,—for it was on a line directly west of the Big B ranch.</p> + +<p>And they were not to be disappointed. Observing closely, Stetson, who +was nearest to Pete, saw the latter suddenly draw up his horse and come +to a full stop. At last the end had arrived—at last; and the rancher +turned to motion to his right. Only a moment the action took, but when +he shifted back he saw a sight which, stolid gambler as he was, sent a +thrill through his nerves, a mumbling curse to his lips. Coming toward +him, crazy-scared, bounding like an antelope, mane flying, stirrups +flapping, was the pony Pete had ridden, but now riderless. Of the cowboy +himself there was not a sign. Stetson had not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> heard a sound or caught a +motion. Nevertheless, he understood. Somewhere near, just to the west, +lay death, death in ambush; but he did not hesitate. Whatever his +faults, the man was no coward. A revolver in either hand, the reins in +his teeth, he spurred straight for the river.</p> + +<p>It took him but a minute to cover the distance—a minute until, almost +by the rivers bank, he saw ahead on the brown earth the sprawling form +of a dead man. With a jerk he drew up alongside, and, the muzzles of big +revolvers following his eye, sent swiftly about him a sweeping glance. +Of a sudden, three hundred yards out, seemingly from the surface of the +river itself, he caught a tiny rising puff of smoke, heard +simultaneously a sound he knew so well,—the dull spattering impact of a +bullet,—realized that the pony beneath him was sinking, felt the shock +as his own body came to earth, and heard just over his head the singing +passage of a rifle-ball.</p> + +<p>Unconscious profanity flowed from the rancher's lips in a stream; but +meanwhile his brain worked swiftly, and, freeing himself, he crawled +back hand over hand until a wave in the ground covered the river from +view; then springing to his feet he ran toward the others, approaching +now as fast as spurs would bring them, waving, shouting a warning as he +went. Within a minute they were all together listening to his story. +Within another, the rifles from off their saddles in their hands, the +ponies left in charge of lank Bob Hoyt, the eight others now remaining +moved back as Stetson had come: at first upright, then, crawling, hand +over hand until, peeping over the intervening ridge, they saw lying +before them the mingled ice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> patches and open running water of the +low-lying Missouri. Beside them at their left, very near, was the body +of Pete; but after a first glance and an added invective no man for the +present gave attention. He was dead, dead in his tracks, and their +affair was not with such, but with the quick.</p> + +<p>At first they could see nothing which explained the mystery of death, +only the forbidding face of the great river; then gradually to one after +another there appeared tell-tale marks which linked together into clues.</p> + +<p>"Ain't that a hoss-carcass?" It was cowboy Buck who spoke. "Look, a +hundred yards out, down stream."</p> + +<p>Gilbert's swift glance caught the indicated object.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and another beyond—farther down—amongst that ice-pack! Do you +see?"</p> + +<p>"Where?" Mick Kennedy trained his one eye like a fieldpiece upon the +locality suggested. "Where? Yes! I see them now—both of them. Blair's +own horse, if he had one, is probably in there too, somewhere."</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Stetson had been scrutinizing the spot on the river's face +from which had come the puff of smoke.</p> + +<p>"Say, boys!" a ring as near excitement as was possible to one of his +temperament was in his voice. "Ain't that an island, that brown patch +out there, pretty well over to the other side? I believe it is."</p> + +<p>The others followed his glance. Near the farther bank was a long +low-lying object, like a jam of broken ice-cakes, between which and them +the open water was flowing. At first they thought it was ice; then under +longer observation they knew better. They had seen too many other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +formations of the kind in this shifting treacherous stream to be long +deceived. A flat sandy island it was, sure enough; and what they thought +was ice was driftwood.</p> + +<p>Almost simultaneously from the eight there burst forth an exclamation, a +rumbling curse of comprehension. They understood it all now as plainly +as though their own eyes had seen the tragedy. Blair had reached the +river and, despite its rotten ice, had tried to cross. One by one the +horses had broken through, had been abandoned to their fate. He alone, +somehow, had managed to reach this sandy island, and he was there now, +intrenched behind the driftwood, waiting and watching.</p> + +<p>In the brain of every cowboy there formed an unuttered curse. Their +impotence to go farther, to mete out retribution to this murderer of +their companion, came over them in a blind wave of fury. The sun, now +well above the horizon, shone warmly down upon them. They were in the +midst of an infrequent Winter thaw. The full current of the river was +between them and the desperado. It might be days, a week, before ice +would again form; yet, connecting the island with the western bank, it +was even now in place. Blair had but to wait until cover of night, and +depart in peace—on foot, to be sure, but in the course of days a man +could travel far afoot. Doubtless he realized all this. Doubtless he was +laughing at them now. The curses redoubled.</p> + +<p>Stetson had been taking off his coat. He now draped it about his +rifle-stock, and placed his sombrero on top. "All ready, boys," he +cautioned, and raised it slowly into view.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> + +<p>Instantly from the centre of the driftwood heap there arose a tracing of +blue smoke. Simultaneously, irregular in outline as though punched by a +dull instrument, a jagged hole appeared in the felt of the hat.</p> + +<p>As instantly, eight rifles on the bank began to play. The crackling of +their reports was like infantry, the sliding click of the ejecting +mechanism as continuous and regular as the stamp-stamp of many presses. +The smoke rose over their heads in a blue cloud. Far out on the river, +under impact of the bullets, splinters of the rotted driftwood leaped +high into the air. Now and then the open water in front splashed into +spray as a ball went amiss. Not until the rifle magazines were empty did +they cease, and then only to reload. Again and once again they repeated +the onslaught, until it would seem no object the size of a human being +upon the place where they aimed could by any possibility remain alive. +Then, and not until then, did silence return, did the dummy upon +Stetson's rifle again raise its head.</p> + +<p>But this time there was no response. They waited a minute, two +minutes—tried the ruse again, and it was as before. Had they really hit +the man out there, as they hoped, or was he, conscious of a trick, +merely lying low? Who could tell? The uncertainty, the inaction, goaded +all that was reckless in cowboy Buck's nature, and he sprang to his +feet.</p> + +<p>"I'm going out there if I have to walk on the bottom of the river!" he +blazed.</p> + +<p>Instantly Stetson's hands were on his legs, pulling him, prostrate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Down, you fool!" he growled. "At the bottom of the river is where you'd +be quick enough." The speaker turned to the others. "One of us is done +for already. There's no use for the rest to risk our lives without a +show. We've either potted Blair or we haven't. There's nothing more to +be done now, anyway. We may as well go back."</p> + +<p>For a moment there was a murmur of dissent, but it was short-lived. One +and all realized that what the rancher said was true. For the present at +least, nature was against them, on the side of the outlaw; and to combat +nature was useless. Another time—yes, there would surely be another +time; and grim faces grew grimmer at the thought. Another time it would +be different.</p> + +<p>"Yes, we may as well go." It was Mick Kennedy who spoke. "We can't stay +here long, that's sure." He tossed his rifle over to Stetson. "Carry +that, will you?" and rising, regardless of danger, he walked over to +cowboy Pete, took the dead body in his arms, without a glance behind +him, stalked back to where the horses were waiting, laid his burden +almost tenderly across the shoulder of his own mustang, and mounted +behind. Coming up, the others, likewise in silence, got into their +saddles, not as at starting, with one bound, but heavily, by aid of +stirrups. Still in silence, Mick leading, the legs of dead Pete dangling +at the pony's shoulder, they faced east, and started moving slowly along +the backward trail.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +<h3>A SHOT IN THE DARK</h3></div> + +<p>Winter, long delayed, came at last in earnest. On the morning of the +seventeenth of January—the ranchers did not soon forget the date—a +warm snow, soft with moisture, drove tumbling in from the east. All the +morning it came, thicker and thicker, until on the level, several inches +had fallen; then, so rapidly that one could almost discern the change, +the temperature began lowering, the wind shifting from the east to the +north, from north to west, and steadily rising. The surface of the snow +froze to ice, the snowflakes turned to sleet, and went bounding and +grinding, forming drifts but to disperse again, journeying aimlessly on, +cutting viciously at the chance animal who came in their path like a +myriad of tiny knives.</p> + +<p>All that day the force of the Box R ranch labored in the increasing +storm to get the home herds safely behind the shelter of the corral. It +was impossible for cattle long to face such a storm; but with this very +emergency in mind, Rankin had always in Winter kept the scattered +bunches to the north and west, and under these conditions the feat was +accomplished by dusk, and the half-frozen cowboys tumbled into their +bunks, to fall asleep almost before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> they assumed the horizontal. The +other ranchers wondered why it was that Rankin was so prosperous and why +his herd seldom diminished in Winter. Had they been observant, they +could have learned one reason that day.</p> + +<p>All the following night the storm moaned and raged, and the cold became +more and more intense. It came in through the walls of houses and +through bunk coverings, and bit at one like a living thing. Nothing +could stop it, nothing unprotected could withstand it. In the great +corral behind the windbreak, the cattle, all headed east, were jammed +together for warmth, a conglomerate mass of brown heads and bodies from +which projected a wilderness of horns.</p> + +<p>The next morning broke with a clear sky but with the thermometer marking +many degrees below zero. Out of doors, when the sun had arisen, the +light was dazzling. As far as eye could reach not a spot of brown +relieved the white. The layer of frozen snow lay like a vast carpet +stretched tight from horizon to horizon. Although it was only snow, yet +so far as the herds of the ranchers were concerned it might have been a +protecting armor of steel. Well did the tired cowboys, stiff from the +previous day's struggle, know what was before them, when at daylight +Graham routed them out. Food the helpless multitude must have. If they +could not find it for themselves it must be found for them; and in +stolid disapproval the men ate a hasty breakfast by the light of a +kerosene lamp and went forth to the inevitable.</p> + +<p>Rankin and Ben and Graham were already astir, and under their +supervision the campaign was rapidly begun.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> For a few days the stock +must be fed on hay, and seven of the available fifteen men of the ranch +force were detailed to keep full the great racks in the cattle +stockade—a task in itself, with the myriad hungry mouths swarming on +every hand, all but Herculean. The others, Rankin himself among the +number, undertook the greater feat of in a measure opening the range for +the future.</p> + +<p>The device which the big man had evolved for this purpose, and had used +on previous similar occasions, was a simple triangular snow-plough +several feet in width, with guiding handles behind. Comparatively narrow +as was the ribbon path cleared by this appliance, its length was only +limited by the endurance of the horses and the driver, and in the course +of the day many an acre could be uncovered. Half an hour after sunrise, +the eight outfits thus equipped were lined up side by side and headed +due northwest to a range which had been but little pastured.</p> + +<p>For five miles straight as a taut line they went, leaving behind them +eight brown stripes alternating with bands of white between. Then back +and forth, back and forth, for the distance of another mile they +vibrated until it was noon, when eight more connecting brown ribbons +were stretched beside their predecessors back to the ranch-house. In the +afternoon the labor was repeated, until by night the clearing, a +gigantic mottled fan with an abnormally long handle, lay in vivid +contrast against the surrounding white.</p> + +<p>The second day was the same, except that but seven bands stretched out +behind the moving squad. Rankin, game as he was, could scarcely put one +foot ahead of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> other, and in consequence, changing his tactics, he +mounted the old buckboard and departed on a tour of inspection toward +the north range. He was late in returning, and, as usual, very taciturn; +but after supper, as he and Ben were smoking in friendly silence by the +kitchen fire, he turned to the younger man.</p> + +<p>"Someone stayed at the north range last night," he announced abruptly. +"He slept there and had a fire."</p> + +<p>Ben showed no surprise. "I thought so, probably," he replied. "Late this +afternoon I ran across a trail leading in from the west along our +clearing, and headed that way. It was one lone chain of footprints."</p> + +<p>Rankin shivered, and replenished the fire. His long drive had chilled +him through and through.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you have an idea who made that trail?" he said.</p> + +<p>Though each knew that the other had heard the details of Pete's death, +neither had mentioned the incident. To do so had seemed superfluous. +Now, however, each realized the thought in the other's mind, and chose +not to avoid it.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Ben, simply. "I suppose it was made by Tom Blair."</p> + +<p>Never before had Rankin heard Benjamin Blair speak that name. He +stretched back heavily in his chair and lit his pipe afresh.</p> + +<p>"Ben," he said, "I'm getting old. I never began to realize the fact +until this Winter; but I sha'n't last many more years." Puff, puff went +two twin clouds of smoke toward the ceiling. "Civilization has some +advantages<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> over the frontier, and this is one of them: it's kinder to +the old."</p> + +<p>Never before had Rankin spoken in this way, and the other understood the +strength of his conviction.</p> + +<p>"You work too hard," he said soberly, though he felt the inadequacy of +the trite remark. "It's unnecessary. I wish you wouldn't do it."</p> + +<p>Rankin threw an outward motion with his powerful hand. "Yes, I know; but +when I quit moving I want to die. I know I could get a steam-heated back +room in a quiet street of a sleepy town somewhere and coddle myself into +a good many years yet; but it isn't worth the price. I love this big +free life too well ever to leave it. Most of the people one meets here +are rough, but in time that will all change. It's changing now; and +meantime nature compensates for everything."</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence, and then, as though there had been no +digression, Rankin went back to the former subject. "Yes," he said +slowly, "I think you're right about those being Tom Blair's tracks." He +turned and faced the younger man squarely. "If it is, Ben, it means he's +been frozen out from his hiding-place, wherever that is, and he's crazy +desperate. He'd do anything now. He wouldn't ever come back here +otherwise."</p> + +<p>Ben Blair's blue eyes tightened until the lashes were all but parallel.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Rankin repeated, "he's crazy desperate to come here at +all—especially so now." A pause, but the eyes did not shift. "God knows +I'm sorry he ever came back. I was glad we found that trail too late to +follow it to-day;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> but it's only postponing the end. I believe he'll be +here at the ranch to-night. He's got to get a horse—he's got to do +something right away; and I'm going to watch. If he don't come I'll take +up the old trail in the morning."</p> + +<p>Once more the pause, more intense than words. "He can't escape again, +unless—unless he gets me first—He must be desperate crazy."</p> + +<p>Rankin arose heavily and knocked the ashes out of his pipe preparatory +to bed.</p> + +<p>"There are a lot of things I might say now, Ben, but I won't say them. +We're not living in a land of law. We haven't someone always at hand to +shift our responsibility onto. In self-protection, we've got to take +justice more or less into our own hands. One thing I will say, though, +and I hope you'll never forget it. Think twice before you ever take the +life of another human being, Ben; think twice. Be sure your reasons are +mighty good—and then think again. Don't ever act in hot blood, or as +long as you live you'll know remorse." The speaker paused and his breath +came fast. Something more—who knew how much?—trembled on the end of +his tongue. He roused himself with an effort and turned toward his bunk. +"Good-night, Ben. I trust you as I'd trust my own son."</p> + +<p>The younger man watched the departing figure and felt the irony of the +separation that keeps us silent even when we wish to be nearest and most +helpful to our friends and makes our words a mockery.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir, I shall not forget. Good-night," he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + +<p>When a few minutes later the young man sauntered out to the barns, +everything was peaceful as usual. From the horse-stalls came the steady +monotonous grind of the animals at feed. In the cattle-yards was heard +the sleepy breathing of the multitude of cattle. Perfect contentment and +oblivion was the keynote of the place, and the watcher looked at the +lethargic mass thoughtfully. He had always responded instinctively to +the moods of dumb animals. He did so now. The passive trustfulness of +the great herd affected him deeply. Twice he made the circuit of the +buildings, but finding nothing amiss returned to his place. The sound of +the horses feeding had long since ceased. The sleepy murmur of the +cattle was lower and more regular. In the increasing coldness the vapor +of their breath, even though the night was dark and moonless, arose in +an indistinct cloud, like the smoke of smouldering camp-fires over the +tents of a sleeping army. For two days the man had been doing the +heaviest kind of work. Gradually, amid much opening and closing of +eyelids, consciousness lapsed into semi-consciousness, and he dozed.</p> + +<p>Suddenly—whether it was an hour or a minute afterwards, he did not +know—he awoke and sat up listening. Some sound had caught and held his +sub-conscious attention. He waited a moment, intent, scarcely breathing, +and then sprang swiftly to his feet. The sound now came definitely from +the sheds at the left. It was the deep chesty groan of a horse in pain.</p> + +<p>Once upon his feet, Ben Blair ran toward the barn, not cautiously but +precipitately. He had not grown to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> maturity amid animals without +learning something of their language; but even if such had been the +case, he could scarcely have mistaken that sound. Mortal pain and mortal +terror vibrated in those tones. No human being could have cried for help +more distinctly. The frozen snow squeaked under the rancher's feet as he +ran. "Stop there!" he shouted. "Stop there!" and throwing open the +nearest door, unmindful of danger, he dashed into the interior darkness.</p> + +<p>The barn was eighty odd feet in length, and as Ben swung open the door +at the east corner there was a flash of fire from the extreme west end, +and a bullet splintered the wood just back of his head. His precipitate +entry had been his salvation. He groped his way ahead, the groans of the +horses in his ears—for now he detected more than one voice. A growing +realization of what he would find was in his mind, and then a dark form +shot through the west door, and he was alone. Impulse told him to +follow, but the sound of pain and struggle kept him back. He struck a +match, held it like a torch above him, moved ahead, stopped. The flame +burned down the dry pine until it reached his fingers, blackened them, +went out; but he did not stir. He had expected the thing he saw, +expected it at the first cry he heard; yet infinitely more horrible than +a picture of imagination was the reality. He did not light another +match, he did not wish to see. To hear was bad enough—to hear and to +know. He started for the door; and behind him three great horses, +hopelessly maimed and crippled, struggled to rise, and failing, groaned +anew.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<p>It seemed Ben's fate this night to be just too late for service. Before +he reached the exit there sounded, spattering and intermittent, like the +first popping kernels of corn in a pan, a succession of pistol-shots +from the ranch-house. There was no answer, and as he stepped out into +the air the sound ceased. As he did so, the kitchen of the house sprang +alight from a lamp within. There was a moment of apparent inactivity, +and then, the door swinging open, fair against the lighted background, +shading his eyes to look into the outer darkness, stood Rankin. +Instantly a wave of premonition flooded the watching Benjamin.</p> + +<p>"Go back!" he shouted. "Go back! Back, quick!" and careless of personal +danger, he started running for the ranch-house as before he had raced +for the barn.</p> + +<p>The warning might as well have been ungiven. Almost before the last +words were spoken there came from the darkness at Ben's right the sound +he had been expecting—a single vicious rifle report; and as though a +mighty invisible weight were crushing him down, Rankin sank to the +floor.</p> + +<p>Then for the first time in his history Ben Blair lost self-control. +Quick as thought he changed his course from the house to the direction +from which the shot had come. The great veins of his throat swelled +until it seemed he could scarcely breathe. Curses, horrible, blighting +curses, combinations of malediction which had never even in thought +entered his mind before, rolled from his lips. His brain seemed afire. +But one idea possessed him—to lay hands upon this intruding being who +had in cold blood done that fiendish deed in the barn, and now had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> shot +his best friend on earth. The rage of primitive man who knew not steel +or gunpowder was his; the ferocity of the great monkey, the aborigine's +predecessor, whose means of offence were teeth and nails. Straight ahead +the man rushed, seeming not to run, but fairly to bound, turned suddenly +the angle at the corner of the machinery shed, stumbled over a +snow-plough drawn up carelessly by one of the men, fell, regained his +feet, and heard in his ears the thundering hoof-beats of a horse urged +away at full speed.</p> + +<p>For a moment Ben Blair stood as he had risen, gazing westward where the +other had departed, but seeing nothing, not even a shadow. Clouds had +formed over the sky, and the night was of intense darkness. To attempt +to follow a trail now was waste of time; and gradually, as he stood +there, the unevolved fury of the man transformed. His tongue became +silent; not a human being had heard the outburst. The physical paroxysm +relaxed. As he returned to the ranch-house no observer would have +detected in him other than the usual matter-of-fact rancher; yet beneath +that calm was a purpose infinitely more terrible than the animal blaze +of a few minutes before, a tenacity more relentless than a tiger on the +trail of its quarry, than an Indian stalking his enemy; a formulated +purpose which could patiently wait, but eventually and inevitably would +grind its object to powder.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, back at the scene of the tragedy, there had been feverish +action. Many of the cowboys were already about the barns, and lanterns +gleamed in the horse corral. Within the house, in the nearest bunk where +they had laid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> him, stretched the proprietor of the ranch. About him +were grouped Grannis, Graham, and Ma Graham. The latter was weeping +hysterically—her head buried in her big checked apron, the great mass +of her body vibrating with the effort. As Ben approached, her husband +glanced up. Upon his face was the dull unreasoning indecision of a steer +which had lost its leader; an animal passivity which awaited command.</p> + +<p>"Rankin's dead," he announced dully. "He's hit here." A withered hand +indicated a spot on the left breast. "He went quick."</p> + +<p>Grannis said nothing, and walking up Ben Blair stopped beside the bunk. +He took a long look at the kindly heavy face of the only man he had ever +called friend; but not a feature of his own face relaxed, not a muscle +quivered. Grannis watched him fixedly, almost with fascination. +Gray-haired gambler and man of fortune that he was, he realized as +Graham could never do the emotions which so often lie just back of the +locked countenance of a human being; realized it, and with the grim +carelessness of a frontiersman admired it.</p> + +<p>Of a sudden there was a grinding of frosty snow in the outer yard, a +confused medley of human voices, a snorting of horses; and, turning, Ben +went to the door. One glance told him the meaning of the cluster of +cowboys. He walked out toward them deliberately.</p> + +<p>"Boys," he said steadily, "put up your horses. You couldn't find a +mountain in the darkness to-night." A pause. "Besides," slowly, "this is +my affair. Put them up and go to bed."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<p>For a moment there was silence. The hearers could scarcely believe their +ears.</p> + +<p>"You mean we're to let him go?" queried a hesitating voice at last.</p> + +<p>Blair folded up the broad brim of his hat and looked from face to face +as it was revealed by the uncertain light from the window.</p> + +<p>"I mean what I said," he repeated evenly. "I'll attend to this matter +myself."</p> + +<p>For a moment again there was silence, but only for a moment.</p> + +<p>"No you won't!" blazed a voice suddenly. "Rankin was the whitest man +that ever owned a brand. Just because the kyote that shot him lived with +your mother won't save him. I'm going—and now."</p> + +<p>Quicker than a cat, so swiftly that the other cowboys scarcely realized +what was happening, the long gaunt Benjamin was at the speaker's side. +With a leap he had him by the throat, had dragged him from the back of +the horse, and held him at arm's length.</p> + +<p>"Freeman,"—the voice was neither raised nor lowered, but steady as the +drip of falling water,—"Freeman, you know better than that, and you +know you know better." The grip of the long left hand on the throat +tightened. The fingers of the right locked. "Say so—quick!"</p> + +<p>Face to face, looking fair into each other's eyes, stood the two men, +while the spectators watched breathlessly as they would have done at a +climax in a play. It was a case of will against will, elemental man +against his brother.</p> + +<p>"I'm waiting," suggested Blair, and even in the dim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> light Freeman saw +the blue eyes beneath the long lashes darken. Instinctively the victim's +hand went to his hip and lingered there; but he could no more have +withdrawn the weapon which he felt there than he could have struck his +own mother. He started to speak; but his lips were dry, and he moistened +them with his tongue.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know better," he admitted low.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair dropped his hand and turned to the spectators. "Men," he said +slowly and distinctly, "for the present at least I'm master of this +ranch, and when I give an order I expect to be obeyed." Again his eye +went from face to face fearlessly, dominantly. "Does any other man doubt +me?"</p> + +<p>Not a voice broke the stillness of the night. Only the restless movement +of the impatient mustangs answered.</p> + +<p>"Very well, then, you heard what I said. Go to bed, and to-morrow go on +with your work as usual. Grannis will be in charge while I'm gone," and +without a backward glance the long figure returned to the ranch-house.</p> + +<p>The weazened foreman and the tall adventurer had been watching him +impassively from the doorway. In silence they made room for him to pass.</p> + +<p>"Grannis," he asked directly, "have those horses been taken care of?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"See to it at once then."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>The blue eyes rested for a moment on the other's face.</p> + +<p>"You heard who I said would be in charge while I'm away?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," again.</p> + +<p>Ben moved over to the bunk opposite to that in which lay the dead man +and took off his hat and coat.</p> + +<p>"Graham!"</p> + +<p>The foreman came close, stood at attention.</p> + +<p>"Keep awake and call me before daylight, will you?"</p> + +<p>"I will."</p> + +<p>"And, Graham!"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I may be gone several days. You and Ma attend to the—burial. Dig the +grave out under the big maple." A pause. "I think," steadily, "he would +have liked it there."</p> + +<p>The foreman nodded silently.</p> + +<p>Benjamin Blair dropped into the bunk, drew the blankets over him and +closed his eyes. As he did so, from the direction of the barn there came +a succession of pistol shots—one, two, three. Then again silence fell.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +<h3>THE INEXORABLE TRAIL</h3></div> + +<p>Once more, westward across the prairie country, there moved a tall and +sinewy youth astride a vicious looking buckskin. This time, however, it +was very early in the morning. The rider moved slowly, his eyes on the +ground. His outfit was more elaborate than on the former journey. A +heavy blanket and a light camp kit were strapped behind his saddle, and +so attached that they could be quickly transferred to his back. A big +rifle was stretched across his right knee and the saddle-horn. At either +hip rode a great holster. The air, despite the cloudiness, was bitter +cold; and he wore a heavy sheepskin coat with the wool turned in, and +long gauntlets reaching half-way to his elbows. A broad leather belt +held the heavy coat in place, and attached to it was a thin sheath from +which protruded the stout handle of a hunting-knife. He also wore +another belt, fitted with many loops, each holding a gleaming little +brass cylinder. No one seeing the man this morning could have made the +mistake of considering him, as before, on a journey to see a lady.</p> + +<p>Slowly day advanced. The east resolved itself from flaming red into the +neutral tint of the remainder of the sky. The sun shone through the +clouds, dissipated them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> was obscured, and shone again. The something +which the man had been watching so intently gradually grew clearer. It +was the trail of another horse—a galloping horse. It was easy to +follow, and the rider looked about him. After a few miles, when the +mustang had warmed to his second wind, a gauntleted hand dropped to the +yellow neck and stroked it gently.</p> + +<p>"Let 'em out a bit, Buck," said a voice, "let 'em out!" and with a flick +of the dainty ears, almost as if he understood, the little beast fell +into the steady swinging lope which was his natural gait, and which he +could follow if need be without a break from sun to sun.</p> + +<p>On they went, the trail they were following unwinding like a great tape +steadily before them, the crunch of the frozen snow in their ears, tiny +particles of it flying to the side and behind like spray. But, bravely +as they were going, the horse ahead which had unwound that band of +tracks had moved more swiftly. Not within inches did the best efforts of +the buckskin approach those giant strides. It had been a desperate rider +who had urged such a pace; and the grim face of the tall youth grew +grimmer at the thought.</p> + +<p>Not another sound than of their own making did they hear. Not an object +uncovered of white did they see, until, thirteen miles out, they passed +near the deserted Baker ranch; but the trail did not stop, nor did they, +and ere long it faded again from view. The course was dipping well to +the north now, and Ben realized that not again on his journey would he +pass in sight of a human habitation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p> + +<p>All that mortal day the buckskin pounded monotonously ahead. The sun +rose to the meridian, gazed warmly down upon them, softened the surface +of the frozen snow until the crunch sounded mellower, and slowly +descended to their left. The dainty ears of the pony, as the day waned, +flattened close to his head. Foam gathered beneath the saddle and +between the animal's legs; but doggedly relentless as his rider, he +forged ahead. Much in common had these two beings; more closely than +ever was their comradery cemented that day. Many times, with the same +motion as at first, the man had leaned over and patted that muscular +neck, dark and soiled now with perspiration. "Good old Buck," he said as +to a fellow, "good old Buck!" and each time the set ears had flicked +intelligently in response.</p> + +<p>It was nearing sunset when they came in sight of the hills bordering the +river, and the last mile Ben drew the buckskin to a walk. The chain of +hoof-tracks had changed much since the morning. The buckskin could equal +the strides of the other now, and the follower was content. The evenings +were very short at this season of the year, and they would not attempt +to go farther to-night. At the margin of the stream Ben rode along until +he found a spot where the full strength of the current ate into the +bank. There on the thinner ice he hammered with the butt of his heavy +rifle until he broke a hole; then, the dumb one first, the two friends +drank their fill. After that, side by side, they walked back until in +the shelter of a high knoll the man found a space of perhaps half an +acre where the grass, thick and unpastured, was practically<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> bare of +snow. Here he removed saddle and bridle, and without lariat or +hobble—for they knew each other now, these two—he turned the pony +loose to graze. He himself, with the kit and blanket and a handful of +dead wood, went to the hill-top, where he could see for miles around, +built a tiny fire, an Indian's fire, made a can of strong black coffee, +and ate of the jerked beef he had brought. Later, he cleared a spot the +size of a man's grave, and with grass and the blanket built a shallow +nest, in which he stretched himself, his elbow on the earth, his face in +his hand, thinking, thinking.</p> + +<p>The night came on. As the eastern sky had done in the morning, so now +the west crimsoned gloriously, became the color of blood, then gradually +shaded back until it was neutral again, and the stars from a few +scattering dots increased in numbers and filled the dome as scattered +sand-grains cover a floor. Darkness came, and with it the slight wind of +the day died down until the air was perfectly still. The cold, which had +retreated for a time, returned, augmented. As though it were a live +thing moving about, its coming could be heard in the almost +indistinguishable crackling of the snow-crust. As beneath a crushing +weight, the ice of the great river boomed and crackled from its touch.</p> + +<p>Wide-eyed but impassive, the man watched and listened. Scarcely a muscle +of his body moved. Not once, as the hours slipped by, did he drowse; not +for an instant was he off his guard. With the first trace of morning in +the east, he was astir. As on the night before, he made his Indian's +fire, ate his handful of beef, and drank of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> strong black coffee. +The pony, sleepy as a child, was aroused and saddled. The ice which had +frozen during the night over their drinking-hole was broken. Then, both +man and horse stiff and sore from the exposure and the previous +exertion, the trail was taken up anew.</p> + +<p>For five miles, until both were warmed to their work, the man and beast +trotted along side by side. "Now, Buck, old boy!" said Ben, and +mounting, they were off in earnest. At first the trail they were +following was that of a horse that walked; but later it stretched out +into the old long-strided gallop, and the pursuer read the tale of quirt +and spur which had forced the change.</p> + +<p>Three hours out, thirty odd miles from the river as the rider calculated +the distance, he came to the first break in the seemingly endless trail +of hoofprints he was following. A heap of snow scraped aside and two +brown spots on the earth told the story of where the pursued man and +horse had paused to rest and sleep. No water was near. Neither the human +nor the beast had strayed from the direct line; they had merely halted +and dropped almost within their tracks. Just beyond was the spot where +the man had remounted, where the flight began anew; and again a tale lay +written on the surface of the snow. The prints of the horse's feet were +now unsteady and irregular. Within a few rods there was on the right a +red splash of blood; then others, a drop at a time. Very hard it had +been to put life into the beast at starting; deep the rowels of the +great spur had been dug. Ben Blair lightly touched the neck of his +buckskin and gave the word to go.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They were only thirty miles ahead last night, Buck, old chap," he said, +"and very tired. We'll gain on them fast to-day."</p> + +<p>But though they gained—the record of the tracks told that—they did not +gain fast. Notwithstanding he still galloped doggedly ahead, the gallant +little buckskin was plainly weakening. The eternal pounding through the +snow was eating up his strength, and though his spirit was indomitable +the end of his endurance was in sight. No longer would the dainty ears +respond to a touch on the neck. With head lowered he moved forward like +a machine. While the sun was yet above the horizon, the lope diminished +to a trot, the trot to a walk—a game walk, but only a walk.</p> + +<p>Then, for the second time that day, Ben dismounted. Silently he removed +saddle and bridle, transferred the blanket and kit to his own back, and +then, the rifle under his arm, stopped a moment by the pony's side and +laid the dainty muzzle against his face.</p> + +<p>"Buck, old boy," he said, "you've done mighty well—but I can beat you +now. Maybe some day we'll meet again. I hope we shall. Anyway, we're +better for having known each other. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>A moment longer his face lay so, as his hand would have lain in a +friend's hand at parting; then, with a last pat to the silken nose, he +started on ahead.</p> + +<p>At first the man walked steadily; then, warming to the work, he broke +into the swinging jog-trot of the frontiersman, the hunter who travels +afoot. Many Indians the youth had known in his day, and from them he had +learned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> much; one thing was that in walking or running to step +straight-footed instead of partially sideways, as the white man plants +his sole, was to gain inches at every motion, besides making it easier +to retrace his steps should he wish to do so. This habit had become a +part of him, and now the marks of his own trail were like the +alternately broken line which represents a railroad on a map.</p> + +<p>As long as he could see to read from the white page of the snow-blanket, +Ben Blair jogged ahead. Hot anger, that he could not repress, was with +him constantly now, for the trail before him was very fresh, and, +distinct beside it, more and more frequent were the red marks of an +animal's suffering. He knew what horse it was the other had stolen. It +was "Lady," one of Scotty's prize thoroughbred mares, the one Florence +had ridden so many times. Often during those last hours the man wondered +at the endurance of the mare. None but a thoroughbred would have stood +up this long; and even she, if she ever stopped,—but the man ahead +doubtless knew this also, for he would not let her stop, not so long as +life remained and spur and quirt had power to torture.</p> + +<p>Thus night came on, folding within its concealing arms alike the hunter +and the pursued. Ben did not build a fire this night. First of all, +though during the day at different times he had been able to see the +bordering trees of the White River at his left and the Bad River at his +right, the trail hung to the comparatively level land of the great +divide between, and not a scrap of wood was within miles. Again, +although he did not actually know, he could not believe he was far +behind, and he would run no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> risk of giving a warning sign to eyes which +must be watching the backward trail. The fierce hunger of a healthy +animal was his; but his supply of beef was limited, and he ate a meagre +allowance, washing it down with a draught of river water from his +canteen. Rolled up in the blanket, through which the stinging cold +pierced as though it were gossamer, shivering, beating his hands and +feet to prevent their stiffening, longing for protecting fur like a wolf +or a buffalo, keeping constant watch about him as does a great prairie +owl, the interminably long hours of his second night dragged by.</p> + +<p>"The beginning of the end," he soliloquized, when once more it was light +enough so that standing he could see the earth at his feet. Well he knew +that ere this the other horse was eliminated from the chase—that it was +now man against man. God! how his joints ached when he stretched +them!—how his muscles pained at the slightest motion! He ground his +teeth when he first began to walk, and hobbled like a rheumatic cripple; +but within a half-hour tenacity had won, and the relentless jog-trot of +the interrupted line was measuring off the miles anew.</p> + +<p>The chase was nearing an end. Long ere noon, in the distance toward +which he was heading, Blair detected a brown dot against the white. +Steadily, as he advanced, it resolved itself into the thing he had +expected, and stood revealed before him, the centre of a horribly +legible page, the last page in the biography of a noble horse. Let us +pass it by: Ben did, looking the other way. But a new and terrible +vitality possessed him. His weariness left him, as pain passes under an +opiate. He did not pause to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> eat, to drink. Tireless as a waterfall, +watchful as a hawk, he jogged on, on, a mile—two miles—five—came to a +rise in the great roll of the lands—stopped, his heart suddenly +pounding the walls of his chest. Before him, not half a mile away, +moving slowly westward, was the diminutive black shape of a man +travelling afoot!</p> + +<p>Instantly the primal hunting instinct of the Anglo-Saxon awoke in the +lank Benjamin. The incomparable fascination which makes man-hunting the +sport supreme of all ages gripped him tight. The stealthy cunning of a +savage became on the moment his. A plan of ambush, one which could +scarcely fail, flashed into his mind. The trail of the divide narrowing +now, stretched for miles and miles straight before them. That black +figure would scarcely leave it. The pursuer had but to make a great +detour, get far in advance, find a point of concealment, and wait.</p> + +<p>Swift as thought was action. Back on his trail until he was out of sight +went Ben Blair; then, turning to his right, he made straight for the +concealing bed of Bad River. Once there, he turned west again, following +the winding course of the stream toward its source. Faster than ever he +moved, the pat-pat of his feet on the deadening snow drowning the sound +of the great breaths he drew into his lungs and sent whistling out again +through his nostrils. As with the horse, the sweat oozed at every pore. +Collecting on his brow and face, it dripped slowly from his great chin. +Dampening, his clothes clung binding-tight to his body; but he never +noticed. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor behind +him;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> but, like a sprinter approaching the wire, only straight ahead.</p> + +<p>Under him the miles flowed past like water. Five, ten, a dozen he +covered; then of a sudden he turned again to the south, quitting his +shelter of the river-bed. For a time the country was very rough, but he +scarcely slackened his pace. Once he fell through the crust of a drift, +and went down nearly to his neck; but he crowded his way through by +sheer strength, emerging a powdered figure from the snow which clung to +his damp clothes. The sun was down now, and he knew darkness would come +very quickly and he must reach the divide, the probable trail, before it +fell, and there select his point of waiting.</p> + +<p>As he moved on, he saw some miles ahead that which decided him. A low +chain of hills, stretching to the north and south, crossed the great +divide as a fallen log spans a path. In these hills, appreciable even at +this distance, there was a dip, an almost level pass. A small diversity +it was on the face of nature, but to a weary man, fleeing afoot, seen in +the distance it would irresistibly appeal. Almost as certain as though +he saw the black figure already heading for it, the hunter felt it would +be utilized. Anyway, he would take the chance; and with a last spurt of +speed he put himself fairly in its way. To clear a narrow strip of +ground the length of his body, and build around it like a breastwork a +border of snow, was the work of but a few minutes; then, wrapped in his +blanket, too deadly tired to even attempt to eat, he dropped behind the +cover like a log. At first the rest was that of Paradise; but swiftly +came the reaction, the chill. To<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> lie there in his present condition +meant but one thing, that never would he arise again; and with an effort +the man got to his feet and started walking. It was dark again now, and +the sky was becoming rapidly overcast. Within an hour it began to snow, +a steady big-flaked snow that fairly filled the air and lay where it +fell. The night grew slightly warmer, and, rolling in the blanket once +more, Ben lay down; but the warning chill soon had him again upon his +feet, walking back and forth in the one beaten path.</p> + +<p>Very long the two previous nights had been. Interminable seemed this +third. As long as the sun or moon or stars were shining, the man never +felt completely alone; but in this utter darkness the hours seemed like +days. The steadily falling snowflakes added to the impression of +loneliness and isolation. They were like the falling clods of earth in a +grave: something crowding between him and life, burying and suffocating +him where he stood. Try as he might, the man could not shake off the +weird impression, and at last he ceased the effort. Grimly stolid, he +lit his pipe, and, his damp clothing having dried at last, cleared a +fresh spot and lay down, the horrible loneliness still tugging at his +heart.</p> + +<p>Finally, after an eternity of waiting, the morning came. With it the +storm ceased and the sun shone brightly. Behind the barricade, Ben Blair +ate the last of his beef and drank the few remaining swallows of water +from his canteen. His muscles were stiff from the inaction, and, not +wishing to show himself, he kicked vigorously into space as he lay. At +intervals he made inspection of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> east, looking out over the glitter +of white; but not a living thing was in sight. An hour he watched, two +hours, while the sun, beating down obliquely, warmed him back into +activity; then of a sudden his eyes became fixed, the grip upon his +rifle tightened. Far to the southeast, something dark against the snow +was moving,—was coming toward him.</p> + +<p>Rapidly the figure approached, while lower behind the barricade dropped +the body of Benjamin Blair. The sun was in his eyes, so that as yet he +could not make out whether it was man or beast. Not until the object was +within three hundred yards, until it passed by to the north, did Ben +make out that it was a great gray wolf headed straight for the bed of +Bad River.</p> + +<p>Again two hours of unbroken monotony passed. The sun had almost reached +the meridian, and the man behind the barricade had all but decided he +must have miscalculated somehow, when in the dim distance as before +there appeared a tiny dark object, but this time directly from the east. +For five minutes Ben watched it fixedly, his hand shading his eyes; +then, slowly as moves the second-hand of a great clock, a change +indescribable came over his face. No need was there now to ask whether +it was a human being that was approaching. There was no mistaking that +slow, swinging man-motion. At last the moment was approaching for which +the youth had been striving so madly for the last few days, the moment +he had for years been conscious would some day come. It would soon be +his; and with the thought his teeth set firmer, and a fierce joy tugged +at his heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + + +<p>Five minutes, ten minutes dragged by; yet no observer, however close, +could have seen a muscle stir in the long body of the waiting man. Like +a great panther cat he lay there, the blue eyes peering just over the +surface of the ambush. Not ten paces away could an observer have told +the tip of that motionless sombrero from the protruding top of a +boulder. Gradually the approaching figure grew more distinct. A red +handkerchief showed clearly about the man's neck. Then a slight limp in +the left leg intruded itself, and a droop of the shoulders that spoke +weariness. He was very near by this time, so near that the black beard +which covered his face became discernible, likewise the bizarre breadth +of the Mexican belt above the baggy chaperejos. The crunch of the +snow-crust marked his every foot-fall.</p> + +<p>And still Ben Blair had not stirred. Slowly, as the other had +approached, the big blue eyes had darkened until they seemed almost +brown. Involuntarily the massive chin had moved forward; but that was +all. On the surface he was as calm as a lake on a windless night; but +beneath,—God! what a tempest was raging! Each one of those minutes he +waited so impassively marked the rush of a year's memories. Human hate, +primal instinct all but uncontrollable, throbbed in his accelerated +pulse-beats. Like the continuous shifting scenes in a panorama, the +incidents of his life in which this man had played a part appeared +mockingly before his mind's eye. Plainly, as though in his physical ear, +he heard the shuffle of an uncertain hand upon a latch; he saw a figure +with bloodshot eyes lurch into a rude floorless room, saw it approach<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> a +bunk whereon lay a sick woman, his mother; heard the swift passage of +angry words, words which had branded themselves into his memory forever. +Once more he was on all fours, scurrying for his life toward the dark +opening of a protecting kennel. As plainly as though the memory were of +yesterday, he gazed into the blazing mouth of a furnace, felt its +scorching breath on his cheek. Swiftly the changing scenes danced before +his eyes. A rifle-shot, real almost as though he could smell the burning +powder, sounded in his brain. Within the circle of light from a kerosene +lamp a great figure sank in a heap to a ranch house floor. Against a +background of unbroken white a trail of red blotches ended in the mutely +pathetic figure of a prostrate dying horse—a noble thoroughbred. What +varied horrors seethed in the watcher's brain, crowded each other, +recurred and again recurred! How the long sinewy fingers itched to +clutch that throat above the red neckerchief! He could see the man's +face now, as, ignorant of danger so close, he was passing by fifty feet +to the left, looking to neither side, doggedly heading toward the pass. +With the first motion since the figure had appeared, the hand of the +watcher tightened on the rifle, raised it until its black muzzle peeped +over the elevation of snow. A pair of steady blue eyes gazed down the +long barrel, brought the sights in line with a spot between the +shoulders and the waist of the unsuspecting man, the trigger-finger +tightened, almost—</p> + +<p>A preventing something, something not primal in the youth, gripped him, +held him for a second motionless. To kill a man from an ambush, even +such a one as this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> without giving him a chance—no, he could not quite +do that. But to take him by the throat with his bare hands, and then +slowly, slowly—</p> + +<p>As noiselessly as the rifle had raised, it dropped again. The muscles of +the long legs tightened as do those of a sprinter awaiting the starting +pistol. Then over the barricade, straight as a tiger leaps, shot a tall +youth with steel-blue eyes, hatless, free of hand, straight for that +listless, moving figure; the scattered snow flying to either side, the +impact of the bounding feet breaking the previous stillness. Tom Blair, +the outlaw, could not but hear the rush. Instinctively he turned, and in +the fleeting second of that first glance Ben could see the face above +the beard-line blanch. As one might feel should the Angel of Death +appear suddenly before him, Tom Blair must have felt then. As though +fallen from the sky, this avenging demon was upon him. He had not time +to draw a revolver, a knife; barely to swing the rifle in his hand +upward to strike, to brace himself a little for the oncoming rush.</p> + +<p>With a crash the two bodies came together. Simultaneously the rifle +descended, but for all its effectiveness it might have been a dead +weed-stalk in the hands of a child. It was not a time for artificial +weapons, but only for nature's own; a war of gripping, strangling hands, +of tooth and nail. Nearly of a size were the two men. Both alike were +hardened of muscle; both realized the battle was for life or death. For +a moment they remained upright, clutching, parrying for an advantage; +then, locked each with each, they went to the ground. Beneath and about +them the fresh snow flew, filling their eyes, their mouths.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> Squirming, +straining, over and over they rolled; first the beardless man on top, +then the bearded. The sound of their straining breath was continuous, +the ripping of coarse cloth an occasional interruption; but from the +first, a spectator could not but have foreseen the end. The elder man +was fighting in self-defence: the younger, he of the massive protruding +jaw—a jaw now so prominent as to be a positive disfigurement—in +unappeasable ferocity. Against him in that hour a very giant could not +have held his own. Merely a glimpse of his face inspired terror. Again +and again as they struggled his hand had clutched at the other's throat, +but only to have his hold broken. At last, however, his adversary was +weakening under the strain. Blind terror began to grip Tom Blair. At +first a mere suggestion, then a horrible certainty, possessed him as to +the identity of the relentless being who opposed him. Again the other's +hand, like the creeping tentacle of an octopus, sought his throat, would +not be stayed. He struggled with all his might against it, until it +seemed the blood-vessels of his neck would burst, but still the hold +tightened. He clutched at the long fingers desperately, bit at them, +felt his breath coming hard. Freeing his own hand, he smashed with his +fist again and again into that long thin face so near his own, knew that +another tentacle had joined with the first, felt the impossibility of +drawing air into his lungs, realized that consciousness was deserting +him, saw the sun over him like a mocking face—then knew no more.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> +<h3>IN THE GRIP OF THE LAW</h3></div> + +<p>How long Tom Blair was unconscious he did not know. When he awoke he +could scarcely believe his own senses; and he looked about him dazedly. +The sun was shining down as brightly as before. The snow was as white. +He had for some reason been spared, after all, and hope arose in his +breast. He began to look around him. Not two rods away, his face clearly +in sight, his eyes closed, dead asleep, lay the figure of the man who +had waylaid him. For a moment he looked at the figure steadily; then, in +distinct animal cunning, the lids of the close-set eyes tightened. +Stealthily, almost holding his breath, he started to rise, then fell +back with a jerk. For the first time he realized that he was bound hand +and foot, so he could scarcely stir. He struggled, at first cautiously, +then desperately, to be free; but the straps which bound him, those +which had held his own blanket, only cut the deeper; and he gave it up. +Flat on his back he lay watching the sleeper, his anger increasing. +Again his eyes tightened.</p> + +<p>"Wake up, curse you!" he yelled suddenly.</p> + +<p>No answer, only the steady rise and fall of the sleeper's chest.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Wake up, I say!" repeated the voice, in a tone to raise the dead.</p> + +<p>This time there was response—of action. Slowly Ben Blair roused, and +got up. A moment he looked about him; then, tearing a strip off his +blanket, he walked over, and, against the other's protests and promises +of silence, forced open the bearded lips, as though giving a horse the +bit, and tied a gag full in the cursing mouth. Without a word or a +superfluous look he returned and lay down. Another minute, and the +regular breathing showed he was again asleep.</p> + +<p>During all the warmth of that day Ben Blair slept on, as a child sleeps, +as sleep the very aged; and although the bearded man had freed himself +from the gag at last, he did not again make a sound. Too miserable +himself to sleep, he lay staring at the other. Gradually through the +haze of impotent anger a realization of his position came to him. He +could not avoid the issue. To be sure, he was still alive; but what of +the future? A host of possibilities flashed into his mind, but in every +one there faced him a single termination. By no process of reasoning +could he escape the inevitable end; and despite the chilliness of the +air a sweat broke out over him. Contrition for what he had done he could +not feel—long ago he had passed even the possibility of that; but fear, +deadly and absorbing fear, had him in its clutch. The passing of the +years, years full of lawlessness and violence, had left him the same man +whom bartender "Mick" had terrorized in the long ago; and for the first +time in his wretched life, personal death—not of another but of +himself—looked at him with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> steady eyes, and he could not return the +gaze. All he could do was to wait, and think—and thoughts were madness. +Again and again, knowing what the result would be, but seeking merely a +diversion, he struggled at the straps until he was breathless; but +relentless as time one picture kept recurring to his brain. In it was a +rope, a stout rope, dangling from something he could not distinctly +recognize; but what he could see, and see plainly, was a figure of a +man, a bearded man—<i>himself</i>—at its end. The body swayed back and +forth as he had once seen that of a "rustler" whom a group of cowboys +had left hanging to the scraggly branch of a scrub-oak; as a pendulum +marks time, measuring the velocity of the prairie wind.</p> + +<p>With each recurrence of the vision the perspiration broke out over the +man anew, the sunburned forehead paled. This was what it was coming to; +he could not escape it. If ever purpose was unmistakably written on a +human face, it had been on the face of the man who lay sleeping so near, +the man who had trailed him like a tiger and caught him when he thought +he was safe. From another, there might still be hope; but from this one, +Jennie Blair's son—The vision of a woman lying white and motionless on +the coarse blankets of a bunk, of a small boy with wonderfully clear +blue eyes pounding harmlessly at the legs of the man looking down; the +sound of a childish voice, accusing, menacing, ringing out over all, +"You've killed her! You've killed her!"—this like a chasm stood between +them, and could never be crossed. Clasped together, the long nervous +fingers, a gentleman's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> fingers still, twined and gripped each other. +No, there was no hope. Better that the hands he had felt about his +throat in the morning had done their work. He shut his eyes. A hot wave +of anger, anger against himself, swept all other thoughts before it. +Why, having gotten safely away, having successfully hidden himself, had +he ever returned? Why, having in the depths of his nest in the middle of +the island escaped once, had a paltry desire for revenge against the man +he fancied had led the attack sent him back? What satisfaction was it, +if in taking the life of the other man it cost him his own? Fool that he +had been to imagine he could escape where no one had ever escaped +before! Fool! Fool! Thus dragged by the long hours of the afternoon.</p> + +<p>With the coming of the chill of evening, Ben Blair awoke and rubbed his +eyes. A moment later he arose, and, walking over to his captive, looked +down at him, steadily, peculiarly. So long as he could, Tom Blair +returned the gaze; but at last his eyes fell. A voice sounded in his +ears, a voice speaking low and clearly.</p> + +<p>"You're a human being," it said. "Physically, I'm of your species, +modelled from the same clay." A long pause. "I wonder if anywhere in my +make-up there's a streak of such as you!" Again a moment of silence, in +which the elder man felt the blue eyes of the younger piercing him +through and through. "If I thought there was a trace, or the suggestion +of a trace, before God, I'd kill you and myself, and I'd do it now!" The +speaker scanned the prostrate figure from head to foot, and back again. +"And do it now," he repeated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + +<p>Silence fell; and in it, though he dared not look, coward Tom Blair +fancied he heard a movement, imagined the other man about to put the +threat into execution.</p> + +<p>"No, no!" he pleaded. "People are different—different as day and night. +You belong to your mother's kind, and she was good and pure." Every +trace of the man's nerve was gone. But one instinct was active—to +placate this relentless being, his captor. He fairly grovelled. "I swear +she was pure. I swear it!"</p> + +<p>Without speaking a word, Ben turned. Going back to his snow-blind, he +packed his blanket and camp kit swiftly and strapped them to his +shoulders. Returning, he gathered the things he had found upon the +other's person—the rifle, the revolvers, the sheath-knife—into a pile; +then deliberately, one against the other, he broke them until they were +useless. Only the blanket he preserved, tossing it down by the side of +the prostrate figure.</p> + +<p>"Tom Blair," he said, no indication now that he had ever been nearer to +the other than a stranger, "Tom Blair, I've got a few things to say to +you, and if you're wise you'll listen carefully, for I sha'n't repeat +them. You're going with me, and you're going free; but if you try to +escape, or cause me trouble, as sure as I'm alive this minute I'll strip +off every stitch of clothing you wear and leave you where I catch you +though the snow be up to your waist."</p> + +<p>Slowly he reached over and untied first the feet then the hands. "Get +up," he ordered.</p> + +<p>Tom Blair arose, stretched himself stiffly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Take that," Ben indicated the blanket, "and go ahead straight for the +river."</p> + +<p>The bearded man obeyed. To have secured his freedom he could not have +done otherwise.</p> + +<p>For ten minutes they moved ahead, only the crunching snow breaking the +stillness.</p> + +<p>"Trot!" said Ben.</p> + +<p>"I can't."</p> + +<p>"Trot!" There was no misunderstanding the tone.</p> + +<p>In single file they jogged ahead, reached the river, and descended to +the level surface of its bed.</p> + +<p>"Keep to the middle, and go straight ahead."</p> + +<p>On they went—jog, jog, jog.</p> + +<p>Of a sudden from under cover of the bank a frightened cottontail sprang +forth and started running. Instantly there was the report of a big +revolver, and Tom jumped as though he felt the bullet in his back. Again +the report sounded, and this time the rabbit rolled over and over in the +snow.</p> + +<p>Without stopping, Ben picked up the still struggling game and slipped a +couple of fresh cartridges into the empty revolver chambers. The banks +were lined with burrows and tracks, and within five minutes a second +cottontail met the fate of the first.</p> + +<p>"Come back!" called Ben to the man ahead.</p> + +<p>Again Tom obeyed. He would have gone barefoot in the snow without a +question now.</p> + +<p>"Can you make a fire?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Do it, then. I left the matches in your pocket."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + +<p>On opposite sides of the fire, from long forked sticks of green ash, +they broiled strips of the meat which Ben dressed and cut. Likewise +fronting each other, they ate in silence. Darkness was falling, and the +glow from the embers lit their faces like those of two friends camping +after a day's hunt. Had it not all been such deadly earnest, the scene +would have been farce-comedy. Suddenly Tom Blair raised his eyes.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do with me?" he asked directly.</p> + +<p>Ben said nothing.</p> + +<p>The question was not repeated, but another trembled on the speaker's +lips. At last it found words.</p> + +<p>"When you had me down I—I thought you had done for me. Why did you—let +me up?"</p> + +<p>A pause followed. Then Ben's blue eyes raised and met the other's.</p> + +<p>"You'd really like to know?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Another moment of hesitation, but the youth's eyes did not move. "Very +well, I'll tell you." More to himself than to the other he was speaking. +His voice softened unconsciously. "A girl saved you that time, Tom +Blair, a girl you never saw. You haven't any idea what it means, but I +love that girl, and I could never look her in the face again with blood +on my hands, even such blood as yours. That's the reason."</p> + +<p>For a moment Tom Blair was silent; then into his brain there flashed a +suggestion, and he grasped at it as a drowning man at a straw.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Wouldn't it be blood on your hands just the same if you take me back +where we're headed, back to Mick Kennedy and—"</p> + +<p>With a single motion, swift as though raised by a spring, Ben was upon +his feet.</p> + +<p>"Pick up your blanket!"</p> + +<p>"But—"</p> + +<p>"Silence!" The big square jaw shot forward like the piston of an engine. +"Not another word of that, now or ever. Not another word!"</p> + +<p>For a second the other paused doggedly, then taking up his load he moved +ahead into the shadow.</p> + +<p>Hour after hour they advanced, alternately walking and trotting, +following the winding bed of the stream. Darkness fell, until they could +not see each other's faces, until they were merely two black passing +shadows; but the figure behind was relentless. Stimulating, compelling, +he forced himself close. Ever and anon they could hear the frightened +dash of a rabbit away from their path. More than once a snow-owl +fluttered over their heads; but they took no notice. Twice the man in +advance stumbled and fell; but though Ben paused he spoke no word. Like +a soldier of the ranks on secret forced march, ignorant of his +destination, given only conjecture as to what the morrow would bring +forth, Tom Blair panted ahead.</p> + +<p>With the coming of daylight Ben slowed to a walk, and looked about in +quest of breakfast. Game was plentiful along the shelter of the stream, +and before they had advanced a half-mile farther he saw ahead a flock of +grouse roosting in the diverging branches of a cottonwood tree.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> At two +hundred yards, selecting those on the lowest branches, he dropped half a +dozen, one after the other, with the rifle; and still the remainder of +the flock did not fly. Very different were they from the open-land +prairie chicken, whom a mere sound will send a-wing.</p> + +<p>As on the night before, they broiled each what he wished, and, carefully +cleaning the others, Ben packed them with his kit. Then, stolid as an +Indian, he cleared a spot of earth, and wrapping himself in his blanket +lay down full in the sunshine, smoking his pipe impassively. Taking the +cue, Tom Blair likewise curled up like a dog near at hand.</p> + +<p>Slowly and more slowly came the puffs of smoke from the captor's pipe; +at last they ceased entirely. The lids of the youth's eyes closed, his +breath came deep and regular. Beneath the blanket a muscle here and +there twitched involuntarily, as in one who is very weary and asleep.</p> + +<p>An hour passed, an hour without a sound; then, looking closely, a +spectator could have seen one of Tom Blair's eyes open and close +furtively. Again it opened, and its mate as well—to remain so. For a +minute, two minutes, they studied the companion face uncertainly, +suspiciously, then savagely. Another minute, and the body had risen to +hands and knees. Still Ben did not stir, still the great expanse of his +chest rose and fell. Tom Blair was satisfied. Hand over hand, feeling +his way like a cat, he advanced toward the prostrate figure. Despite his +caution, the crust of the snow crackled once beneath his touch, and he +paused, a soundless curse forming upon his lips; but the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> warning passed +unheeded, and, bolder than before, he padded on.</p> + +<p>Eight feet he gained, then ten. His color heightened, the repressed +arteries throbbed above the gaudy neckerchief, the skulking animal +intensified in the tightened muscles of the temples. As many feet again; +but a few more minutes—then liberty and life. The better to guard his +movements, his gaze fell. Out and down went his right hand, then his +left, as his lithe body slid forward. Again he glanced up, paused—and +on the instant every muscle of his tense body went suddenly lax. Instead +of the closed eyes and sleeping face he had expected, two steady eyes +were giving him back look for look. There had not been a motion; the +face was yet that of a sleeper; the chest still rose and fell steadily; +but the eyes!</p> + +<p>Tom Blair's teeth ground each other like those of a dog with rabies. The +suggestion of froth came to his lips.</p> + +<p>"Curse you!" he cried. "Curse you forever!"</p> + +<p>A moment they lay so, a moment wherein the last vestige of hope left the +mind of the captive; but in it Ben Blair spoke no word. Maddening, +immeasurably worse than denunciation, was that relentless silence. It +was uncanny; and the bearded man felt the hairs of his head rising as +the mane of a dog or a wolf lifts at a sound it does not understand.</p> + +<p>"Say something," he pleaded desperately. "Shoot me, kill me, do +anything—but don't look at me like that!" and, fairly writhing, he +crawled back to his blanket and buried his head in its depths.</p> + +<p>With the coming of evening coolness, Ben again made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> preparation for the +journey. Neither of the men made reference to the incidents of the day, +but on Tom Blair's face there was a new expression, like that of a +criminal on his passage from the cell to the hangman's trap. If the +younger man saw it, he gave no sign; and as on the night before, they +jogged ahead. Before daylight broke, the comparatively smooth bed of Bad +River merged into the irregular surface of the Missouri. Then they +halted. Why they stopped there, Tom Blair could not at the time tell; +but with the coming of daylight he understood. Where he had crossed and +Ben had followed there was not now a single track, but many—a score at +least. At the margin of the stream, where the cavalcade had stopped, the +snow was tramped hard as a stockade; and in the centre of the beaten +place, distinct against the white, was a dark spot where a great +camp-fire had been built. At the river the party had stopped. Obviously, +there the last snow had obliterated the trail, and, seeing that they had +turned back, Tom Blair gave a sigh of relief. Whatever the future had in +store for him, it could reveal nothing so fearful as a meeting with +those whom intuition told him had made up that party.</p> + +<p>But his relief was short-lived. Again, after they had breakfasted from +the grouse in the pack, Ben ordered the onward march, along the bank of +the great river. As they moved ahead, a realization of their destination +at last came to the captive, and for the first time he balked.</p> + +<p>"Do what you wish with me," he cried. "I'll not go a step farther."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p> + +<p>They were perhaps a mile down the river. The bordering hills enclosed +them like an arena.</p> + +<p>"Very well." Ben Blair spoke as though the occurrence were one of +every-day repetition. "Give me your clothes!"</p> + +<p>Tom's face settled stubbornly.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to take them."</p> + +<p>The youth's hand sought his hip, and a bullet spat at the snow within +three inches of the other's feet. There was a meaning pause. Slowly the +bravado left the other's face.</p> + +<p>"Don't keep me waiting!" urged Ben.</p> + +<p>Slowly, very slowly, off came the captive's coat and vest. Despite his +efforts, the hands which loosened the buttons trembled uncontrollably. +Following the vest came the shirt, then a shoe, and the sock beneath. +His foot touched the snow. For the first time a faint realization of the +thing he was choosing came to him. The vicious bite of the frost upon +the bare skin was not a possibility of the future, but a condition of +the immediate now; and he weakened. But in the moment of his indecision, +the wave of stubbornness and of blinding hate again flooded him, and a +rush of hot curses left his lips.</p> + +<p>For a moment, the last time in their lives, the two men eyed each other +fairly. Indescribable hate was written upon one face; the other was as +blank as the surrounding snow. Its very immobility chilled Tom Blair and +cowed him into silence. Without a word he replaced shoe and coat and +took up his blanket. An advancing step sounded behind him, and, +understanding, he moved ahead. After<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> a while the foot-fall again gained +upon him, and once more the walk merged into the interminable jog-jog of +the back-trail.</p> + +<p>It was morning when the two began that last relay. It was four o'clock +in the afternoon when they arrived amid the outskirts of the scattered +prairie terminus which was their destination. Within ten minutes +thereafter the two had separated. The older man, in charge of a lank, +unshaven frontiersman, chiefly noticeable from a quid of tobacco which +swelled one cheek like an abscess, and a nickle-plated star which he +wore on the lapel of his coat, was headed for the pretentious white +painted building known as the court-house. The younger, catching sight +of a wind-twisted sign lettered "Hotel," made for it as though sighting +the promised land. In the office, as he passed through, was a crowd of +men entirely too large to have gathered by chance in a frontier +hostelry, who eyed him peculiarly; but he took no notice, and five +minutes later, upon the bedraggled bed of the unplastered upper room +that the landlord gave him, without even his boots removed, he was deep +in the realm of oblivion.</p> + +<p>Some time later—he had no idea of the hour save that all was dark—he +was awakened by a confusion of voices in the room below, a slamming of +doors, a thumping of great boots upon the bare floor. Scarcely +remembering his whereabouts, he rolled from his bed and thrust his head +out of the narrow window. Here and there about the town were scattered +lights—some stationary, others, which he took to be lanterns, moving. +On the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> street beneath his window two men went by on a run. Half way up +the block, before the well-lighted front of a saloon, a motley crowd was +shifting back and forth, restless as ants in a hill, the murmur of their +voices sounding menacing as the distant hum of swarming bees. All at +once from out the door there burst fair into the crowd a heavy man with +great shoulders and a bull neck. About him, even in the uncertain light, +there seemed to the watcher something very familiar. What he said, Ben +could not understand; but he turned his head this way and that, and his +motions were unmistakable. The crowd made way before him as sheep before +a dog, and closing behind followed steadily in his wake. Gradually as +the leader advanced the mass gained momentum. At first the pace had been +a slow walk. In the space of seconds it became a swift one, then a run, +with a wild scramble by those in the rear to gain front place. The +frozen ground rumbled under their rushing feet. The direction of their +movement, at first uncertain, became definite. It was a direct line for +the centrally located court-house; and, no longer doubtful of their +purpose, Ben left the window, fairly tumbled downstairs, and rushed +through the now deserted office into the equally deserted street.</p> + +<p>The court-house square was but two blocks away; but the mob had a good +lead, and when the youth arrived he found the space within the +surrounding chain fence fairly covered. Where the people could all have +come from struck him even at that moment as a mystery. Certainly all +told the town could not in itself have mustered half the number. +Elbowing his way among them, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> he began soon to understand. Here +and there among the mass he caught sight of familiar faces,—Russell of +the Circle R Ranch, Stetson of the "XI," each taking no part, but with +hats slouched low over their eyes watching every movement of the drama. +Passing around a jam he could not press through, Ben felt a detaining +hand upon his arm, and turning, he was face to face with Grannis. The +grip of the overseer tightened.</p> + +<p>"I've been looking for you, Blair," he said, "I know what you've been +trying to do, but most of the crowd don't and won't. They're ugly. You'd +better keep back."</p> + +<p>For answer Ben eyed the cowboy squarely.</p> + +<p>"I thought I left you in charge of the ranch," he said evenly.</p> + +<p>The weather-stained face of the foreman reddened in the shifting lantern +light, but the eyes did not drop.</p> + +<p>"I have been. I just got here." A dignity which well became him spoke in +the steady voice. "I had a reason for coming."</p> + +<p>Ben released his gaze.</p> + +<p>"The others are here too?"</p> + +<p>"No, they're all at the ranch. Graham and I attended to that."</p> + +<p>"I just saw Russell and Stetson. They couldn't possibly have got here +to-day from home. Has—has this been planned?"</p> + +<p>Grannis nodded. "Yes. Kennedy and his gang have been watching here and +at the ranch for days. They thought you'd show up at one place or the +other. The whole country is out. There are lots of strangers here,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> from +ranches I never heard of before. Seems as though everybody knew Rankin +and heard of his being shot. You'd better let them have it their way. +It'll amount to the same in the end, and death itself couldn't stop them +now."</p> + +<p>He took a step forward; for Ben, understanding all, had at last moved +on.</p> + +<p>"Blair!" he called after him, again extending a detaining hand. His +voice took on a new note—intimate, personal, a tone of which no one +would have thought it capable. "Blair, listen to me! Stop!"</p> + +<p>But he might as well have spoken to the swiftly flowing water beneath +the ice of the great river. Of a sudden, from out a passage leading into +the cell-room of the court-house basement, a black swarm of men had +emerged, bearing by sheer animal force a struggling object in their +midst. The silence of those who waited, the lull before the storm, on +the instant ended. A very Babel of voices took its place. By common +consent, as though drawn by centripetal force, actors and spectators +crowded together until they were a solid block of humanity. Caught in +the midst, Grannis and Ben alike could for a moment but move with the +mass. So fierce was the crush that their very breath seemed imprisoned +in their lungs.</p> + +<p>Like molten metal the crowd began to flow—to the right, in the +direction of the railroad track. With each passing moment the confusion +was, if possible, greater than before. Here and there a cowboy, unable +to control his excess of feeling, emptied his revolver into the air. +Once Ben heard the wailing yelp of a dog caught under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> foot of the mass. +To his left, a little man with a white collar, obviously a mere +spectator, pleaded loudly to be released from the pressure. Adding to +the confusion, the bell on the town-hall began ringing furiously.</p> + +<p>On they went, a hundred yards, two hundred, reached the railroad track, +stopped. In the midst of the leaders, looming over their heads, was a +whitened telegraph pole. Of a sudden a lariat shot up over the painted +cross-arm, and dropped, the two ends dangling free; and, understanding +it all, the spectators again became silent. Everything moved like +clockwork. From somewhere in the darkness a bare-backed pony was +produced and brought directly under the dangling rope. Astride him a +dark-bearded figure with hands tied behind his back was placed and +firmly held. Swiftly a running noose, fashioned from the ends of the +lariat, was slipped over the captive's neck. A man grasped the bit of +the mustang. Before him, the crowd began to give way. The great +bull-necked leader—Mick Kennedy, every one now saw it was—held up his +hand for silence, and turned to the helpless figure astride the pony.</p> + +<p>"Tom Blair!" he said,—and such was now the silence that a whisper would +have been audible,—"Tom Blair, have you anything you wish to say?"</p> + +<p>The dark shape took no notice. Apparently it did not hear.</p> + +<p>Mick Kennedy hesitated. Upon his lips a repetition of the question was +forming—but it got no farther. In the midst of the mass of spectators +there was a sudden tumult, a scattering from one spot as from a lighted +bomb.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Make way!" demanded an insistent voice. "Let me through!" And +for a moment, forgetting the other interest, the spectators turned to +this newer one.</p> + +<p>At first they could distinguish nothing perfectly; then amidst the +confusion they made out the form of a long-armed, long-faced youth, his +head lowered, his shoulder before him like a wedge, crowding his way to +the fore.</p> + +<p>"Make room there!" he repeated. "Make room!" and again into the crowd, +like a snow-plough into a drift, he penetrated until his momentum was +exhausted, then paused for a fresh plunge.</p> + +<p>But before him a pathway was forming. Seemingly the thing was +impossible, but the trick of a spoken name was sufficient.</p> + +<p>"It's Ben Blair!" someone had announced, and others had loudly taken up +the cry. "It's Ben Blair! Let him through!"</p> + +<p>Along the pathway thus cleared the youth made his way and approached the +centre of activity. Previously the drama had moved swiftly,—so swiftly +that the spectators could merely watch developments, but under the +interruption it halted. The man at the pony's bridle—cowboy Buck it +was—paused, uncertain what to do, doubtful of the intent of the +long-faced man who so suddenly had come beside him. Not so Mick Kennedy. +Well he knew what was in store, and reaching over he gave the pony a +resounding slap on the flank.</p> + +<p>"Let him go, Buck!" he commanded of the cowboy. "Hurry!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> + +<p>But already he was too late. With a grip like a trap, Ben's hand was +likewise on the rein, holding the little beast, despite his struggles, +fairly in his tracks. Ben's head turned, met the bartender's Cyclopean +eye squarely, and held it with a look this bulldozer of men had never +before received in all his checkered career.</p> + +<p>"Mick Kennedy," he said quietly, "another move like that, and in five +minutes you'll be hanging from the other side."</p> + +<p>For the fraction of a second there was a pause; but, short as it was, +the Irishman felt the sweat start. "The day of such as you has passed, +Mick Kennedy."</p> + +<p>There was no time for more. As bystanders gather around a street fight, +the grim cowmen had closed in from all sides. On the outskirts men +mounted each other's shoulders the better to see. Of a sudden, from +behind, Ben felt himself grasped by a multitude of hands. Angry voices +sounded in his ears.</p> + +<p>"String him up too if he interferes!" suggested one.</p> + +<p>"That's the talk!" echoed a third. "Swing him, too!"</p> + +<p>The lust of blood was upon the crowd, crying to be satisfied. But they +had reckoned wrongly, and were soon to learn their error. Every atom of +the long youth's fighting blood was raised to boiling pitch. On the +instant, the all but superhuman strength at which we marvel in the +insane was his. Like flails, his doubled fists shot out in every +direction, meeting resistance at each blow. By the dim light he caught +the answering glint on sheath knives, but he took no notice. His hat had +come off, and his abundant brown hair shook about his shoulders. His +blue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> eyes blazed. A figure of war incarnate he stood, and a vacant +circle which no one cared to cross formed about him. One long hand, with +fingers outstretched, was raised above his head. The brilliant eyes +searched the surrounding sea of faces for those he knew; as one by one +he found them, lingered, conquered. Silence fell intense.</p> + +<p>"Men! Gentlemen!" The words went out like pistol-shots reaching every +acute ear. "Listen to me. I've a right to speak. Stop a moment, all of +you, and think. This is the twentieth century, not the first. We're in +America, free America. Think, I say, think! Don't act blindly! Think! +This man is guilty. We all know it. He's caught red-handed. But he can't +escape. Remember this, men, and think! As you value your own +self-respect, as you honor the country you live in, don't be savages, +don't do this deed you contemplate, this thing you've started doing. Let +the law take its course!"</p> + +<p>The speaker paused for breath, and, as though fascinated by his audacity +or something else, friend and enemy remained motionless and waiting. +Well fitting the drama was its setting: the darkness of night broken by +the flickering lanterns; on the pony the huddled helpless figure with a +running noose about its neck; the row upon row of rugged faces, of +gleaming eyes!</p> + +<p>"Ranchers, stockmen!" rushed on the insistent voice, "you know +responsibility; it's to you I'm talking. A principle is at stake +here,—the principle of law or of lawlessness. One of these—you know +which—has run this range too long; it's gripping us at this moment. +Before we can be free we must call it halt. Let's do it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> now; don't wait +for the next time or the next, but now, now!" Once more he paused, his +eyes for the last time making the circle swiftly, his hand in the air, +palm forward. "For law, the law of J. L. Rankin, instead of Judge +Lynch!" he challenged. "For civilization instead of savagery—not +to-morrow but now, now! Help me to uphold the law!"</p> + +<p>So swiftly that the spectators scarcely realized what he was doing, he +stepped over to the limp figure upon the pony, loosed the noose from +around the neck, and lifted him to the ground.</p> + +<p>"Sheriff Ralston!" he called; "come and take your prisoner! Russell! +Stetson! Grannis!" designating each by name, "every man who values life, +help me now!"</p> + +<p>The cry was the trumpet for action. Instantly every one was in motion. +Again arose the Babel of voices,—voices cursing, arguing, encouraging. +The circle of malevolent faces which had surrounded the youth would not +longer be stayed, closed hotly in. He felt the press of their bodies +against his, their breath in his face. With an effort, marking his +place, the extended right hand went up once more into the air. The +slogan again sprang to his tongue.</p> + +<p>"For the law of J. L. Rankin, men! The law of—"</p> + +<p>The sentence died on his lips. Suddenly, something lightning-like, +scorching hot, caught him beneath his right shoulder-blade. Before his +eyes the faces, the lighted lanterns, faded into darkness. A sound like +falling waters roared in his ears.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> +<h3>THE QUICK AND THE DEAD</h3></div> + +<p>When Ben Blair again woke to consciousness the sunlight was pouring upon +him steadily. He was in a strange bed in a strange room; and he looked +about him perplexedly. Amid the unfamiliarity his eye caught an object +he recognized,—the broad angular back of a man. Memory slowly adjusted +itself.</p> + +<p>"Grannis—"</p> + +<p>The back reversed, showing a rather surprised face.</p> + +<p>"Where am I, Grannis?"</p> + +<p>The foreman came over to the bed. "In the hotel. In the bridal chamber, +they informed me, to be exact."</p> + +<p>Ben did not smile. Memory was clear now. "What happened after they—got +me last night?"</p> + +<p>Grannis's face showed distinct animation. "A lot of things—and mighty +fast. You missed the best part." Of a sudden he paused and looked at his +charge doubtfully. "But I forgot. You're not to talk: the doctor said +so."</p> + +<p>Ben made a grimace. "But I can listen, can't I?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," still doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"Well—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<p>Grannis hearkened equivocally. No one was about, likely to overhear him +disobeying instructions, and the temptation was strong.</p> + +<p>"You know McFadden?" he queried suddenly.</p> + +<p>Blair nodded.</p> + +<p>"Well, say, that Scotchman is a tiger. He got to the front somehow when +you called for reinforcements, and when you went down he was +Johnny-on-the-spot taking your place. Some of the rest of us got in +there pretty soon, and for a bit things was lively. It was rather close +range for gun-work, but knives were as thick as frogs after a shower." +With a sudden movement Grannis slipped up the sleeve of his left arm, +showing a bandage through which the blood had soaked and dried. "All of +us got scratched some. One fellow of the opposition—Mick Kennedy—met +with an accident."</p> + +<p>"Serious?"</p> + +<p>"Rather. We planted him after things had quieted down."</p> + +<p>For a moment the two men looked at each other steadily, and the subject +was dropped.</p> + +<p>"Well," suggested Blair once more.</p> + +<p>"That's all, I guess—except that Ralston has the prisoner." A grim +reminiscent smile came to the speaker's lips. "That is, he's got him if +the floors of the cells here are paved good and thick. Last time I saw +T. Blair he was fairly shaking post-holes into the ground with his +feet."</p> + +<p>Ben tried to shift in bed, but with the movement a sudden pain made him +grit his teeth to keep from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> uttering a groan. For the first time he +thought of himself.</p> + +<p>"How much am I hurt, Grannis?" he queried directly.</p> + +<p>The foreman busied himself doing nothing about the room. "You?" +cheerfully. "Oh, you're all right."</p> + +<p>Ben looked at the other narrowly. "Nothing to bother about, I judge?"</p> + +<p>"No, certainly not."</p> + +<p>Beneath the bedclothes the long body lifted, but despite anything it +could do the face went pale.</p> + +<p>"Very well, I guess I'll get up then."</p> + +<p>Instantly Grannis was beside him, motioning him back, genuine concern +upon his face.</p> + +<p>"No, please don't. Not yet."</p> + +<p>"But if I'm not hurt much—"</p> + +<p>Grannis fingered his forelock in obvious discomfort.</p> + +<p>"Well, between you and me, it's this way. They ripped a seam for you—so +far," he indicated, "and it's open yet."</p> + +<p>Turning his free left arm, Ben touched the bandage at his side, and the +hand came back moist and red. Now that it occurred to him, he was +ridiculously weak.</p> + +<p>"I see. I'm liable to rip it more," he commented slowly.</p> + +<p>The other nodded. "Yes; don't talk. I ought to have stopped you before +this."</p> + +<p>"Grannis!" There was no escaping the blue eyes this time. "Honestly, +now, am I liable to be—done for, or not?"</p> + +<p>The foreman became instantly serious. "Honest, if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> you keep quiet you're +all right. Doc said so not an hour ago. At first he thought different, +that you'd never wake up; you bled like a pig with its throat cut; but +this is what he told me when he left. 'Keep him quiet. It may take a +month for that gap to heal, but if you're careful he'll pull through.'" +Again the look of concern, and this time of contrition as well. "I ought +to be ashamed of myself for letting you talk at all; but this is +straight. Now don't say any more."</p> + +<p>This time Ben obeyed. He couldn't well do otherwise. He had suddenly +grown weak and drowsy, and almost before Grannis was through speaking he +was again asleep.</p> + +<p>The doctor was right about the time of healing. During the remainder of +that month and well into the next, despite his restless protests, Ben +Blair was a prisoner in that dull little room; and through it all +Grannis remained with him.</p> + +<p>"You don't have to stay with me unless you like," Ben had said more than +once; but each time Grannis had displayed his own wound, at first +openly, at last, carefully concealed by bandages, whimsically.</p> + +<p>"Got to take good care of this arm of mine," he explained. "Blood +poisoning's liable to set in at any minute, and that's something awful, +they tell me."</p> + +<p>The invalid made no comment.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was the evening following the afternoon of Blair's return to the Box +R ranch. In the cosey kitchen, around the new range which Rankin had +imported the previous Fall, sat three people,—Grannis, Graham, and Ma +Graham.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> The two men were smoking steadily and silently. The woman, her +hands folded in her lap, her eyes glued to the floor, was breathing +loudly with the difficulty of the very corpulent. Of a sudden, +interrupting, the door connecting with the room adjoining opened and Ben +Blair appeared.</p> + +<p>"Grannis," he requested, "come here a moment, please."</p> + +<p>In silence Blair closed the door behind them, motioned his companion to +a seat, and took another opposite him. He was very quiet, even for his +taciturn self; and, glancing at a heap of papers on a nearby table, +Grannis understood. For a long minute the two men eyed each other +silently. Not without result had they lived the events of the last +months together. It was the younger man who first spoke.</p> + +<p>"Grannis," he said impassively, "I'm going to ask you a question, and I +want an honest answer. Whatever you may think it leads to must cut no +figure. Will you give it?"</p> + +<p>Equally impassively the elder man nodded, "Yes."</p> + +<p>Blair selected a paper from the litter, and looked at it steadily. "What +I want to know is this: have I, has anyone, no matter what the incentive +may be, the right to make known after another's death things which +during that person's life were carefully concealed?"</p> + +<p>The steady gaze shifted to his companion, held there compellingly. "In +other words, is a tragedy any less a tragedy, any more public property, +because the actors are dead? Answer me honest, Grannis."</p> + +<p>Impassively as before the overseer shook his head.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> "No, I think not," +he said. "Let the dead past bury its dead."</p> + +<p>A moment longer the other remained motionless, then, before his +companion realized what he was doing, Ben had opened the door of the +sheet-iron heater and tossed the paper in his fingers fair among the +glowing coals.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Grannis," he said, "I agree with you." He stood a second +looking into the suddenly kindled blaze. "As you say, to the living, +life. Let the dead past bury its dead."</p> + +<p>The flame died down until upon the coals lay a thin, curling film of +carbon. Grannis shifted in his seat.</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless," he commented indifferently, "you've done a foolish act." +A pause; then he went on deliberately as before. "You've destroyed the +only evidence that proves you Rankin's son."</p> + +<p>Involuntarily Blair stiffened, seeming about to speak. But he did not. +Instead, he closed the stove and resumed his former seat.</p> + +<p>"By the way," he digressed, "I just received a letter from Scotty Baker. +I wrote him some time ago about—Mr. Rankin. He answered from England."</p> + +<p>Grannis made no comment, and, the conversation being obviously at an +end, after a bit he rose, and with a taciturn "Good-night," left the +room.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Days and weeks passed. The dead rigor of Winter gave way to traces of +Spring. On the high places the earth began to turn brown, the buffalo +grass to peep into view. By day the water slushed under the feet of the +cattle, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> ran merrily in the draws of the rolling country. By night +it froze into marvellous frost-work; daintier and more intricate of +pattern than any made by man. Overhead, flocks of wild ducks in +irregular geometric patterns sailed north at double the speed of express +trains. With their mellow "Honk—honk," sweetest sound of all to a +frontiersman's ears, harbingers of Spring indeed, far above the level of +the ducks, amid the very clouds themselves, the geese, in regular +triangles, winged their way toward the snow-lands. At first they seemed +to pass only by day; then, as the season advanced, the nights were +melodious with the sound of their voices. Themselves invisible, far +below on the surface of earth the swish of their migratory wings sounded +so distinctly that to a listening human ear it almost seemed it were a +troop of angels passing overhead.</p> + +<p>After them came the myriad small birds of the prairie,—the countless +flocks of blackbirds, whose "fl-ee-ce," in continuous chorus filled all +the daylight hours; the meadow-larks, singly or in pairs, announcing +their arrival with a guttural "tuerk" and a saucy flit of the tail, or +admonishing "fill your tea-kettle, fill your tea-kettle" with a +persistence worthy a better cause.</p> + +<p>Ere this the earth was bare and brown. The chatter of the snow streams +had ceased. In the high places, on southern slopes, there was even a +suggestion of green. At last, on the sunny side of a knoll, there peeped +forth the blue face of an anemone. The following day it had several +companions. Within a week a very army of blue had arrived, stood erect +at attention so far as the eye could reach and beyond. No longer was +there a doubt of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> season. Not precursors of Spring, but Spring +itself had come.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, on the Box R ranch everything moved on as of yore. Save on +that first night, Ben Blair made no man his confidant, accepted without +question his place as Rankin's successor. Most silent of these silent +people, he did his work and did it well, burying deep beneath an +impenetrable mask his thoughts and feelings. Not until an early Summer +was almost come did he make a move. Then at last a note of three +sentences went eastward:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Miss Baker</span>: I'll be in New York in a few days, and if +convenient to you will call. The prairies send greetings in +advance. I saw the first wild rose of the season to-day.</p> + +<p style="text-align:right"> +"<span class="smcap">Ben Blair.</span>"<br /> +</p></div> + +<p>A week later, after giving directions for the day's work to Grannis one +morning, Ben added some suggestions for the days to follow. As to time, +they were rather indefinite, and the overseer looked a question.</p> + +<p>"I'm going away for a bit," explained Ben, simply, in answer. Then he +turned to Graham. "Hitch up the buckboard right away, please. I want you +to take me to town in time to catch the afternoon train East."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> +<h3>GLITTER AND TINSEL</h3></div> + +<p>Clarence Sidwell—Chad, his friends called him—leaned farther back in +the big wicker chair, with an involuntary motion adjusted his +well-creased trousers so there might be no tension at the knees, and +looked across the tiny separating table at his <i>vis-a-vis</i>, while his +eyelids whimsically tightened.</p> + +<p>"Well," he queried, "what do you think of it?"</p> + +<p>The little brunette, his companion, roused herself almost with a start, +while a suggestion of conscious red tinged her face. "I beg your +pardon?" she said, inquiringly.</p> + +<p>The man smiled. "Forgotten already, wasn't I?" he bantered.</p> + +<p>"No, certainly not. I—"</p> + +<p>A hand, delicate and carefully manicured as a woman's, was raised in +protest. "Don't prevaricate, please. The occasion isn't worth it." The +hand returned to the chair-arm with a play of light upon the solitaire +it bore. The smile broadened. "You were caught. Confess, and the +sentence will be lighter."</p> + +<p>As a wave recedes, the red flood began to ebb from the girl's face. "I +confess, then. I was—thinking."</p> + +<p>"And I was—forgotten. My statement was correct."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p> + +<p>She looked up, and the two smiled companionably.</p> + +<p>"Admitted. I await the penalty."</p> + +<p>The man's expression changed into mock sternness. "Very well, Miss +Baker; having heard your confession and remembering a promise to +exercise clemency, this court is about to impose sentence. Are you +prepared to listen?"</p> + +<p>"I'm growing stronger every minute."</p> + +<p>The court frowned, the heavy black eyebrows making the face really +formidable.</p> + +<p>"I fear the defendant doesn't realize the enormity of the offence. +However, we'll pass that by. The sentence, Miss Baker, brings me back to +the starting-point. You are directed to answer the question just +propounded, the question which for some inexplicable reason you didn't +hear. What do you think of it—this roof-garden, and things in general?" +The stern voice paused; the brows relaxed, and he smiled again. "But +first, you're sure you won't have something more—an ice, a wee +bottle—anything?"</p> + +<p>The girl shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Then let's make room here at this table for a better man; to hint at +vacating for a better woman would be heresy! It's pleasanter over there +in the corner out of the light, where one can see the street."</p> + +<p>They found a vacant bench behind a skilfully arranged screen of palms, +and Sidwell produced a cigar.</p> + +<p>"In listening to a tale or a confession," he explained, "one should +always call in the aid of nicotine. I fancy Munchausen's listeners must +have been smokers."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> + +<p>The girl steadily inspected the dark mobile face, half concealed in the +shadow. "You're making sport of me," she announced presently.</p> + +<p>Instantly her companion's smile vanished. "I beg your pardon, Miss +Baker, but you misunderstood. I thought by this time you knew me better +than that."</p> + +<p>"You really are interested, then? Would you truly like to know—what you +asked?"</p> + +<p>"I truly would."</p> + +<p>Florence hesitated. Her breath came a trifle more quickly. She had not +yet learned the trick of repression of the city folk.</p> + +<p>"I think it's wonderful," she said. "Everything is wonderful. I feel +like a child in fairyland; only the fairies must be giants. This great +building, for instance,—I can't make it seem a product of mere six-foot +man! In spite of myself, I keep expecting a great genie to emerge +somewhere. I suppose this seems silly to you, but it's the feeling I +have, and it makes me realize my own insignificance."</p> + +<p>Sidwell smoked in silence.</p> + +<p>"That's the first impression—the most vivid one, I think. The next is +about the people themselves. I've been here nearly a half-year now, but +even yet I stare at them—as you caught me staring to-night—almost with +open mouth. To see these men in the daylight hours down town one would +think they cared more for a minute than for their eternal happiness. I'm +almost afraid to speak to them, my little affairs seem so tiny in +comparison with the big ones it must take to make men work as they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> do. +And then, a little later,—apparently for no other reason than that the +sun has ceased to shine,—I see them, as here, for instance, unconscious +that not minutes but hours are going by. They all seem to have double +lives. I get to thinking of them as Jekylls and Hydes. It makes me a bit +afraid."</p> + +<p>Still Sidwell smoked in silence, and Florence observed him doubtfully. +"You really wish me to chatter on in this way?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I was never more interested in my life."</p> + +<p>The girl felt her face grow warm. She was glad they were in the shadow, +so the man could not see it too clearly. For a moment she looked about +her, at the host of skilful waiters, at the crowd of brightly dressed +pleasure-seekers, at the kaleidoscopic changes, at the lights and +shadows. From somewhere invisible the string orchestra, which for a time +had been silent, started up anew, while her answering pulses beat to +swifter measure. The air was a familiar one, heard everywhere about +town; and she was conscious of a childish desire to join in singing it. +The novelty of the scene, the sparkle, the animation, the motion +intoxicated her. She leaned back in her seat luxuriously.</p> + +<p>"This is life," she murmured. "I never grasped the meaning of the word +until within the last few months, but now I begin to understand. To work +mightily when one works, to abandon one's self completely when one +rests—that is the secret of life."</p> + +<p>The man in the shadow shifted his position, and, looking up, Florence +found his eyes upon her. "Do you really believe that?" he asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I do, most certainly."</p> + +<p>Sidwell lit a fresh cigar, and for a moment the light of the burning +match showed his face clearly. He seemed about to say more; but he did +not, and Florence too was silent. In the pause that followed, the great +express elevator stopped softly at the roof floor. The gate opened with +a musical click, and a woman and a man stepped out. Both were +immaculately dressed, both had the unmistakable air of belonging to the +leisure class. They spied the place Florence and Sidwell had left +vacant, and leisurely made their way to it. A waiter appeared, a coin +changed hands, an order was given. The man drew out a cigarette case +that flashed in colors from the nearby arc-light. Smilingly the woman +held a match, and a moment later wreath after wreath of curling blue +smoke floated above them into the night.</p> + +<p>Florence Baker watched the scene with a strange fascination. She was +conscious of having at some time visited a play wherein a similar action +had taken place. She had thought it merely a creation of the writer's +imagination at the time, but in her present broadened experience she +knew better. It was real,—real as the air she breathed. She simply had +not known the meaning of life then; she was merely existing. Now she +knew!</p> + +<p>The waiter returned, bearing something in a cooler. There were a few +swift motions, a pop distinctly heard above the drone of the orchestra. +The man tossed aside his cigarette and leaned forward. Two glasses with +slender stems, each containing a liquid that effervesced and sparkled, +one in the man's hand, one in the woman's, met<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> midway of the board. The +empty glasses returned to the table.</p> + +<p>Many other seekers of pleasure were about, but Florence had no eyes for +them. This pair alone, so indifferent to their surroundings, so +thoroughly a part of them, perfectly fulfilled her newly formed +conception. They had solved this puzzle of existence, solved it so +completely that she wondered it could ever have appealed to her as a +puzzle at all. Again the formula, distinct as the handwriting upon the +wall, stood revealed before her. One had but to <i>live</i> life, not reason +it, and all would be well.</p> + +<p>Again and again, the delicate glasses sparkled to waiting lips, and +returned empty to the table. The man lit another cigarette, and its +smoke mingled with the darkness above. In the hands of the waiter the +cooler disappeared, and was returned; a second cork popped as had the +first. The woman's eyes sparkled as brilliantly as the gems upon her +fingers. The languor of the man had passed. With the old action +repeated, the brimming glasses touched across the board, were exchanged +after the foreign fashion, and again were dry. The figure of the man +leaned far over the table. He spoke earnestly, rapidly. Unconscious +motions of his hands added emphasis to his words. Neither he nor she who +listened was smiling now. Instead, there was a look, identical upon +either face, a look somehow strangely familiar to the watcher, one she +had met with before, somewhere—somewhere. Memory flew back on lightning +wings, searched all the paths of her experience, the dim +all-but-forgotten crannies, stopped with pointing finger; and with a tug +at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> her very being, she looked, and unbelieving looked again. Ah, could +it be possible—could it? Yes, there it was, unmistakable; the same +expression as this before her—there, blazing from the eyes of a group +of strange street-loafers, as she herself, she, Florence Baker, passed +by!</p> + +<p>In the shadow the face of the spectator crimsoned, the hot flood burned +at her ears, a tightness like a physical hand gripped at her throat; but +it seemed that her eyes could not leave the figures before her. Not the +alien interest of a watcher at the play, but a more intense, a more +personal meaning, was in her gaze now. Something of vital moment to her +own life was taking place out there so near, and she must see. A +fleeting wonder as to whether her own companion was likewise watching +came to her, but she did not turn to discover. The denouement, +inevitable as death, was approaching, might come if she for an instant +looked away.</p> + +<p>The man out there under the electric globe was still talking; the woman, +his companion, still listened. Florence caught herself straining her +ears to hear what he was saying; but to no purpose. She heard only the +repressed murmur of his well-modulated, resonant voice; yet that in +itself was enough. The old song of the sirens was flowing from his lips, +and passion flamed in his eyes. Farther and farther across the tiny +intervening table, nearer the woman's face, his own approached. The last +empty bottle, the thin-stemmed glasses, stood in his way, and he moved +them aside with his elbow. So near now was he that their breaths +mingled, and as the drone of his voice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> ceased, the music of the +orchestra, a waltz, flowed into the rift with its steady one-two-three. +He was motionless; but his eyes, intense blue eyes under long lashes, +were fixed absorbingly on hers.</p> + +<p>It was the woman's turn to move. Gradually, gracefully, unconsciously, +her own face came forward toward his. Sparkling in the light, a jewelled +hand rested on the surface of the table. A tinge of crimson mounted the +long white neck, and colored it to the roots of her hair. The arteries +at the throat throbbed under the thin skin. Simultaneously, the opening +gate of the elevator clicked, and a man—another with that unmistakable +air of leisure—approached; but still she did not notice, did not hear. +Instead, with a sudden motion, heedless of surroundings, reckless of +spectators, her face crossed the gap intervening between her and her +companion; her lips touched his lips, caught fire with the contact, met +them again and again.</p> + +<p>Watching, scarcely breathing, Florence saw the figure of the man come +closer. His eyes also were upon the pair. He caught their every motion; +but he did not hurry. On he came, leisurely, impassively, as though out +for a stroll. He stopped by their side, a darkening shadow with a +mask-like face. Instinctively the two glanced up. There was a crash of +glassware, as the tiny table lurched in the woman's hand—and they were +on their feet. A moment the three looked into each others' eyes, looked +deep and long; then together, without a word, they turned toward the +elevator. Again, droning monotonously, the car appeared and disappeared. +After<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> them, vibrant, mocking, there beat the unvarying rhythm of the +waltz, one-two-three, one-two-three.</p> + +<p>In the shadow, Florence Baker's face dropped into her hands. When at +last she glanced up another couple, likewise immaculate of attire, +likewise debonair and smiling, were seated at the little table. She +turned to her companion. His cigar was still glowing brightly. He had +not moved.</p> + +<p>"I think I'll go home now, if you please," she said, and every trace of +animation had left her voice. "I'm rather tired."</p> + +<p>The man roused himself. "It's early yet. There'll be vaudeville here in +a little while, after the theatre."</p> + +<p>The girl observed him curiously. "It's early, did you say?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell smiled indulgently. "Beg your pardon. I had forgotten our +standards were not yet in conformity. It is so considered—here."</p> + +<p>Florence was very quiet until they reached the steps of her own home. A +light was in the open vestibule, another in the library, where Scotty, +his feet comfortably enclosed in carpet-slippers and elevated above his +head, was reading. Then she turned to her escort.</p> + +<p>"You won't be offended, Mr. Sidwell, if I ask you a question?"</p> + +<p>The electric light on the nearby corner shone full upon her soft brown +face, a very serious face now, and the man's glance lingered there. +"Certainly not," he answered.</p> + +<p>Florence hesitated. Somehow, now that the moment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> for speaking had +arrived, the thing she had in mind to say did not seem so easy after +all. At last she spoke, hesitatingly: "You seem to be interested in me, +seem to take pleasure in being in my company. For the last few months we +have been together almost daily, but up to that time we had lived lives +as unlike as—as the city is from the prairie. I know you have many +other friends, friends you've known all your life, whose ideals and +points of view came from the same experience as your own." She +straightened with dignity. "Why is it that you leave those friends to +come here? Why do you find pleasure in taking me about as you do? Why is +it?"</p> + +<p>Not once while she was speaking had the man's eyes left her face; not +once had he stirred. Even after she was silent he remained so; and +despite the compelling influence which had prompted the question, +Florence could not but realize what she had done, what she had all but +suggested. The warm color flooded her face, though she held her eyes up +bravely. "Tell me why," she repeated firmly.</p> + +<p>Sidwell still hesitated. Complex product of the higher civilization, +mixture of good and bad, who knows what thoughts were running riot in +his brain? At last he aroused and came closer. "You ask me a very hard +question," he said steadily; "the most difficult, I think, you could +have chosen; one, also, which perhaps I have already asked myself." +Again he took a step nearer. "It is a question, Florence, that admits of +but one answer; one both adequate and inadequate. It is because you are +you and woman, and I am I and man." Of a sudden his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> dark face grew +swarthier still, his voice lapsed from its customary impersonal. "It +means, Florence Baker—"</p> + +<p>But the sentence was not completed. As suddenly as the change had come +to the man's face, the girl had understood. With an impulse she could +not have explained to herself, she had drawn away and swiftly mounted +the steps of the house. Not until she reached the porch did she turn.</p> + +<p>"Don't, don't, please!" she urged. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have +asked what I did. Forget that I spoke at all." She was struggling for +words, for breath. Her color came and went. "Good-night." And not +trusting herself to look back, oblivious of courtesy, she almost ran +into the house.</p> + +<p>Standing as she had left him, his hat in his hand, Clarence Sidwell +watched her pass through the lighted vestibule into the darkness +beyond.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> +<h3>PAINTER AND PICTUREL</h3></div> + +<p>Scotty Baker dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee and stirred the +mixture carefully, glancing the while smilingly at his wife and +daughter.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he exclaimed; "it seems good to be back here again."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Baker was deep in a letter she had just opened, but Florence +returned the smile companionably.</p> + +<p>"And it seems mighty good to have you back, daddy," she replied. "Just +think of our being alone, a pair of poor defenceless women, three whole +months without a man about the house! If you ever dare do it again +you're liable to find one in your place when you return. Isn't he, +mamma?"</p> + +<p>Her mother looked up reproachfully. "For shame, Florence!" she cried.</p> + +<p>But Scotty only observed his daughter quizzically. "I did—almost, this +time, didn't I?" he bantered. "By the way, who is this wonderful being, +this Sidwell, I've heard so much about the last few hours?" He was as +obtuse as a post to his wife's meaning look. "Tell me about him, won't +you?"</p> + +<p>Florence laughed a bit unnaturally. It seemed her words had a way of +returning like a boomerang.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He's a writer," she explained laconically.</p> + +<p>"A writer?" Scotty paused, a teaspoonful of coffee between the cup and +his mouth. "A real one?"</p> + +<p>The smile left the girl's face. "His family is one of the oldest in the +city," she explained coldly. "His work sells by the thousand. You can +judge for yourself."</p> + +<p>Scotty sipped his coffee impassively, but behind the big glasses the +twinkle left his eyes.</p> + +<p>"The inference you suggest would have been more obvious if you hadn't +made the first remark," he said a little sharply. "I've noticed the +matter of good family has quite an influence in this world."</p> + +<p>The subject was dropped, but nevertheless it left its aftermath. +Easy-going Scotty did not often say an unpleasant thing, and for that +very reason Florence knew that when he did it had an especial +significance.</p> + +<p>"By the way," he observed after a moment, "we ought to celebrate to-day +in some manner. I rather expected to find a band at the station to +welcome me yesterday upon my return, but I didn't, and I fear there's +been no public demonstration arranged. What do you say to our packing up +our dinner, taking the elevated, and spending the day in the country? +What say you, Mollie?"</p> + +<p>His wife looked at her daughter helplessly. "Just as Florence says. I'm +willing," she replied.</p> + +<p>"What speaks the oracle?" smiled Scotty. "Shall we or shall we not? +Personally, I feel a desire for cooling springs, to step on a good-sized +plat of green without having a watchful bluecoat loom in the distance."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p> + +<p>Florence fingered the linen of the tablecloth with genuine discomfort. +"You two can go. I'll help you get ready," she ventured at last. "I'm +sorry, but I promised Mr. Sidwell last night I'd visit the art gallery +with him this afternoon. He says they've some new canvases hung lately, +one of them by a particular friend of his. He's such a student of art, +and I know so little about it that I hate to miss going."</p> + +<p>Again the smile left Scotty's eyes. "Can't you write a note explaining, +and postpone the visit until some other time?" It took quite an effort +for this undemonstrative Englishman to make the request.</p> + +<p>The girl glanced out the window with a look her father understood very +well. "I hardly think so," she said. "He's going away for the Summer +soon, and his time is limited."</p> + +<p>Scotty said no more, and soon after he left the table and went into the +library. Florence sat for a moment abstractedly; then with her old +impulsive manner she followed him.</p> + +<p>"Daddy," the girl's arms clasped around his neck, her cheek pressed +against his, "I'm awful sorry I can't go with you to-day. I'd like to, +really."</p> + +<p>But for one of the very few times that Florence could remember her +father did not respond. Instead, he removed her arms rather coldly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all right," he said; "I hope you'll have a good time." And +picking up the morning paper he lit a cigar and moved toward the shady +veranda.</p> + +<p>Watching him, the girl had a desire to follow, to pre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>vent his leaving +her in that way. But she hesitated and the moment passed.</p> + +<p>Yet, although a cloud shadowed Florence Baker's morning, by afternoon it +had departed. Sidwell's carriage came promptly, creating something of a +stir behind the drawn shades of the adjoining residences—for the Bakers +were not located in a fashionable quarter. Sidwell himself, immaculate, +smiling, greeted her with the deference which became him well, and in +itself conveyed a delicate compliment. Neither made any reference to the +incident of the night before. His manner gave no hint of the constraint +which under the circumstances might have been expected. A few months +before, the girl would have thought he had taken her request literally, +and had forgotten; but now she knew better. In this fascinating new life +one could pass pleasantries with one's dearest enemy and still smile. In +the old life, under similar circumstances, there would have been +gun-play, and probably later a funeral; but here—they knew better how +to live. Already, in the few social events she had attended, she had +seen them juggle with emotions as a conjurer with knives—to emerge +unhurt, unruffled. To be sure, she could not herself do it—yet; but she +understood, and admired.</p> + +<p>Out of doors the sun was uncomfortably hot, but within the high walled +gallery it was cool and pleasant. Florence had been there before, but +earlier in the season, and many other visitors were present. To-day she +and Sidwell were practically alone, and she faced him with a little +receptive gesture.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You're always getting me to talk," she said. "To-day I'm going to +exchange places. Don't expect me to do anything but listen."</p> + +<p>Sidwell smiled. "Won't you even condescend to suggest channels in which +my discourse may flow?" he bantered.</p> + +<p>The girl hesitated. "Perhaps," she ventured, "if I find it necessary."</p> + +<p>For an hour they wandered about, moving slowly, and pausing often to +rest. Sidwell talked well, but somewhat impersonally. At last, in an +out-of-the-way corner, they came to the modest canvas of his friend, and +they sat down before it. The picture was unnamed and unsigned. Without +being extraordinary as a work of art, its subject lent its chief claim +to distinction. Interested because her companion seemed interested, +Florence looked at it steadily. At first there appeared to her nothing +but a mountain, steep and rugged, and a weary man who, climbing it, had +lain down to rest. Far down at the mountain's base she saw where the +figure had begun its ascent. The way was easy there, and the trail, +through the abundant grasses crushed underfoot, was of one who had moved +rapidly. Gradually, with the upward incline, obstacles had increased, +and the footprints drew nearer together. Still higher, from a straight +line the trail had become tortuous and irregular. Here the climber had +passed around a thicket of trees; there a great boulder had stood in the +path; but, ever indomitable, the way had been steadily upward toward +some point the climber had in view. Steeper and steeper the way had +grown. The prints on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> the rocky mountain-side, from being those of feet +only, merged into those made by hands. The man had begun to crawl, +making his way inch by inch. Fragments of his torn clothing hung on the +points of rocks. Dim brown lines showed the path his body had taken, as +he sometimes slipped back. Breaks in the scant vegetation told where his +fingers had clutched desperately to halt his descent. Yet each time the +reverse had been but temporary; he had returned, and mounted higher and +higher. But at last there had come the end. He had reached his present +place in the picture. By gripping tightly he could hold his own, but to +advance was impossible. Straight above him, a sheer wall, many times his +own height, was the blank, unbroken face of the rock. That he had tried +to scale even this was evident, for finger-marks from bleeding hands +were thick thereon; but he had finally abandoned the effort. Physically, +he was conquered. It seemed that one could almost hear the quick coming +and going of his breath. Yet, prostrate as he lay, his eyes were turned +toward the barrier his body could not scale, to a something which +crowned its utmost height,—something indefinite and unattainable,—the +supreme desire and purpose of his life.</p> + +<p>The two spectators sat silent. Other visitors came near, glanced at the +canvas and at the pair of observers, and passed on with muffled +footsteps.</p> + +<p>The girl turned, and, as on the night at the roof-garden, found the +man's eyes upon her.</p> + +<p>"What name does your friend give to his work?" she asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He calls it 'The Unattainable.'"</p> + +<p>"And what is its meaning?"</p> + +<p>"Ambition, perfection, complete happiness—anything striven for with +one's whole soul."</p> + +<p>Florence was studying her companion now as steadily as he had been +studying her a moment before. "To your—friend it meant—"</p> + +<p>"Happiness."</p> + +<p>The girl's hands were +<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'clapsed'">clasped</ins> +in her lap in a way she had when her +thoughts were concentrated. "And he never found it?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Unconsciously one of Sidwell's hands made a downward motion of +deprecation. "He did not. We made the circuit of the earth together in +pursuit of it—but all was useless. It seemed as though the more he +searched the more he was baffled in his quest."</p> + +<p>For a moment the girl made no reply, but in her lap her hands clasped +tighter and tighter. A thought that made her finger-tips tingle was +taking form in her mind. A dim comprehension of the nature of this man +had first suggested it; the fact that the canvas was unsigned had helped +give it form. The speaker's last words, his even tone of voice, had not +passed unnoticed. She turned to the canvas, searched the skilfully +concealed outlines of the tattered figure with the upturned eyes. The +clasped hands grew white with the tension.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know before you were an artist as well as a writer," she said +evenly.</p> + +<p>Sidwell turned quickly. The girl could feel his look. "I fear," he said, +"I fail to grasp your meaning. You think—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<p>Florence met the speaker's look steadily. "I don't think," she said, "I +know. You painted the picture, Mr. Sidwell. That man there on the +mountain-side is you!"</p> + +<p>Her companion hesitated. His face darkened; his lips opened to speak and +closed again.</p> + +<p>The girl continued watching him with steady look. "I can hardly believe +it," she said absently. "It seems impossible."</p> + +<p>Sidwell forced a smile. "Impossible? What? That I should paint a daub +like that?"</p> + +<p>The girl's tense hands relaxed wearily.</p> + +<p>"No, not that you paint, but that the man there—the one finding +happiness unattainable—should be you."</p> + +<p>The lids dropped just a shade over Sidwell's black eyes. "And why, if +you please, should it be more remarkable that I am unhappy than +another?"</p> + +<p>This time Florence took him up quickly. "Because," she answered, "you +seem to have everything one can think of that is needed to make a human +being happy—wealth, position, health, ability—all the prizes other +people work their lives out for or die for." Again the voice dropped. "I +can't understand it." She was silent a moment. "I can't understand it," +she repeated.</p> + +<p>From the girl's face the man's eyes passed to the canvas, and rested +there. "Yes," he said slowly, "I suppose it is difficult, almost +impossible, for you to realize why I am—as I am. You have never had the +personal experience—and we only understand what we have felt. The +trouble with me is that I have experienced too much, felt too much. I've +ceased to take things on trust. Like the youth and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> the key flower I've +forgotten the best." The voice paused, but the eyes still kept to the +canvas.</p> + +<p>"That picture," he went on, "typifies it all. I painted it, not because +I'm an artist, but because in a fashion it expresses something I +couldn't put into words, or express in any other way. When I began to +climb, the object above me was not happiness but ambition. Wealth and +social place, as you say, I already had. They meant nothing to me. What +I wanted was to make a name in another way—as a literary man." The dark +eyes shifted back to the listener's face, the voice spoke more rapidly.</p> + +<p>"I went after the thing that I wanted with all the power and tenacity +that was in me. I worked with the one object in view; worked without +resting, feverishly. I had successes and failures, failures and +successes—a long line of both. At last, as the world puts it, I +<i>arrived</i>. I got to a position where everything I wrote sold, and sold +well; but in the meantime the thing above me, which had been ambition, +gradually took on another shape. Perfection it was I longed for now, +perfection in my art. It was not enough that the public had accepted me +as I was; I was not satisfied with my work. Try as I might, nothing that +I wrote ever reached my own standard in its execution. I worked harder +than ever; but it was useless. I was confronting the blank wall—the +wall of my natural limitations."</p> + +<p>The voice paused, and for a moment lowered. "I won't say what I did +then; I was—mad almost—the finger-marks of it are on the rock."</p> + +<p>The girl could not look longer into the speaker's eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> She felt as if +she were gazing upon a naked human soul, and turned away.</p> + +<p>"At last," he went on in his confession, "I came to myself, and was +forced to see things as they were. I saw that as well as I thought I had +understood life I had not even grasped its meaning. I had fancied the +attainment of my object the supreme end, and by every human standard I +had succeeded in my purpose; but the thing I had gained was trash. +Wealth, power, notoriety—what were they? Bubbles, nothing more; bubbles +that broke in the hand of him who clasped them. The real meaning and +object of existence lay deeper, and had nothing whatever to do with the +estimate of a person by his fellows. It was a frame of mind of the +individual himself."</p> + +<p>Florence's face turned farther away, but Sidwell did not notice. "Then, +for the last time," he hurried on, "the unattainable changed form for +me, and became what it seems now—happiness. For a little time I think I +was happy—happy in merely having made the discovery. Then came the +reaction. I was as I was, as I am now—a product of my past life, of a +civilization essentially artificial. In striving for a false ideal I had +unfitted myself for the real when at last I discovered it."</p> + +<p>Unconsciously the man had come closer, and his eyes glowed. At last his +apathy was shaken off, and his words came in a torrent. "What I was then +I am to-day. Mentally, I am like an inebriate, who no longer finds +satisfaction in plain food and drink, but craves stimulants. I demand +activity, excitement, change. In every hour of my life I realize the +narrowness and artificiality of it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> all; but without it I am unhappy. I +sometimes think Mother Nature herself has disowned me; when I try to get +near her she draws away—I fancy with a shudder. Solitude of desert, of +forest, or of prairie is no longer solitude to me. It is filled with +voices—accusing voices; and I rush back to the crowd and the unrest of +the city. Even my former pleasures seem to have deserted me. You have +spoke often of accomplishing big things, doing something better than +anyone else can do it, as an example of pleasure supreme. If you +realized what you were saying you would know its irony. You cannot do a +thing better than anyone else. People, like water, strike a dead level. +No matter how you strive, dozens of others can do the thing you are +doing. Were you to die, your place would be filled to-morrow, and the +world would wag on just the same. There is always someone just beneath +you watchfully waiting, ready to seize your place if you relax your +effort for a moment. The term 'big things' is relative. To speak it is +merely to refer to something you do not personally understand. Nothing +seems really big to the one who does it. Nothing is difficult when you +understand it. The growing of potatoes in a backyard is just as +wonderful a performance as the painting of one of these pictures; it +would be more so were it not so common and so necessary. The +construction of a steam-engine or an electric dynamo is incomparably +more remarkable than the merging of separate thousands of capital into +millions of combination, yet multitudes of men everywhere can do either +of the former things and are unnoticed. We worship what we do not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +understand, and call it big; but the man in the secret realizes the +mockery and smiles."</p> + +<p>Closer came the dark face. The black eyes, intense and flashing, held +the listener in their gaze.</p> + +<p>"I said that even my pleasures seem to have deserted me. It is true. I +used to like to wander about the city, to see it at its busiest, to +loiter amid the hum and the roar and the ceaseless activity. I saw in it +then only friendly rivalry, like a hurdle race or a football +game—something pleasing and stimulating. Now it all affects me in just +the reverse way. I look beneath the surface, and my heart sinks to find +not friendly competition, but a battle, where men and women fight for +daily bread, where the weak are crowded and trampled upon by the strong. +In ordinary battle the maimed and the crippled are spared, but here they +still fight on. Mercy or quarter is unknown. Oh, it is ghastly! I used +to take pleasure in books, in the work of others; but even this +satisfaction has been taken from me—except such grim satisfaction as a +physician may feel at a <i>post mortem</i>. The very labor that made me a +success in literature caused me to be a dissector of things around me. +To learn how others attained their ends I must needs tear their work +apart and study the fragments. This habit has become a part of me. I +overlook the beauty of the product in the working of the machinery that +produced it. I watch the mixing of literary confections, served to the +reader so that upon laying down the book he may have a good taste in his +mouth. People themselves, those I meet from day to day, inevitably go +through the same metamorphosis. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> see them as characters in a book. +Their foibles and peculiarities are grist for my mill. Everything, +everyone, when I appear, slips into the narrow confines of a printed +page. I can't even spare myself. Fragments of me can be had for a price +at any of the book-stalls. I've become public property—and with no one +to blame but myself."</p> + +<p>The flow of speech halted. The speaker's face was so near now that the +girl could not avoid looking at it.</p> + +<p>"Do you wonder," he concluded, "that I am not happy?"</p> + +<p>The girl looked up. The two pairs of brown eyes met. Outwardly, she who +answered was calm; but in her lap the small hands were clasping each +other tightly, so that the blood had left the fingers.</p> + +<p>"No, I do not wonder now," she answered simply.</p> + +<p>"And you understand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I—no, there's so much—Oh, take me home, please!" The sentence +ended abruptly in a plea. The slender body was trembling as with cold. +"Take me home, please. I want to—to think."</p> + +<p>"Florence!" The word was a caress. "Florence!"</p> + +<p>But the girl was already on her feet. "Don't say any more to-day! I +can't stand it. Take me home!"</p> + +<p>Sidwell looked at her closely for a moment; then the mask of +conventionality, which for a time had lifted from his face, dropped once +more, and he also arose. In silence, side by side, the two made their +way down the long hall to the exit. Out of doors, the afternoon sun, +serene and smiling, gave them a friendly greeting.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> +<h3>A VISITOR FROM THE PLAINS</h3></div> + +<p>"Papa," said Florence, next morning, as they two sat alone at breakfast, +her mother having reported a headache and failed to appear, "let's go +somewhere, away from folks, for a week or so."</p> + +<p>"Why this sudden change of front?" her father queried. "Not being of the +enemy I'm entitled to the plan of campaign, you know."</p> + +<p>Florence observed him steadily, and the father could not but notice how +much more mature she seemed than the prairie girl of a few months ago.</p> + +<p>"There is no change of front or plan of campaign as far as I know," she +replied. "I simply want to get away a bit, that's all." She returned to +her neglected breakfast. "There's such a thing as mental dyspepsia, you +know, and I feel a twinge of it now and then. I think this new life is +being fed to me in doses too large for my digestion."</p> + +<p>Mr. Baker eventually acquiesced, as anyone who knew him could have +foretold he would do. His wife, also, when the plan was broached to her, +hesitatingly agreed, but at the last moment balked and declined to go; +so they left without her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p> + +<p>The small town to which they went had ample grass and trees, and a small +lake convenient. A farmer's family reluctantly consented to board and +lodge them; also to give them the use of a bony horse and a disreputable +one-seated wagon. After their arrival they promptly proceeded to +segregate themselves from their fellow-boarders. The first day they +fished a little, talked, read, slept, meditated, and smoked—that is, +Mr. Baker did, enough for two; and Florence assisted by rolling +cigarettes when the bowl of the meerschaum grew uncomfortably hot. The +next day they repeated the programme, and also the next, and the next.</p> + +<p>"I think I could stay here always," said Mr. Baker.</p> + +<p>"I rather like it myself," Florence admitted.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, they returned promptly on schedule-time. Mrs. Baker was +awaiting them, her stiff manner indicating that she had not been doing +much else while they were away. Without finesse, one member of the two +delinquents was informed that a certain man of considerable social +prominence, Clarence Sidwell by name, had called daily, and, Mrs. Baker +fancied, with increasing dissatisfaction at their absence. Florence +found in her mail a short note, which after some consideration she +handed without comment to her father.</p> + +<p>He read—and read again. "When was this mailed?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Over a week ago," answered Florence. "It has been here for several +days."</p> + +<p>It was therefore no surprise to the Englishman when that very evening, +as he sat on the front veranda, his heels<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> on the railing, watching the +passage of equipages swift and slow, he saw a tall young man, at whom +passers-by stared more than was polite, coming leisurely up the +sidewalk, inspecting the numbers on the houses. As he came closer, Mr. +Baker took in the details of the long free stride, of the broad chest, +the square uplifted chin, with something akin to admiration. Vitality +and power were in every motion of the supple body; health—a life free +as the air and sunshine—was written in the brown of the hands, the tan +of the face. Even his clothes, though not the conventional costume of +city streets, seemed a part of their wearer, and had a freedom all their +own. The broad-brimmed felt hat was obviously for comfort and +protection, not for show. The light-brown flannel shirt was the color of +the sinewy throat. The trousers, of darker wool, rolled up at the +bottom, exposed the high-heeled riding-boots. About the whole man—for +he was very near now—there was that immaculate cleanliness which the +world prizes more than godliness.</p> + +<p>Scotty dropped his feet from the railing and advanced to the steps. +"Hello, Ben Blair!" he said.</p> + +<p>The visitor paused and smiled. "How do you do, Mr. Baker?" he answered. +"I thought I'd find you along here somewhere." He swung up the short +walk, and, mounting the steps, grasped the Englishman's extended hand. +For a moment the two said nothing. Then Scotty motioned to a chair. "Sit +down, won't you?" he invited.</p> + +<p>Ben stood as he was. The smile left his face. "Would you really—like me +to?" he asked directly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I really would, or I wouldn't have asked you," Scotty returned, with +equal directness.</p> + +<p>Ben took the proffered chair, and crossed his legs comfortably. The two +sat for a moment in silent companionship.</p> + +<p>"Tell me about Rankin," suggested Scotty at last.</p> + +<p>Ben did so. It did not take long, for he scarcely mentioned himself, and +quite omitted that last incident of which Grannis had been witness.</p> + +<p>"And—the man who shot him?" Scotty found it a bit difficult to put the +query into words.</p> + +<p>"They swung him a few days later. Things move rather fast out there when +they move at all."</p> + +<p>"Were 'they' the cowboys?"</p> + +<p>"No, the sheriff and the rest. It was all regular—scarcely any +spectators, even, I heard."</p> + +<p>"And now about yourself. Shall you be in the city long?"</p> + +<p>"I hardly know. I came partly on business—but that won't take me long." +He looked at his host significantly. "I also had another purpose in +coming."</p> + +<p>Scotty moved uncomfortably in his seat. "Ben," he said at last, "I'd +like to ask you to stay with us if I could, but—" he paused, looking +cautiously in at the open door—"but Mollie, you know—It would mean the +dickens' own time with her."</p> + +<p>Ben showed neither surprise nor resentment. "Thank you," he replied. "I +understand. I couldn't have accepted had you invited me. Let's not +consider it."</p> + +<p>Again the seat which usually fitted the Englishman so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> well grew +uncomfortable. He was conscious that through the curtains of the library +window some one was watching him and the new-comer. He had a mortal +dread of a scene, and one seemed inevitable.</p> + +<p>"How's the old ranch?" he asked evasively.</p> + +<p>"It's just as you left it. I haven't got the heart somehow to change +anything. We use up a good many horses one way and another during a +year, and when I get squared around I'm going to start a herd there with +one of the boys to look after it. It was Rankin's idea too."</p> + +<p>"You expect to keep on ranching, then?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"I thought, perhaps, now that you had plenty to do with—You're young, +you know."</p> + +<p>Ben looked out across the narrow plat of turf deliberately.</p> + +<p>"Am I—young? Really, I'd never thought of it in that way."</p> + +<p>The Englishman's feet again mounted the railing in an attempt at +nonchalance.</p> + +<p>"Well, usually a man at your age—" He laughed. "If it were an old +fellow like me—"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baker, I thought you said you really wished me to sit down and chat +awhile?"</p> + +<p>Scotty colored. "Why, certainly. What makes you think—"</p> + +<p>"Let's be natural then."</p> + +<p>Scotty stiffened. His feet returned to the floor.</p> + +<p>"Blair, you forget—" But somehow the sentence, bravely begun, halted. +Few people in real life acted a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> part with Benjamin Blair's blue eyes +upon them. "Ben," he said instead, "I'm an ass, and I beg your pardon. +I'll call Florence."</p> + +<p>But the visitor's hand restrained him.</p> + +<p>"Don't, please. She knows I am here. I saw her a bit ago. Let her do as +she wishes." He drew himself up in the cane rocker. "You asked me a +question. As far as I know I shall ranch it always. It suits me, and +it's the thing I can do best. Besides, I like being with live things. +The only trouble I have," he smiled frankly, "is in selling stock after +I raise them. I want to keep them as long as they live, and put them in +greener pastures when they get old. It's the off season, but I brought a +couple of car-loads along with me to Chicago, to the stock-yards. I'll +never do it again. It has to be done, I know; people have to be fed; but +I've watched those steers grow from calves."</p> + +<p>Scotty searched his brain for something relevant and impersonal, but +nothing suggested itself. "Ben Blair," he ventured, "I like you."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Ben.</p> + +<p>They were silent for a long time. Pedestrians, singly and in pairs, +sauntered past on the walk. Vehicle after vehicle scurried by in the +street. At last a team of brown thoroughbreds, with one man driving, +drew up in front of the house. The man alighted, tied the horses to the +stone hitching-post, and came up the walk. Simultaneously Ben saw the +curtains at the library window sway as though in a sudden breeze.</p> + +<p>"Splendid horses, those," he commented.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Scotty, wishing he were somewhere else just then. "Yes," +he repeated, absently.</p> + +<p>"Good-evening, Mr. Baker!" said the smiling driver of the thoroughbreds.</p> + +<p>"Good-evening," echoed Scotty. Then, with a gesture, he indicated the +passive Benjamin. "My friend Mr. Blair, Mr. Sidwell."</p> + +<p>Sidwell mounted the steps. Ben arose. The library curtains trembled +again. The two men looked each other fairly in the eyes and then shook +hands.</p> + +<p>"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Blair," said Sidwell.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," responded Ben, evenly.</p> + +<p>Down in the depths of his consciousness, Scotty was glad this frontier +youth had seen fit to come to town. Taking off his big glasses he +polished them industriously.</p> + +<p>"Won't you sit down?" he invited the new-comer.</p> + +<p>Sidwell moved toward the door. "No, thank you. With your permission I'll +go inside. I presume Miss Baker—"</p> + +<p>But the Englishman was ahead of him. "Yes," he said, "she's at home. +I'll call her," and he disappeared.</p> + +<p>Watching the retreating figure, Sidwell's black eyes tightened, but he +returned and took the place Scotty had vacated. He gave his companion a +glance which, swift as a flash of light upon a sensitized plate, took in +every detail of the figure, the bizarre dress, the striking face.</p> + +<p>"You are from the West, I judge, Mr. Blair?" he interrogated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Dakota," said Ben, laconically.</p> + +<p>Sidwell's gaze centred on the sombrero. "Cattle raising, perhaps?" he +ventured.</p> + +<p>Ben nodded. "Yes, I have a few head east of the river." He returned the +other's look, and Sidwell had the impression that a searchlight was +suddenly shifted upon him. "Ever been out there?"</p> + +<p>The city man indicated an affirmative. "Yes, twice: the last time about +four years ago. I went out on purpose to see a steer-roping contest, on +the ranch of a man by the name of Gilbert, I remember. A cowboy they +called Pete carried off the honors; had his 'critter' down and tied in +forty-two seconds. They told me that was slow time, but I thought it +lightning itself."</p> + +<p>"The trick can be done in thirty-five with the wildest," commented Ben.</p> + +<p>Sidwell looked out on the narrow street meditatively. "I think that +cowboy exhibition," he went on slowly, "was the most typically American +scene I have ever witnessed. The recklessness, the dash, the splendid +animal activity—there's never been anything like it in the world." His +eyes returned to Ben's face. "Ever hear of Gilbert, did you?"</p> + +<p>"I live within twenty-three miles of him."</p> + +<p>Sidwell looked interested. "What ranch, if I may ask?"</p> + +<p>"The Right Angle Triangle we call it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," Sidwell nodded in recollection. "Rankin is the proprietor—a +big man with a grandfather's-shay buckboard. I saw him while I was +there."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p> + +<p>Involuntarily one of Ben's long legs swung over the other. "That's the +place! You have a good memory."</p> + +<p>Sidwell smiled. "I couldn't help having in this case. He reminded me of +the satraps of ancient Persia. He was monarch of all he surveyed."</p> + +<p>Ben said nothing.</p> + +<p>"He's still the big man of the country, I presume?"</p> + +<p>"He is dead."</p> + +<p>"Dead?"</p> + +<p>"I said so."</p> + +<p>The light of understanding came to the city man. "I see," he observed. +"He is gone, and you—"</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Mr. Sidwell," interrupted the other, "but suppose we +change the subject?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell colored, then he laughed. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Blair. No +offence was intended, I assure you. Mr. Rankin interested me, that was +all."</p> + +<p>Again Ben said nothing, and the conversation lapsed.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile within doors another drama had been taking place. A very +discomposed young lady had met Scotty just out of hearing.</p> + +<p>"What made you stop Mr. Sidwell, papa?" she asked indignantly. "Why +didn't you let him come in?"</p> + +<p>"Because I didn't choose to," explained Scotty, bluntly.</p> + +<p>"But I wanted him to," she said imperiously. "I don't care to see Ben +to-night."</p> + +<p>Her father looked at her steadily. "And I wish you to see him," he +insisted. "You must be hypnotized to behave the way you're doing! You +forget yourself completely!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> + +<p>The brown eyes of the girl flashed. "And you forget yourself! I'm no +longer a child! I won't see him to-night unless I wish to!"</p> + +<p>Easy-going Scotty was aroused. His weak chin set stubbornly.</p> + +<p>"Very well. You will see neither of them, then. I won't have a man +insulted without cause in my own house. I'll tell them both you're +sick."</p> + +<p>"If you do," flamed Florence, "I'll never forgive you! You're—horrid, +if you are my father. I—" She took refuge in tears. "Oh, you ought to +be ashamed to treat your daughter so!"</p> + +<p>The Englishman flicked a speck of ash off his lounging coat. "I <i>am</i> +ashamed," he admitted; "but not of what you suggest." He turned toward +the door.</p> + +<p>"Daddy," said a pleading voice, "don't you—care for me any more?"</p> + +<p>An expression the daughter had never seen before, but one that ever +after haunted her, flashed over the father's face.</p> + +<p>"Care for you?" he exclaimed. "Care for you? That is just the trouble! I +care for you—have always cared for you—too much. I have sacrificed my +self-respect to humor you, and it's all been a mistake. I see it now too +late."</p> + +<p>For a moment the two looked at each other; then the girl brushed past +him. "Very well," she said calmly, "if I must see them both, at least +permit me to see them by myself."</p> + +<p>The men on the porch arose as Florence appeared.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> Their manner of doing +so was characteristic of each. Sidwell got to his feet languidly, a bit +stiffly. He had not forgotten the past week. Ben Blair arose +respectfully, almost reverently, unconscious that he was following a +mere social form. Six months had passed since he had seen this little +woman, and his soul was in his eyes as he looked at her.</p> + +<p>Just without the door the girl halted, her color like the sunset. It was +the city man she greeted first.</p> + +<p>"I'm very glad to see you again," she said, and a dainty hand went out +to meet his own.</p> + +<p>Sidwell was human. He smiled, and his hand detained hers longer than was +really necessary.</p> + +<p>"And I'm happy indeed to have you back," he responded. "I missed you."</p> + +<p>The girl turned to the impassive but observing Benjamin.</p> + +<p>"I am glad to see you, too, Mr. Blair," she said, but the voice was as +formal as the handshake. "Papa introduced you to Mr. Sidwell, I +suppose?"</p> + +<p>Her reserve was quite unnecessary. Outwardly, Ben was as coldly polite +as she. He placed a chair for her deferentially and took another +himself, while Sidwell watched the scene with interest. Somewhere, some +time, if he lived, that moment would be reproduced on a printed page.</p> + +<p>"Yes," responded Ben, "Mr. Sidwell and I have met." He turned his chair +so that he and the girl faced each other. "You like the city, your new +life, as well as you expected, I trust?"</p> + +<p>They chatted a few minutes as impersonally as two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> chance acquaintances +meeting by accident; then again Ben arose. "I judge you were going +driving," he said simply. "I'll not detain you longer."</p> + +<p>Florence melted. Such delicate consideration was unexpected.</p> + +<p>"You must call again while you are in town," she said.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, I shall," Ben responded.</p> + +<p>Sidwell felt that he too could afford to be generous.</p> + +<p>"If there's anything in the way of amusement or otherwise that I can do +for you, Mr. Blair, let me know," he said, proffering his address. "I am +at your service at any time."</p> + +<p>Ben had reached the walk, but he turned. For a moment wherein Florence +held her breath he looked steadily at the city man.</p> + +<p>"We Western men, Mr. Sidwell," he said at last slowly, "are more or less +solitaries. We take our recreation as we do our work, alone. In all +probability I shall not have occasion to accept your kindness. But I may +call on you before I leave." He bowed to both, and replaced his hat. A +"good-night" and he was gone.</p> + +<p>Watching the tall figure as it disappeared down the street, Sidwell +smiled peculiarly. "Rather a positive person, your friend," he remarked.</p> + +<p>Like an echo, Florence took up the word. "Positive!" The small hands +pressed tightly together in the speaker's lap. "Positive! You didn't get +even a suggestion of him by that. I saw a big prairie fire once. It +swept over the country for miles and miles, taking everything clean; and +the men fighting it might have been so many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> children in arms. I always +think of it when I think of Ben Blair. They are very much alike."</p> + +<p>The smile left Sidwell's face. "One can start a back-fire on the +prairie," he said reflectively. "I fancy the same process might work +successfully with Blair also."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," admitted Florence. The time came when both she and Sidwell +remembered that suggestion.</p> + +<p>But the subject was too large to be dropped immediately.</p> + +<p>"Something tells me," Sidwell added, after a moment, "that you are a bit +fearful of this Blair. Did the gentleman ever attempt to kidnap you—or +anything?"</p> + +<p>Florence did not smile. "No," she answered.</p> + +<p>"What was it, then? Were you in love, and he cold—or the reverse?"</p> + +<p>Florence dropped her chin into her hands. "To be frank with you, it +was—the reverse; but I would rather not speak of it." She was silent +for a moment. "You are right, though," she continued, rather recklessly, +"when you say I'm afraid of him. I don't dare think of him, even. I want +to forget he was ever a part of my life. He overwhelms me like sleep +when I'm tired. I am helpless."</p> + +<p>Unconsciously Sidwell had stumbled upon the closet which held the +skeleton. "And I—" he queried, "are you afraid of me?"</p> + +<p>The girl's great brown eyes peered out above her hands steadily.</p> + +<p>"No; with us it is not of you I'm afraid—it's of myself." She arose +slowly. "I'm ready to go driving if you wish," she said.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> +<h3>CLUB CONFIDENCES</h3></div> + +<p>Late the same evening, in the billiard-room of the "Loungers Club" +Clarence Sidwell met one Winston Hough, seemingly by chance, though in +fact very much the reverse. Big and blonde, addicted to laughter, Hough +was one of the few men with whom Sidwell fraternized,—why, only the +Providence which makes like and unlike attract each other could have +explained. However, it was with deliberate intent that Sidwell entered +the most brilliantly lighted room in the place and sought out the group +of which Hough was the centre.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Chad!" the latter greeted the new-comer. "I've just trimmed up +Watson here, and I'm looking for new worlds to conquer. I'll roll you +fifty points to see who pays for a lunch afterward."</p> + +<p>Sidwell smiled tolerantly. "I think it would be better for my reputation +to settle without playing. Put up your stick and I'm with you."</p> + +<p>Hough shook his head. "No," he objected, "I'm not a Weary Willie. I +prefer to earn my dole first. Come on."</p> + +<p>But Sidwell only looked at him. "Don't be stubborn," he said. "I want to +talk with you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> + +<p>Hough returned his cue to the rack lingeringly. "Of course, if you put +it that way there's nothing more to be said. As to the stubbornness, +however—" He paused suggestively.</p> + +<p>Sidwell made no comment, but led the way directly toward the street.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" queried Hough, when he saw the direction they were +taking. "Isn't the club grill-room good enough for you?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell pursued his way unmoved. "I said I wished to talk with you."</p> + +<p>"I guess I must be dense," Hough answered gayly. "I certainly never saw +any house rules that forbid a man to speak."</p> + +<p>Sidwell looked at his companion with a whimsical expression. "The +trouble isn't with the house rules but with you. A fellow might as well +try to monopolize the wheat-pit on the board of trade as to keep you +alone here. You're too confoundedly popular, Hough! You draw people as +the proverbial molasses-barrel attracts flies."</p> + +<p>The big man laughed. "Your compliment, if that's what it was, is a bit +involved, but I suppose it'll have to do. Lead on!"</p> + +<p>Sidwell sought out a modest little <i>café</i> in a side street and selected +a secluded booth.</p> + +<p>"What'll you have?" he asked, as the waiter appeared.</p> + +<p>Hough's blue eyes twinkled. "Are you with me, whatever I order?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell nodded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Club sandwiches and a couple of bottles of beer," Hough concluded.</p> + +<p>His companion made no comment.</p> + +<p>"Been some time, hasn't it, since you surprised your stomach with +anything like this?" bantered the big man, when the order had arrived +and the waiter departed.</p> + +<p>Sidwell smiled. "I shall have to confess it," he admitted.</p> + +<p>"I thought so," remarked Hough dryly. "Next time you depict a plebeian +scene you can remember this and thank me."</p> + +<p>This time Sidwell did not smile. "You're hitting me rather hard, old +man," he said.</p> + +<p>"You deserve it," laconically answered Hough.</p> + +<p>"But not from you!"</p> + +<p>Hough meditatively watched the beads bursting on the surface of the +liquor.</p> + +<p>"Admitted," he said; "but the people who ought to touch you up are +afraid to do so, and someone ought to." He smiled across the table. +"Pardon the brutal frankness, but it's true."</p> + +<p>Sidwell returned the glance. "You think it's the duty of some intimate +to perform the kindness of this—touching up process occasionally, do +you?"</p> + +<p>Hough drank deep and sighed with satisfaction. "Jove! that tastes good! +I limbered up my joints with a two-mile walk before I went to the club +this evening, and I've been as dry as a harvest-hand ever since. All the +wine in France or elsewhere won't touch the spot like a little good old +brew when a man is really healthy." He recalled himself. "Your pardon, +Sidwell. Seriously, I do think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> it's the duty of our best friends to +bring us back to earth now and then when we've strayed too far away. No +one who doesn't care for us will take the trouble."</p> + +<p>"Our <i>very</i> best friends, I judge," suggested Sidwell.</p> + +<p>"Certainly." The big man wondered what was coming next.</p> + +<p>"A—wife, for instance."</p> + +<p>Hough straightened in his chair. His jolly face grew serious.</p> + +<p>"Are you in earnest, Chad," he queried, "or are you just drawing me +out?"</p> + +<p>"I never was more in earnest in my life."</p> + +<p>Hough lost sight of the original question in the revelation it +suggested.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean you're really going to get married at last?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell forced a smile. "If the matter were already settled, it would be +too late to consider the advisability of the move, wouldn't it?" he +returned. "It would be an established fact, and as such useless to +discuss. I haven't asked the lady, if that answers your question."</p> + +<p>Hough made a gesture of impatience. "Theoretically, yes, but +practically, no. In your individual case, desire and gratification +amount to the same. You're mighty fascinating with the ladies, Chad. Few +women would refuse you, if you made an effort to have them do the +reverse."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Sidwell, equivocally.</p> + +<p>His companion scowled. "Appreciation is unnecessary. I'm not even sure +the remark was complimentary."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p> + +<p>They sat a moment in silence, while the beer in their glasses grew +stale.</p> + +<p>"Suppose I were to consider marriage, as you suggest," said Sidwell at +last. "What do you think would be the result? Judging from your +expression, some opinion thereon is weighing heavily upon your mind."</p> + +<p>The blonde man looked up keenly. One would hardly have recognized him as +the easy-going person of a few moments before.</p> + +<p>"It will, of course, depend entirely upon whom you choose. That's +hackneyed. From the motions of straws, though, this Summer, I presume +it's admissible that I jump at conclusions concerning the lady."</p> + +<p>The other nodded.</p> + +<p>"In that case, Chad, as surely as night follows day it'll be a failure." +The blue eyes all but flashed. "Moreover, it's a hideous injustice to +the girl."</p> + +<p>Sidwell stiffened involuntarily.</p> + +<p>"Your prediction sounds a bit strong from one who is himself a +benedict," he returned coldly. "Upon what, if you please, do you base +your opinion?"</p> + +<p>Hough fidgeted in his chair.</p> + +<p>"You want me to be frank, brutally frank, once more?"</p> + +<p>"Anything you wish. I'd like to know why you spoke as you did."</p> + +<p>"The reason, then, is this. You two would no more mix than oil and +water."</p> + +<p>Sidwell's face did not change. "You and Elise seem to jog along fairly +well together," he observed.</p> + +<p>Hough scowled as before. "Yes, but there's no pos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>sible similarity +between the cases. You and I are no more alike than a dog and a rabbit. +To come down to the direct issue, you're city bred, and Miss Baker has +been reared in the country. She—"</p> + +<p>Sidwell held up his hand deprecatingly. "To return to the illustration, +Elise was originally from the country."</p> + +<p>"And to repeat once more," exclaimed Hough, "there's again no +similarity. Elise and I have been married eight years. We met at +college, and grew together normally. We were both young and adaptable. +Besides, at the risk of being tedious, I reiterate that you and I are +totally unlike. I'm only partially urban; you are completely so—to your +very finger-tips. I'm half savage, more than half. I like to be out in +the country, among the mountains, upon the lakes. I like to hunt and +fish, and dawdle away time; you care for none of these things. I can +make money because I inherited capital, and it almost makes itself; but +it's not with me a definite ambition. I have no positive object in life, +unless it is to make the little woman happy. You have. Your work absorbs +the best of you. You haven't much left for friendships, even mild ones +like ours. I've been with you for a good many years, old man, and I know +what I'm talking about. You are old, older than your years, and you're +not young even in them. You're selfish—pardon me, but it's +true—abominably selfish. Your character, your point of view, your +habits—are all formed. You'll never change; you wouldn't if you could. +Miss Baker is hardly more than a child. I know her—I've made it a +point<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> to know her since I saw you were interested in her. Everything in +the world rings genuine to her as yet. She hasn't learned to detect the +counterfeit, and when the knowledge does come it will hurt her cruelly. +She'll want to get back to nature as surely as a child with a bruised +finger wants its mother; and you can't go with her. Most of all, Chad, +she's a woman. You don't know what that means—no unmarried man does +know. Even we married ones never grasp the subtleties of woman-nature +completely. I've been studying one for eight years, and at times she +escapes me. But one thing I have learned; they demand that they shall be +first in the life of the man they love. Florence Baker will demand this, +and after the first novelty has worn off you won't satisfy her. I repeat +once more, you're too selfish for that. As sure as anything can be, Chad +Sidwell, if you marry that girl it will end in disaster—in divorce, or +something worse."</p> + +<p>The voice ceased, and the place was of a sudden very quiet. Sidwell +tapped on his thin drinking-glass with his finger-nail. His companion +had never seen him nervous before. At last he looked up unshiftingly. +"You've given me a pretty vivid portrait of myself, of what I'm good +for, and what not," he said. "Would you like me to return the +compliment?"</p> + +<p>Again Hough wondered what was coming. "Yes, I suppose so," he answered +hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"You've often remarked," said Sidwell, slowly, "that you knew of no work +for which you were especially adapted. I think I could fit you out +exactly to your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> liking. Just get a position as guard to a lake of +brimstone in the infernal regions."</p> + +<p>Hough laughed, but Sidwell did not. "I fancy," he continued +monotonously, "I see you now, a long needle-pointed spear in your hands, +jabbing back the poor sinners who tried to crawl out."</p> + +<p>"Chad!" interrupted the other reproachfully. "Chad!" But Sidwell did not +stop.</p> + +<p>"You'd stand well back, so that the sulphur fumes wouldn't irritate your +own nostrils, and so that when the bubbles from the boiling broke they +wouldn't spatter you, and with the finest kind of intuition and the most +delicate aim you'd select the tenderest place in your intended victim's +anatomy for your spear-point." He smiled ironically at the picture. +"Gad! you'd be a howling success there, old man!"</p> + +<p>An expression of genuine contrition formed on Hough's jolly face. "I'm +dead sorry I hurt you, Chad," he said, "but you asked me to be frank."</p> + +<p>"You certainly were frank," rejoined the other bluntly.</p> + +<p>"What I said, though, was true," reiterated Hough.</p> + +<p>Sidwell leaned a bit forward, his face, handsome in spite of its +shadings of discontent, clear in the light.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," he went on. "The trouble with you is that you don't give me +credit for a single redeeming virtue. No one in this world is wholly +good or wholly bad. You forget that I'm a human being, with natural +feelings and desires. You make me out a sort of machine, cunningly +constructed for a certain work. You limit my life to that work alone. A +human being, even one born<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> of the artificial state called civilization, +isn't a contrivance like a typewriter which you can make work and then +shut up in a box until it is wanted again. There are certain emotions, +certain wants, you can't suppress by logic. Even a dog, if you imprison +him alone, will go mad in time. I'm a living man, with red blood instead +of ink in my veins, not an abstract mathematical problem. I've had my +full share of work and unhappiness. You'll have to give me a better +reason for remaining without the gate of the promised land than you've +yet done."</p> + +<p>Hough looked at the speaker impotently. "You misunderstood me, Chad, if +you thought I was trying to keep you from your due, or from anything +which would really make for your happiness. I was simply trying to +prevent something I feel morally certain you'll regret. Because one +isn't entirely happy is no adequate reason why he should make himself +more unhappy. I can't say any more than I've already said; there's +nothing more to say. My best reason for disapproving your contemplated +action I gave you first, and you've not considered it at all. It's the +injustice you do to a girl who doesn't realize what she is doing. With +your disposition, Chad, you'd take away from her something which neither +God nor man can ever give her back—her trust in life."</p> + +<p>Sidwell's long fingers restlessly twirled the glass before him. The +remainder of the untouched beer was now as so much stagnant water.</p> + +<p>"If I don't undeceive her someone else will," he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> +"It's inevitable. She'll have to adjust herself to things as they are, +as we all have to do."</p> + +<p>Hough made a motion of deprecation.</p> + +<p>"Miss Baker is no longer a child," continued Sidwell. "If you've studied +her as you say you've done, you've discovered that she has very definite +ideas of her own. It's true that I haven't known her long, but she has +had an opportunity to know me well such as no one else has ever had, not +even you. No one can say that she is leaping in the dark. Time and time +again, at every opportunity, I have stripped my very soul bare for her +observation. The thing has not been easy for me; indeed, I know of +nothing I could have done that would have been more difficult. Though +the present instance seems to give the statement the lie, I am not +easily confidential, my friend. I have had a definite object in doing as +I have done with Miss Baker. I am trying, as I never tried before in my +life, to get in touch with her—as I'll never try again, no matter how +the effort results, to get in touch with a person. She knows the good +and bad of me from A to Z. She knows the life I lead, the kind of people +who make up that life, their aims, their amusements, their standards, +social and moral, as thoroughly as I can make her know them. I have +taken her everywhere, shown her every phase of my surroundings. For once +in my life at least, Hough, I have been absolutely what I +am,—absolutely frank. Farther than that I cannot go. I am not my +brothers keeper. She is an individual in a world of individuals; a free +agent, mental, moral, and physical. The decision of her future actions, +the choice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> she makes of her future life, must of necessity rest with +her. For some reason I cannot point to a definite explanation and say +this or that is why she is attractive to me. She seems to offer the +solution of a want I feel. No system of logic can convince me that, +after having been honest as I have been with her, if she of her own free +will consents to be my wife, I have not a moral right to make her so."</p> + +<p>Again Hough made a deprecatory motion. "It is useless to argue with +you," he said helplessly, "and I won't attempt it. If I were to try, I +couldn't make you realize that the very methods of frankness you have +used to make Miss Baker know you intimately have defeated their own +purpose, and have unconsciously made you an integral part of her life. I +said before that when you wish you're irresistibly fascinating with +women. All that you have said only exemplifies my statement. It does +not, however, in the least change the homely fact that oil and water +won't permanently mix. You can shake them together, and for a time it +may seem that they are one; but eventually they'll separate, and stay +separate. As I said before, though, I do not expect you to realize this, +or to apply it. I can't make what I know by intuition sufficiently +convincing. I wish I could. I feel that somehow this has been my +opportunity and I have failed."</p> + +<p>For the instant Sidwell was roused out of himself. He looked at his +companion with appreciation. "At least you can have the consolation of +knowing you have honestly tried," he said earnestly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> + +<p>Hough returned the look with equal steadiness. "But nevertheless I have +failed."</p> + +<p>Sidwell put on his hat, its broad brim shading his eyes and concealing +their expression.</p> + +<p>"Providence willing," he said finally, "I shall ask Miss Baker to be my +wife."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> +<h3>LOVE IN CONFLICT</h3></div> + +<p>The habits of a lifetime are not changed in a day. Ben Blair was +accustomed to rising early, and he was astir next morning long before +the city proper was thoroughly awake. In the hotel where he was +stopping, the night clerk looked his surprise as he nodded a stereotyped +"Good-morning." The lobby was in confusion, undergoing its early morning +scrubbing, and the guest sought the street. The sun was just risen, but +the air was already sultry, casting oppression and languor over every +detail of the scene. The bare brick and stone fronts of the buildings, +the brown cobblestones of the pavements, the dull gray of the sidewalks, +all looked inhospitable and forbidding. Few vehicles were yet in +motion—distributors of necessities, of ice, of milk, of vegetables—and +they partook of the general indolence. The horses' ears swayed +listlessly, or were set back in dogged endurance. The drivers lounged +stolidly in their seats. Even the few passengers on the monotonously +droning cars but added to the impression of tacit conformity to the +inevitable. Poorly dressed as a rule, tired looking, they gazed at their +feet or glanced out upon the street with absent indifference. It was all +depressing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> + +<p>Ben, normal, vigorous, country bred, shook himself and walked on. He was +as susceptible as a child to surrounding influences, and to those now +about him he was distinctly antagonistic. Life, as a whole, particularly +work, the thing that does most to fill life, he had found good. That +others should so obviously find it different grated upon him. He wanted +to get away from their presence; and making inquiry of the first +policeman he met, he sought the nearest park.</p> + +<p>All his life he had heard of the beauty of the New York parks. The few +people he knew who had visited them emphasized this beauty above all +other features. Perhaps in consequence he was expecting the impossible. +At least, he was disappointed. Here was nature, to be sure, but nature +imprisoned under the thumb of man. The visitor had a healthy desire to +roll on the grass, to turn himself loose, to stretch every joint and +muscle; yet signs on each side gave warning to "keep off." The trees, it +must be admitted, were beautiful and natural,—they could not live and +be otherwise; but somehow they had the air of not being there of their +own free-will.</p> + +<p>Ben chose a bench and sat down. A listlessness was upon him that the +ozone of the prairies had never let him feel. He felt cramped for room, +as though, should he draw as full a breath as he wished, it would +exhaust the supply. A big freshly-shaven policeman strolled by, eying +him suspiciously. It gave the young man the impression of being a +prisoner out on good behavior; and in an indefinite way it almost +insulted his self-respect. For the lack of something better to do he +watched the minion of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> law as he pursued his beat. Not Ben Blair +alone, but every person the officer passed, went through this +challenging inspection. The countryman had been too much preoccupied to +notice that he had companions; but now that his interest was aroused, he +began inspecting the occupants of the other benches. The person nearest +him was a little old man in a crumpled linen suit. Most of the time his +nose was close to his morning paper; but now and then he raised his face +and looked away with an absent expression in his faded near-sighted +eyes. Was he enjoying his present life? Ben would have taken his oath to +the contrary. Again there flashed over him the impression of a prison +with this fellow-being in confinement. There was indescribable pathos in +that dull retrospective gaze, and Ben looked away. In the land from +which he came there could not be found such an example of hopeless and +useless age. There the aged had occupation,—the care of their +children's children, a garden, an interest in crops and growing things, +a fame as prophets of weather,—but such apathy as this, never.</p> + +<p>A bit farther away was another type, also a man, badly dressed and +unshaven. His battered felt hat was drawn low over the upper half of his +face, and he was stretched flat upon the narrow bench. He was far too +long for his bed, and to accommodate his superfluous length his knees +were bent up like a jack-knife. Carrying with them the baggy +trousers,—he wore no underclothes,—they left a hairy expanse between +their ends and the yellow, rusty shoes. His chest rose and fell in the +motion of sleep.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair had seen many a human derelict on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> frontier; the country +was full of them,—adventurers, searchers after lost health—popularly +denominated "one-lungers"—soldiers of fortune; but he had never known +such a class as this man represented,—useless cumberers of the earth, +wanderers by day, sleepers on the benches of public parks by night. Had +he been a student of sociology he might have found a certain morbid +interest in the spectacle; but it was merely depressing to him; it +destroyed what pleasure he might otherwise have taken in the place. This +man was but a step beneath those dull toilers he had seen on the cars. +They had not yet given up the struggle against the inevitable, or were +too stolid to rebel; while he—</p> + +<p>Ben sprang to his feet and began retracing his steps. People bred in the +city might be callous to the miseries of their fellows; those provided +with plenty might be content to live their lives side by side with such +hopeless poverty, might even apply to their own profit the necessities +of others; but his was the hospitality and consideration of the +frontier, the democracy that shares its last loaf with its fellow no +matter who he may be, and shares it without question. The heartless +selfishness of the conditions he was observing almost made his blood +boil. He felt that he was amid an alien people: their standards were not +as his standards, their lives were not of his life, and he wanted to +hurry through with his affairs and get away. He returned to the hotel.</p> + +<p>Breakfast was ready by this time, and after some exploration he +succeeded in finding the dining-room. The head-waiter showed him to a +seat and held his chair obse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>quiously. Another, a negro of uncertain +age, fairly exuding dignity and impassive as a sphinx, poured water over +the ice in his glass with a practised hand, produced the menu, and +waited for his order. Without intending it, the countryman had selected +a rather fashionable place, and the bill of fare was unintelligible as +Sanskrit to him. He looked at it helplessly. A man across the table, +observing his predicament, smiled involuntarily. Ben caught the +expression, looked at its bearer meaningly, looked until it vanished, +and until a faint red, obviously a stranger to that face, took its +place. By a sudden inspiration Blair's hand went to his pocket and +returned with a silver coin.</p> + +<p>"Bring me what a healthy man usually eats at this time of day, and +plenty of it," he said. He glanced absently, blandly past his companion.</p> + +<p>The gentleman of color looked at the speaker as though he were a strange +animal in a "zoo."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sah," he said.</p> + +<p>While he was waiting, Ben looked around him with interest. The room was +big, high, massive of pillars and of beams. Every detail had been +carefully arranged. The heavy oak tables, the spotless linen, the +sparkling silver and glassware appealed to the sense of luxury. The +coolness of the place, due to unseen ventilating fans which he heard +faintly droning somewhere in the ceiling, and increased by the tile +floor and the skilfully adjusted shades, was delightful. The few other +people present were as immaculate as bath, laundry, tailor, and modiste +could make them. From one group at which Ben looked came the suppressed +sound of a woman's laugh; from another,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> a man's voice, well modulated, +illustrated a point with a story. At a small table in an alcove sat four +young men, and notwithstanding the fact that for them it was yet very +early in the day, the pop of a champagne cork was heard, and soon +repeated. Blair, fresh from a glimpse of the outer and under world, +observed it all, and drew comparisons. Again he saw the huddled figure +of the tramp on the bench; and again he heard the careless music of the +woman's laugh. He saw the dull animal stare of workers on their way to +uncongenial toil; the hands still unsteady from yesterday's excesses +lifting to dry lips the wine that would make them still more unsteady on +the morrow. Could these contrasts be forever continued? he wondered. +Would they be permitted to exist indefinitely side by side? Again, +problem more difficult, could it be possible that the condition in which +they existed was life? He could not believe it. His nature rebelled at +the thought. No; life was not an artificial formula like this. It was +broad and free and natural, as the prairies, his prairies, were natural +and free. This other condition was a delirium, a momentary oblivion, of +which the four young men in the alcove were a symbol. Transient +pleasure, the life might mean; but the reverse, the inevitable reaction +as from all intoxication, that—</p> + +<p>Finishing his breakfast, Ben lit a cigar and sauntered out to the +street. He had intended spending the morning seeing the town; but for +the present he felt he had had enough—all he could mentally digest. +Without at first any definite destination, in mere excess of healthy +animal activity, he began to walk; but his principal object in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> coming +to the city, the object he made no effort to conceal, acted upon him +like a lodestone, and almost ere he was aware he was well out in the +residence portion of the city and headed directly for the Baker home. He +was unaware that morning was not the fashionable time to call upon a +lady. To him the fact of inclination and of presence in the vicinity was +sufficient justification; and mounting the well-remembered steps he rang +the doorbell stoutly. A prim maid in cap and diminutive apron, a recent +addition to the household, answered his ring.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to see Miss Baker, if you please," said Ben.</p> + +<p>The girl inspected the visitor critically. Beneath her surface decorum +he had a suspicion that she was inclined to smile.</p> + +<p>"I hardly think Miss Baker is up yet," she announced at last. "Will you +leave your card?"</p> + +<p>Ben looked at the sun, now well elevated in the sky, with an eye trained +in the estimate of time. He drew mental conclusions silently.</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "I will call later."</p> + +<p>He did call later,—two hours later,—to receive from Scotty himself the +intelligence that Florence was out but would soon return. Evidently the +Englishman had been instructed; for, though he added an invitation to +wait, it was only half-hearted, and being declined the matter was not +pressed.</p> + +<p>Ben returned to the hotel, ate his lunch, and considered the situation. +A lesser man would have given up the fight and hidden his bruise; but +Benjamin Blair was in no sense of the word a little man. He had come to +town<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> with definite intent of seeing a certain girl alone, and see her +alone he would. At four o'clock in the afternoon he again pressed the +button on the Baker door-post, and again waited.</p> + +<p>Again it was the maid who answered, and at the expected query she smiled +outright. It seemed to her a capital joke that she was assisting in +playing upon this man of unusual attire.</p> + +<p>"Miss Baker is engaged," she announced, with the glibness of previous +preparation.</p> + +<p>To her surprise the visitor did not depart. Instead, he gave her a look +which sent her mirth glimmering.</p> + +<p>"Very well," he said. The door leading into the vestibule and from +thence into the library was open, and without form of invitation he +entered. "Tell her, please, that I will wait until she is not engaged."</p> + +<p>The girl hesitated. This particular exigency had not been anticipated.</p> + +<p>"Shall I give her a name?" she suggested, with an attempt at formality.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair did not turn. "Tell her what I said."</p> + +<p>He chose a chair facing the entrance and sat down. Departing on her +mission, he heard the maid open another door on the same floor. There +was for a moment a murmur of feminine voices, one of which he +recognized; then silence again, as the door closed.</p> + +<p>A half-hour passed, lengthened into an hour, all but repeated itself, +and still apparently Florence was engaged; and still the visitor sat on. +No power short of fire or an earthquake could have moved him now. Every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> +fragment of the indomitable perseverance of his nature was aroused, and +instead of discouraging him each minute as it passed only made his +determination the stronger. He shifted his chair so that it faced the +window and the street, crossed his legs comfortably, half closed his +eyes, resting yet watchful, and meditatively observed the growing +procession of homeward bound wage-earners in car and on foot.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there was the rustle of a woman's skirts, and he was conscious +that he was no longer alone. He turned as he saw who it was, sprang to +his feet, and despite the intentional slight of the long wait, a smile +flashed to his face. He started to advance, but stopped.</p> + +<p>"You wished to see me, I understand," a voice said coldly, as the +speaker halted just within the doorway.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair straightened. The hot blood mounted to his brain, throbbing at +his throat and temples. It was not easy for him to receive insult; but +outwardly he gave no sign.</p> + +<p>"I think I have demonstrated the fact you mention," he replied calmly.</p> + +<p>Florence Baker clasped her hands together. "Yes, your persistency is +admirable," she said.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair caught the word. "Persistency," he remarked, "seems the only +recourse when past friendship and common courtesy are ignored."</p> + +<p>Florence made no reply, and going forward Ben placed a chair +deferentially. "It seems necessary for me to reverse the position of +host and guest," he said. "Won't you be seated?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> + +<p>The girl did not stir.</p> + +<p>"I hardly think it necessary," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Florence," Ben Blair's great chin lifted meaningly, "I will not be +offended whatever you may do. I have something I wish to say to you. +Please sit down."</p> + +<p>The girl hesitated, and almost against her will looked the man fairly in +the eyes, while her own blazed. Once more she felt his dominance +controlling her, felt as she did when, in what seemed the very long ago, +he had spread his blanket for her upon the prairie earth.</p> + +<p>She sat down.</p> + +<p>Ben drew up another chair and sat facing her. "Why," he was leaning a +bit forward, his elbow on his knee, "why, Florence Baker, have you done +everything in your power to prevent my seeing you? What have I done of +late, what have I ever done, to deserve this treatment from you?"</p> + +<p>The girl evaded his eyes. "It is not usually considered necessary for a +lady to give her reasons for not wishing to see a gentleman," she +parried. The handkerchief in her lap was being rolled unconsciously into +a tight little ball. "The fact itself is sufficient."</p> + +<p>Ben's free hand closed on the chair-arm with a mighty grip. "I beg your +pardon," he said, "but I cannot agree with you. There's a certain amount +of courtesy due between a woman and a man, as there is between man and +man. It is my right to repeat the question."</p> + +<p>The girl felt the cord drawing tighter, felt that in the end she would +bend to his will.</p> + +<p>"And should I refuse?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"You won't refuse."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p> + +<p>The girl's eyes returned to his. Even now she wondered that they did so, +that try as she might she could not deny him. His dominance over her was +well-nigh absolute. Yet she was not angry. An instinct that she had felt +before possessed her; the longing of the weaker for the stronger—the +impulse to give him what he wished. Her whole womanhood went out to him, +with an entire confidence that she would never give to another human +being. Naturally, he was her mate; naturally,—but she was not natural. +She hesitated as she had done once before, a multitude of conflicting +desires and ambitions seething in her brain. If she could but eliminate +the artificial in her nature, the desire for the empty things of the +world, then—But she could not yet give them up, and he could never be +made to care for them with her. She was nearer now to giving them up, to +giving up everything for his sake, than when she had sat alone with him +out on the prairie. She realized this with an added complexity of +emotion; but even yet, even yet—</p> + +<p>A minute passed in silence, a minute of which the girl was unconscious. +It was Ben Blair's voice repeating his first question that recalled her. +This time she did not hesitate.</p> + +<p>"I think you know the reason as well as I do. If we were mere friends or +acquaintances I would be only too glad to see you; but we are not, and +never can be merely friends. We have got to be either more or less." The +voice, brave so far, dropped. A mist came over the brown eyes. "And we +can't be more," she added.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> + +<p>The man's grip on the chair-arm loosened. He bent his face farther +forward. "Miss Baker," he exclaimed. "Florence!"</p> + +<p>Interrupting, almost imploring, the girl drew back. "Don't! Please +don't!" she pleaded; then, as she saw the futility of words, with the +old girlish motion her face dropped into her hands. "Oh, I knew it would +mean this if I saw you!" she wailed. "You see for yourself we cannot be +mere friends!"</p> + +<p>The man did not stir, but his eyes changed color and seemed to grow +darker. "No," he said, "we cannot be mere friends; I care for you too +much for that. And I cannot be silent when I came away off here to see +you. I would never respect myself again if I were. You can do what you +please, say what you please, and I'll not resent it—because it is you. +I will love you as long as I live. I am not ashamed of this, because it +is you I love, Florence Baker." He paused, looking tenderly at the +girl's bowed head.</p> + +<p>"Florence," he went on gently, "you don't know what you are to me, or +what your having left me means. I often go over to your old ranch of a +night and sit there alone, thinking of you, dreaming of you. Sometimes +it is all so vivid that I almost feel that you are near, and before I +know it I speak your name. Then I realize you are not there, and I feel +so lonely that I wish I were dead. I think of to-morrow, and the next +day, and the next—the thousands of days that I'll have to live through +without you—and I wonder how I am going to do it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p> + +<p>The girl's face sank deeper into her hands. A muffled sob escaped her. +"Please don't say any more!" she pleaded. "Please don't! I can't stand +it!"</p> + +<p>But the man only looked at her steadily.</p> + +<p>"I must finish," he said. "I may never have a chance to say this to you +again, and something compels me to tell you of myself, for you are my +good angel. In many ways it is of necessity a rough life I lead, but you +are always with me, and I am the better for it. I haven't drank a drop +since I came to know that I loved you, and we ranchers are not +accustomed to that, Florence. But I never will drink as long as I live; +for I'll think of you, and I couldn't then if I would. Once you saved me +from something worse than drink. There was a man who shot Mr. Rankin and +before this, from almost the first thought I can remember, I had sworn +that if I ever met him I would kill him. We did meet. I followed him day +after day until at last I caught up with him, until he was down and my +hands were upon his throat. But I didn't hurt him, Florence, after all; +I thought of you just in time."</p> + +<p>He was silent, and suddenly the place seemed as still as an empty +church. The girl's sobs were almost hysterical. The man's mood changed; +he reached over and touched her gently on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me for hurting you, Florence," he said. "I—I couldn't help +telling you."</p> + +<p>Involuntarily the girlish figure straightened.</p> + +<p>"Forgive you!" A tear-stained face was looking into his. "Forgive you! +I'll never be able to forgive myself!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> You are a million times too good +for me, Ben Blair. Forgive you! I ought never to cease asking you to +forgive me!"</p> + +<p>"Florence!" pleaded the man. "Florence!"</p> + +<p>But the girl, in her turn, went on. "I have felt all the while that +certain things I saw here were unreal, that they were not what they +seemed. I have prevaricated to you deliberately. I haven't really been +here long, but it seems to me now that it's been years. As you said I +would, I've looked beneath the surface and seen the sham. At first I +wouldn't believe what I saw; but at last I couldn't help believing it, +and, oh, it hurt! I never expect to be so hurt again. I couldn't be. One +can only feel that way once in one's life." The small form trembled with +the memory, and the listener made a motion as if to stop her; but she +held him away.</p> + +<p>"It isn't that I'm any longer blind; I am acting now with my eyes wide +open. It is something else that keeps me from you now, something that +crept in while I was learning my lesson, something I can't tell you." +Once more the girl could not control herself, and sobbing, trembling, +she covered her face. "Ben, Ben," she wailed, "why did you ever let me +come here? You could have kept me if you would—you can do—anything. I +would have loved you—I did love you all the time; only, only—" She +could say no more.</p> + +<p>For a second the man did not understand; then like a flash came +realization, and he was upon his feet pacing up and down the narrow +room. To lose an object one cares for most is one thing; to have it +filched by another is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> something very different. He was elemental, this +man from the plains, and in some phases very illogical. The ways of the +higher civilization, where man loves many times, where he dines and +wines in good fellowship with him who is the husband of a former +love—these were not his ways. White anger was in his heart, not against +the woman, but against that other man. His fingers itched to be at his +throat, regardless of custom or law. Temporarily, the rights and wishes +of the woman, the prize of contention, were forgotten. Two young bucks +in the forest do not consider the feelings of the doe that is the reward +of the victor in the contest when they meet; and Ben Blair was very like +these wild things. Only by an effort of the will could he keep from +going immediately to find that other man,—intuition made it unnecessary +to ask his name. As it was, he wanted now to be away. The tiny room +seemed all at once stifling. He wanted to be out of doors where the sun +shone, out where he could think. He seized his hat, then suddenly +remembered, paused to glance—and that instant was his undoing, and +another man's—Clarence Sidwell's—salvation.</p> + +<p>And Florence Baker, at whom he had glanced? She was not tearful or +hysterical now. Instead, she was looking at him out of wide-open eyes. +Well she knew this man, and knew the volcano she had aroused.</p> + +<p>"You won't hurt him, Ben!" she said. "You won't hurt him! For my sake, +say you won't!"</p> + +<p>The devil lurking in the cowboy's blue eyes vanished, but the great jaw +was still set. He reached out and caught the girl by the shoulder. +"Florence Baker," he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> said, "on your honor, is he worth it—is he worth +the sacrifice you ask of me? Answer!"</p> + +<p>But the girl did not answer, did not stir. "You won't hurt him!" she +repeated. "Say you won't!"</p> + +<p>A moment longer Ben Blair held her; then his hands dropped and he turned +toward the vestibule.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he said. "I don't know."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> +<h3>TWO FRIENDS HAVE IT OUT</h3></div> + +<p>Clarence Sidwell was alone in his down-town bachelor quarters; that is, +alone save for an individual the club-man's friends termed his "Man +Friday," an undersized and very black negro named Alexander Hamilton +Brown, but answering to the contraction "Alec." Valet, man of all work, +steward, Alec was as much a fixture about the place as the floor or the +ceiling; and, like them, his presence, save as a convenience, was +ignored.</p> + +<p>The rooms themselves were on the eleventh floor of a down-town +office-building, as near the roof as it had been possible for him to +secure suitable quarters. For eight years Sidwell had made them his home +when he was in town. The circle of his friends had commented, his mother +and sisters (his father had been long dead) had protested, when, a much +younger man, he first severed himself from the semi-colonial mansion +which for three generations had borne the name of Sidwell; but as usual, +he had had his own way.</p> + +<p>"I want to work when I feel so inclined, when the mood is on me, whether +it's two o'clock of the afternoon or of the morning,'" he had explained; +"and I can't do it without interruption here with you and your +friends."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p> + +<p>For the same reason he had chosen to live near the sky. There, high +above the noise and confusion, he could observe and catch the influence +of the activity which is in itself a powerful stimulant, without +experiencing its unpleasantness. Essentially, the man was an æsthete. If +he went to a race or a football game he wished to view it at a distance. +To be close by, to mingle in the dust of action, to smell the sweat of +conflict, to listen to the low-voiced imprecations of the defeated, +detracted from his pleasure. He could not prevent these +features—therefore he avoided them.</p> + +<p>This particular evening he was doing nothing, which was very unusual for +him. The necessity for society, or for activity, physical or mental, had +long ago become as much a part of his nature as the desire for food. +Dilettante musician as well as artist, when alone at this time of the +evening he was generally at the upright piano in the corner. Even Alec +noticed the unusual lack of occupation on this occasion, and exposed the +key-board suggestively; but, observing the action, Sidwell only smiled.</p> + +<p>"Think I ought to, Alec?" he queried.</p> + +<p>The negro rolled his eyes. Despite his long service, he had never quite +lost his awe of the man he attended.</p> + +<p>"Sho, yo always do that, or something, sah," he said.</p> + +<p>Sidwell smiled again; but it was not a pleasant smile. So this was the +way of it! Even his servant had observed his habitual restlessness, and +had doubtless commented upon it to his companions in the way servants +have of passing judgment upon their employers. And if Alec had noticed +this, then how much more probable it was that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> others of Sidwell's +numerous acquaintances had noticed it also! He winced at the thought. +That this was his skeleton, and that he had endeavored to keep it +hidden, Sidwell did not attempt to deny to himself. One of the reasons +he had <i>not</i> given to his family for establishing these down-town +quarters was this very one. Time and again, when he had felt the mood of +protest strong upon him, he had come here and locked the doors to fight +it out alone. But after all, it had been useless. The fact had been +obvious, despite the trick; mayhap even more so on account of it. Like +the Wandering Jew he was doomed, followed by a relentless curse.</p> + +<p>He shook himself, and walking over to the sideboard poured out a glass +of Cognac and drank it as though it were wine. Sidwell did not often +drink spirits. Experience had taught him that to begin usually meant to +end with regret the following day; but to-night, with his present mood +upon him, the action was as instinctive as breathing. He moved back to +his chair by the window.</p> + +<p>The evening was hot, on the street depressingly so, but up here after +the sun was set there was always a breeze, and it was cool and +comfortable. The man looked out over the sooty, gravelled roofs of the +surrounding lower buildings, and down on the street, congested with its +flowing stream of cars, equipages, and pedestrians. Times without number +he had viewed the currents and counter-currents of that scene, but never +before had he so caught its vital spirit and meaning. Born of the +elect,—reared and educated among them,—the supercilious superiority of +his class was as much a part of him as his name. While<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> he realized that +physically the high and the low were constructed on practically the same +plan, he had been wont to consider them as on totally separate mental +planes. That the clerk and the roustabout on ten dollars a week, +breathing the same atmosphere,—seeing daily, hourly, minute by minute, +from separate viewpoints, the same life,—that they should have in +common the constant need of diversion had never before occurred to him. +Multitudes of times, as a sociologist, or as a literary man in search of +realism, he had visited the haunts of the under-man. Languidly, +critically, as he would have observed at the "zoo" an animal with whose +habits he was unacquainted, he had watched this rather curious under-man +in his foolish, or worse than foolish, endeavor to find amusement or +oblivion. He had often been interested, as by a clown at a circus; but +more frequently the sight had merely inspired disgust, and he had +returned to his own diversions, his own efforts to secure the same end, +with an all but unconscious thankfulness that he was not such as that +other. To-night, for the first time, and with a wonder we all feel when +the obvious but long unseen suddenly becomes apparent, the primary fact +of human brotherhood, irrespective of caste, came home to him. To-night +and now he realized, diminutive in the distance as they were, that the +swarm of figures that he had hitherto considered mere animals vain of +display were impelled upon the street, compelled to keep moving, moving, +without a pre-arranged destination, by the same spirit of unrest that +had sent him to the buffet. At that moment he was probably nearer to his +fellow-man than ever before in his life; but the truth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> revealed made +him the more unhappy. He had grown to consider his own unhappiness +totally different and infinitely more acute than that of others; he had +even taken a sort of morbid, paradoxical pleasure in considering it so; +and now even this was taken from him. Not only had his own secret +skeleton been visible when he believed it concealed, but all around him +there suddenly sprang up a very cemetery of other skeletons, grinning at +his blindness and discomfiture. His was not a nature to extract content +from common discomfort, and but one palliative suggested itself,—the +dull red decanter on the sideboard. Rising again and filling a glass, he +returned and stood for a moment full before the open casement of the +window gazing down steadily.</p> + +<p>How long he stood there he hardly knew. Once Alec's dark face peered +into the room, and disappeared as suddenly. At last there was a knock at +the door.</p> + +<p>"Come in," invited Sidwell, without moving. The door opened and closed, +and Winston Hough stood inside. The big man gave one glance at the +surroundings, saw the empty glass, and backed away. "Pardon my +intrusion," he said with his hand on the knob.</p> + +<p>Sidwell turned. "Intrusion—nothing!" He placed the decanter with +glasses and a box of cigars on a convenient table. "Come and have a +drink with me," and the liquor flowed until both glasses were nearly +full.</p> + +<p>Hough hesitated in a reluctance that was not feigned. He felt that +discretion was the better part of valor, and that it would be well to +escape while he could, even at the price of discourtesy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Really," he said, "I only dropped in to say hello. I—"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" interrupted Sidwell. "You must think I'm as innocent as a +new-born lamb. Come over here and sit down."</p> + +<p>Hough hesitated, but yielded.</p> + +<p>Sidwell lifted his glass. "Here's to—whatever the trouble may be that +brought you here. People don't visit me for pleasure, or unless they +have nowhere else to go. Drink deep!"</p> + +<p>They drank; and then Sidwell looking at Hough said, "Well, what is it +this time? Going to reform again, or something of that kind, are you?"</p> + +<p>Hough did not attempt evasion. He knew it would be useless. "No," he +said; "to tell you the truth, I'm lonesome—beastly lonesome."</p> + +<p>Sidwell smiled. "Ah, I thought so. But why, pray? Aren't you a married +man with an ark of refuge always waiting?"</p> + +<p>Hough made a grimace. "Yes, that's just the trouble. I'm too much +married, too thoroughly domesticated."</p> + +<p>The other looked blank. "I fail to understand. Certainly you and Elise +haven't at last—"</p> + +<p>"No, no; not that." Hough repelled the suggestion with a gesture as +though it were a tangible object. "Elise left to-day to spend a month +with her uncle up in northern Wisconsin, and I can't get out of town for +a week. I feel as I fancy a small bird feels when it has fallen out of +the nest while its mother is away. The bottom seems to have dropped out +of town and left me stranded."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> + +<p>The host observed his guest humorously—a bit maliciously. "It is good +for you, you complacent benedict," he remarked unsympathetically. "You +can understand now the normal state of mind of bachelors. Perhaps after +a few more days you'll have been tortured enough to retract the argument +you made to me about matrimony. I repeat, it's poetic justice, and good +for a man now and then to have a dose of his own medicine."</p> + +<p>Hough smiled as at an oft-heard joke. "All right, old man, have it as +you please; only let's steer clear of a useless discussion of the +subject to-night."</p> + +<p>"With all my heart," said Sidwell. The decanter was once more in his +hand. "Let's drink to the very good health of Elise on her journey."</p> + +<p>Hough hesitated. He had a feeling that there was an obscure desecration +in the toast, but it was not tangible enough to resent. "To her very +good health," he repeated in turn.</p> + +<p>For a moment he looked steadily into the face of his companion, now a +trifle flushed. Again an inward monitor warned him it were better to go; +but the first flood of the liquor had reached his brain, and the +temptation to remain was strong.</p> + +<p>"By the way, how are you coming on with your own affair of the heart? +Have you propounded the momentous question to the lady?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell pulled forward the box of cigars and helped himself to one. +"No," he returned with deliberation. "I haven't had a good opportunity. +A gentleman from the West, where they wear their hair long and their +coat-tails<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> short, has suddenly appeared like an obscuring cloud on the +Baker sky. I have a suspicion that he has aspirations for the hand of +the lady in question. Anyhow, he's haunted the house like a ghost +to-day. Mother Baker has for some reason taken a fancy to your humble +servant, and over the 'phone she has kept me informed of the stranger's +tribulations. He seems to be meeting with sufficient difficulties +without my interposition, so out of the goodness of my heart I've given +him an open field. I hope you appreciate my consideration. I fear he's +not of a stripe to do so himself."</p> + +<p>Hough lit his cigar. "Yes, it certainly was kind of you," he said. "Very +kind."</p> + +<p>With a sweep of his hand Sidwell brought the two glasses together with a +click. "I think so. Kind enough to deserve commemoration by a taste of +the elixir of life, don't you agree?" and the liquor flowed beneath a +hand steady in the first stages of intoxication.</p> + +<p>Hough pushed back his chair. "No," he protested. "I've had enough."</p> + +<p>"Enough!" The other laughed unmusically. "Enough! You haven't begun yet. +Drink, and forget your loneliness, you benedict disconsolate!"</p> + +<p>But again the big man shook his head. "No," he repeated. "I've had +enough, and so have you. We'll be drunk, both of us, if we keep up this +clip much longer."</p> + +<p>The smile left the host's face. "Drunk!" he echoed. "Since when, pray, +has that exalted state of the consciousness begun to inspire terror in +you? Drunk! Winston Hough, you're the last man I ever thought would fail +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> prove game on an occasion like this! We're no nearer being babes +than we were the last time we got together, unless the termination of +life approximates the beginning. Drink!"</p> + +<p>But still, this time in silence, Hough shook his head. From a partially +open door leading into the adjoining room the negro's eyes peered out.</p> + +<p>Sidwell shifted in his seat with exaggerated deliberation and leaned +forward. His dark mobile face worked passionately, compellingly. +"Winston Hough," he challenged, "do you wish to remain my friend?"</p> + +<p>"I certainly do."</p> + +<p>"Then you know what to do."</p> + +<p>Deep silence fell upon the room. Not only the eyes but the whole of +Alec's face appeared through the doorway. Hough could no more have +resisted longer than he could have leaped from the open window. They +drank together.</p> + +<p>"Now," said Sidwell, "just to show that you mean it, we'll have +another."</p> + +<p>And soon the enemy that puerile man puts into his mouth to steal his +brains was enthroned.</p> + +<p>Sidwell sank into his chair, and lighting his cigar sent a great cloud +of smoke curling up over his head. Hand and tongue were steady, +unnaturally so, but the mood of irresponsible confidence was upon him.</p> + +<p>"Since you've decided to remain my friend," he said, "I'm going to tell +you something confidential, very confidential. You won't give it away?"</p> + +<p>"Never!" Hough shook his head.</p> + +<p>"On your honor?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p> + +<p>The big man crossed his hands over his heart in the manner of small +boys.</p> + +<p>Sidwell was satisfied. "All right, then. This is the last time you and I +will ever get—this way together."</p> + +<p>Hough looked as solemn as though at a funeral. "Why so?" he protested. +"Are you angry with me yet?"</p> + +<p>"No, it's not that. I've forgiven you."</p> + +<p>"What is it, then?" Hough felt that he must know the reason of his lost +position, and if in his power remove it.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to quit drinking after to-night, for one thing," explained +Sidwell. "It isn't adequate. But even if I didn't, I don't expect we'll +ever be together again after a few days, after you go away."</p> + +<p>The listener looked blank. Even with his muddled brains he had an +intimation that there was more in the statement than there seemed.</p> + +<p>"I don't see why," he said bewilderedly.</p> + +<p>Again Sidwell leaned forward. Again his face grew passionate and +magnetic.</p> + +<p>"The reason why is this. I have had enough, and more than enough, of +this life I've been living. Unless I can find an interest, an +extenuation, I would rather be dead, a hundred times over. I've become a +nightmare to myself, and I won't stand it. In a few days you'll have +departed, and before you return I'll probably have gone too. Nothing but +an intervention of Providence can prevent my marrying Florence Baker +now. Life isn't a story-book or we who live it undiscerning clods. She +knows I am going to ask her to marry me, and I know what her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> answer +will be. We'll be away on our wedding-trip long before you and Elise +return in the Fall." The speaker's voice was sober. Only the heightened +color of his face betrayed him.</p> + +<p>"I say I'm through with this sort of thing," he repeated, "and I mean +it. I've tried everything on the face of the earth to find an +interest—but one—and Florence Baker represents that one. I hope +against hope that I'll find what I'm searching for there, but I am +skeptical. I have been disappointed too many times to expect happiness +now. This is my last trump, old man, and I'm playing it deliberately and +carefully. If it fails, Florence will probably return; but before God, I +never will! I have thought it all out. I will leave her more money than +she can ever spend—enough if she wishes to buy the elect of the elect. +She is young, and she will soon forget—if it's necessary. With me, my +actions have largely ceased to be a matter of ethics. I am desperate, +Hough, and a desperate man takes what presents itself."</p> + +<p>But Hough was in no condition to appreciate the meaning of the selfish +revelation of his friend's true character. Since he married his lapses +had been infrequent, and already his surroundings were becoming a bit +vague. His one ambition was to appear what he was not—sober; and he +straightened himself stiffly.</p> + +<p>"I see," he said, "sorry to lose you, old pal, very sorry; but what must +be must be, I s'pose," and he drew himself together with a jerk.</p> + +<p>Sidwell glanced at the speaker sarcastically, almost with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> a shade of +contempt. "I know you're sorry, deucedly sorry," he mocked. "So sorry +that you'd probably like to drown your excess of emotion in the flowing +bowl." Again the ironic glance swept the other's face. "Another smile +would be good for you, anyway. You're entirely too serious. Here you +are!" and the decanter once more did service.</p> + +<p>Hough picked up his glass and nodded with gravity "Yes, I always was a +sad devil." By successive movements the liquor approached his lips. +"Lots of troubles and tribulations all my—"</p> + +<p>The sentence was not completed; the Cognac remained untasted. At that +moment there was a knock upon the door.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> +<h3>THE BACK-FIRE</h3></div> + +<p>When Ben Blair left the Baker home he went back to his room at the +hotel, closed and locked the door, and, throwing off coat and hat, +stretched himself full-length upon the floor, gazing up at the ceiling +but seeing nothing. It had been a hard fight for self-control there on +the prairie the day Florence rejected him, but it was as nothing to the +tumult that now raged in his brain. Then, despite his pain, hope had +remained. Now hope was lost, and in its place stood a maddening +might-have-been. Under the compulsion of his will, the white flood of +anger had passed, but it only made more difficult the solution of the +problem confronting him. Under the influence of passion the situation +would have been a mere physical proposition; but with opportunity to +think, another's wishes and another's rights—those of the woman he +loved—challenged him at every turn.</p> + +<p>At first it seemed that a removal of his physical presence, a going away +never to return, was adequate solution of the difficulty; but he soon +realized that it was not. Deeper than his own love was his desire for +the happiness of the girl he had known from childhood. Had he been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> +certain that she would be happy with the man who had fascinated her, he +could have conquered self, could have returned to his prairies, his +cattle, his work, and have concealed his hurt. But it was impossible for +him to believe she would be happy. Without volition on his part he had +become an actor in this drama, this comedy, this tragedy,—whatever it +might prove to be; and he felt that it would be an act of cowardice upon +his part to leave before the play was ended. He was not in the least +religious in the sense of creed and dogma. In all his life he had +scarcely given a thought to religion. His knowledge of the Almighty by +name had been largely confined to that of a word to conjure with in +mastering an obstreperous bronco; but, in the broad sense of personal +cleanliness and individual duty, he was religious to the core. He would +not shirk a responsibility, and a responsibility faced him now.</p> + +<p>Hour after hour he lay prone while his active brain suggested one course +after another, all, upon consideration, proving inadequate. Gradually +out of the chaos one fundamental fact became distinct in his mind. He +must know more of this man Clarence Sidwell before he could leave the +city, and this decision brought him to his feet. Under the +circumstances, a strategist might have employed others to gather +surreptitiously the information desired; but such was not the nature of +Benjamin Blair. One thing he had learned in dealing with his fellows, +which was that the most effective way to secure the thing one wished was +to go direct to the man who had it to give. In this case Sidwell was the +man. With a grim smile<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> Ben remembered the invitation and the address he +had received the first night he was in town. He would avail himself of +both.</p> + +<p>Night had fallen long ere this; when Ben arose the room was in darkness, +save for the reflected light which came through the heavily curtained +windows from the street lamps. He turned on an electric bulb and made a +hasty toilet. In doing so his eye fell upon the two big revolvers within +the drawer of the dresser; and the same impulse that had caused him to +bring them into this land of civilization made him thrust them into his +hip pockets. It was more habit than anything else, just as a man with a +dog friend feels vaguely uncomfortable unless his pet is with him. Blair +had the vigorously recurring appetite of a healthy animal, and it +suddenly occurred to him that he had not yet dined. Descending to the +street, he sought a <i>café</i> and ate a hearty meal.</p> + +<p>A half-hour later, the elevator boy of the Metropolitan Block, where +Sidwell had his quarters, was surprised, on answering the indicator, to +find a young man in an abnormally broad hat and flannel shirt awaiting +him. The youth was of vivid imagination, and knowing that a Wild West +troupe was performing in town, one glance at Ben's hat, his suspicions +became certainty.</p> + +<p>"Eleventh floor," he announced, when the passenger had told his +destination; then as the car moved upward he gathered courage and looked +the rancher fair in the eye.</p> + +<p>"Say, Mister," he ventured, "give me a pass to the show, will you?"</p> + +<p>For an instant Ben looked blank; then he understood,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> and his hand +sought his trousers' pocket. "Sorry," he explained, "but I don't happen +to have any with me. Will this do instead?" and he produced a +half-dollar.</p> + +<p>The boy brought the car deftly to a stop within a half-inch of the level +of the desired floor. "Thank you. Mr. Sidwell—straight ahead, and turn +to the left down the short hall," he said obligingly.</p> + +<p>Blair stepped out, saying, "Don't fail to be around to-morrow when I do +my stunt."</p> + +<p>With open-mouthed admiration the boy watched the frontiersman's long +free stride—a movement that struck the floor with the springiness of a +cat, very different from the flat-footed jar of pedestrians on paved +streets.</p> + +<p>"I won't!" he called after him. "I'd rather see't than a dozen +ball-games! I'll look for you, Mister!"</p> + +<p>At the interrupting tap upon the door, Sidwell voiced a languid "Come +in," and merely shifted in his seat; but his big companion, with the +hospitality of inebriation, had returned his glass unsteadily to the +table and arisen. He had taken a couple of uncertain steps, as if to +open the door, when, in answer to the summons, Ben Blair stepped inside. +Hough halted with a suddenness which all but cost him his equilibrium. +The expansive smile upon his face vanished, and he stared as though the +bottomless pit had opened at his feet. For a fraction of a minute not +one of the three men spoke or stirred, but in that time the steady blue +eyes of the countryman took in the details of the scene—the luxurious +furnishings, the condition of the two men—with the rapidity and +minuteness of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> sensitized plate. Ironic chance had chosen an +unpropitious night for his call. Intoxication surrounding a bar, under +the stimulus of numbers, and preceding or following some exciting event, +he could understand, could, perhaps, condone; but this solitary +dissipation, drunkenness for its own sake, was something new to him. The +observing eyes fastened themselves upon the host's face.</p> + +<p>"In response to your invitation," he said evenly, "I've called."</p> + +<p>Sidwell roused himself. His face flushed. Despite the liquor in his +brain, he felt the inauspicious chance of the meeting.</p> + +<p>"Glad you did," he said, with an attempt at ease. "Deucedly glad. I +don't know of anyone in the world I'd rather see. Just speaking of you, +weren't we?" he said, appealing to Hough. "By the way, Mr.—er—Blair, +shake hands with Mr. Hough, Mr. Winston Hough. Mighty good fellow, +Hough, but a bit melancholy. Needs cheering up a bit now and then. +Needed it badly to-night—almost cried for it, in fact"; and the speaker +smiled convivially.</p> + +<p>Hough extended his hand with elaborate formality. "Delighted to meet +you," he managed to articulate.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," returned the other shortly.</p> + +<p>Sidwell meanwhile was bringing a third chair and glass. "Come over, +gentlemen," he invited, "and we'll celebrate this, the proudest moment +of my life. You drink, of course, Mr. Blair?"</p> + +<p>Ben did not stir. "Thank you, but I never drink," he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What!" Sidwell smiled sceptically. "A cattle-man, and not refresh +yourself with good liquor? You refute all the precedents! Come over and +take something!"</p> + +<p>Ben only looked at him steadily. "I repeat, I never drink," he said +conclusively.</p> + +<p>Sidwell sat down, and Hough followed his lead.</p> + +<p>"All right, all right! Have a cigar, then. At least you smoke?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," assented Blair, "I smoke—sometimes."</p> + +<p>The host extended the box hospitably. "Help yourself. They're good ones, +I'll answer for that. I import them myself."</p> + +<p>Ben took a step forward, but his hands were still in his pockets. "Mr. +Sidwell," he said, "we may as well save time and try to understand each +other. In some ways I am a bit like an Indian. I never smoke except with +a friend, and I am not sure you are a friend of mine. To be candid with +you, I believe you are not."</p> + +<p>Hough stirred in his chair, but Sidwell remained impassive save that the +convivial smile vanished.</p> + +<p>A quarter of a minute passed. Once the host took up his glass as if to +drink, but put it down untasted. At last he indicated the vacant chair.</p> + +<p>"Won't you be seated?" he invited.</p> + +<p>Ben sat down.</p> + +<p>"You say," continued Sidwell, "that I am not your friend. The statement +and your actions carry the implication that of necessity, then, we must +be enemies."</p> + +<p>The speaker was sparring for time. His brain was not yet normal, but it +was clearing rapidly. He saw this was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> no ordinary man he had to deal +with, no ordinary circumstance; and his plan of campaign was unevolved.</p> + +<p>"I fail to see why," he continued.</p> + +<p>"Do you?" said Ben, quietly.</p> + +<p>Sidwell lit a cigar nonchalantly and smoked for a moment in silence.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he reiterated. "I fail to see why. To have made you an enemy +implies that I have done you an injury, and I recall no way in which I +could have offended you."</p> + +<p>Ben indicated Hough with a nod of his head. "Do you wish a third party +to hear what we have to say?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>Sidwell looked at the questioner narrowly. Deep in his heart he was +thankful that they two were not alone. He did not like the look in the +countryman's blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Hough," he said with dignity, "is a friend of mine. If either of +you must leave the room, most assuredly it will not be he." His eyes +returned to those of the visitor, held there with an effort. "By the +bye," he challenged, "what is it we have to say, anyway? So far as I can +see, there's no point where we touch."</p> + +<p>Ben returned the gaze steadily. "Absolutely none?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Absolutely none." Sidwell spoke with an air of finality.</p> + +<p>The countryman leaned a bit forward and rested his elbow upon his knee, +his chin upon his hand.</p> + +<p>"Suppose I suggest a point then: Miss Florence Baker."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + +<p>Sidwell stiffened with exaggerated dignity. "I never discuss my +relations with a lady, even with a friend. I should be less apt to do so +in speaking with a stranger."</p> + +<p>The lids of Ben's eyes tightened just a shade. "Then I'll have to ask +you to make an exception to the rule," he said slowly.</p> + +<p>"In that case," Sidwell responded quickly, "I'll refuse."</p> + +<p>For a moment silence fell. Through the open window came the ceaseless +drone of the shifting multitude on the street below.</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless, I insist," said Ben, calmly.</p> + +<p>Sidwell's face flushed, although he was quite sober now. "And I must +still refuse," he said, rising. "Moreover, I must request that you leave +the room. You forget that you are in my home!"</p> + +<p>Ben arose calmly and walked to the door through which he had entered. +The key was in the lock, and turning it he put it in his pocket. Still +without haste he returned to his seat.</p> + +<p>"That this is your home, and that you were its dictator before I came +and will be after I leave, I do not contest," he said; "but temporarily +the place has changed hands. I do not think you were quite in earnest +when you refused to talk with me."</p> + +<p>For answer, Sidwell jerked a cord beside the table. A bell rang +vigorously in the rear of the apartments, and the big negro hurried into +the room.</p> + +<p>"Alec," directed the master, "call a policeman at once! At once—do you +hear?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, sah," and the servant started to obey; but the visitor's eye +caught his.</p> + +<p>"Alec," said Ben, steadily, "don't do that! I'll be the first person to +leave this room!"</p> + +<p>Instantly Sidwell was on his feet, his face convulsed with passion. +"Curse you!" he cried. "You'll pay for this! I'll teach you what it +means to hold up a man in his own house!" He turned to his servant with +a look that made the latter recoil. "I want you to understand that when +I give an order I mean it. Go!"</p> + +<p>Blair was likewise on his feet, his long body stretched to its full +height, his blue eyes fastened upon the face of the panic-stricken +darky.</p> + +<p>"Alec," he repeated evenly, "you heard what I said." Without a motion +save of his head he indicated a seat in the corner of the room. "Sit +down!"</p> + +<p>Sidwell took a step forward, his clenched fists raised menacingly.</p> + +<p>"Blair! you—you—"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You—"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, I—"</p> + +<p>That was all. It was not a lengthy conversation, or a brilliant one, but +it was adequate. Face to face, the two men stood looking in each other's +eyes, each taking his opponent's measure. Hough had also risen; he +expected bloodshed; but not once did Blair stir as much as an eyelid, +and after that first step Sidwell also halted. Beneath his supercilious +caste dominance he was a physical coward, and at the supreme test he +weakened. The flood of anger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> passed as swiftly as it had come, leaving +him impotent. He stood for a moment, and then the clenched fist dropped +to his side.</p> + +<p>For the first time, Ben Blair moved. Unemotionally as before, his nod +indicated the chair in the corner.</p> + +<p>"Sit over there as long as I stay, Alec," he directed; and the negro +responded with the alacrity of a well-trained dog.</p> + +<p>Ben turned to the big man. "And you, too, Hough. My business has nothing +to do with you, but it may be well to have a witness. Be seated, +please."</p> + +<p>Hough obeyed in silence. Sober as Sidwell now, his mind grasped the +situation, and in spite of himself he felt his sympathy going out to +this masterful plainsman.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair now turned to the host, and as he did so his wiry figure +underwent a transformation that lived long in the spectators' minds. +With his old characteristic motion, his hands went into his trousers' +pockets, his chest expanded, his great chin lifted until, looking down, +his eyes were half closed.</p> + +<p>"You, Mr. Sidwell," he said, "can stand or sit, as you please; but one +thing I warn you not to do—don't lie to me. We're in the home of lies +just now, but it can't help you. Your face says you are used to having +your own way, right or wrong. Now you'll know the reverse. So long as +you speak the truth, I won't hurt you, no matter what you say. If you +don't, and believe in God, you'd best make your peace with Him. Do you +doubt that?"</p> + +<p>One glance only Sidwell raised to the towering face,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> and his eyes fell. +Every trace of fight, of effrontery, had left him, and he dropped weakly +into his chair.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't doubt you," he said.</p> + +<p>Ben likewise sat down, but his eyes were inexorable.</p> + +<p>"First of all, then," he went on, "you will admit you were mistaken when +you said there was no point where we touched?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was mistaken."</p> + +<p>"And you were not serious when you refused to talk with me?"</p> + +<p>A spasm of repugnance shot over the host's dark face. He heard the +labored breathing of the negro in the corner, and felt the eyes of his +big friend upon him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was not serious," he admitted slowly.</p> + +<p>Ben's long legs crossed, his hands closed on the chair-arms.</p> + +<p>"Very well, then," he said. "Tell me what there is between you and Miss +Baker."</p> + +<p>Sidwell lit a cigar, though the hand that held the match trembled.</p> + +<p>"Everything, I hope," he said. "I intend marrying her."</p> + +<p>The ranchman's face gave no sign at the confession.</p> + +<p>"You have asked her, have you?"</p> + +<p>"No. Your coming prevented. I should otherwise have done so to-day."</p> + +<p>The long fingers on the chair-arms tightened until they grew white.</p> + +<p>"You knew why I came to town, did you not?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell hesitated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I had an intuition," he admitted reluctantly.</p> + +<p>Again silence fell, and the subdued roar of the city came to their ears.</p> + +<p>"You have not called at the Baker home to-day," continued Blair. "Was it +consideration for me that kept you away?" The thin, weather-browned face +grew, if possible, more clean-cut. "Remember to talk straight."</p> + +<p>Sidwell took the cigar from his lips. An exultation he could not quite +repress flooded him. His eyes met the other's fair.</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "it was anything but consideration for you. I knew she +was going to refuse you."</p> + +<p>In the corner the negro's eyes widened. Even Hough held his breath; but +not a muscle of Ben Blair's body stirred.</p> + +<p>"You say you knew," he said evenly. "How did you know?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell flicked the ash from his cigar steadily. He was regaining, if +not his courage, at least some of his presence of mind. This seeming +desperado from the West was a being upon whom reason was not altogether +wasted.</p> + +<p>"I knew because her mother told me—about all there was to tell, I +guess—of your relations before Florence came here. I knew if she +refused you then she would be more apt to do so now."</p> + +<p>Still the figure in brown was that of a statue.</p> + +<p>"She told you—what—you say?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell shifted uncomfortably. He saw breakers ahead.</p> + +<p>"The—main reason at least," he modified.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Which was—" insistently.</p> + +<p>Sidwell hesitated, his new-found confidence vanishing like the smoke +from his cigar. But there was no escape.</p> + +<p>"The reason, she said, was because you were—minus a pedigree."</p> + +<p>The last words dropped like a bomb in the midst of the room. Ben Blair +swiftly rose from his seat. The negro's eyes rolled around in search of +some place of concealment. With a protesting movement Hough was on his +feet.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen!" he implored. "Gentlemen!"</p> + +<p>But the intervention was unnecessary. Ben Blair had settled back in his +seat. Once more his hands were on the chair-arms.</p> + +<p>"Do you," he insinuated gently, "consider the reason she gave an +adequate one? Do you consider that it had any rightful place in the +discussion?"</p> + +<p>The question, seemingly simple, was hard to answer. An affirmative +trembled on the city man's tongue. He realized it was his opportunity +for a crushing rejoinder. But cold blue eyes were upon him and the +meaning of their light was only too clear.</p> + +<p>"I can understand the lady's point of view," he said evasively.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair leaned forward, the great muscles of his jaw and temples +tightening beneath the skin.</p> + +<p>"I did not ask for the lady's point of view," he admonished, "I asked +for your own."</p> + +<p>Again Sidwell felt his opportunity, but physical cowardice intervened. +No power on earth could have made him say "yes" when the other looked at +him like that.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No," he lied, "I do not see that it should make the slightest +difference."</p> + +<p>"On your honor, you swear you do not?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell repeated the statement, and sealed it with his honor.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair relaxed, and Hough mopped his brow with a sigh of relief. Even +Sidwell felt the respite, but it was short-lived.</p> + +<p>"I think," Ben resumed, "that what you've just said and sworn to gives +the lie to your original statement that you have given me no cause for +enmity. According to your own showing you are the one existing obstacle +between Florence Baker and myself. Is it not so?"</p> + +<p>Like a condemned criminal, Sidwell felt the noose tightening.</p> + +<p>"I can't deny it," he admitted.</p> + +<p>For some seconds Ben Blair looked at him with an expression almost +menacing. When he again spoke the first trace of passion was in his +voice.</p> + +<p>"Such being the case, Clarence Sidwell," he went on, "caring for +Florence Baker as I do, and knowing you as I do, why in God's name +should I leave you, coward, in possession of the dearest thing to me in +the world?" For an instant the voice paused, the protruding lower jaw +advanced until it became a positive disfigurement. "Tell me why I should +sacrifice my own happiness for yours. I have had enough of this +word-play. Speak!"</p> + +<p>In every human life there is at some time a supreme moment, a tragic +climax of events; and Sidwell realized that for him this moment had +arrived. Moreover, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> had found him helpless and unprepared. Artificial +to the bone, he was fundamentally disqualified to meet such an +emergency; for artifice or subterfuge would not serve him now. One hasty +glance into that relentless face caused him to turn his own away. Long +ago, in the West, he had once seen a rustler hung by a posse of +ranchers. The inexorable expression he remembered on the surrounding +faces was mirrored in Ben Blair's. His brain whirled; he could not +think. His hand passed aimlessly over his face; he started to speak, but +his voice failed him.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair shifted forward in his seat. The long sinewy fingers gripped +the chair like a panther ready to spring.</p> + +<p>"I am listening," he admonished.</p> + +<p>Sidwell felt the air of the room grow stifling. A big clock was ticking +on the wall, and it seemed to him the second-beats were minutes apart. +His downcast eyes just caught the shape of the hands opposite him, and +in fancy he felt them already tightening upon his throat. Like a +drowning man, scenes in his past life swarmed through his brain. He saw +his mother, his sisters, at home in the old family mansion; his friends +at the club, chatting, laughing, drinking, smoking. In an impersonal +sort of way he wondered how they would feel, what they would say, when +they heard. On the vision swept. It was Florence Baker he saw +now—Florence, all in fleecy white; the girl and himself were on the +broad veranda of the Baker home. They were not alone. Another +figure—yes, this same menacing figure now so near—was on the walk +below them, his broad-brimmed hat in his hand, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> leaving. Florence +was speaking; a smile was upon her lips.</p> + +<p>Like a flash of lightning the images of fancy passed, the present +returned. At last came the solution once before suggested,—the +back-fire! Sidwell straightened, every nerve in his body tense. He +spoke—and scarcely recognized his own voice.</p> + +<p>"There is a reason," he said, "a very adequate reason, one which +concerns another more than it does us." With a supreme effort of will +the man met the blue eyes of his opponent squarely. "It is because +Florence Baker loves me and doesn't love you. Because she would never +forgive you, never, if you did—what you think of doing now."</p> + +<p>For an instant the listening figure remained tense, and it seemed to +Sidwell that his own pulse ceased beating; then the long sinewy body +collapsed as under a physical blow.</p> + +<p>"God!" said a low voice. "I forgot!"</p> + +<p>Not one of the three spectators stirred or spoke. Like sheep, they +awaited the lead of their master.</p> + +<p>And it came full soon. Stiffly, clumsily, still in silence, Ben Blair +arose. His face was drawn and old, his step was slow and halting. Like +one walking in his sleep, he made his way to the door, took the key from +his pocket, and turned the lock. Not once did he speak or glance back. +The door closed softly, and he was gone.</p> + +<p>Behind him for a second there was silence, inactive incredulity as at a +miracle performed; then, in a blaze of long repressed fury, Sidwell +stood beside the table. Not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> pausing for a glass, he raised the red +decanter to his lips and drank, drank, as though the liquor were water.</p> + +<p>"Curse him! I'll marry that girl now if for no other reason than to get +even with him. If it's the last act of my life, I swear I'll marry +her!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> +<h3>THE UPPER AND THE NETHER MILLSTONES</h3></div> + +<p>Out on the street once more, Ben Blair looked about him as one awakening +from a dream. From the darkened arch of a convenient doorway he watched +the endless passing throng with a dull sort of wonder. He was surprised +that the city should be awake at that late hour; and stepping out into +the light he held up his watch. The hands indicated a few minutes past +ten, and in surprise he carried the timepiece to his ear. Yes, it was +running, and must be correct. He had seemed to be up there on the +eleventh floor for hours; but as a matter of fact it had been only +minutes. Practically, the whole night was yet before him.</p> + +<p>Slowly, in a listless way, he started to walk back to his hotel. Instead +of the night becoming cooler it had grown sultrier, and in places the +walk was fairly packed with human beings. More than once he had to turn +out of his way to pass the chattering groups. In so doing he was often +conscious that the flow of small talk suddenly ceased, and that, nudging +each other, the chatterers pointed his way. At first he looked about to +see what had attracted them, but he very soon realized that he himself +was the object of attention. Even here, cosmopolitan as were the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> +surroundings, he was a marked man, was recognized as a person from a +wholly different life; and his feeling of isolation deepened. He moved +on more swiftly.</p> + +<p>The sidewalk in front of his hotel was fringed with a row of chairs, in +which sat guests in various stages of negligee costume. Nearly every man +was smoking, and the effect in the semi-darkness was like that of +footlights turned low. Steps and lobby were likewise crowded; but Ben +made his way straight to his room. One idea now possessed him. His +business was finished, and he wanted to be away. Turning on a light, he +found a railroad guide and ran down the columns of figures. There was no +late night train going West; he must wait until morning. Extinguishing +the light, he drew a chair to the open window and lit a cigar.</p> + +<p>With physical inactivity, consciousness of his surroundings forced +themselves on his attention. Subdued, pulsating, penetrating, the murmur +of the great hotel came to his ears; the drone of indistinguishable +voices, the pattering footsteps of bell-boys and <i>habitués</i>, the purr of +the elevator as it moved from floor to floor, the click of the gate as +it stopped at his own level, the renewed monotone as it passed by.</p> + +<p>Continuous, untiring, the sounds suggested the unthinking vitality of a +steam-engine or of a dynamo in a powerhouse. A mechanic by nature, as a +school-boy Ben had often induced Scotty to take him to the electric +light station, where he had watched the great machines with a +fascination bordering on awe, until fairly dragged away by the prosaic +Englishman. This feeling of his childhood recurred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> to him now with +irresistible force. The throb of the motor of human life was pulsating +in his ears; but added to it was something more, something elusive, +intangible, but all-powerful. The moment he had arrived within the city +limits he had felt the first trace of its presence. As he approached the +centre of congestion it had deepened, had become more and more a guiding +influence. Since then, by day or by night, wherever he went, augmenting +or diminishing, it was constantly with him. And it was not with him +alone. Every human being with whom he came in contact was likewise +consciously or unconsciously under the spell. The crowds he had passed +on the streets were unthinkingly answering its guidance. The trolley +cars echoed its voice. It was the spirit of unrest—a thing ubiquitous +and all-penetrating as the air that filled their lungs—a subtle +stimulant that they took in with every breath.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair arose and put on his hat. He had been sitting only a few +minutes, but he felt that he could not longer bear the inactivity. To do +so meant to think; and thought was the thing that to-night he was +attempting to avoid. Moreover, for one of the few times in his life he +could remember he was desperately lonely. It seemed to him that nowhere +within a thousand miles was another of his own kind. Instinctively he +craved relief, and that alleviation could come in but one way,—through +physical activity. Again he sought the street.</p> + +<p>To some persons a great relief from loneliness is found in mingling with +a crowd, even though it be of strangers; but Ben was not like these. His +desire was to be away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> as far as possible from the maddening drone. +Boarding a street car, he rode out into the residence section, clear to +the end of the loop; then, alighting, he started to walk back. A full +moon had arisen, and outside the shadow-blots of trees and buildings the +earth was all alight. The asphalt of the pavements and the cement of the +walks glistened white under its rays. Loth to sacrifice the comparative +out-of-door coolness for the heat within, practically every house had +its group on the doorsteps, or scattered upon the narrow lawns. +Accustomed to magnificent distances, to boundless miles of surrounding +country, to privacy absolute, Ben watched this scene with a return of +the old wonder,—the old feeling of isolation, of separateness. Side by +side, young men and women, obviously lovers, kept their places, +indifferent to his observation. Other couples, still more careless, sat +with circling arms and faces close together, returning his gaze +impassively. Nothing, apparently, in the complex gamut of human nature +was sacred to these folk. To the solitary spectator, the revelation was +more depressing than even the down-town unrest; and he hurried on.</p> + +<p>Further ahead he came to the homes of the wealthy,—great piles of stone +and brick, that seemed more like hotels than residences. The forbidding +darkness of many of the houses testified that their owners were out of +town, at the seaside or among the mountains; but others were brilliantly +lighted from basement to roof. Before one a long line of carriages was +drawn up. Stiffly liveried footmen, impassive as automatons, waited the +erratic pleasure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> of their masters. A little group of spectators was +already gathered, and Ben likewise paused, observing the spectacle +curiously.</p> + +<p>A social event of some sort was in progress. From some concealed place +came the music of a string orchestra. Every window of the great pile was +open for ventilation, and Ben could hear and see almost as plainly as +the guests themselves. For a time, deep, insistent, throbbing in +measured beat, came the drone of the 'cello, the wail of the clarionet, +and, faintly audible beneath, the rustle of moving feet. Then the music +ceased; and a few seconds later a throng of heated dancers swarmed +through the open doorway to the surrounding veranda, and simultaneously +a chatter broke forth. Fans, like gigantic butterfly wings, vibrated to +and fro. Skilful waiters, in black and white, glanced in and out. +Laughter, thoughtless and care-free, mingled in the general scene.</p> + +<p>The music still, Ben Blair was about to move on, when suddenly a man and +a girl in the shadow of a window on the second floor caught and held his +attention. As far as he could see, they were alone. Evidently one or the +other of them knew the house intimately, and had deliberately sought the +place. From the veranda beneath, the flow of talk continued +uninterruptedly; but they gave it no attention. The spectator could +distinctly see the man as he leaned back in the light and spoke +earnestly. At times he gesticulated with rapid passionate motions, such +as one unconsciously uses when deeply absorbed. Now and again, with the +bodily motions that we have learned to connect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> with the French, his +shoulders were shrugged expressively. He was obviously talking against +time; for his every motion showed intense concentration. No spectator +could have mistaken the nature of his speech. Passion supreme, abandon +absolute, were here personified. As he spoke, he gradually leaned +farther forward toward the woman who listened. His face was no longer in +the light. Suddenly, at first low, as though coming from a distance, +increasing gradually until it throbbed into the steady beat of a waltz, +the music recommenced. It was the signal for action and for throwing off +restraint. The man leaned forward; his arm stretched out and closed +about the figure of the woman. His face pressed forward to meet hers, +again and again.</p> + +<p>Not Ben alone, but a half-dozen other spectators had watched the scene. +An overdressed girl among the number tittered at the sight.</p> + +<p>But Ben scarcely noticed. With the strength of insulted womanhood, the +girl had broken free, and now stood up full in the light. One look she +gave to the man, a look which should have withered him with its scorn; +then, gathering her skirts, she almost ran from the room.</p> + +<p>Only a few seconds had the girl's face been clear of the shadow; yet it +had been long enough to permit recognition, and instantly liquid fire +flowed in the veins of Benjamin Blair. His breath came quick and short +as that of a runner passing under the wire, and his great jaw set. The +woman he had seen was Florence Baker.</p> + +<p>With one motion he was upon the terrace leading<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> toward the house. +Another second, and he would have been well upon his way, when a hand +grasped him from behind and drew him back. With a half-articulated +imprecation Ben turned—and stood fronting Scotty Baker. The +Englishman's face was very white. Behind the compound lenses his eyes +glowed in a way Ben had not thought possible; but his voice was steady +when he spoke.</p> + +<p>"I saw too, Ben," he said, "and I understand. I know what you want to +do, and God knows I want to do the same thing myself; but it would do no +good; it would only make the matter worse." He looked at the younger man +fixedly, almost imploringly. His voice sank. "As you care for Florence, +Ben, go away. Don't make a scene that will do only harm. Leave her with +me. I came to take her home, and I'll do so at once." The speaker +paused, and his hand reached out and grasped the other's with a grip +unmistakable. "I appreciate your motive, my boy, and I honor it. I know +how you feel; and whatever I may have been in the past, from this time +on I am your friend. I am your friend now, when I ask you to go," and he +fairly forced his companion away.</p> + +<p>Once outside the crowd, Ben halted. He gave the Englishman one long +look; his lips opened as if to speak; then, without a word, he moved +away.</p> + +<p>There was no listlessness about him now. He was throbbing with repressed +energy, like a great engine with steam up. His feet tapped with the +regularity of clock-ticks over mile after mile of the city walks. He +longed for physical weariness, for sleep; but the day, with its manifold +mental exaltations and depressions, prevented.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> It seemed to him that he +could never sleep again, could never again be weary. He could only walk +on and on.</p> + +<p>Down town again, he found the crowds smaller and the border of chairs in +front of his hotel largely empty. A few cigars still burned in the +half-light, but they were the last flicker of a conflagration now all +but extinguished. The restless throb of the human dynamo was lower and +more subdued. The street cars were practically empty. Instead of a +constant stream of vehicles, an occasional cab clattered past. The city +was preparing for its brief hours of fitful rest.</p> + +<p>Straight on Ben walked, between the towering office buildings, beside +the now darkened department-store hives, past the giant wholesale +establishments and warehouses; until, quite unintentionally on his part, +and almost before he realized it, he found himself in another world, +another city, as distinct as though it were no part of the cosmopolitan +whole. Again he came upon throbbing life; but of quite another type. +Once more he met people in abundance, noisy, chattering human beings; +but more frequently than his own he now heard foreign tongues that he +did not understand, and did not even recognize. No longer were the +pedestrians well dressed or apparently prosperous. Instead, poverty and +squalor and filth were rampant. More loth even than the well-to-do of +the suburbs to go within doors, the swarming mass of humanity covered +the steps of the houses, and overflowed upon the sidewalk, even upon the +street itself. There were men, women, children; the lame, the halt, the +blind. The elders stared at the visitor,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> while the youngsters, secure +in numbers, guyed him to their hearts' content.</p> + +<p>It was all as foreign to any previous experience of this countryman as +though he had come from a different planet. He had read of the city +slums as of Stanley's Central African negro tribes with unpronounceable +names; and he had thought of them in much the same way. To him they had +been something known to exist, but with which it was but remotely +probable he would ever come in contact. Now, without preparation or +premeditation, thrown face to face with the reality, it brought upon him +a sickening feeling, a sort of mental nausea. Ben was not a +philanthropist or a social reformer; the inspiring thought of the +inexhaustible field for usefulness therein presented had never occurred +to him. He wished chiefly to get away from the stench and ugliness; and, +turning down a cross street, he started to return.</p> + +<p>The locality he now entered was more modern and better lighted than the +one he left behind. The decorated building fronts, with their dazzling +electric signs, partook of the characteristics of the inhabitants, who +seemed overdressed and vulgarly ostentatious. The gaudily trapped +saloons, <i>cafés</i>, and music halls, spoke a similar message. This was the +recreation spot of the people of the quarter; their land of lethe. So +near were the saloons and drinking gardens that from their open doorways +there came a pungent odor of beer. Every place had instrumental music of +some kind. Mandolins and guitars, in the hands of gentlemen of color, +were the favorites. Pianos of execrable tone, played by youths with +defective com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>plexions, or by machinery, were a close second. Before one +place, a crowd blocked the sidewalk; and there Ben stopped. A vaudeville +performance was going on within—an invisible dialect comedian doing a +German stunt to the accompaniment of wooden clogs and disarranged verbs. +A barker in front, coatless, his collar loosened, a black string tie +dangling over an unclean shirt front, was temporarily taking a +much-needed rest. An electric sign overhead dyed his cheeks with +shifting colors—first red, then green, then white. Despite its veneer +of brazen effrontery, the face, with its great mouth and two days' +growth of beard, was haggard and weary looking. Ben mentally pictured, +with a feeling of compassion, other human beings doing their idiotic +"stunts" inside, sweltering in the foul air; and he wondered how, if an +atom of self-respect remained in their make-up, they could fail to +despise themselves.</p> + +<p>But the comedian had subsided in a roar of applause, and again the +barker's hands were gesticulating wildly.</p> + +<p>"Now's your time, ladies and gentlemen," he harangued. "It's continuous, +you know, and Madame—"</p> + +<p>But Ben did not wait for more. Elbow first, he pushed into the crowd, +and as it instantly closed about him the odor of unclean bodies made him +fairly hold his breath.</p> + +<p>Straight ahead, looking neither to right nor to left, went the +countryman; he turned the corner of the block, a corner without a light. +Suddenly, with an instinctive tightening of his breath, he drew back. He +had nearly stepped upon a man, dead drunk, stretched half in a darkened +doorway, half on the walk. The wretch's head<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> was bent back over one of +the iron steps until it seemed as if he must choke, and he was snoring +heavily.</p> + +<p>Not a policeman was in sight, and Ben, in great physical disgust, +carried the helpless hulk to one side, out of the way of pedestrians, +took off the tattered coat and rolled it into a pillow for the head, and +then moved on with the sound of the stertorous drunken breathing still +in his ears.</p> + +<p>Still other experiences were in store for him. He made a half block +without further interruption; then he suddenly heard at his back a +frightened scream, and a young woman came running toward him, followed +at a distance by a roughly dressed man, the latter apparently the worse +for liquor. Blair stopped, and the girl coming up, caught him by the arm +imploringly.</p> + +<p>"Help me, Mister, please!" she pleaded breathlessly. "He—Tom, back +there—insulted me. I—" A burst of hysterical tears interrupted the +confession.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, seeing the turn events had taken, the pursuer had likewise +stopped, and now he hesitated.</p> + +<p>"All right," replied Ben. "Go ahead! I'll see that the fellow doesn't +trouble you again." And he started back.</p> + +<p>But the girl's hand was again upon his arm. "No," she protested, "not +that way, please. He's my steady, Tom is, only to-night he's drank too +much, and—and—he doesn't realize what he's doing." The grip on his arm +tightened as she looked imploringly into his face. "Take me home, +please!" A catch was in her voice. "I'm afraid."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p> + +<p>Ben hesitated. Even in the half-light the petitioner's face hinted +brazenly of cosmetics.</p> + +<p>"Where do you live?" he asked shortly.</p> + +<p>"Only a little way, less than a block, and it's the direction you're +going. Please take me!"</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Blair, and they moved on, the girl still clinging to +him and sobbing at intervals. Before a dark three-story and basement +building, with a decidedly sinister aspect, she stopped and indicated a +stairway.</p> + +<p>"This is the place."</p> + +<p>"All right," responded Ben. "I guess you're safe now. Good-night!"</p> + +<p>But she clung to him the tighter. "Come up with me," she insisted. +"We're only on the second floor, and I haven't thanked you yet. Really, +I'm so grateful! You don't know what it means to be a girl, and—and—" +Her feelings got the better of her again, and she paused to wipe her +eyes on her sleeve. "My mother will be so thankful too. She'd never +forgive me if I didn't bring you up. Please come!" and she led the way +up the darkened stair.</p> + +<p>Again Ben hesitated. He did not in the least like the situation in which +circumstances had placed him. The prospect of the girl's mother, like +herself, scattering grateful tears upon him was not alluring; but it +seemed the part of a cad to refuse, and at last he followed.</p> + +<p>His guide led him up a short flight of stairs and turned to the right, +down a dimly lighted hall. The ground-floor of the building was used for +store purposes. This second floor was evidently a series of apartments. +Lights<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> from within the rooms crept over the curtained transoms. Voices +sounded; glasses clinked. A piano banged out ragtime like mad.</p> + +<p>At the fourth door the girl stopped. "Thank you so much for coming," she +said. "Walk right in," and throwing open the door she fairly shoved the +visitor inside.</p> + +<p>From out the semi-darkness, Ben now found himself in a well-lighted +room, and the change made him blink about him. Instead of the motherly +old lady in a frilled cap, whom he had expected to see, he found himself +in the company of a half-dozen coatless young men and under-dressed +women, lounging in questionable attitudes on chairs and sofas. At his +advent they all looked up. A sallow youth who had been operating the +piano turned in his seat and the music stopped. Not yet realizing the +trick that had been played upon him, Ben turned to look for his guide; +but she was nowhere in sight, and the door was closed. His eyes shifted +back and met a circle of amused faces, while a burst of mocking laughter +broke upon his ears.</p> + +<p>Then for the first time he understood, and his face went white with +anger. Without a word he started to leave the room. But one of the women +was already at his side, her detaining hand upon his sleeve. "No, no, +honey!" she said, insinuatingly. "We're all good fellows! Stay awhile!"</p> + +<p>Ben shook her off roughly. Her very touch was contaminating. But one of +the men had had time to get between him and the door; a sarcastic smile +was upon his face as he blocked the way.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I guess it's on you, old man!" he bantered. "About a half-dozen quarts +will do for a starter!" He nodded to a pudgy old woman who was watching +interestedly from the background. "You heard the gent's order, mother! +Beer, and in a hurry! He looks dry and hot."</p> + +<p>Again a gale of laughter broke forth; but Ben took no notice. He made +one step forward, until he was within arm's reach of the humorist.</p> + +<p>"Step out of my way, please," he said evenly.</p> + +<p>Had the man been alone he would have complied, and quickly. No human +being with eyes and intelligence could have misread the warning on Ben +Blair's countenance. He started to move, when the girl who had first +come forward turned the tide.</p> + +<p>"Aw, Charley!" she goaded. "Is that all the nerve you've got!" and she +laughed ironically.</p> + +<p>Instantly the man's face reddened, and he fell back into his first +position.</p> + +<p>"Sorry I can't oblige you, pal," he said, "but you see it's agin de +house. Us blokes has got—"</p> + +<p>The sentence was never completed. Ben's fist shot out and caught the +speaker fair on the point of his jaw, and he collapsed in his tracks. +For a second no one in the room stirred; then before Ben could open the +door, the other men were upon him. The women fled screaming to the +farthest corner of the room, where they huddled together like sheep. +Returning with the tray, the old woman realized an only too familiar +condition.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen!" she pleaded. "Gentlemen!"</p> + +<p>But no one paid the slightest attention to her. Forced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> by sheer odds of +mass toward a corner, Ben's long arms were working like flails. Another +man fell, and was up again. The first one also was upon his feet now, +his face white, and a tiny stream of blood trickling from his bruised +jaw. A heavy beer-bottle flung by one of the women crashed on the wall +over the countryman's head, the contents spattering over him like rain. +One of the men had seized a chair and swung it high, to strike, with +murder in his eye. Attracted by the confusion, the other occupants of +the floor had rushed into the hall. The door was flung open and +instantly blocked with a mass of sinister menacing faces.</p> + +<p>Until then, Ben had been silent as death, silent as one who realizes +that he is fighting for life against overwhelming odds. Now of a sudden +he leaped backward like a great cat, clear of all the others. From his +throat there issued a sound, the like of which not one of those who +listened had ever heard before, and which fairly lifted their hair—the +Indian war-whoop that the man had learned as a boy. With the old +instinctive motion, comparable in swiftness to nothing save the passage +of light, the cowboy's hands went to his hips, and as swiftly returned +with the muzzles of two great revolvers protruding like elongated index +fingers. With equal swiftness, his face had undergone a transformation. +His jaw was set and his blue eyes flashed like live coals.</p> + +<p>"Stand back, little folks!" he ordered, while the twin weapons revolved +in circles of reflected flame about his trigger fingers. "You seem to +want a show, and you shall have it!" The whirling circles vanished. A +deep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> report fell upon the silence, and a gaudy vase on the mantle flew +into a thousand pieces. "Stand back, people, or you might get hurt!"</p> + +<p>Awed into dumb helplessness, the spectators stared with widening eyes; +but the spectacle had only begun. Like the reports of giant +fire-crackers, only seconds apart, the great revolvers spoke. A nudely +suggestive cast in the corner followed the vase. A quaintly carved clock +paused in its measure of time, its hands chronicling the minute of +interruption. A decanter of whiskey burst spattering over a table. Two +bacchanalian pictures on the wall suddenly had yawning wounds in their +centre. The portrait of a queen of the footlights leaped into the air. +One of the beer-bottles, which the madame had placed on a convenient +table, popped as though it were champagne. Fragments of glass and +porcelain fell about like hail. The place was lighted by a tuft of three +big incandescent globes; and, last of all, one by one, they crashed into +atoms, and the room was in total darkness. Then silence fell, startling +in contrast to the late confusion, while the pungent odor of burnt +gunpowder intruded upon the nostrils.</p> + +<p>For a moment there was inaction; then the assembly broke into motion. No +thought was there now of retaliation or revenge; only, as at a sudden +conflagration or a wreck, of individual safety and escape. The hallway +was cleared as if by magic. Within the room the men and women jostled +each other in the darkness, or jammed imprecating in the narrow doorway. +In a few seconds Ben was alone. Calmly he thrust the empty revolvers +back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> into his pockets and followed leisurely into the hall. There the +dim light revealed an empty space; but here and there a lock turned +gratingly, and from more than one room as he passed came the sound of +furniture being hastily drawn forward as a barricade.</p> + +<p>No human being ever knew what occurred behind the locked door of Ben +Blair's room at the hotel that night. Those hours were buried as deep as +what took place in his mind during the months intervening between the +coming of Florence Baker to the city and his own decision to follow her. +By nature a solitary, he fought his battles alone and in silence. That +he never once touched his bed, the hotel maids could have testified the +next morning. As to the decision that followed those sleepless hours, +his own action gave a clue. He had left a call for an early train West, +and at daylight a tap sounded on his door, while a voice announced the +time.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered the guest; but he did not stir.</p> + +<p>In a few minutes the tap was repeated more insistently. "You've only +time to make your train if you hurry," warned the voice.</p> + +<p>For a moment Blair did not answer. Then he said: "I have decided not to +go."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> +<h3>OF WHAT AVAIL?</h3></div> + +<p>It was late next morning, almost noon in fact, when Florence Baker +awoke; and even then she did not at once rise. A physical listlessness, +very unusual to her, lay upon her like a weight. A year ago, by this +time of day, she would have been ravenously hungry; but now she had a +feeling that she could not have taken a mouthful of food had her life +depended on it. The room, although it faced the west and was well +ventilated, seemed hot and depressing. A breeze stirred the lace +curtains at the window, but it was heated by the blocks of city +pavements over which it had come. The girl involuntarily compared this +awakening with that of a former life in what now seemed to her the very +long ago. She remembered the light morning wind of the prairies, which, +always fresh with the coolness of dew and of growing things, had drifted +in at the tiny windows of the Baker ranch-house. She recalled the sweet +scent of the buffalo grass with a vague sense of depression and +irrevocable loss.</p> + +<p>She turned restlessly beneath the covers, and in doing so her face came +in contact with the moistened surface of her pillow. Propping herself up +on her elbow, she looked curiously at the tell-tale bit of linen. +Obviously, she had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> been crying in her sleep; and for this there must +have been a reason. Until that moment she had not thought of the +previous night; but now the sudden recollection overwhelmed her. She was +only a girl-woman—a child of nature, incapable of repression. Two great +tears gathered in her soft brown eyes; with instinctive desire of +concealment the fluffy head dropped to the pillow, and the sobs broke +out afresh.</p> + +<p>Minutes passed; then her mother's hesitating steps approached the door.</p> + +<p>"Florence," called a voice. "Florence, are you well?"</p> + +<p>The dishevelled brown head lifted, but the girl made no motion to let +her mother in.</p> + +<p>"Yes—I am well," she echoed.</p> + +<p>For a moment Mrs. Baker hesitated, but she was too much in awe of her +daughter to enter uninvited.</p> + +<p>"I have a note for you," she announced. "Mr. Sidwell's man Alec just +brought it. He says there's to be an answer."</p> + +<p>But still the girl did not move. It was an unpropitious time to mention +the club-man's name. The fascination of such as he fades at early +morning; it demands semi-darkness or artificial light. Just now the +thought of him was distinctly depressing, like the sultry breeze that +wandered in at the window.</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Florence, at last. "Leave it, please, and tell Alec to +wait. I'll be down directly."</p> + +<p>In response, an envelope with a monogram in the corner was slipped in +under the door, and the bearer's footsteps tapped back into silence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p> + +<p>Slowly the girl crawled from her bed, but she did not at once take up +the note. Instead, she walked over to the dresser, and, leaning on its +polished top, gazed into the mirror at the reflection of her +tear-stained face, with its mass of disarranged hair. It was not a happy +face that she saw; and just at this moment it looked much older than it +really was. The great brown eyes inspected it critically and +relentlessly.</p> + +<p>"Florence Baker," she said to the face in the mirror, "you are getting +to be old and haggard." A prophetic glimpse of the future came to her +suddenly. "A few years more, and you will not be even—good-looking."</p> + +<p>She stood a moment longer, then, walking over to the door, she picked up +the envelope and tore it open.</p> + +<p>"Miss Baker," ran the note, "there is to be an informal little +gathering—music, dancing, and a few things cool—at the Country Club +this evening. You already know most of the people who will be there. May +I call for you?—<span class="smcap">Sidwell</span>."</p> + +<p>Florence read the missive slowly; then slowly returned it to its cover. +There was no need to tell her the meaning of the unwritten message she +read between the lines of those few brief sentences. It is only in +story-books that human beings do not even suspect the inevitable until +it arrives. As well as she knew her own name, she realized that in her +answer to that evening's invitation lay the choice of her future life. +She was at the turning of the ways—a turning that admitted of no +reconsideration. Dividing at her feet, each equally free, were the +trails of the natural and the artificial. For a time they kept side<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> by +side; but in the distance they were as separate as the two ends of the +earth. By no possibility could both be followed. She must choose between +them, and abide by her decision for good or for ill.</p> + +<p>As slowly as she had read the note, Florence dressed; and even then she +did not leave the room. Bathing her reddened eyes, she drew a chair in +front of the window and gazed wistfully down at the handful of green +grass, with the unhealthy-looking elm in its centre, which made the +Baker lawn. Against her will there came to her a vision of the natural, +impersonated in the form of Ben Blair as she had seen him yesterday. +Masterful, optimistic, compellingly honest, splendidly vital, with loves +and hates like elemental forces of nature, he intruded upon her horizon +at every crisis. Try as she would to eliminate him from her life, she +could not do it. With a little catch of the breath she remembered that +last night, when that man had done—what he did—it was not of what her +father or Clarence Sidwell would think, if either of them knew, but of +what Ben Blair would think, what he would do, that she most cared. +Reluctant as she might be to admit it even to herself, yet in her inner +consciousness she knew that this prairie man had a power over her that +no other human being would ever have. Still, knowing this, she was +deliberately turning away from him. If she accepted that invitation for +to-night, with all that it might mean, the separation from Ben would be +irrevocable. Once more the brown head dropped into the waiting hands, +and the shoulders rocked to and fro in indecision and perplexity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p> + +<p>"God help me!" she pleaded, in the first prayer she had voiced in +months. "God help me!"</p> + +<p>Again footsteps approached her door, and a hand tapped insistently +thereon.</p> + +<p>"Florence," said her father's voice. "Are you up?"</p> + +<p>The girl lifted her head. "Yes," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Let me in, then." The insistence that had been in the knock spoke in +the voice. "I wish to speak with you."</p> + +<p>Instantly an expression almost of repulsion flashed over the girl's +brown face. Never in his life had the Englishman understood his +daughter. He was a glaring example of those who cannot catch the +psychological secret of human nature in a given situation. From the +girl's childhood he had been complaisant when he should have been +severe, had stepped in with the parental authority recognized by his +race when he should have held aloof.</p> + +<p>"Some other time, please," replied Florence. "I don't feel like talking +to-day."</p> + +<p>Scotty's knuckles met the door-panel with a bang. "But I do feel like +it," he responded; "and the inclination is increasing every moment. You +would try the patience of Job himself. Come, I'm waiting!" and he +shifted from one foot to the other restlessly.</p> + +<p>Within the room there was a pause, so long that the Englishman thought +he was going to be refused point-blank; then an even voice said, "Come +in," and he entered.</p> + +<p>He had expected to find Florence defiant and aggressive at the +intrusion. If he did not understand this daughter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> of his, he at least +knew, or thought he knew, a few of her phases. But she had not even +risen from her seat, and when he entered she merely turned her head +until her eyes met his. Scotty felt his parental dignity vanishing like +smoke,—his feelings very like those of a burglar who, invading a +similar boudoir, should find the rightful owner at prayer. His first +instinct was to beat a retreat, and he stopped uncertainly just within +the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Well?" questioned Florence, and the pupils of her brown eyes widened.</p> + +<p>Scotty flushed, but memory of the impassive Alec waiting below returned, +and his anger arose.</p> + +<p>"How much longer are you going to keep that negro waiting?" he demanded. +"He has been here an hour already by the clock."</p> + +<p>A look of almost childlike surprise came over the face of the girl, an +expression implying that the other was making a mountain out of a +mole-hill. "I really don't know," she said.</p> + +<p>Scotty took a chair, and ran his long fingers through his hair +perplexedly. "Florence," he said, "at times you are simply maddening; +and I do not want to be angry with you. Alec says he is waiting for an +answer. What is it an answer to, please? It is my right to know."</p> + +<p>Again there was a pause, so long that Scotty expected unqualified +refusal: and again he was disappointed. Without a word, the girl removed +the note from the envelope and passed it over to him.</p> + +<p>Scotty read it and returned the sheet.</p> + +<p>"You haven't written an answer yet, I judge?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>The Englishman's fingers were tapping nervously on the edge of the +chair-seat.</p> + +<p>"I wish you to decline, then."</p> + +<p>The childish expression left the girl's eyes, the listlessness left her +attitude.</p> + +<p>"Why, if I may ask?" A challenge was in the query.</p> + +<p>Scotty arose, and for a half-minute walked back and forth across the +disordered room. At last he stopped, facing his daughter.</p> + +<p>"The reason, first of all, is that I do not like this man Sidwell in any +particular. If you respect my wishes you will have nothing to do with +him or with any of his class in future. The second reason is that it is +high time some one was watching the kind of affairs you attend." The +speaker looked down on the girl sternly. "I think it unnecessary to +suggest that neither of us desires a repetition of last night's +experience."</p> + +<p>Of a sudden, her face very red, Florence was likewise upon her feet. In +the irony of circumstances, Sidwell could not have had a more powerful +ally. Her decision was instantly formed.</p> + +<p>"I quite agree with you about the incident of last evening," she flamed. +"As to who shall be my associates, and where I shall go, however, I am +of age—" and she started to leave the room.</p> + +<p>But preventing, Scotty was between her and the door. "Florence,"—his +face was very white and his voice trembled,—"we may as well have an +understanding now as to defer it. Maybe, as you say, I have no authority +over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> you longer; but at least I can make a request. You know that I +love you, that I would not ask anything which was not for your good. +Knowing this, won't you at my request cease going with this man? Won't +you refuse his invitation for to-night?"</p> + +<p>Nearer than ever before in his life was the Englishman at that moment to +grasping the secret of control of this child of many moods. Had he but +learned it a few years, even a few months, sooner—But again was the +satire of fate manifest, the same irony which, jealously withholding the +rewards of labor, keeps the student at his desk, the laborer at his +bench, until the worse than useless prizes flutter about like Autumn +leaves.</p> + +<p>For a moment following Scotty's request there was absolute silence and +inaction; then, with a little appealing movement, the girl came close to +him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, daddy!" she cried. "Dear old daddy! You make it so hard for me! I +know you love me, and I do want to do as you wish; I want to be good; +but—but"—the brown head was upon Scotty's shoulder, and two soft arms +gripped him tight,—"but," the voice was all but choking, "I can't let +him go now. It's too late!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The driving of his own conveyance was to Sidwell a source of pride. It +was therefore no surprise to Florence that at dusk he and his pair of +thoroughbreds should appear alone. The girl, very grave, very quiet, had +been waiting for him, and was ready almost before he stopped. With a +smile of parental pride upon her face, Mollie was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> on the porch to say +good-bye. At the last moment she approached and kissed her daughter on +the cheek. Not in months before had the mother done such a thing as +that; and despite herself, as she walked toward the waiting carriage, +there came to the girl the thought of another historic kiss, and of a +Judas, the betrayer. Once within the narrow single-seated buggy she +looked back, hoping against hope; but her father was nowhere in sight.</p> + +<p>After the first greeting, neither she nor Sidwell spoke for some +minutes. For a time Florence did not even look at her companion. She had +a suspicion that he already knew most if not all that had taken place in +the Baker home the last day; and the thought tinged her face scarlet. At +last she gave a furtive glance at him. He was not looking, and her eyes +lingered on his face. It was paler than she had ever seen it before; +there were deep circles under the eyes, and he looked nervous and tired; +but over it all there was an expression of exaltation that could have +but one meaning to her.</p> + +<p>"You must let me read it when you get it in shape," she began suddenly.</p> + +<p>Sidwell turned blankly. "Read what, please?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The girl smiled triumphantly. "The story you have just written. I know +by your face it must be good."</p> + +<p>The flame of exaltation vanished. The man understood now.</p> + +<p>"What if I should refute your theory?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I hardly believe that is possible. I know of nothing else which could +make you look like that."</p> + +<p>Sidwell hesitated. "There are but few things," he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> admitted, "but +nevertheless I spoke the truth. It was one of them this time."</p> + +<p>Florence smiled interestedly. "I am very curious," she suggested.</p> + +<p>The brown eyes and the black met steadily. "Very well, then," said the +man, "I'll tell you. The reason was, because I have with me the +handsomest girl in the whole city."</p> + +<p>Instantly the brown eyes dropped; the face reddened, but not with the +flush of pleasure. Florence was not yet sufficiently artificial for such +empty compliment.</p> + +<p>"I'd rather you wouldn't say such things," she said simply. "They hurt +me."</p> + +<p>"But not when they're true," he persisted.</p> + +<p>There was no answer, and they drove on again in silence; the tap of the +thoroughbreds' feet on the asphalt sounding regular as the rattle of a +snare-drum, the rows of houses at either side running past like the +shifting scenes of a panorama. They passed numbers of other carriages, +and to the occupants of several Sidwell lifted his hat. Each as he did +so glanced at his companion curiously. The man was far too well known to +have his actions pass without gossip. At last they reached a semblance +of the open country, and a few minutes later Sidwell pointed out the row +of lights on the broad veranda of the big one-story club-house. The +affair had begun in the afternoon with a golf tournament, and when the +two drove up and Sidwell turned over his trotters to a man in waiting, +the entertainment was in full blast, although the hour was still early.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p> + +<p>The building itself, ordinarily ample for the organization's rather +exclusive membership, was fairly crowded on this occasion. The +club-house had been given up to the orchestra and dancers, and +refreshments were being served on the lawn and under the adjoining +trees. Even the veranda had been cleared of chairs.</p> + +<p>As Sidwell and his companion approached the place, he said in an +undertone, "Let's not get in the crush yet; if we do, we won't escape +all the evening." His dark eyes looked into his companion's face +meaningly. "I have something I wish especially to say to you."</p> + +<p>Florence did not meet his eyes, but she well knew the message therein. +She nodded assent to the request.</p> + +<p>Making a detour, they emerged into the park, and strolled back to a +place where, seeing, they themselves could not be seen. Sidwell found a +bench, and they sat down side by side. The girl offered no suggestion, +no protest. Since that row of lights had appeared in the distance she +had become passive. She knew beforehand all that was to take place; +something that she had decided to accede to, the details of which were +unimportant. An apathy which she did not attempt to explain held her. +The music heard so near, the glimpses of shifting, faultlessly dressed +figures, the loveliness of a perfect night—things that ordinarily would +have been intensely exhilarating—now passed by her unnoticed. Her +senses were temporarily in lethargy. If she had a conscious wish, it was +that the inevitable would come, and be over with.</p> + +<p>From without this land of unreality she was suddenly conscious of a +voice speaking to her. "Florence," it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> said, "Florence Baker, you know +before I say a word the thing I wish to tell you, the question I wish to +ask. You know, because more than once I've tried to speak, and at the +last moment you have prevented. But you can't stop me to-night. We have +run on understanding each other long enough; too long. I have never lied +to you yet, Florence, and I am not going to begin now. I will not even +analyze the feeling I have for you, or call it by name. I know this is +an unheard-of-way to talk to a girl, especially one so impressionable as +you; but I cannot help it. There is something about you, Florence, that +keeps me from untruth, when probably under the same circumstances I +would lie to any other woman in the world. I simply know that you +impersonate a desire of my nature ungratified; that without you I have +no wish to live."</p> + +<p>Strange and cold-blooded as this proposal would have seemed to a +listener, Florence heard it without a sign. It did not even affect her +with the shock of the unexpected. It was merely a part of that +inevitable something she had anticipated, and had for months watched +slowly taking form.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it seems unaccountable to you," the voice went on, "that I +should have been attracted to you in the first place. It has often been +so to me, and I've tried to explain it. Beautiful, you undeniably are, +Florence; but I do not believe it was that. It was, I think, because, +despite your ideals of something which—pardon me—doesn't exist, you +were absolutely natural; and the women I'd met before were the reverse +of that. Like myself, they had tasted of life and found it flat. I +danced with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> them, drank with them, went the round of so-called gayety +with them; but they repelled me. But you, Florence, are very different. +You make me think of a prairie anemone with the dew on its petals. I +haven't much to offer you save money, which you already have in plenty, +and an empty fame; but I'll play the game fair. I'll take you anywhere +in the world, do anything you wish." Out of the shadow an arm crept +around the girl's waist, closed there, and she did not stir. "I am +writing an English story now, and the principal character, a soldier, +has been ordered to India. To catch the atmosphere, I've got to be on +the spot. The boat I wish to take will leave in ten days. Will you go +with me as my wife?"</p> + +<p>The voice paused, and the face so near her own remained motionless, +waiting. Into the pause crept the music of the orchestra—beat, beat, +beat, like the throbbing of a mighty heart. Above it, distinct for an +instant, sounded the tinkle of a woman's laugh; then again silence. It +was now the girl's turn to speak, to answer; but not a sound left her +lips. She had an odd feeling that she was playing a game of checkers, +and that it was her turn to play. "Move!" said an inward monitor. "Move! +move!" But she knew not where or how.</p> + +<p>The man's arm tightened around her; his lips touched hers again and +again; and although she was conscious of the fact, it carried no +particular significance. It all seemed a part of the scene that was +going on in which she was a silent actor—of the game in which she was a +player.</p> + +<p>"Florence," said an insistent voice, "Florence, Florence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> Baker! Don't +sit like that! For God's sake, speak to me, answer me!"</p> + +<p>This time the figure stirred, the head drooped in assent.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said.</p> + +<p>Again the circling arm tightened, and the man's lips touched her own, +again and again. The very repetition aroused her.</p> + +<p>"And you will sail with me in ten days?"</p> + +<p>Fully awake was Florence Baker now, fully conscious of all that had +happened and was happening.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said. "The sooner the better. I want to have it over with." A +moment longer she sat still as death; then suddenly the mood of apathy +departed, and in infinite weakness, infinite pathos, the dark head +buried itself on the man's shoulder. "Promise me," she pleaded brokenly, +"that you will be kind to me! Promise me that you always will be kind!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> +<h3>LOVE'S SURRENDER</h3></div> + +<p>Scotty Baker was not an adept at concealing his emotions, and he stared +in unqualified surprise at the long figure in brown which of a sudden +intruded into his range of vision. The morning paper upon his knees +fluttered unnoticed to the floor of the porch.</p> + +<p>"Ben Blair, by all that's good and proper!" he exclaimed to the man who, +without a look to either side, turned up the short walk. "Where in +heaven's name did you come from? I supposed you'd gone home a week ago."</p> + +<p>Blair stopped at the steps, and deliberately wiped the perspiration from +his face.</p> + +<p>"You were misinformed about my going," he explained. "I changed hotels, +that was all."</p> + +<p>Scotty stared harder than before.</p> + +<p>"But why?" he groped. "I inquired of the clerk, and he said you had gone +by an afternoon train. I don't see—"</p> + +<p>Ben mounted the steps and took a chair opposite the Englishman.</p> + +<p>"If you will excuse me," he said, "I would rather not go into details. +The fact's enough—I am still here.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> Besides—pardon me—I did not call +to be questioned, but to question. You remember the last time I saw +you?"</p> + +<p>Scotty nodded an affirmative. He had a premonition that the unexpected +was about to happen.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said.</p> + +<p>Ben lit a cigar. "You remember, then, that you made me a certain +promise?"</p> + +<p>Scotty threw one leg over the other restlessly. "Yes, I remember," he +repeated.</p> + +<p>The visitor eyed him keenly. "I would like to know if you kept it," he +said.</p> + +<p>Scotty felt the seat of his chair growing even more uncomfortable than +before, and he cast about for an avenue of escape. One presented itself.</p> + +<p>"Is that what you stayed to find out?" he questioned in his turn.</p> + +<p>Ben blew out a cloud of smoke, and then another.</p> + +<p>"No, not the main reason. But that has nothing to do with the subject. I +have a right to ask the question. Did you or did you not keep your +promise?"</p> + +<p>The Englishman's first impulse was to refuse point-blank to answer; +then, on second thought, he decided that such a course would be unwise. +The other really did have a right to ask.</p> + +<p>"I—" he hesitated, "decided—"</p> + +<p>But interrupting, Ben raised his hand, palm outward.</p> + +<p>"Don't dodge the question. Yes or no?"</p> + +<p>Scotty hesitated again, and his face grew red.</p> + +<p>"No," he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p> + +<p>The visitor's hand, fingers outspread, returned to his knee.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I have one more question to ask. Do you intend, without +trying to prevent it, to let your daughter throw away her every chance +of future happiness? Are you, Florence's father, going to let her marry +Sidwell?"</p> + +<p>With one motion Scotty was on his feet. The eyes behind the thick lenses +fairly flashed.</p> + +<p>"You are insulting, sir," he blazed. "I can stand much from you, Ben +Blair, but this interference in my family affairs I cannot overlook. I +request you to leave my premises!"</p> + +<p>Blair did not stir. His face remained as impassive as before.</p> + +<p>"Your pardon again," he said steadily, "but I refuse. I did not come to +quarrel with you, and I won't; but we will have an understanding—now. +Sit down, please."</p> + +<p>The Englishman stared, almost with open mouth. Had any one told him he +would be coerced in this way within his own home he would have called +that person mad; nevertheless, the first flash of anger over, he said no +more.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, please," repeated Ben; and this time, without a word or a +protest, he was obeyed.</p> + +<p>Ben straightened in his seat, then leaned forward. "Mr. Baker," he said, +"you do not doubt that I love Florence—that I wish nothing but her +good?"</p> + +<p>Scotty nodded a reluctant assent.</p> + +<p>"No; I don't doubt you, Ben," he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p> + +<p>The thin face of the younger man leaned forward and grew more intense.</p> + +<p>"You know what Sidwell is—what the result will be if Florence marries +him?"</p> + +<p>Scotty's head dropped into his hands. He knew what was coming.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," he admitted.</p> + +<p>Ben paused, and had the other been looking he would have seen that his +ordinarily passive face was working in a way which no one would have +thought possible.</p> + +<p>"In heaven's name, then," he said, slowly, "why do you allow it? Have +you forgotten that it is only three days until the date set? God! man, +you must be sleeping! It is ghastly—even the thought of it!"</p> + +<p>Surprised out of himself, Scotty looked up. The intensity of the appeal +was a thing to put life into a figure of clay. For an instant he felt +the stimulant, felt his blood quicken at the suggestion of action; then +his impotence returned.</p> + +<p>"I have tried, Ben," he explained weakly, "but I can do nothing. If I +attempted to interfere it would only make matters worse. Florence is as +completely out of my control as—" he paused for a simile—"as the +sunshine. I missed my opportunity with her when she was young. She has +always had her own way, and she will have it now. It is the same as when +she decided to come to town. She controls me, not I her."</p> + +<p>Blair settled back in his chair. The mask of impassivity dropped back +over his face, not again to lift. He was again in command of himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You expect to do nothing more, then?" he asked finally.</p> + +<p>Scotty did not look up. "No," he responded. "I can do nothing more. She +will have to find out her mistake for herself."</p> + +<p>Ben regarded the older man steadily. It would have been difficult to +express that look in words.</p> + +<p>"You'd be willing to help, would you," he suggested, "if you saw a way?"</p> + +<p>The Englishman's eyes lifted. Even the incredible took on an air of +possibility in the hands of this strong-willed ranchman.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he repeated. "I will gladly do anything I can."</p> + +<p>For half a minute Ben Blair did not speak. Not a nerve twitched or a +muscle stirred in his long body; then he stood up, the broad sinewy +shoulders squared, the masterful chin lifted.</p> + +<p>"Very well," he said. "Call a carriage, and be ready to leave town in +half an hour."</p> + +<p>Scotty blinked helplessly. The necessity of sudden action always threw +him into confusion. His mind needed not minutes but days to adjust +itself to the unpremeditated.</p> + +<p>"Why?" he queried. "What do you intend doing?"</p> + +<p>But Ben did not stop to explain. Already he was at the door of the +vestibule. "Don't ask me now. Do as I say, and you'll see!" And he +stepped inside.</p> + +<p>Within the entrance, he paused for a moment. He had never been in any +room of the house except the library<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> adjoining; and after a few +seconds, walking over, he tapped twice on the door.</p> + +<p>There was no answer, and he stepped inside. The place was empty, but, +listening from the dining-room on the left he heard the low intermittent +murmur of voices in conversation and the occasional click of china. +Sliding doors connected the rooms, and again for an instant he +hesitated. Then, pulling them apart, he stood fairly in the aperture.</p> + +<p>As he had expected, Florence and her mother were at breakfast. The doors +had slid noiselessly, and for an instant neither observed him. Florence +was nearest, half-facing him, and she was the first to glance up. As she +did so, the coffee-cup in her hand shook spasmodically and a great brown +blotch spread over the white tablecloth. Simultaneously her eyes +widened, her cheeks blanched, and she stared as at a ghost. Her mother, +too, turned at the spectacle, and her color shifted to an ashen gray.</p> + +<p>For some seconds not one of the three spoke or stirred. It was Mrs. +Baker who first arose and advanced toward the intruder, as threateningly +as it was possible for her to do.</p> + +<p>"Who, if I might ask, invited you to come this way?" she challenged.</p> + +<p>Ben took one step inside the room and folded his arms.</p> + +<p>"I came without being asked," he explained evenly.</p> + +<p>Mollie's weak oval face stiffened. She felt instinctively that her +chiefest desires were in supreme menace. But one defense suggested +itself—to be rid of the intruder at once.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I trust, then, you are enough of a gentleman to return the way you +came," she said icily.</p> + +<p>Ben did not even glance at her. He was looking at the dainty little +figure still motionless at the table.</p> + +<p>"If that is the mark of a gentleman, I am not one," he answered.</p> + +<p>The mother's face flamed. Like Scotty, her brain moved slowly, and on +the spur of the moment inadequate insult alone answered her call.</p> + +<p>"I might have expected such a remark from a cowman!" she burst forth.</p> + +<p>Instantly Florence was upon her feet; but Ben Blair gave no indication +that he had heard. His arms still folded, he took two steps nearer the +girl, then stopped.</p> + +<p>"Florence," he said steadily, "I have just seen your father. We +three—he, you, and I—are going back home, back to the prairies. Our +train leaves at eleven o'clock. The carriage will be here in half an +hour. You have plenty of time if you hurry."</p> + +<p>Again there was silence. Once more it was the mother who spoke first.</p> + +<p>"You must be mad, both of you!" she cried. "Florence is to be married in +three days, and it would take two to go each way. You must be mad!"</p> + +<p>It was the girl's turn to grow pale. She began to understand.</p> + +<p>"You say you and papa evolved this programme?" she said sarcastically. +"What part, pray, did he take?"</p> + +<p>Blair was as impassive as before.</p> + +<p>"I suggested it, and your father acquiesced."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And the third party, myself—" The girl's eyes were very bright.</p> + +<p>"I undertook the task of having you ready when the carriage comes."</p> + +<p>One of Florence's brown hands grasped the back of the chair before her.</p> + +<p>"I trust you did not underestimate the difficulty," she commented +ironically. "Otherwise you might be disappointed."</p> + +<p>Ben said nothing. He did not even stir.</p> + +<p>Another group of seconds were gathered into the past. The inactivity +tugged at the girl's nerves.</p> + +<p>"By the way," she asked, "where are we going to stay when we arrive, and +for how long?"</p> + +<p>"You are to be my guests," answered Blair. "As to the length of time, +nothing has been arranged."</p> + +<p>Florence made one more effort to consider the affair lightly.</p> + +<p>"You speak with a good deal of assurance," she commented. "Did it never +occur to you that at this particular time I might decide not to go?"</p> + +<p>Ben returned her look.</p> + +<p>"No," he said.</p> + +<p>Beneath the trim brown figure one foot was nervously tapping the floor.</p> + +<p>"In other words, you expect to take me against my will,—by physical +force?"</p> + +<p>"No." Ben again spoke deliberately. "You will come of your own choice."</p> + +<p>"And leave Mr. Sidwell?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Without an explanation?"</p> + +<p>"None will be necessary, I think. The fact itself will be enough."</p> + +<p>"And never—marry him?"</p> + +<p>"And never marry him."</p> + +<p>"You think he would not follow?"</p> + +<p>"I know he would not!"</p> + +<p>There was a pause in the swift passage of words. The girl's breath was +coming with difficulty. The spell of this indomitable rancher was +settling upon her.</p> + +<p>"You really imagine I will do such an unheard-of thing?" she asked +slowly.</p> + +<p>"I imagine nothing," he answered quickly. "I know."</p> + +<p>It was the crisis, and into it Mollie intruded with clumsy tread. +"Florence," she urged, "Florence, don't listen to him any longer. He +must be intoxicated. Come with me!" and she started to drag the girl +away.</p> + +<p>Without a word, Ben Blair walked across to the door leading into the +room beyond, and stood with his hand on the knob.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Baker," he said slowly, "I thought I would not speak an unkind +word to-day, no matter what was said to me; but you have offended too +often." His glance took in the indolently shapeless figure from head to +toe, and back again until he met her eye to eye. "You are the +personification of cowardice, of selfishness and snobbery, that makes +one despise his kind. For mere personal vanity you would sacrifice your +own daughter—your own flesh and blood. Probably we shall never meet +again; but if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> we should, do not dare to speak to me. Do not speak to me +now!" He swung open the door, and indicated the passage with a nod of +his head. "Go," he said, "and if you are a Christian, pray for a better +heart—for forgiveness!"</p> + +<p>The woman hesitated; her lips moved, but she was dumb. She wanted to +refuse, but the irresistible power in those relentless blue eyes +compelled her to obey. Without a word she left the room and closed the +door behind her.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair came back. The girl had not moved.</p> + +<p>"Florence," he said, "there are but twenty minutes left. I ask you again +to get ready."</p> + +<p>The girl's color rose anew; her blood flowed tumultuously, until she +could feel the beating of the pulses at her wrists.</p> + +<p>"Ben Blair," she challenged, "you are trying to prevent my marrying +another man! Is it not so?"</p> + +<p>The rancher folded his arms again.</p> + +<p>"I am preventing it," he said.</p> + +<p>Florence's brown eyes blazed. She clasped her hands together until the +fingers were white.</p> + +<p>"You admit it, then!" she cried, looking at her companion steadily, a +world of scorn in her face. "I never thought such a thing possible—that +you would let your jealousy get the better of you like this!" She +paused, and hurled the taunt she knew would hurt him most. "You are the +last person on earth I would have selected to become a dog in the +manger!"</p> + +<p>Ben did not stir, although the brown of his sun-tanned face went white.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I looked for that," he said simply.</p> + +<p>Florence's brown eyes widened in wonder—and in something +more—something she did not understand. Her heart was beating more +wildly than before. She felt her self-control slipping from her grasp, +like a rope through her hands.</p> + +<p>"There seems nothing more to be said, then," she said, "except that I +will not go."</p> + +<p>Even yet Blair did not move.</p> + +<p>"You will go. The carriage comes in ten minutes," he reiterated calmly.</p> + +<p>The small figure stiffened, the dainty chin tilted in the air.</p> + +<p>"I defy you to tell me how you can force me to go!"</p> + +<p>It was the supreme moment, but Benjamin Blair showed no trace of +excitement or of passion. His folded arms remained passive across his +chest.</p> + +<p>"Florence Baker, did I ever lie to you?"</p> + +<p>The girl's lip trembled. She knew now what to expect.</p> + +<p>"No," she said.</p> + +<p>"You are quite sure?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am quite sure."</p> + +<p>"Did I ever say I would do anything that I did not do?"</p> + +<p>The girl had an all but irrepressible desire to cry out, to cover her +face like a child. A flash of anger at her inability to maintain her +self-control swept over her.</p> + +<p>"No," she admitted. "I never knew you to break your word."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then," still no haste, no anger,—only the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> relentless calm +which was infinitely more terrible than either. "I will tell you why of +your own choice you will go with me. It is because you value the life of +Clarence Sidwell; because, as surely as I have not lied to you or to any +human being in the past, there is no power on earth that can otherwise +keep me away from him an hour longer."</p> + +<p>Realization came instantaneously to Florence Baker and blotted out +self-consciousness. The nervous tension vanished as fog before the sun.</p> + +<p>"You would not do it," she said, very steadily. "You could not do it!"</p> + +<p>Ben Blair said not a word.</p> + +<p>"You could not," repeated the girl swiftly; "could not, because +you—love me!"</p> + +<p>One of the man's hands loosened in an unconscious gesture.</p> + +<p>"Don't repeat that, please, or trust in it," he answered. "You misled me +once, but you can't mislead me again. It is because I love you that I +will do what I said."</p> + +<p>There was but one weapon in the arsenal adequate to meet the emergency. +With a sudden motion, the girl came close to him.</p> + +<p>"Ben, Ben Blair," her arms flashed around the man's neck, the brown +eyes—moist, sparkling—were turned to his face, "promise me you will +not do it." The dainty throat swelled and receded with her short quick +breaths. "Promise me! Please promise me!"</p> + +<p>For a second the rancher did not stir; then, very gently, he freed +himself and moved a step backward.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Florence," he said slowly, "you do not know me even yet." He drew out +his big old-fashioned silver watch, once Rankin's. "You still have four +minutes to get ready—no more, no less."</p> + +<p>Silence like that of a death-chamber fell over the bright little +dining-room. From the outside came the sound of Mollie's step as she +moved back and forth, back and forth, but dared not enter. A boy was +clipping the lawn, and the muffled purr of the mower, accompanied by the +bit of popular ragtime he was whistling, stole into the room.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a carriage drove up in front of the house, and leaping from his +seat the driver stood waiting. The door of the vestibule opened, and +Scotty himself stepped uncertainly within. At the library entrance he +halted, but the odor of the black cigar he was smoking was wafted in.</p> + +<p>Through it all, neither of the two in that room had stirred. It would +have been impossible to tell what Ben Blair was thinking. His eyes never +left the watch in his hand. During the first minute the girl had not +looked at her companion. Unappeasable anger seemed personified in her. +For half of the next minute she still stood impassive; then she glanced +up almost surreptitiously. For the long third minute the eyes held where +they had lifted, and slowly over the soft brown face, taking the place +of the former expression, came a look that was not of anger or of +hatred, not even of dislike, but of something the reverse, something all +but unbelievable. Her dark eyes softened. A choking lump came into her +throat; and still, in seeming paradox, she was of a sudden happier than +at any time she could remember.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p> + +<p>Before the last minute was up, before Ben Blair had replaced the watch, +she was in the adjoining room saying good-bye to Mollie hurriedly; +saying something more,—a thing that fairly took the mother's breath.</p> + +<p>"Florence Baker!" she gasped, "you shall not do it! If you do, I will +disown you! I will never forgive you—never! never!"</p> + +<p>But, unheeding, the girl was already back, and looking into Ben's face. +Her eyes were very bright, and there was about her a suppressed +excitement that the other did not clearly understand.</p> + +<p>"I am ready," she said, "on one condition."</p> + +<p>Blair's blue eyes looked a question. In any other mood he would have +recognized Florence, but this strange person he hardly seemed to know.</p> + +<p>"I am listening," he said.</p> + +<p>The girl hesitated, the rosy color mounting to her cheeks. Decision of +action was far easier than expression.</p> + +<p>"I will go with you," she faltered, "but alone."</p> + +<p>A suggestion of the flame on the other's face sprang to the man's also.</p> + +<p>"I think, under the circumstances," he stammered, "it would be better to +have your father go too."</p> + +<p>The dainty brown figure stiffened.</p> + +<p>"Very well, then—I will not go!"</p> + +<p>The man stood for a moment immovable, with unshifting eyes, like a +figure in clay; then, turning, without a word, he started to leave the +room. He had almost reached the door, when he heard a voice behind him.</p> + +<p>"Ben Blair," it said insistently, "Ben Blair!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span></p> + +<p>He paused, glanced back, and could scarcely believe his eyes. The girl +was coming toward him; but it was a Florence he had not previously +known. Her face was rosier than before, red to her very ears and to the +waves of her hair. Her chin was held high, and beneath the thin brown +skin of the throat the veins were athrob.</p> + +<p>"Ben Blair," she repeated intensely, "Ben Blair, can't you understand +what I meant? Must I put it into words?" The soft brown eyes were +looking at him frankly. "Oh, you are blind, blind!"</p> + +<p>For a second, like the lull before the thunderclap, the man did not +move; then of a sudden he grasped the girl by the shoulders, and held +her at arm's length.</p> + +<p>"Florence," he cried, "are you playing with me?"</p> + +<p>She spoke no word, but her gaze held his unfalteringly.</p> + +<p>Minutes passed, but still the man could not believe the testimony of his +eyes. The confession was too unexpected, too incredible. Unconsciously +the grip of his hands tightened.</p> + +<p>"Am I—mad?" he gasped. "You care for me—you are willing to go—because +you love me?"</p> + +<p>Even yet the girl did not answer; but no human being could longer +question the expression on her face. Ben Blair could not doubt it, and +the reflection of love glowing in the tear-wet eyes flashed into his +own. The past, with all that it had held, vanished like the memory of an +unpleasant dream. The present, the vital throbbing present, alone +remained. Suddenly the tense arms relaxed. Another second, and the brown +head was upon his shoulder.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Florence," he cried passionately, "Florence, Florence!"</p> + +<p>He could say no more, only repeat over and over her dear name.</p> + +<p>"Ben," sobbed the girl, "Ben! Ben!" An interrupting memory drew her to +him closer and closer. "I loved you all the time!—loved you!—and yet I +so nearly—can you ever forgive me?"</p> + +<p>Wondering at the prolonged silence, Scotty came hesitatingly into the +library, peered in at the open doorway, and stood transfixed.</p> + + +<p class='center'>THE END</p> +<hr class="full" /> + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em;"> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 334]</span> +<p style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;"> +POPULAR COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br /> +AT MODERATE PRICES</p> +</div> + +<p style="text-indent: 0">Any of the following titles can be bought of your +Bookseller at the price you paid for this volume.</p> +<hr class="minor" /> +<p class="booklist"> +<span class="bold">Adventures of Captain Kettle.</span> Cutcliffe Hyne.<br /> +<span class="bold">Adventures of Gerard</span>. A. Conan Doyle.<br /> +<span class="bold">Adventures of Sherlock Holmes</span>. A. Conan Doyle.<br /> +<span class="bold">Alton of Somasco</span>. 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Weyman.<br /> +<span class="bold">Maid at Arms, The.</span> Robert W. Chambers.<br /> +<span class="bold">Man from Red Keg, The.</span> Eugene Thwing.</p> + +<hr class="short"/> + +<p class="center">A. L. BURT CO., Publishers, 52–58 Duane St., New York City</p> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em;"> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 335]</span> +<p style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;"> +POPULAR COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br /> +AT MODERATE PRICES</p> +</div> + +<p style="text-indent: 0">Any of the following titles can be bought of your +Bookseller at the price you paid for this volume.</p> +<hr class="short"/> + +<p class="booklist"> +<span class="bold">Marathon Mystery, The.</span> Burton Egbert Stevenson.<br /> +<span class="bold">Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.</span> A. Conan Doyle.<br /> +<span class="bold">Millionaire Baby, The.</span> Anna Katharine Green.<br /> +<span class="bold">Missourian, The.</span> Eugene P. 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Marjorie Bowen.<br /> +<span class="bold">Voice of the People, The.</span> Ellen Glasgow.<br /> +<span class="bold">Wheel of Life, The.</span> Ellen Glasgow.<br /> +<span class="bold">When I Was Czar.</span> Arthur W. Marchmont.<br /> +<span class="bold">When Wilderness Was King.</span> Randall Parrish.<br /> +<span class="bold">Woman in Grey, A.</span> Mrs. C. N. Williamson.<br /> +<span class="bold">Woman in the Alcove, The.</span> Anna Katharine Green.</p> + +<hr class="short"/> + +<p class="center">A. L. BURT CO., Publishers, 52–58 Duane St., New York City</p> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em;"> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 336]</span> +<span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;"> +BURT'S SERIES of STANDARD FICTION.</span> +</div> + +<div style="text-indent: 0"> +<p><span class="bold">RICHELIEU.</span> A tale of France in the reign of King Louis XIII. By G. P. R. +James. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +In 1829 Mr. James published his first romance, "Richelieu," and was +recognized at once as one of the masters of the craft.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +In this book he laid the story during those later days of the great cardinal's +life, when his power was beginning to wane, but while it was +yet sufficiently strong to permit now and then of volcanic outbursts which +overwhelmed foes and carried friends to the topmost wave of prosperity. +One of the most striking portions of the story is that of Cinq Mar's conspiracy; +the method of conducting criminal cases, and the political trickery +resorted to by royal favorites, affording a better insight into the state-craft +of that day than can be had even by an exhaustive study of history. +It is a powerful romance of love and diplomacy, and in point of thrilling +and absorbing interest has never been excelled. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">A COLONIAL FREE-LANCE.</span> A story of American Colonial Times. By +Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +A book that appeals to Americans as a vivid picture of Revolutionary +scenes. The story is a strong one, a thrilling one. It causes the true +American to flush with excitement, to devour chapter after chapter, until +the eyes smart, and it fairly smokes with patriotism. The love story is a +singularly charming idyl. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">THE TOWER OF LONDON.</span> A Historical Romance of the Times of Lady +Jane Grey and Mary Tudor. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth. Cloth, 12mo. with +four illustrations by George Cruikshank. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +This romance of the "Tower of London" depicts the Tower as palace, +prison and fortress, with many historical associations. The era is the +middle of the sixteenth century.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The story is divided into two parts, one dealing with Lady Jane Grey, +and the other with Mary Tudor as Queen, introducing other notable characters +of the era. Throughout the story holds the interest of the reader +in the midst of intrigue and conspiracy, extending considerably over a +half a century. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING.</span> A Romance of the American Revolution. +By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +Mr. Hotchkiss has etched in burning words a story of Yankee bravery, +and true love that thrills from beginning to end, with the spirit of the +Revolution. The heart beats quickly, and we feel ourselves taking a +part in the exciting scenes described. His whole story is so absorbing +that you will sit up far into the night to finish it. As a love romance +it is charming. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">GARTHOWEN.</span> A story of a Welsh Homestead. By Allen Raine. Cloth, +12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +"This is a little idyl of humble life and enduring love, laid bare before +us, very real and pure, which in its telling shows us some strong points of +Welsh character—the pride, the hasty temper, the quick dying out of wrath.... +We call this a well-written story, interesting alike through its +romance and its glimpses into another life than ours. A delightful and +clever picture of Welsh village life. The result is excellent."—Detroit Free +Press. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">MIFANWY.</span> The story of a Welsh Singer. By Allan Raine. Cloth, +12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +"This is a love story, simple, tender and pretty as one would care to +read. The action throughout is brisk and pleasing; the characters, it is apparent +at once, are as true to life as though the author had known them +all personally. Simple in all its situations, the story is worked up in that +touching and quaint strain which never grows wearisome, no matter how +often the lights and shadows of love are introduced. It rings true, and +does not tax the imagination."—Boston Herald.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em;"> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 337]</span> +<span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;"> +BURT'S SERIES of STANDARD FICTION.</span> +</div> + +<div style="text-indent: 0"> +<p><span class="bold">DARNLEY.</span> A Romance of the times of Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey. +By G.P.R. James. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. +Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +As a historical romance "Darnley" is a book that can be taken up +pleasurably again and again, for there is about it that subtle charm which +those who are strangers to the works of G.P.R. James have claimed was +only to be imparted by Dumas.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +If there was nothing more about the work to attract especial attention, +the account of the meeting of the kings on the historic "field of the cloth of +gold" would entitle the story to the most favorable consideration of every +reader.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +There is really but little pure romance in this story, for the author has +taken care to imagine love passages only between those whom history has +credited with having entertained the tender passion one for another, and +he succeeds in making such lovers as all the world must love. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">WINDSOR CASTLE.</span> A Historical Romance of the Reign of Henry VIII. +Catharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth. Cloth. +12mo. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +"Windsor Castle" is the story of Henry VIII., Catharine, and Anne +Boleyn. "Bluff King Hal," although a well-loved monarch, was none too +good a one in many ways. Of all his selfishness and unwarrantable acts, +none was more discreditable than his divorce from Catharine, and his marriage +to the beautiful Anne Boleyn. The King's love was as brief as it +was vehement. Jane Seymour, waiting maid on the Queen, attracted him, +and Anne Boleyn was forced to the block to make room for her successor. +This romance is one of extreme interest to all readers. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">HORSESHOE ROBINSON.</span> A tale of the Tory Ascendency in South Carolina +in 1780. By John P. Kennedy. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. +Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +Among the old favorites in the field of what is known as historical fiction, +there are none which appeal to a larger number of Americans than +Horseshoe Robinson, and this because it is the only story which depicts +with fidelity to the facts the heroic efforts of the colonists in South Carolina +to defend their homes against the brutal oppression of the British +under such leaders as Cornwallis and Tarleton.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The reader is charmed with the story of love which forms the thread +of the tale, and then impressed with the wealth of detail concerning those +times. The picture of the manifold sufferings of the people, is never over-drawn, +but painted faithfully and honestly by one who spared neither +time nor labor in his efforts to present in this charming love story all that +price in blood and tears which the Carolinians paid as their share in the +winning of the republic.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +Take it all in all, "Horseshoe Robinson" is a work which should be +found on every book-shelf, not only because it is a most entertaining +story, but because of the wealth of valuable information concerning the +colonists which it contains. That it has been brought out once more, well +illustrated, is something which will give pleasure to thousands who have +long desired an opportunity to read the story again, and to the many who +have tried vainly in these latter days to procure a copy that they might +read it for the first time. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.</span> A story of the Coast of Maine. By +Harriet Beecher Stowe. Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +Written prior to 1862, the "Pearl of Orr's Island" is ever new; a book +filled with delicate fancies, such as seemingly array themselves anew each +time one reads them. One sees the "sea like an unbroken mirror all +around the pine-girt, lonely shores of Orr's Island," and straightway +comes "the heavy, hollow moan of the surf on the beach, like the wild +angry howl of some savage animal."</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +Who can read of the beginning of that sweet life, named Mara, which +came into this world under the very shadow of the Death angel's wings, +without having an intense desire to know how the premature bud blossomed? +Again and again one lingers over the descriptions of the character +of that baby boy Moses, who came through the tempest, amid the +angry billows, pillowed on his dead mother's breast.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +There is no more faithful portrayal of New England life than that +which Mrs. Stowe gives in "The Pearl of Orr's Island." +</p> +</div> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em;"> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 338]</span> +<span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;"> +BURT'S SERIES of STANDARD FICTION.</span> +</div> + +<div style="text-indent: 0"> +<p><span class="bold">THE SPIRIT OF THE BORDER.</span> A Romance of the Early Settlers in the +Ohio Valley. By Zane Grey. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +A book rather out of the ordinary is this "Spirit of the Border." The +main thread of the story has to do with the work of the Moravian missionaries +in the Ohio Valley. Incidentally the reader is given details of the +frontier life of those hardy pioneers who broke the wilderness for the planting +of this great nation. Chief among these, as a matter of course, is +Lewis Wetzel, one of the most peculiar, and at the same time the most +admirable of all the brave men who spent their lives battling with the +savage foe, that others might dwell in comparative security.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +Details of the establishment and destruction of the Moravian "Village +of Peace" are given at some length, and with minute description. The +efforts to Christianize the Indians are described as they never have been +before, and the author has depicted the characters of the leaders of the +several Indian tribes with great care, which of itself will be of interest to +the student.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +By no means least among the charms of the story are the vivid word-pictures +of the thrilling adventures, and the intense paintings of the beauties +of nature, as seen in the almost unbroken forests.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +It is the spirit of the frontier which is described, and one can by it, +perhaps, the better understand why men, and women, too, willingly braved +every privation and danger that the westward progress of the star of empire +might be the more certain and rapid. A love story, simple and tender, +runs through the book. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">CAPTAIN BRAND, OF THE SCHOONER CENTIPEDE.</span> By Lieut. +Henry A. Wise, U.S.N. (Harry Gringo). Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations +by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The re-publication of this story will please those lovers of sea yarns +who delight in so much of the salty flavor of the ocean as can come through +the medium of a printed page, for never has a story of the sea and those +"who go down in ships" been written by one more familiar with the scenes +depicted.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The one book of this gifted author which is best remembered, and which +will be read with pleasure for many years to come, is "Captain Brand," +who, as the author states on his title page, was a "pirate of eminence in +the West Indies." As a sea story pure and simple, "Captain Brand" has +never been excelled, and as a story of piratical life, told without the usual +embellishments of blood and thunder, it has no equal. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">NICK OF THE WOODS.</span> A story of the Early Settlers of Kentucky. By +Robert Montgomery Bird. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +This most popular novel and thrilling story of early frontier life in +Kentucky was originally published in the year 1837. The novel, long out of +print, had in its day a phenomenal sale, for its realistic presentation of +Indian and frontier life in the early days of settlement in the South, narrated +in the tale with all the art of a practiced writer. A very charming +love romance runs through the story. This new and tasteful edition of +"Nick of the Woods" will be certain to make many new admirers for +this enchanting story from Dr. Bird's clever and versatile pen. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">GUY FAWKES.</span> A Romance of the Gunpowder Treason. By Wm. Harrison +Ainsworth. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank. +Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The "Gunpowder Plot" was a modest attempt to blow up Parliament, +the King and his Counsellors. James of Scotland, then King of England, +was weak-minded and extravagant. He hit upon the efficient scheme of +extorting money from the people by imposing taxes on the Catholics. In +their natural resentment to this extortion, a handful of bold spirits concluded +to overthrow the government. Finally the plotters were arrested, +and the King put to torture Guy Fawkes and the other prisoners with +royal vigor. A very intense love story runs through the entire romance.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em;"> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 339]</span> +<span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;"> +BURT'S SERIES of STANDARD FICTION.</span> +</div> + +<div style="text-indent: 0"> +<p><span class="bold">TICONDEROGA:</span> A Story of Early Frontier Life in the Mohawk Valley. +By G.P.R. James. Cloth, 12mo. with four page illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The setting of the story is decidedly more picturesque than any ever +evolved by Cooper: The frontier of New York State, where dwelt an English +gentleman, driven from his native home by grief over the loss of his wife, +with a son and daughter. Thither, brought by the exigencies of war, comes +an English officer, who is readily recognized as that Lord Howe who met his +death at Ticonderoga. As a most natural sequence, even amid the hostile +demonstrations of both French and Indians, Lord Howe and the young girl +find time to make most deliciously sweet love, and the son of the recluse has +already lost his heart to the daughter of a great sachem, a dusky maiden +whose warrior-father has surrounded her with all the comforts of a civilized +life.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The character of Captain Brooks, who voluntarily decides to sacrifice his +own life in order to save the son of the Englishman, is not among the least +of the attractions of this story, which holds the attention of the reader even +to the last page. The tribal laws and folk lore of the different tribes of +Indians known as the "Five Nations," with which the story is interspersed, +shows that the author gave no small amount of study to the work in question, +and nowhere else is it shown more plainly than by the skilful manner in +which he has interwoven with his plot the "blood" law, which demands a +life for a life, whether it be that of the murderer or one of his race.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +A more charming story of mingled love and adventure has never been +written than "Ticonderoga." +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">ROB OF THE BOWL:</span> A Story of the Early Days of Maryland. By John +P. Kennedy. Cloth, 12mo. with four page illustrations by J. Watson Davis. +Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +It was while he was a member of Congress from Maryland that the +noted statesman wrote this story regarding the early history of his native +State, and while some critics are inclined to consider "Horse Shoe Robinson" +as the best of his works, it is certain that "Rob of the Bowl" stands at the +head of the list as a literary production and an authentic exposition of the +manners and customs during Lord Baltimore's rule. The greater portion of +the action takes place in St. Mary's—the original capital of the State.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +As a series of pictures of early colonial life in Maryland, "Rob of the +Bowl" has no equal, and the book, having been written by one who had +exceptional facilities for gathering material concerning the individual members +of the settlements in and about St. Mary's, is a most valuable addition +to the history of the State.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The story is full of splendid action, with a charming love story, and a +plot that never loosens the grip of its interest to its last page. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">BY BERWEN BANKS.</span> By Allen Raine.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +It is a tender and beautiful romance of the idyllic. A charming picture +of life in a Welsh seaside village. It is something of a prose-poem, true, +tender and graceful. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING.</span> A romance of the American Revolution. +By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The story opens in the month of April, 1775, with the provincial troops +hurrying to the defense of Lexington and Concord. Mr. Hotchkiss has etched +in burning words a story of Yankee bravery and true love that thrills from +beginning to end with the spirit of the Revolution. The heart beats quickly, +and we feel ourselves taking a part in the exciting scenes described. You +lay the book aside with the feeling that you have seen a gloriously true +picture of the Revolution. His whole story is so absorbing that you will sit +up far into the night to finish it. As a love romance it is charming.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em;"> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 340]</span> +<span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;"> +POPULAR LITERATURE FOR THE MASSES, +COMPRISING CHOICE SELECTIONS FROM THE +TREASURES OF THE WORLD'S KNOWLEDGE, +ISSUED IN A SUBSTANTIAL AND ATTRACTIVE +CLOTH BINDING, AT A POPULAR PRICE</span> +</div> + +<div> +<p style="text-indent:0">BURT'S HOME LIBRARY is a series which +includes the standard works of the world's best literature, +bound in uniform cloth binding, gilt tops, embracing +chiefly selections from writers of the most notable +English, American and Foreign Fiction, together with +many important works in the domains +of History, Biography, Philosophy, +Travel, Poetry and the Essays.</p> + +<img style="border:none; float:right; margin-left:25px" src="images/book.jpg" width="80" alt="Illustration: Book" title="" /> + +<p style="text-indent:0">A glance at the following annexed +list of titles and authors will endorse +the claim that the publishers make +for it—that it is the most comprehensive, +choice, interesting, and by +far the most carefully selected series +of standard authors for world-wide +reading that has been produced by +any publishing house in any country, and that at prices +so cheap, and in a style so substantial and pleasing, as to +win for it millions of readers and the approval and +commendation, not only of the book trade throughout +the American continent, but of hundreds of thousands of +librarians, clergymen, educators and men of letters +interested in the dissemination of instructive, entertaining +and thoroughly wholesome reading matter for the masses.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em;"> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 341]</span> +<span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;"> +BURT'S HOME LIBRARY. Cloth. Gilt Tops. Price, $1.00</span> +</div> + +<p class="booklist"> +<span class="bold">Abbe Constantin</span>. <span class="smcap">By Ludovic Halevy</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Abbott</span>. <span class="smcap">By Sir Walter Scott</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Adam Bede</span>. <span class="smcap">By George Eliot</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Addison's Essays</span>. <span class="smcap">Edited by John Richard Green</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Aeneid of Virgil</span>. <span class="smcap">Translated by John Connington</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Aesop's Fables</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Alexander, the Great, Life of</span>. <span class="smcap">By John Williams</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Alfred, the Great, Life of</span>. <span class="smcap">By Thomas Hughes</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Alhambra</span>. <span class="smcap">By Washington Irving</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Alice in Wonderland, and Through the Looking-Glass.</span> <span class="smcap">By Lewis Carroll</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Alice Lorraine</span>. <span class="smcap">By R. D. Blackmore</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">All Sorts and Conditions of Men</span>. <span class="smcap">By Walter Besant</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Alton Locke</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charles Kingsley</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Amiel's Journal</span>. <span class="smcap">Translated by Mrs. Humphrey Ward</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Andersen's Fairy Tales</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Anne of Geirstein</span>. <span class="smcap">By Sir Walter Scott</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Antiquary</span>. <span class="smcap">By Sir Walter Scott</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Arabian Nights' Entertainments</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Ardath</span>. <span class="smcap">By Marie Corelli</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Arnold, Benedict, Life of</span>. <span class="smcap">By George Canning Hill</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Arnold's Poems</span>. <span class="smcap">By Matthew Arnold</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Around the World in the Yacht Sunbeam</span>. <span class="smcap">By Mrs. Brassey</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Arundel Motto</span>. <span class="smcap">By Mary Cecil Hay</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">At the Back of the North Wind</span>. <span class="smcap">By George Macdonald</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Attic Philosopher</span>. <span class="smcap">By Emile Souvestre</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Auld Licht Idylls</span>. <span class="smcap">By James M. Barrie</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Aunt Diana</span>. <span class="smcap">By Rosa N. Carey</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Autocrat of the Breakfast Table</span>. <span class="smcap">By O. W. Holmes</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Averil</span>. <span class="smcap">By Rosa N. Carey</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Bacon's Essays</span>. <span class="smcap">By Francis Bacon</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Barbara Heathcote's Trial</span>. <span class="smcap">By Rosa N. Carey</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Barnaby Rudge</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charles Dickens</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Barrack Room Ballads</span>. <span class="smcap">By Rudyard Kipling</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Betrothed</span>. <span class="smcap">By Sir Walter Scott</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Beulah</span>. <span class="smcap">By Augusta J. Evans</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Black Beauty</span>. <span class="smcap">By Anna + <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Sewall'">Sewell</ins></span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Black Dwarf</span>. <span class="smcap">By Sir Walter Scott</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Black Rock</span>. <span class="smcap">By Ralph Connor</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Black Tulip</span>. <span class="smcap">By Alexandre Dumas</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Bleak House</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charles Dickens</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Blithedale Romance</span>. <span class="smcap">By Nathaniel Hawthorne</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Bondman</span>. <span class="smcap">By Hall Caine</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Book of Golden Deeds</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charlotte M. Yonge</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Boone, Daniel, Life of</span>. <span class="smcap">By Cecil B. Hartley</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Bride of Lammermoor</span>. <span class="smcap">By Sir Walter Scott</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Bride of the Nile</span>. <span class="smcap">By George Ebers</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Browning's Poems</span>. <span class="smcap">By Elizabeth Barrett Browning</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Browning's Poems</span>. (<span class="smcap">selections</span>.) <span class="smcap">By Robert Browning</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Bryant's Poems</span>. (<span class="smcap">early</span>.) <span class="smcap">By William Cullen Bryant</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Burgomaster's Wife</span>. <span class="smcap">By George Ebers</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Burn's Poems</span>. <span class="smcap">By Robert Burns</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">By Order of the King</span>. <span class="smcap">By Victor Hugo</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Byron's Poems</span>. <span class="smcap">By Lord Byron</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Caesar, Julius, Life of</span>. <span class="smcap">By James Anthony Froude</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Carson, Kit, Life of</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charles Burdett</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Cary's Poems</span>. <span class="smcap">By Alice and Phoebe Cary</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Cast Up by the Sea</span>. <span class="smcap">By Sir Samuel Baker</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Charlemagne</span> (Charles the Great), Life of. <span class="smcap">By Thomas Hodgkin, D. C. L.</span><br /> +<span class="bold">Charles Auchester</span>. <span class="smcap">By E. Berger</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Character</span>. <span class="smcap">By Samuel Smiles</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Charles O'Malley</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charles Lever</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Chesterfield's Letters</span>. <span class="smcap">By Lord Chesterfield</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Chevalier de Maison Rouge</span>. <span class="smcap">By Alexandre Dumas</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Chicot the Jester</span>. <span class="smcap">By Alexandre Dumas</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Children of the Abbey</span>. <span class="smcap">By Regina Maria Roche</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Child's History of England</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charles Dickens</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Christmas Stories</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charles Dickens</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Cloister and the Hearth</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charles Reade</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Coleridge's Poems</span>. <span class="smcap">By Samuel Taylor Coleridge</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Columbus, Christopher, Life of</span>. <span class="smcap">By Washington Irving</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Companions of Jehu</span>. <span class="smcap">By Alexandre Dumas</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Complete Angler</span>. <span class="smcap">By Walton And Cotton</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Conduct of Life</span>. <span class="smcap">By Ralph Waldo Emerson</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Confessions of an Opium Eater</span>. <span class="smcap">By Thomas de Quincey</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Conquest of Granada</span>. <span class="smcap">By Washington Irving</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Conscript</span>. <span class="smcap">By Erckmann-Chatrian</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Conspiracy of Pontiac</span>. <span class="smcap">By Francis Parkman, Jr.</span><br /> +<span class="bold">Conspirators</span>. <span class="smcap">By Alexandre Dumas</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Consuelo</span>. <span class="smcap">By George Sand</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Cook's Voyages</span>. <span class="smcap">By Captain James Cook</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Corinne</span>. <span class="smcap">By Madame de Stael</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Countess de Charney</span>. <span class="smcap">By Alexandre Dumas</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Countess Gisela</span>. <span class="smcap">By E. Marlitt</span>.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's notes:</h3> +<p>Punctuation has been made regular and consistent with contemporary standards.</p> +<p>The phrase "Box R" has been used where a literal cattle brand symbol of the letter R inside +two sides of a box was used in the original text. +Similarly, an R within a circle indicating a ranch has been rendered as the "Circle R" ranch +in this transcription.</p> +<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. +Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will +<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ben Blair, by Will Lillibridge + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEN BLAIR *** + +***** This file should be named 17844-h.htm or 17844-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/8/4/17844/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ben Blair + The Story of a Plainsman + +Author: Will Lillibridge + +Release Date: February 24, 2006 [EBook #17844] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEN BLAIR *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[Illustration: Florence touched his arm. "Ben," she pleaded, "Ben, +forgive me. I've hurt you. I can't say I love you." Page 114.] + +BEN BLAIR +THE STORY OF A PLAINSMAN + +By WILL LILLIBRIDGE + +Author of "Where the Trail Divides," etc. + +A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS +NEW YORK + + * * * * * + +COPYRIGHT BY +A. C. MCCLURG & CO. +A. D. 1905 + +Entered at Stationers' Hall, London + +_All rights reserved_ + + +Published October 21, 1905 +Second Edition October 28, 1905 +Third Edition November 29, 1905 +Fourth Edition December 9, 1905 +Fifth Edition December 14, 1905 +Sixth Edition February 28, 1907 + + * * * * * + +_To My Wife_ + + * * * * * + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. IN RUDE BORDER-LAND 1 + II. DESOLATION 9 + III. THE BOX R RANCH 23 + IV. BEN'S NEW HOME 37 + V. THE EXOTICS 44 + VI. THE SOIL AND THE SEED 53 + VII. THE SANITY OF THE WILD 66 + VIII. THE GLITTER OF THE UNKNOWN 74 + IX. A RIFFLE OF PRAIRIE 83 + X. THE DOMINANT ANIMAL 94 + XI. LOVE'S AVOWAL 106 + XII. A DEFERRED RECKONING 117 + XIII. A SHOT IN THE DARK 134 + XIV. THE INEXORABLE TRAIL 148 + XV. IN THE GRIP OF THE LAW 164 + XVI. THE QUICK AND THE DEAD 185 + XVII. GLITTER AND TINSEL 193 +XVIII. PAINTER AND PICTURE 204 + XIX. A VISITOR FROM THE PLAINS 217 + XX. CLUB CONFIDENCES 230 + XXI. LOVE IN CONFLICT 242 + XXII. TWO FRIENDS HAVE IT OUT 258 +XXIII. THE BACK-FIRE 270 + XXIV. THE UPPER AND THE NETHER MILLSTONES 287 + XXV. OF WHAT AVAIL? 304 + XXVI. LOVE'S SURRENDER 318 + + * * * * * + + + + +BEN BLAIR + +CHAPTER I + +IN RUDE BORDER-LAND + + +Even in a community where unsavory reputations were the rule, Mick +Kennedy's saloon was of evil repute. In a land new and wild, his +establishment was the wildest, partook most of the unsubdued, unevolved +character of its surroundings. There, as irresistibly as gravitation +calls the falling apple, came from afar and near--mainly from afar--the +malcontent, the restless, the reckless, seeking--instinctively +gregarious--the crowd, the excitement of the green-covered table, the +temporary oblivion following the gulping of fiery red liquor. + +Great splendid animals were the men who gathered there; hairy, powerful, +strong-voiced from combat with prairie wind and frontier distance; +devoid of a superfluous ounce of flesh, their trousers, uniformly baggy +at the knees, bearing mute testimony to the many hours spent in the +saddle; the bare unprotected skin of their hands and faces speaking +likewise of constant contact with sun and storm. + +By the broad glow of daylight the place was anything but inviting. The +heavy bar, made of cottonwood, had no more elegance than the rude sod +shanty of the pioneer. The worn round cloth-topped tables, imported at +extravagant cost from the East, were covered with splashes of grease and +liquor; and the few fly-marked pictures on the walls were coarsely +suggestive. Scattered among them haphazard, in one instance through a +lithographic print, were round holes as large as a spike-head, through +which, by closely applying the eye, one could view the world without. +When the place was new, similar openings had been carefully refilled +with a whittled stick of wood, but the practice had been discontinued; +it was too much trouble, and also useless from the frequency with which +new holes were made. Besides, although accepted with unconcern by +_habitues_ of the place, they were a source of never-ending interest to +the "tenderfeet" who occasionally appeared from nowhere and disappeared +whence they had come. + +But at night all was different. Encircling the room with gleaming points +of light were a multitude of blazing candles, home-made from tallow of +prairie cattle. The irradiance, almost as strong as daylight, but +radically different, softened all surrounding objects. The prairie dust, +penetrating with the wind, spread itself everywhere. The reflection from +cheap glassware, carefully polished, made it appear of costly make; the +sawdust of the floor seemed a downy covering; the crude heavy chairs, an +imitation of the artistic furniture of our fathers. Even the face of +bartender Mick, with its stiff unshaven red beard and its single +eye,--merciless as an electric headlight,--its broad flaming scar +leading down from the blank socket of its mate, became less repulsive +under the softened light. + +With the coming of Fall frosts, the premonition of Winter, the +frequenters of the place gathered earlier, remained later, emptied more +of the showily labelled bottles behind the bar, and augmented when +possible their well-established reputation for recklessness. About the +soiled tables the fringe of bleared faces and keen hawk-like eyes was +more closely drawn. The dull rattle of poker-chips lasted longer, +frequently far into the night, and even after the tardy light of morning +had come to the rescue of the sputtering stumps in the candlesticks. + +On such a morning, early in November, daylight broadened upon a +characteristic scene. Only one table was in use, and around it sat four +men. One by one the other players had cashed out and left the game. One +of them was snoring in a corner, his head resting upon the sawdust. +Another leaned heavily upon the bar, a half-drained glass before him. +Even the four at the table were not as upon the night before. The hands +which held the greasy cards and toyed with the stacks of chips were +steady, but the heads controlling them wavered uncertainly; and the hawk +eyes were bloodshot. + +A man with a full beard, roughly trimmed into the travesty of a Vandyke, +was dealing. He tossed out the cards, carefully inclining their faces +downward, and returned the remainder of the pack softly to the table. + +"Pass, damn it!" growled the man at the left. + +"Pass," came from the next man. + +"Pass," echoed the last of the quartette. + +Five blue chips dropped in a row upon the cloth. + +"I open it." + +The dealer took up the pack lovingly. + +"Cards?" + +The man at the left, tall, gaunt, ill-kempt, flicked the pasteboards in +his hand to the floor and ground them beneath his heavy boots. + +"Give me five." + +The point of the Vandyke beard was aimed straight past the speaker. + +"Cards?" repeated the dealer. + +"Five! Can't you hear?" + +The man braced against the bar looked around with interest. In the mask +of Mick Kennedy the single eye closed almost imperceptibly. Slowly the +face of the dealer turned. + +"I can hear you pretty well when you cash into the game. You already owe +me forty blues, Blair." + +The long figure stiffened, the face went pale. + +"You--mean--you--" the tongue was very thick. "You cut me out?" + +For a moment there was silence; then once more the beard pointed to the +player next beyond. + +"Cards?" for the third time. + +Five chips ranged in a row beside their predecessors. + +"Three." + +A hand, almost the hand of a gentleman, went instinctively to the gaunt +throat of the ignored gambler and jerked at the close flannel shirt; +then without a word the owner got unsteadily to his feet and followed +an irregular trail toward the interested spectator at the bar. + +"Have a drink with me, pard," said the gambler, as he regarded the +immovable Mick. "Two whiskeys, there!" + +Kennedy did not stir, and for five seconds Blair blinked his dulled eyes +in wordless surprise; then his fist came down upon the cottonwood board +with a mighty crash. + +"Wake up there, Mick!" he roared. "I'm speaking to you! A couple of +'ryes' for the gentleman here and myself." + +Another pause, momentary but effective. + +"I heard you." The barkeeper spoke quietly but without the slightest +change of expression, even of the eye. "I heard you, but I'm not dealing +out drinks to deadbeats. Pay up, and I'll be glad to serve you." + +Swift as thought Blair's hand went to his hip, and the rattle of +poker-chips sympathetically ceased. A second, and a big revolver was +trained fair at the dispenser of liquors. + +"Curse you, Mick Kennedy!" muttered a choking voice, "when I order +drinks I want drinks. Dig up there, and be lively!" + +The man by the speaker's side, surprised out of his intoxication, edged +away to a discreet distance; but even yet the Irishman made no move. +Only the single headlight shifted in its socket until it looked +unblinkingly into the blazing eyes of the gambler. + +"Tom Blair," commanded an even voice, "Tom Blair, you white livered +bully, put up that gun!" + +Slowly, very slowly, the speaker turned,--all but the terrible +Cyclopean eye,--and moved forward until his body leaned upon the bar, +his face protruding over it. + +"Put up that gun, I tell you!" A smile almost fiendish broke over the +furrows of the rugged face. "You wouldn't dast shoot, unless perhaps it +was a woman, you coward!" + +For a fraction of a minute there was silence, while over the visage of +the challenged there flashed, faded, recurred the expression we pay good +dollars to watch playing upon the features of an accomplished actor; +then the yellow streak beneath the bravado showed, and the menacing hand +dropped to the holster at the hip. Once again Kennedy, who seldom made a +mistake, had sized his man correctly. + +"What do I owe you altogether, Mick?" asked a changed and subdued voice. +"Make it as easy as you can." + +Kennedy relaxed into his lounging position. + +"Thirty-five dollars. We'll call it thirty. You've been setting them up +to everybody here for a week on your face." + +"Can't you give me just a little more credit, Mick?" An expression meant +to be a smile formed upon the haggard face. "Just for old time's sake? +You know I've always been a good customer of yours, Kennedy." + +"Not a cent." + +"But I've got to have liquor!" One hand, ill-kept, but long of fingers +and refined of shape, steadied the speaker. "I can't get along without +it!" + +"Sell something, then, and pay up." + +The man thought a moment and shook his head. + +"I haven't anything to sell; you know that. It's the wrong time of the +year." He paused, and the travesty of a smile reappeared. "Next +Winter--" + +"You've got a horse outside." + +For an instant Blair's gaunt face darkened at the insult; he grew almost +dignified; but the drink curse had too strong a grip upon him and the +odor of whiskey was in the air. + +"Yes, I've a good horse," he said slowly. "What'll you give for him?" + +"Seventy dollars." + +"He's a good horse, worth a hundred." + +"I'm glad of that, but I'm not dealing in horses. I make the offer just +to oblige you. Besides, as you said, it's an off season." + +"You won't give me more?" + +"No." + +Blair looked impotently about the room, but his former companions had +returned to their game. Filling in the silence, the dull clatter of +chips mingled with the drunken snores of the man on the floor. + +"Very well, give me forty," he said at last. + +"You accept, do you?" + +"Yes." + +"All right." + +Blair waited a moment. "Aren't you going to give me what's coming?" he +asked. + +Slowly the single eye fixed him as before. + +"I didn't know you had anything coming." + +"Why, you just said forty dollars!" + +There was no relenting in Kennedy's face. + +"You owe that gentleman over there at the table for forty blues. I'll +settle with him." + +Instinctively, as before, Blair's thin hand went to his throat, +clutching at the coarse flannel. He saw he was beaten. + +"Well, give me a drink, anyway!" + +Silently Mick took a big flask from the shelf and set it with a decanter +upon the bar. Filling the glass, Blair drained it at a gulp, refilled +and drained it--and then again. + +"A little drop to take along with me," he whined. + +Kennedy selected a pint bottle, filled it from the big flask, and +silently proffered it over the board. + +Blair took the extended favor, glanced once more about the room, and +stumbled toward the exit. Mick busied himself wiping the soiled bar with +a towel, if possible, even more filthy. At the threshold, his hand upon +the knob, Blair paused, stiffened, grew livid in the face. + +"May Satan blister your scoundrel souls, all of you!" he cursed. + +Not a man within sound of his voice gave sign that he had heard, as the +opened door returned to its casing with a crash. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +DESOLATION + + +Ten miles out on the prairies,--not lands plane as a table, as they are +usually pictured, but rolling like the sea with waves of tremendous +amplitude--stood a rough shack, called by courtesy a house. Like many a +more pretentious domicile, it was of composite construction, although +consisting of but one room. At the base was the native prairie sod, +piled tier upon tier. Above this the superstructure, like the bar of +Mick Kennedy's resort, was of warping cottonwood. Built out from this +single room and forming a part of it was what the designer had called a +woodshed; but as no tree the size of a man's wrist was within ten miles, +or a railroad within fifty, the term was manifestly a misnomer. Wood in +any form it had never contained; instead, it was filled with that +providential fuel of the frontiersman, found superabundantly upon the +ranges,--buffalo chips. + +From the main room there was another and much smaller opening into the +sod foundation, and below it,--a dog-kennel. Slightly apart from the +shack stood a twin structure even less assuming, its walls and roof +being wholly built of sod. It was likewise without partition, and was +used as a barn. Hard by was a corral covering perhaps two acres, +enclosed with a barbed-wire fence. These three excrescences upon the +face of nature comprised the "improvements" of the "Big B Ranch." + +Within the house the furnishings accorded with their surroundings. Two +folding bunks, similar in conception to the upper berths of a Pullman +car, were built end to end against the wall; when they were raised to +give room, four supports dangled beneath like paralyzed arms. A +home-made table, suggesting those scattered about country picnic +grounds, a few cheap chairs, a row of chests and cupboards variously +remodelled from a common foundation of dry-goods boxes, and a stove, +ingeniously evolved out of the cylinder and head of a portable engine, +comprised the furniture. + +The morning sunlight which dimmed the candles of Mick Kennedy's saloon +drifted through the single high-set window of the Big B Ranch-house, +revealing there a very different scene. From beneath the quilts in one +of the folding bunks appeared the faces of a woman and a little boy. At +the opening of the dog-kennel the head of a mottled yellow-and-white +mongrel dog projected into the room, the sensitive muzzle pointing +directly at the occupied bunk. The eyes of woman, child, and beast were +open and moved restlessly about. + +"Mamma," and the small boy wriggled beneath the clothes, "Mamma, I'm +hungry." + +The white face of the woman turned away, more pallid than before. An +unfamiliar observer would have been at a loss to guess the age of the +owner. In that haggard, non-committal countenance there was nothing to +indicate whether she was twenty-five or forty. + +"It is early yet, son. Go to sleep." + +The boy closed his eyes dutifully, and for perhaps five minutes there +was silence; then the blue orbs opened wider than before. + +"Mamma, I can't go to sleep. I'm hungry!" + +"Never mind, Benjamin. The horses, the rabbits, the birds,--all get +hungry sometimes." A hacking cough interrupted her words. "Snuggle close +up to me, little son, and keep warm." + +"But, mamma, I want something to eat. Won't you get it for me?" + +"I can't, son." + +He waited a moment. "Won't you let me help myself, then, mamma?" + +The eyes of the mother moistened. + +"Mamma," the child repeated, gently shaking his mother's shoulder, +"won't you let me help myself?" + +"There's nothing for you to eat, sonny, nothing at all." + +The blue child-eyes widened; the serious little face puckered. + +"Why ain't there anything to eat, mamma?" + +"Because there isn't, bubby." + +The reasoning was conclusive, and the child accepted it without further +parley; but soon another interrogation took form in his active brain. + +"It's cold, mamma," he announced. "Aren't you going to build a fire?" + +Again the mother coughed, and a flush of red appeared upon her cheeks. + +"No," she answered with a sigh. + +"Why not, mamma?" + +There was not the slightest trace of irritation in the answering voice, +although it was clearly an effort to speak. + +"I can't get up this morning, little one." + +Mysteries were multiplying, but the small Benjamin was equal to the +occasion. With a spring he was out of bed, and in another moment was +stepping gingerly upon the cold bare floor. + +"I'm going to build a fire for you, mamma," he announced. + +The homely mongrel whined a welcome to the little lad's appearance, and +with his tail beat a friendly tattoo upon the kennel floor; but the +woman spoke no word. With impassive face she watched the shivering +little figure as it hurried into its clothes, and then, with celerity +born of experience, went about the making of a fire. Suddenly a hitherto +unthought-of possibility flashed into the boy's mind, and leaving his +work he came back to the bunk. + +"Are you sick, mamma?" he asked. + +Instantly the woman's face softened. + +"Yes, laddie," she answered gently. + +Carefully as a nurse, the small protector replaced the cover at his +mother's back, where his exit had left a gap; then returned to his work. + +"You must have it warm here," he said. + +Not until the fire in the old cylinder makeshift was burning merrily did +he return to his patient; then, standing straight before her, he looked +down with an air of childish dignity that would have been comical had it +been less pathetic. + +"Are you very sick, mamma?" he said at last, hesitatingly. + +"I am dying, little son." She spoke calmly and impersonally, without +even a quickening of the breath. The thin hand, lying on the tattered +cover, did not stir. + +"Mamma!" the old-man face of the boy tightened, as, bending over the +bed, he pressed his warm cheek against hers, now growing cold and white. + +At the mouth of the kennel two bright eyes were watching curiously. +Their owner wriggled the tip of his muzzle inquiringly, but the action +brought no response. Then the muzzle went into the air, and a whine, +long-drawn and insistent, broke the silence. + +The boy rose. There was not a trace of moisture in his eyes, but the +uncannily aged face seemed older than before. He went over to a peg +where his clothes were hanging and took down the frayed garment that +answered as an overcoat. From the bunk there came another cough, quickly +muffled; but he did not turn. Cap followed coat, mittens cap; then, +suddenly remembering, he turned to the stove and scattered fresh chips +upon the glowing embers. + +"Good-bye, mamma," said the boy. + +The mother had been watching him, although she gave no sign. "Where are +you going, sonny?" she asked. + +"To town, mamma. Someone ought to know you're sick." + +There was a moment's pause, wherein the mongrel whined impatiently. + +"Aren't you going to kiss me first, Benjamin?" + +The little lad retraced his steps, until, bending over, his lips touched +those of his mother. As he did so, the hand which had lain upon the +coverlet shifted to his arm detainingly. + +"How were you thinking of going, son?" + +A look of surprise crept into the boy's blue eyes. A question like this, +with its obvious answer, was unusual from his matter-of-fact mother. He +glanced at her gravely. + +"I'm going afoot, mamma." + +"It's ten miles to town, Benjamin." + +"But you and I walked it once together. Don't you remember?" + +An expression the lad did not understand flashed over the white face of +Jennie Blair. Well she remembered that other occasion, one of many like +the present, when she and the little lad had gone in company to the +settlement of which Mick Kennedy's place was a part, in search of +someone whom after ten hours' delay they had succeeded in bringing +home,--the remnant and vestige of what was once a man. + +"Yes, I know we did, Bennie." + +The boy waited a moment longer, then straightened himself. + +"I think I'd better be starting now." + +But instead of loosening its hold, the hand upon the boy's shoulder +tightened. The eyes of the two met. + +"You're not going, sonny. I'm glad you thought of it, but I can't let +you go." + +Again there was silence for so long that the waiting dog, impatient of +the delay, whined in soft protest. + +"Why not, mamma?" + +"Because, Benjamin, it's too late now. Besides, there wouldn't be a +person there who would come out to help me." + +The boy's look of perplexity returned. + +"Not if they knew you were very sick, mamma?" + +"Not if they knew I was dying, my son." + +The boy took off hat, mittens, and coat, and returned them to their +places. Never in his short life had he questioned a statement of his +mother's, and such heresy did not occur to him now. Coming back to the +bunk, he laid his cheek caressingly beside hers. + +"Is there anything I can do for you, mamma?" he whispered. + +"Nothing but what you are doing now, laddie." + +Tired of standing, the mongrel dropped within his tracks flat upon his +belly, and, his head resting upon his fore-paws, lay watching intently. + + * * * * * + +When the door of Mick Kennedy's saloon closed with an emphasis that +shook the very walls, it shut out a being more ferocious, more evil, +than any beast of the jungle. For the time, Blair's alcohol-saturated +brain evolved but one chain of thought, was capable of but one +emotion--hate. Every object in the universe, from its Creator to +himself, fell under the ban. The language of hate is curses; and as he +moved out over the prairie there dripped from his lips continuously, +monotonously, a trickling, blighting stream of malediction. Swaying, +stumbling, unconscious of his physical motions, instinct kept him upon +the trail; a Providence, sometimes kindest to those least worthy, +preserved him from injury. + +Half way out he met a solitary Indian astride a faded-looking mustang, +and the current of his wrath was temporarily diverted by a surly "How!" +Even this measure of friendliness was regretted when the big revolver +came out of the rancher's holster like a flash, and, head low on the +neck of the mustang, heels in the little beast's ribs, the aborigine +retreated with a yell, amid a shower of ill-aimed bullets. Long after +the figure on the pony had passed out of range, Blair stood pulling at +the trigger of the empty repeater and cursing louder than before because +it would not "pop." + +Two hours later, when it was past noon, an uncertain hand lifted the +wooden latch of the Big B Ranch-house door, and, heralded by an inrush +of cold outside air, Tom Blair, master and dictator, entered his domain. +The passage of time, the physical exercise, and the prairie air, had +somewhat cleared his brain. Just within the room, he paused and looked +about him with surprise. With premonition of impending trouble, the +mongrel bristled the yellow hair of his neck, and, retreating to the +mouth of his kennel, stood guard; but otherwise the scene was to a +detail as it had been in the morning. The woman lay passive within the +bunk. The child by her side, holding her hand, did not turn. The very +atmosphere of the place tingled with an ominous quiet,--a silence such +as one who has lived through a cyclone connects instinctively with a +whirling oncoming black funnel. + +The new-comer was first to make a move. Walking over to the centre of +the room, he stopped and looked upon his subjects. + +"Well, of all the infernally lazy people I ever saw!" he commented, "you +beat them, Jennie! Get up and cook something to eat; it's way after +noon, and I'm hungry." + +The woman said nothing, but the boy slid to his feet, facing the +intruder. + +"Mamma's sick and can't get up," he explained as impersonally as to a +stranger. "Besides, there isn't anything to cook. She said so." + +The man's brow contracted into a frown. + +"Speak when you're spoken to, young upstart!" he snapped. "Out with you, +Jennie! I don't want to be monkeyed with to-day!" + +He hung up his coat and cap, and loosened his belt a hole; but no one +else in the room moved. + +"Didn't you hear me?" he asked, looking warningly toward the bunk. + +"Yes," she replied. + +Autocrat under his own roof, the man paused in surprise. Never before +had a command here been disobeyed. He could scarcely believe his own +senses. + +"You know what to do, then," he said sharply. + +For the first time a touch of color came into the woman's cheeks, and +catching the man's eyes she looked into them unfalteringly. + +"Since when did I become your slave, Tom Blair?" she asked slowly. + +The words were a challenge, the tone was that of some wild thing, +wounded, cornered, staring death in the face, but defiant to the end. +"Since when did you become my owner, body and soul?" + +Any sportsman, any being with a fragment of admiration for even animal +courage, would have held aloof then. It remained for this man, bred amid +high civilization, who had spent years within college halls, to strike +the prostrate. As in the frontier saloon, so now his hand went +involuntarily to his throat, clutched at the binding collar until the +button flew; then, as before, his face went white. + +"Since when!" he blazed, "since when! I admire your nerve to ask that +question of me! Since six years ago, when you first began living with +me. Since the day when you and the boy,--and not a preacher within a +hundred miles--" Words, a flood of words, were upon his lips; but +suddenly he stopped. Despite the alcohol still in his brain, despite the +effort he made to continue, the gaze of the woman compelled silence. + +"You dare recall that memory, Tom Blair?" The words came more slowly +than before, and with an intensity that burned them into the hearer's +memory. "You dare, knowing what I gave up for your sake!" The eyes +blazed afresh, the dark head was raised on the pillows. "You know that +my son stands listening, and yet you dare throw my coming to you in my +face?" + +White to the lips went the scarred visage of the man, but the madness +was upon him. + +"I dare?" To his own ears the voice sounded unnatural. "I dare? To be +sure I dare! You came to me of your own free-will. You were not a +child!" His voice rose and the flush returned to his face. "You knew the +price and accepted it deliberately,--deliberately, I say!" + +Without a sound, the figure in the rough bunk quivered and stiffened; +the hand upon the coverlet was clenched until the nails grew white, then +it relaxed. Slowly, very slowly, the eyelids closed as though in sleep. + +Impassive but intent listener, an instinct now sent the boy Benjamin +back to his post. + +"Mamma," he said gently. "Mamma!" + +There was no answer, nor even a responsive pressure of the hand. + +"Mamma!" he repeated more loudly. "Mamma! Mamma!" + +Still no answer, only the limp passivity. Then suddenly, although never +before in his short life had the little lad looked upon death, he +recognized it now. His mamma, his playmate, his teacher, was like this; +she would not speak to him, would not answer him; she would never speak +to him or smile upon him again! Like a thunderclap came the realization +of this. Then another thought swiftly followed. This man,--one who had +said things that hurt her, that brought the red spots to her +cheeks,--this man was to blame. Not in the least did he understand the +meaning of what he had just heard. No human being had suggested to him +that Blair was the cause of his mother's death; but as surely as he +would remember their words as long as he lived, so surely did he +recognize the man's guilt. Suddenly, as powder responds to the spark, +there surged through his tiny body a terrible animal hate for this man, +and, scarcely realizing the action, he rushed at him. + +"She's dead and you killed her!" he screamed. "Mamma's dead, dead!" and +the little doubled fists struck at the man's legs again and again. + +Oblivious to the onslaught, Tom Blair strode over to the bunk. + +"Jennie," he said, not unkindly, "Jennie, what's the matter?" + +Again there was no response, and a shade of awe crept into the man's +voice. + +"Jennie! Jennie! Answer me!" A hand fell upon the woman's shoulder and +shook it, first gently, then roughly. "Answer me, I say!" + +With the motion, the head of the dead shifted upon the pillow and turned +toward the man, and involuntarily he loosened his grasp. He had not +eaten for twenty-four hours, and in sudden weakness he made his way to +one of the rough chairs, and sat down, his face buried in his hands. + +Behind him the boy Benjamin, his sudden hot passion over, stood watching +intently,--his face almost uncanny in its lack of childishness. + +For a time there was absolute silence, the hush of a death-chamber; then +of a sudden the boy was conscious that the man was looking at him in a +way he had never looked before. Deep down below our consciousness, far +beneath the veneer of civilization, there is an instinct, relic of the +vigilant savage days, that warns us of personal danger. By this instinct +the lad now interpreted the other's gaze, and knew that it meant ill for +him. For some reason which he could not understand, this man, this big +animal, was his mortal enemy; and, in the manner of smaller animals, he +began to consider an avenue of escape. + +"Ben," spoke the man, "come here!" + +Tom Blair was sober now, and wore a look of determination upon his face +that few had ever seen there before; but to his surprise the boy did not +respond. He waited a moment, and then said sharply: + +"Ben, I'm speaking to you. Come here at once!" + +For answer there was a tightening of the lad's blue eyes and an added +watchfulness in the incongruously long childish figure; but that was +all. + +Another lagging minute passed, wherein the two regarded each other +steadily. The man's eyes dropped first. + +"You little devil!" he muttered, and the passion began showing in his +voice. "I believe you knew what I was thinking all the time! Anyway, +you'll know now. You said awhile ago that I was to blame for your mother +being--as she is. You're liable to say that again." A horror greater +than sudden passion was in the deliberate explanation and in the slow +way he rose to his feet. "I'm going to fix you so you can't say it +again, you old-man imp!" + +Then a peculiar thing happened. Instead of running away, the boy took a +step forward, and the man paused, scarcely believing his eyes. Another +step forward, and yet another, came the diminutive figure, until almost +within the aggressor's reach; then suddenly, quick as a cat, it veered, +dropped upon all fours to the floor, and head first, scrambling like a +rabbit, disappeared into the open mouth of the dog-kennel. + +Too late the man saw the trick, and curses came to his lips,--curses fit +for a fiend, fit for the irresponsible being he was. He himself had +built that kennel. It extended in a curve eight feet into the solid sod +foundation, and to get at the spot where the boy now lay he would have +to tear down the house itself. The temper which had made the man what he +now was, a drunkard and fugitive in a frontier country, took possession +of him wholly, and with it came a madman's cunning; for at a sudden +thought he stopped, and the cursing tongue was silent. Five minutes +later he left the place, closing the door carefully behind him; but +before that time a red jet of flame, like the ravenous tongue of a +famished beast, was lapping at a hastily assembled pile of tinder-dry +furniture in one corner of the shanty. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE BOX R RANCH + + +Mr. Rankin moved back from a well-discussed table, and, the room being +conveniently small, tilted his chair back against the wall. The +protesting creak of the ill-glued joints under the strain of his +ponderous figure was a signal for all the diners, and five other men +likewise drew away from around the board. Rankin extracted a match and a +stout jack-knife from the miscellaneous collection of useful articles in +his capacious pocket, carefully whittled the bit of wood to a point, and +picked his teeth deliberately. The five "hands," sun-browned, unshaven, +dissimilar in face as in dress, waited in expectation; but the +housekeeper, a shapeless, stolid-looking woman, wife of the foreman, +Graham, went methodically about the work of clearing the table. Rankin +watched her a moment indifferently; then without turning his head, his +eyes shifted in their narrow slits of sockets until they rested upon one +of the cowboys. + +"What time was it you saw that smoke, Grannis?" he asked. + +The man addressed paused in the operation of rolling a cigarette. + +"'Bout an hour ago, I should say. I was just thinking of coming in to +dinner." + +The lids met over Rankin's eyes, then the narrow slit opened. + +"It was in the no'thwest you say, and seemed to be quite a way off?" + +Grannis nodded. + +"Yes; I couldn't make out any fire, only the smoke, and that didn't last +long. I thought at first maybe it was a prairie fire, and started to +see; but it was getting thinner before I'd gone a mile, so I turned +round and by the time I got back to the corral there wasn't nothing at +all to see." + +Two of the other hands solemnly exchanged a wink. + +"Think you must have eaten too many of Ma Graham's pancakes this +morning, and had a blur over your eyes," commented one, slyly. "Prairie +fires don't stop that sudden when the grass is like it is now." + +The portly housewife paused in her work to cast a look of scorn upon the +speaker, but Grannis rushed into the breach. + +"Don't you believe it. There was a fire all right. Somebody stopped it, +or it stopped itself, that's all." + +Tilting his chair forward with an effort, Rankin got to his feet, and, +as usual, his action brought the discussion to an end. The woman +returned to her work; the men put on hats and coats preparatory to going +out of doors. Only the proprietor stood passive a moment absently +drawing down his vest over his portly figure. + +"Graham," he said at last, "hitch the mustangs to the light wagon." + +"All right." + +"And, Graham--" + +The man addressed paused. + +"Throw in a couple of extra blankets." + +"All right." + +Out of doors the men took up the conversation where they had left off. + +"You better begin to hope the old man finds something that's been afire +up there, Grannis," said the joker of the house. "If he don't, you've +cooked your goose proper." + +Grannis was a new-comer, and looked his surprise. + +"Why so?" he asked. + +"You'll find out why," retorted the other. "Fire here's 'most as +uncommon as rain, and the boss don't like them smoky jokes." + +"But I saw smoke, I tell you," reiterated Grannis, defensively; "smoke, +dead sure!" + +"All right, if you're certain sure." + +"Marcom knows what he's talking about, Grannis," said Graham. "He tried +to ginger things up a bit when he was new here, like you are; found a +litter of coyotes one September--thought they were timber wolves, I +guess, and braced up with his story to the old man." The speaker paused +with a reflective grin. + +"Well, what happened?" asked Grannis. + +"What happened? The boss sent me dusting about forty miles to get some +hounds. Nearly spoiled a good team to get back inside sixteen hours, +and--they found out Bill here in the next thirty minutes, that was all!" +Once more the story ended in a grin. + +"What'd Rankin say?" asked Grannis, with interest. + +"How about it, Bill?" suggested Graham. + +The big cowboy looked a trifle foolish. + +"Oh, he didn't say much; 'tain't his way. He just remarked, sort of +off-hand, that as far as I was concerned the next year had only about +four pay-months in it. That was all." + + * * * * * + +Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing at once. This was the +motto of the master of the Box R Ranch. In ten minutes' time Rankin's +big shapeless figure, seated in the old buckboard, was moving northwest +at the steady jog-trot typical of prairie travel, and which as the hours +pass by annihilates distance surprisingly. Simply a fat, an abnormally +fat, man, the casual observer would have said. It remained for those who +came in actual contact with him to learn the force beneath the +forbidding exterior,--the relentless bull-dog energy that had made him +dictator of the great ranch, and kept subordinate the restless, roving, +dissolute men-of-fortune he employed,--the deliberate and impartial +judgment which had made his word as near law as it was possible for any +mandate to be among the motley inhabitants within a radius of fifty +miles. Had Rankin chosen he could have attained honor, position, power +in his native Eastern home. No barrier built of convention or of +conservatism could have withstood him. Society reserves her prizes +largely for the man of initiative; and, uncomely block as he was, Rankin +was of the true type. But for some reason, a reason known to none of his +associates, he had chosen to come to the West. Some consideration or +other had caused him to stop at his present abode, and had made him +apparently a fixture in the midst of this unconquered country. + +There was no road in the direction Rankin was travelling,--only the +unbroken prairie sod, eaten close by the herds that grazed its every +foot. Even under the direct sunlight the air was sharp. The regular +breath of the mustangs shot out like puffs of steam from the exhaust of +an engine, and the moisture frosted about their flanks and nostrils. But +the big man on the seat did not notice temperature. He had produced a +pipe from the depths beneath the wagon seat, and tobacco from a jar +cunningly fitted into one corner of the box, both without moving from +his place, the seat being hinged and divided in the centre to facilitate +the operation. More a home to him than the ranch-house itself was that +battered buckboard. Here, on an average, he spent eight hours out of the +twenty-four, and that seat-box was a veritable storehouse of articles +used in his daily life. As the jog-trot measured off the miles he +replenished the pipe again and again, leaving behind him the odor of +strong tobacco. + +Not until he was within a mile of the "Big B" property, and a rise in +the monotonous roll of the land brought him in range of vision, did +Rankin show that he felt more than ordinary interest in his expedition; +then, shading his eyes, he looked steadily ahead. The sod barn stood in +its usual place; the corral, with its posts set close together, +stretched by its side; but where the house had stood there could not be +distinguished even a mound. The hand on the reins tightened meaningly, +and in sympathy the mustangs moved ahead at a swifter pace, leaving +behind a trail of tobacco-smoke denser than before. + + * * * * * + +When the little Benjamin Blair, fugitive, had literally taken to the +earth, it was with definite knowledge of the territory he was entering. +He had often explored its depths with childish curiosity, to the +distress of his mother and the disgust of the rightful owner, the +mongrel dog. Retreating to the farther end of the cave, the instinct of +self-preservation set hands and feet to work like the claws of a gopher, +filling with loose dirt the narrow passage through which he had entered. +Panting and perspiring with the effort, choked with the dust he raised, +all but suffocated, he dug until his strength gave out; then, curling up +in his narrow quarters, he lay listening. At first he heard nothing, not +even a sound from the dog; and he wondered at the fact. He could not +believe that Tom Blair would leave him in peace, and he breathlessly +awaited the first tap of an instrument against his retreat. A minute +passed, lengthened to five--to ten--and with the quick impatience of +childhood he started to learn the reason of the delay. His active little +body revolved in its nest. In the darkness a wiry arm scratched at the +recently erected barricade. A head with a tousled mass of hair poked its +way into the opening, crowded forward a foot--two feet, then stopped, +the whole body quivering. He had passed the curve, and of a sudden it +was as though he had opened the door of a furnace and gazed inside. +Instead of the familiar room, a great sheet of flame walled him in. +Instead of silence, a roar as of a hurricane was in his ears. Never in +his life had he seen a great fire, but instantly he understood. +Instantly the instinctive animal terror of fire gripped him; he +retreated to the very depths of the kennel, and burying his small head +in his arms lay still. But not even then, child though he was, did he +utter a cry. The endurance which had made Jennie Blair stare death +impassively in the face was part and parcel of his nature. + +For the space of perhaps a minute Ben lay motionless. Louder than before +came to his ears the roar of the fire. Occasionally a hot tongue of +flame intruded mockingly into the mouth of his retreat. The confined air +about him grew close, narcotic. He expected to die, and with the +premonition of death an abnormal activity came to the child-brain. +Whatever knowledge he possessed of death was connected with his mother. +It was she who had given him his vague impression of another life. She +herself, as she lay silent and unresponsive, had been the first concrete +example of it. Inevitably thought of her came to him now,--practical, +material thought, crowding from his brain the blind terror that had been +its predecessor. Where was his mother now? He pictured again the furnace +into which he had gazed from the mouth of the kennel. Though perhaps she +would not feel it, she would be burned--burned to a crisp--destroyed +like the fuel he had tossed into the makeshift stove! Instinctively he +felt the sacrilege, and the desire to do something to prevent it. +Something--yes, but what? He was himself helpless; he must seek outside +aid--but where? Suddenly there occurred to the child-mind a suggestion +applicable to his difficulty, an adequate solution, for it involved +everything he had learned to trust in life. He remembered a Being more +powerful than man, more powerful than fire or cold,--a Being whom his +mother had called God. Believing in Him, it was necessary only to ask +for whatever one wished. For himself, even to save his life, he would +not call upon this Being; but for his mamma! In childish faith he folded +his hands and closed his eyes in the darkness. + +"God," he prayed, "please put out this fire and save my mamma from +burning!" + +The small hands loosened and the lips parted to hear the first +diminution in the growl of the flame. But it roared on. + +"God!" The hands were clasped again, the voice vibrant with pleading. +"God, please put out the fire! Please put it out!" + +Silence again within, but without only the steady roaring crackle. Could +it be possible the petition had not been heard? The childish hands met +more tightly than before. The small body fairly writhed. + +"God! God!" he implored for the third time. "Listen to me, please! Save +my mamma, my mamma!" + +For a moment the little figure lay still. Surely there would be an +answer now. His mamma had said there would be, and whatever his mamma +had told him had always come true. The air about him was so close he +could scarcely breathe; but he did not notice it. Reversing head and +feet, he started out of the kennel. It was certainly time to leave. The +roar he had heard must have been of the wind. Assuredly God had acted +before this. Head first, gasping, he moved on, reached the curve, and +looked out. + +Indignation took possession of the little figure. The fingers clinched +until the nails bit deep into the soft palms. The whole body trembled in +impotent anger and outraged self-respect. Upon the face of the small man +was suddenly written the implacable defiance which one sees in carnivora +when wounded and cornered--intensified as an expression can only be +intensified upon a human face--as, almost unconsciously, he returned to +the hollow he had left, and fairly thrust his tousled head into the +kindly earth. + +How long he remained there he did not know. The stifling atmosphere of +the place gradually overcame him. Anger, wonder, the multitude of +thoughts crowding his child-brain, slowly faded away; consciousness +lapsed, and he slept. + +When he awoke it was with a start and a vague wonder as to his +whereabouts. Then memory returned, and he listened intently. Not a sound +could he distinguish save his own breathing, as he slowly made his way +to the mouth of the kennel. Before him was the opposite sod wall of the +house standing as high as his head; above that, the blue of the sky; +upon what had been the earthen floor, a strewing of ashes; over all, +calm, glorious, the slanting rays of the low afternoon sun. A moment the +boy lay gazing out; then he crawled to his feet, shaking off the dirt as +a dog does. One glance about, and the blue eyes halted. A moisture came +into them, gathered into drops, and then, breaking over the barrier of +the long lashes, tears flowed through the accumulated grime, down the +thin cheeks, leaving a clean pathway behind. That was all, for an +instant; then a look--terrible in a mature person and doubly so in a +child--came over the long face,--an expression partaking of both hate +and vengeance. It mirrored an emotion that in a nature such as that of +Benjamin Blair would never be forgotten. Some day, for some one, there +would be a moment of reckoning; for the child was looking at the +charred, unrecognizable corpse of his mother. + + * * * * * + +A half-hour later, Rankin, steaming into the yard of the Big B Ranch, +came upon a scene that savored much of a play. It was so dramatic that +the big man paused in contemplation of it. He saw there the sod and +ashes of what had once been a home. The place must have burned like +tinder, for now, but a few hours from the time when Grannis had first +given the alarm, not an atom of smoke ascended. At one end of the +quadrangular space enclosed by the walls stood the makeshift stove, +discolored with the heat, as was the length of pipe by its side. Near by +was a heap of warped iron and tin cooking utensils. At one side, covered +by an old gunny-sack and a boy's tattered coat, was another object the +form of which the observer could not distinguish. + +In the middle of the plat, standing a few inches below the surface, was +a small boy, and in his hands a very large spade. He wore a man's +discarded shirt, with sleeves rolled up at the wrist, and neck-band +pinned tight at one side. Obviously, he had been digging, for a small +pile of fresh dirt was heaped at his right. Now, however, he was +motionless, the blue eyes beneath the long lashes observing the +new-comer inquiringly. That was all, save that to the picture was added +the background of the unbroken silence of the prairie. + +The man was the first to break the spell. He got out of the wagon +clumsily, walked around the wall, and entered the quadrangle by what had +been the door. + +"What are you doing?" he asked. + +"Digging," replied the boy, resuming his work. + +"Digging what?" + +The boy lifted out a double handful of dirt upon the big spade. + +"A grave." + +The man glanced about again. + +"For some pet?" + +The boy shook his head. + +"No--sir," the latter word coming as an after-thought. His mother had +taught him that title of respect. + +Rankin changed the line of interrogation. + +"Where's Tom Blair, young man?" + +"I don't know, sir." + +"Your mother, then, where is she?" + +"My mother is dead." + +"Dead?" + +The child's blue eyes did not falter. + +"I am digging her grave, sir." + +For a time Rankin did not speak or stir. Amid the stubbly beard the +great jaws closed, until it seemed the pipe-stem must be broken. His +eyes narrowed, as when, before starting, he had questioned the cowboy +Grannis; then of a sudden he rose and laid a detaining hand upon the +worker's shoulder. He understood at last. + +"Stop a minute, son," he said. "I want to talk with you." + +The lad looked up. + +"How did it happen--the fire and your mother's death?" + +No answer, only the same strangely scrutinizing look. + +Rankin repeated the question a bit curtly. + +Ben Blair calmly removed the man's hand from his shoulder and looked him +fairly in the eyes. + +"Why do you wish to know, sir?" he asked. + +The big man made no answer. Why did he wish to know? What answer could +he give? He paced back and forth across the narrow confines of the four +sod walls. Once he paused, gazing at the little lad questioningly, not +as one looks at a child but as man faces man; then, tramp, tramp, he +paced on again. At last, as suddenly as before, he halted, and glanced +sidewise at the uncompleted grave. + +"You're quite sure you want to bury your mother here?" he asked. + +The lad nodded silently. + +"And alone?" + +Again the nod. + +"Yes, I heard her say once she wished it so." + +Without comment, Rankin removed his coat and took the spade from the +boy's hand. + +"I'll help you, then." + +For a half-hour he worked steadily, descending lower and lower into the +dry earth; then, pausing, he wiped the perspiration from his face. + +"Are you cold, son?" he asked directly. + +"Not very, sir." But the lad's teeth were chattering. + +"A bit, though?" + +"Yes, sir," simply. + +"All right, you'll find some blankets out in the wagon, Ben. You'd +better go out and get one and put it around you." + +The boy started to obey. "Thank you, sir," he said. + +Rankin returned to his work. In the west the sun dropped slowly beneath +the horizon, leaving a wonderful golden light behind. The waiting +horses, too well trained to move from their places, shifted uneasily +amid much creaking of harness. Within the grave the digger's head sunk +lower and lower, while the mound by the side grew higher and higher. The +cold increased. Across the prairie, a multitude of black specks +advanced, grew large, whizzed overhead, then retreated, their wings +cutting the keen air, and silence returned. + +Darkness was falling when at last Rankin clambered out to the surface. + +"Another blanket, Ben, please." + +Without a glance beneath, he wrapped the object under the old gunny-sack +round and round with the rough wool winding-sheet, and, carrying it to +the edge of the grave, himself descended clumsily and placed it gently +at his feet. The pit was deep, and in getting out he slipped back twice; +but he said nothing. Outside, he paused a moment, looking at the boy +gravely. + +"Anything you wish to say, Benjamin?" + +The lad returned the gaze with equal gravity. + +"I don't know of anything, sir." + +The man paused a moment longer. + +"Nor I, Ben," he said gently. + +Again the spade resumed its work; and the impassive earth returned dully +to its former resting-place. Dusk came on, but Rankin did not look about +him until the mound was neatly rounded; then he turned to where he had +left the little boy so bravely erect. But the small figure was not +standing now; instead, it was prone on the ground amid the dust and +ashes. + +"Ben!" said Rankin, gently. "Ben!" + +No answer. + +"Ben!" he repeated. + +"Yes, sir." + +For a moment a small thin face appeared above the dishevelled figure, +and a great sob shook the little frame. Then the head disappeared again. + +"I can't help it, sir," wailed a muffled voice. "She was my mamma!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +BEN'S NEW HOME + + +Supper was over at the Box R Ranch. From the tiny lean-to the muffled +rattle of heavy table-ware proclaimed the fact that Ma Graham was +putting things in readiness for breakfast. Beside the sheet-iron heater +in the front room, her husband, carefully swaddled in a big checked +apron with the strings tied in a bow under his left ear, was busily +engaged in dressing the half-dozen prairie chickens he had trapped that +day. As fast as he removed the feathers he thrust them into the stove, +and the pungent odor mingled with the suggestive tang of the bacon that +had been the foundation of the past supper, and with the odor of +cigarettes with which the other four men were permeating the place. + +Graham critically held up to the light the bird upon which he had just +been operating, removed a few scattered feathers, and, with practised +hand, attacked its successor. + +"If I were doing this job for myself," he commented, "I'd skin the +beasts. Life is too blamed short to waste it in pulling out feathers!" + +Grannis, the new-comer from no one knew where, smiled. + +"It would look to me that you were doing it," he remarked. "I'd like to +ask for information, who is if you ain't?" + +The clatter of dishes suddenly ceased, and Graham's labor stopped in +sympathy. + +"My boy," he asked in reply, "were you ever married?" + +Beneath its coat of tan, Grannis's face flushed; but he did not answer. + +A second passed; then the plucking of feathers was continued. + +"I reckon you've never been, though," Graham went on, "else you'd never +ask that question." + +During the remainder of the evening, Grannis sought no further +information; and to Ma Graham's narrow life a new interest was added. + +Ordinarily the cowboys went to their bunks in an adjoining shed almost +directly after supper, but this evening, without giving a reason, they +lingered. The housekeeper finished her work, and, coming into the main +room, took a chair and sat down, her hands folded in her lap. The grouse +dressed, Graham ranged them in a row upon the lean-to table, removed the +apron, and lit his pipe in silence. The cowboys rolled fresh cigarettes +and puffed at them steadily, the four stumps close together glowing in +the dimness of the room. As everywhere upon the prairie, the quiet was +almost a thing to feel. + +At last, when the silence had become oppressive, the foreman took the +pipe from his mouth and blew a short puff of smoke. + +"Seems like the boss ought to've got back before this," he said with a +sidelong glance at his wife. + +Ma Graham nodded corroboration. + +"Yes; must have found something wrong, I guess." She refolded her +hands, and once more relapsed into silence. + +It was the breaking of the ice, however. + +"Where d'ye suppose the trouble could have been, Graham?" It was another +late-comer, Bud Buck, young and narrow of hips, who spoke. + +"At Blair's," was the answer. "The Big B is the closest." + +"Blair?" The questioner puffed at his cigarette thoughtfully. "Guess I +never heard of him." + +"Must be a stranger in these parts, then," said Marcom. "Most everybody +knows Tom Blair." He paused to give an all-including glance. "At least +well enough to get a slice of his dough," he finished with a sarcastic +laugh. + +"Does he handle the pasteboards?" asked Buck, with interest. + +"Tries to," contemptuously. + +The curiosity of the youthful Bud was now thoroughly aroused. + +"What kind of a fellow is he, anyway?" he went on. "Does he go it alone +up at his ranch?" + +At the last question Bill Marcom, discreetly silent, shifted his eyes in +the direction of the foreman, and, following them, Bud surprised a +covert glance between Graham and his wife. It was the latter who finally +answered. + +"Not _exactly_." + +Buck was not without intuition, and he shifted to safer ground. + +"Got much of a herd, has he?" + +Marcom rolled a fresh cigarette skilfully, and drew the string of the +tobacco pouch taut with his teeth. + +"He did have, one time, but I don't believe he's got many left now. +There's been a bunch lost there every storm I can remember. He don't +keep any punchers to look after 'em, and he's never on hand himself. The +woman and the kid," with a peculiar glance at the stout housekeeper, +"saved 'em part of the time, but mostly they just drifted." The speaker +blew a great cloud of smoke, and the veins at his temples swelled. "It's +a shame, the way he neglects his stock and lets 'em starve and freeze!" + +The blood coursed hot in the veins of Bud Buck. + +"Why don't somebody step in?" + +There was a meaning silence, broken at last by Graham. + +"We would've--with a rope--if it hadn't been for the boss. He tried to +help the fellow; went over there lots of times himself--weather colder +than the devil, too, and with the wind and sleet so bad you couldn't see +the team ahead of you--until one time last Winter Blair came home full, +and caught him there." The narrative paused, and the black pipe puffed +reminiscently. "The boss never said much, but I guess they must have had +quite a session. Anyway, Rankin never went again, and from the way he +looked when he got back here, half froze, and the mustangs beat out, I +reckon Blair never knew how close he come to a necktie party that day." + +Again silence fell, and remained unbroken until Graham suddenly sprang +to his feet, and with "That's him now! I could tell that old buckboard +if I was in my grave!" hurried on coat and hat and disappeared into the +night. A minute more and the door through which he had passed opened +slowly, and the figure of a small boy, wrapped like an Indian in a big +blanket, stepped timidly inside and stood blinking in the light. + +In anticipation of a very different arrival the housekeeper had risen to +her feet, and now in surprise, arms akimbo, she stood looking curiously +at the stranger. In this land at this time the young of every other +animal native thereto was common, but a child, a white child, was a +novelty indeed. Many a cow-puncher, bachelor among bachelors, could +testify that it had been years since he had seen the like. But Ma Graham +was not a bachelor, and in her the maternal instinct, though repressed, +was strong. It was barely an instant before she was at the little lad's +side, unwinding the blanket with deft hands. + +"Who be you, anyway, and where'd you come from?" she exclaimed. + +The child observed her gravely. + +"Benjamin Blair's my name. I came with the man." + +The husk was off the lad ere this, and the woman was rubbing his small +hands vigorously. + +"Cold, ain't you? Come right over to the fire!" herself leading the way. +"And hungry--I'll bet you're hungrier than a wolf!" + +The lad nodded. "Yes, ma'am." + +The woman straightened up and looked down at her charge. + +"Of course you are. All little boys are hungry." She cast a challenging +glance around the group of interested spectators. + +"Fix the fire, one of you, while I get something hot for the kid," she +said, and ambled toward the lean-to. + +If the men thought to have their curiosity concerning the youngster +satisfied by word of mouth, however, they were doomed to be +disappointed; for when Rankin himself entered it was as though nothing +out of the ordinary had happened. He hung up his coat methodically, and, +with the boy by his side, partook of the hastily prepared meal +impassively, as was his wont. It could not have escaped him that the +small Benjamin ate and ate until it seemed marvellous that one stomach +could accommodate so much food; but he made no comment, and when at last +the boy succumbed to a final plateful, he tilted back against the wall +for his last smoke for the day. This was the usual signal of dismissal, +and the hands put on their hats and filed silently out. + +Without more words the foreman and his wife prepared for the night. The +dishes were cleared away and piled in the lean-to. From either end of +the room bunks, broad as beds, were let down from the wall, and the +blankets that formed their linings were carefully smoothed out. Along +the pole extending across the middle of the room, another set was drawn, +dividing the room in two. Then the two disappeared with a simple +"Good-night." + +Rankin and the boy sat alone looking at each other. From across the +blanket partition there came the muffled sound of movement, the impact +of Graham's heavy boots, as they dropped to the floor, and then +silence. + +"Better go to bed, Ben," suggested Rankin, with a nod toward the bunk. + +The boy at once went through the process of disrobing, and, crawling in +between the blankets, pulled them up about his chin. But the blue eyes +did not close. Instead, they rested steadily upon the man's face. Rankin +returned the look, and then the stubby pipe left his mouth. + +"What is it, Ben?" + +The boy hesitated. "Am I to--to stay with you?" he asked at last. + +"Yes." + +For an instant the questioner seemed satisfied; then the peculiar +inquiring look returned. + +"Anything else, son?" + +The lad hesitated longer than before. Beneath the coverings his body +moved restlessly. + +"Yes, sir, I want to know why nobody would come to help my mamma if +she'd sent for them. She said they wouldn't." + +The pipe left Rankin's mouth, his great jaws closing with an audible +click. + +"You wish to know--what did you say, Ben?" + +The boy repeated the question. + +For a minute, and then another, Rankin said nothing; then he knocked the +ashes from the bowl of his brier and laid it upon the table. + +"Never mind now why they wouldn't, son." He arose heavily and drew off +his coat. "You'll find out for yourself quickly enough--too quickly, my +boy. Now go to sleep." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE EXOTICS + + +Some men acquire involuntary prominence by being democratic amid +aristocratic surroundings. Others, on the contrary, but with the same +result, continue to live the life to which they were born, even when +placed amid surroundings that make their actions all but grotesque. An +example of this latter class was Scotty Baker, whose ranch, as the wild +goose flies, was thirteen miles west of the Box R. + +Scotty was a very English Englishman, with an inborn love of fine +horse-flesh and a guileless nature. Some years before he had fallen into +the hands of a promoter, and had bartered a goodly proportion of his +worldly belongings for a horse-ranch in Dakota, to be taken possession +of immediately. Long indeed was the wail which went up from his home in +Sussex when the fact was made known. Neighbors were fluent in +denunciation, relatives insistent in expostulation; his wife, and in +sympathy their baby daughter, copious in the argument of tears; but the +die was irrevocably cast. Go he would,--not from voluntary stubbornness, +but because he must. + +The actual departure of the Bakers was much like the sailing of +Columbus. Probably not one of the friends who saw them off for their +new home expected ever to see the family again. Indians they were +confident were rampant, and frantic for scalps. Should any by a miracle +escape the savages, the tremendous herds of buffalo, running amuck, here +and there, could not fail to trample the survivors into the dust of the +prairie. By comparison, war was a benignant prospect; and sighs mingled +until the sound was as the wailing of winds. + +Scotty was very cheerful through it all, very encouraging even in the +face of incontestibly unfavorable evidence, until, with the few remnants +of civilization they had brought with them, the family arrived at the +wind-beaten terminus, a hundred miles from his newly acquired property. +Then for the first time he wilted. + +"I've been an ass," he admitted bitterly, as he glanced in impotent +contempt at the handful of weather-stained buildings which on the map +bore the name of a town; "an ass, an egregious, abominable, blethering +ass!" + +But, notwithstanding his lack of the practical, Scotty was made of good +stuff. It was not an alternative but a necessity that faced him now, and +he arose right manfully to the occasion. Despite his wife's assertion +that she "never, never would go any farther into this God-forsaken +country," he succeeded in getting her into a lumber-wagon and headed for +what he genially termed "the interior." At last he even succeeded in +making her smile at his efforts to make the disreputable mule pack-team +he had secured move faster than a walk. + +Once in possession of his own, however, he returned to his customary +easy manner of life. It took him a very short time to discover that he +had purchased a gold brick. Horses, especially fine horses, were in no +demand there; but this fact did not alter his course in the least. A +horse-ranch he had bought, a horse-ranch he would run, though every man +west of the Mississippi should smile. He enlarged his tiny shack to a +cottage of three rooms; put in floor and ceiling, and papered the walls. +Out of poles and prairie sod he fashioned a serviceable barn, and built +an admirable horse paddock. Last of all he planted in his dooryard, in +artistic irregularity, a wagon-load of small imported trees. The fact +that within six months they all died caused him slight misgiving. He at +least had done what he could to beautify the earth; that he failed was +nature's fault, not his. + +Once settled, he began to make acquaintances. Methodically, to the +members of one ranch at a time, he sent invitations to dinner, and upon +the appointed date he confronted his guests with a spectacle which made +them all but doubt their identity, the like of which most of them had +never even seen before. Fancy a cowboy rancher, clad in flannel and +leather, welcomed by a host and hostess in complete evening dress, +ushered into a room which contained a carpet and a piano, and had lace +curtains at the windows; seated later at a table covered with pure linen +and set with real china and cut-glass. The experience was like a dream +to the visitor. Temporarily, as in a dream, the evening would pass +without conscious volition upon the latter's part; and not until later, +when he was at home, would the full significance of the experience +assert itself, and his wonder and admiration find vent in words. Then +indeed would the fame of Scotty Baker, his wife, and little daughter, +be heard in the land. + +Early in his career, Scotty began to cultivate the impassive Rankin. He +fairly bombarded the big rancher with courtesies and invitations. No +holiday (and Scotty was an assiduous observer of holidays) was complete +unless Rankin was present to help celebrate. No improvement about the +ranch was definitely undertaken until Rankin had expressed a favorable +opinion concerning the project. Gradually, so gradually that the big man +himself did not realize the change, he fell under Scotty's influence, +and more and more frequently he was to be found headed toward the cosey +Baker cottage. Now, for a year or more, scarcely a Sunday had passed +without one or the other of the men finding it possible to traverse the +thirty miles intervening between them, to spend a few hours in each +other's company. + +It was in pursuance of this laudable intention that on the second +morning following Ben Blair's adoption into the Box R Ranch--a +Sunday--the Englishman hitched a team of his best blooded trotters to +the antiquated phaeton, which was the only vehicle he possessed, and +started across country at a lively clip. Thus it came to pass that about +two hours later, having tied his team at the barn and started for the +ranch-house, the visitor saw squarely in his path upon the sunny south +doorstep an object that made him pause and blink his near-sighted eyes. +Under the concentration of his vision, the object resolved itself into a +small boy perched like a frog upon a rock, his fingers locked across his +shins, his chin upon his knees. For an instant the Englishman +hesitated. Courtesy was instinctive with him. + +"Can you tell me whether Mr. Rankin is at home?" he asked. + +The lad calmly disentangled himself and stood up. + +"You mean the big man, sir?" + +Again Scotty was guilty of a breach of etiquette. He stared. + +"Certainly," he replied at last. + +Ben Blair stepped out of the way. + +"Yes, sir, he is." + +Within the ranch-house Scotty dropped into the nearest chair. + +"Tell me, Rankin," he began, "who is the new-comer, and where did you +get him?" A long leg swung comfortably over its mate. "And, by the way, +while you're about it, is he six or sixty? By Jove, I couldn't tell!" + +The host looked at his visitor quizzically. + +"Ben, I suppose you mean?" + +"Ben, or _Tom_, I don't know. I mean the gentleman on the front steps, +the one who didn't know your name," and the Englishman related the +recent conversation. + +The corners of Rankin's eyes tightened into an unwonted smile as he +listened, and then contracted until the corner of the large mouth drew +upward in sympathy. + +"I'm not surprised, Baker," he admitted, "that you're in doubt about +Ben's age. He's eight; but I'd be uncertain myself if I didn't +absolutely know. As to his not knowing my name--it's just struck me that +I've never introduced myself to the little fellow." + +"But how did you come to get him? This isn't a country where one sees +many children roaming around." + +"No," the big mouth dropped back into its normal shape; "that's a fact. +He didn't just drop in. I got him by adoption, I suppose; least ways, I +asked him to come and live with me, and he accepted." The speaker turned +to his companion directly. "You knew Jennie Blair, did you?" + +Scotty looked interested. + +"Knew of her, but never had the pleasure of an acquaintance. I always--" + +"Well," interrupted Rankin impassively, "Ben's her son. She died awhile +ago, you remember, and somehow it seemed to break Blair all up. He +wouldn't stay here any longer, and didn't want to take the kid with him, +so I took the youngster in. As far as I know, the arrangement will +stick." + +For a minute there was silence. Scotty observed his host shrewdly, +almost sceptically. + +"That's all of the story, is it?" he asked at last. + +"All, as far as I know." + +Scotty continued his observation a moment longer. + +"But not all the kid knows, I judge." + +The host made no comment, and in a distinctively absent manner the +Englishman removed his glasses and cleaned the lenses upon the tail of +his Sunday frock-coat. + +"By the way,"--Scotty returned the glasses to his nose and sprung the +bows over his ears with a snap,--"what day was it that Blair left? Did +it happen to be Friday?" + +"Yes, Friday." + +"And he doesn't intend ever to return?" + +"I believe not." + +The visitor's eyes flashed swiftly around the room. The two men were +alone. + +"I think, then, I see through it." The voice was lower than before. "One +of my best mares disappeared night before last, and I haven't been able +to get trace of a hoof or hair since." + +"What?" Rankin was interested at last. + +Scotty repeated the statement, and his host eyed him a full half minute +steadily. + +"And you just--tell of it?" he said at last. + +The Englishman shifted uneasily in his seat. + +"Yes." Forgetting that he had just polished his glasses, he took them +off and went through the process again. + +"Yes, I may as well be honest, I've seen a bit of these Westerners about +here, and I don't really agree with their scheme of justice. They're apt +to put two and two together and make eight where you know it's only +four." For the second time he sprung the bows back over his ears. "And +when they find out their beastly mistake--why--oh--it's too late then, +perhaps, for some poor devil!" + +For another half minute Rankin hesitated; then he reached over and +grasped the other man by the hand. + +"Baker," he said, "you ain't very practical, but you're dead square." +And he shook the hand again. + +Of a sudden a twinkle came into the Britisher's eyes and he tore himself +loose with an effort. + +"By the way," he said, "I'd like to ask a question for future guidance. +What would you have done if you'd been in my place?" + +Rankin stiffened in his seat, and a color almost red surged beneath the +tan of his cheeks; then, as suddenly as his companion had done, he +smiled outright. + +"I reckon I'd have done just what you did," he admitted; and the two men +laughed together. + +"Seriously, though," said Scotty, after a moment, "and as long as I've +told you anyway, what ought I to do under the circumstances? Should I +let Blair off, do you think?" + +For a moment Rankin did not answer; then he faced his questioner +directly, and Scotty knew why the big man's word was so nearly law in +the community. + +"Under the circumstances," he repeated, "I'd let him go; for several +reasons. First of all, he's got such a start of you now that you +couldn't catch him, anyway. Then he's a coward by nature, and it'll be a +mighty long time before he ever shows up here again. And last of all," +the speaker hesitated, "last of all," he repeated slowly, "though I +don't know, I believe you were right when you said the boy could tell +more about it than the rest of us; and if what we suspect is true, I +think by the time he comes back, if he ever does come, Ben will be old +enough to take care of him." Again the speaker paused, and his great +jowl settled down into his shirt-front. "If he doesn't, I can't read +signs when I see 'em." + +For a moment the room was silent; then Scotty sprang to his feet as if a +load had been taken off his mind. + +"All right," said he, "we'll forget it. And, speaking of forgetting, +I've nearly got myself into trouble already. I have an invitation from +Mrs. Baker for you to take dinner with us to-day. In fact, I was sent on +purpose to bring you. Not a word, not a word!" he continued, at sight of +objections gathering on the other's face; "a lady's invitations are +sacred, you know. Get your coat!" + +Rankin arose with an effort and stood facing his visitor. + +"You know I'm always glad to visit you, Baker," he said. "I wasn't +thinking of holding off on my own account, but I've got someone else to +consider now, you know. Ben--" + +"Certainly, certainly!" Scotty's voice was eloquent of comprehension. +"Throw the kiddie in too. He can play with Flossie; they're about of an +age, and she'll be tickled to death to have him." + +Rankin looked at his friend a moment peculiarly. "I know Ben's going +would be all right with you, Baker," he explained at last, "but how +about your wife? Considering--everything--she might object." + +The smile left the Englishman's face, and a look of perplexity took its +place. + +"By Jove!" he said, "you're right! I never thought of that." He shifted +from one foot to the other uneasily. "But, pshaw! What's the use of +saying anything whatever about the boy's connections? He's nothing but a +youngster,--and, besides, his mother's actions are no fault of his." + +Rankin took his top-coat off its peg deliberately. + +"All right," he said. "I'll call Ben." At the door he paused, looking +back, the peculiar expression again upon his face. "As you say, the +faults of Ben's mother are not his faults, anyway." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE SOIL AND THE SEED + + +Within the Baker home three persons, a woman and two men, were sitting +beside a well-discussed table in the perfect content that follows a good +meal. Strange to say, in this frontier land, the men had cigars, and +their smoke curled slowly toward the ceiling. Intermittently, with the +unconscious attitude of indifference we bestow upon happenings remote +from our lives, they were discussing the month-old news of the world, +which the messenger from town, who supplied at stated intervals the +family wants, had brought the day before. + +Out of doors, in the warm sunny plat south of the barn, a small boy and +a still smaller girl were engaged in the fascinating occupation of +becoming acquainted. The little girl was decidedly taking the +initiative. + +"How's it come your name is Blair?" she asked, opening fire as soon as +they were alone. + +The boy pondered the question. It had never occurred to him before. Why +should he be called Blair? No adequate reason suggested itself. + +"I don't know," he admitted. + +The little girl wrinkled her forehead in thought. + +"It's funny, isn't it?" she said. "Now, my papa's name is Baker, and my +name's Florence Baker. You ought to be Ben Rankin--but you aren't." She +stroked a diminutive nose with a fairy forefinger. "It's funny," she +repeated. + +"Oh!" commented Benjamin. He understood now, but explanations were not a +part of his philosophy. "Oh!" and the subject dropped. + +"Let's play duck on the rock," suggested Florence. + +The boy's hands were deep in the recesses of his pockets. + +"I don't know how." + +"That's nothing." The small brunette had the air of one to whom +difficulties were unknown. "I'll show you. Papa and I play, and it's +lots of fun--only he beats me." She looked about for available material. + +"You get that little box up by the house," she directed, "and we'll have +that for the rock." + +Ben did as ordered. + +"Now bring two tin cans. You'll find a pile back of the barn." + +Once more the boy departed, to return a moment later with a pair of +"selects," each bearing in gaudy illumination a composite picture of the +ingredients of succotash. + +"Now watch me," said Florence. + +She carried the box about a rod away and planted it firmly on the +ground. "This is the rock," she explained. On the top of the box she +perched one of the cans, open end up. "And this is the duck--my duck. Do +you see?" + +The boy had watched the proceedings carefully. "Yes, I see," he said. + +Florence came back to the barn. "Now the game is for you to take this +other can and knock my duck off. Then we both run, and if you get your +can on the box ahead of me, I'm _it_, and I'll have to knock off your +duck. Are you ready?" + +"Yes." + +"All right." And the sport was on. + +Ben poised his missile and carefully let fly. + +"He, he!" tittered Florence. "You missed!" + +He retrieved his duck without comment. + +"Try again; you've got three chances." + +More carefully than before Ben took aim and tossed his can. + +"Missed again!" exulted the little brunette. "You've only one more try." +And the brown eyes flashed with mischief. + +For the last time Ben stood at position. + +"Be careful! you're out if you miss." + +Even more slowly than before the boy took aim, swung his arm overhead +clear from the shoulder, and threw with all his might. There was a flash +of gaudy paper through the air, a resounding impact of tin against wood, +and the make-believe duck skipped away as though fearful of danger. + +For a moment Florence stood aghast, but only for a moment; then she +stamped a tiny foot imperiously. + +"Oh, you naughty boy!" she exclaimed. "You naughty, naughty boy!" + +Once more Ben's hands were in his pockets. "Why?" he asked innocently. + +"Because you don't play right!" + +"You told me to knock the duck off, and I did!" + +"But not that way." Florence's small chin was high in the air. "I'm +going in the house." + +Ben made no motion to follow her, none to prevent her going. + +"I'm sorry," he said simply. + +The little girl took two steps decidedly, a third haltingly, a fourth, +then stopped and looked back out of the corner of her eye. + +"Are you very sorry?" she asked. + +Ben nodded his head gravely. + +There was a moment of indecision. "All right," she said, with apparent +reluctance; "but we won't play duck any more. We'll play drop the +handkerchief." + +The boy discreetly ignored the change of purpose. + +"I don't know how," he admitted once more. + +Such deplorable ignorance aroused her sympathy. + +"Don't Mr. Rankin, or--or anyone--play with you?" she asked. + +Ben shook his head. + +"All right, then," she said obligingly, "I'll show you." + +With her heel she drew upon the ground a rough circle about ten feet in +diameter. + +"You can't cross that place in there," she said. + +The boy looked at the bare ground critically. No visible barrier +presented itself to his vision. + +"Why not?" he asked. + +Florence made a gesture of disapproval. "Because you can't," she +explained. Then, some further reason seeming necessary, she added, +"Perhaps there are red-hot irons or snakes, or something, in there. +Anyway, you can't cross!" + +Ben made no comment, and his instructor looked at him a moment +doubtfully. + +"Now," she went on, "I stand right here close to the line, and you take +the handkerchief." She produced a dainty little kerchief with a "B" +embroidered in the corner. "Drop it behind me, and get in my place if +you can before I touch you. If you get clear around and catch me before +I notice you--you can kiss me. Do you see?" + +Ben could see. + +"All right, then." And the little girl stood at attention, very prim, +apparently very watchful, toes touching the line. + +The nature of Benjamin Blair was very direct. The first time he passed, +he dropped the handkerchief and proceeded calmly on his journey. His +back toward her, the little girl turned and gave a surreptitious glance +behind; then quickly shifted to her original position, a look of +innocence upon her face. Straight ahead went Ben around the circle--that +contained hot irons, or snakes, or something--back to his +starting-point, touched the small fragment of femininity upon the +shoulder gingerly, as though afraid she would fracture. + +"Here's your handkerchief," he said, stooping to recover the bit of +linen. "You're it." + +"Oh, dear!" she said, in mock despair; "you dropped it the first time, +didn't you?" + +Ben agreed to the statement. + +An unaccountable lull followed. In it he caught a curious sidelong +glance from the brown eyes under the drooping lashes. + +"I didn't suppose you'd do that the first time," said the little girl. +"Papa never does." + +The observation seemed irrelevant to Ben Blair, at least inadequate to +halt the game; but he made no comment. + +Again there was a lull. + +"Well," suggested Florence, and a tinge of red surged beneath the soft +brown skin. + +Ben began to feel uncomfortable. He had a premonition that all was not +well. + +"You're _it_, ain't you?" he hesitated at last. + +This time, full and fair, the tiny woman looked at him. The color which +before had stood just beneath the skin rose burning to her ears, to the +roots of her hair. Her big brown eyes flashed fire. + +"Ben Blair," she flamed, "you're a 'fraid cat!" Tears welled up into her +voice, into her eyes, and she made a motion as if to leave; but the +sudden passion of a spoiled child was too strong upon her, the mystified +face of the other too near, too tempting. With a motion which was all +but involuntary, a tiny brown hand shot out and struck the boy fair on +the mouth. "A 'fraid cat, 'fraid cat, and I hate you!" + +Never before in his short life had Benjamin Blair met a girl. The ethics +of sex was a thing unknown to him, but nevertheless some instinct +prevented his returning the insult. Except for the red mark upon his +lips, his face grew very white. + +"What am I afraid of?" he asked steadily. + +Defiant still, the girl held her ground. + +"Afraid of what?" she jeered. "You're afraid of everything! 'Fraid cats +always are!" + +"But what?" pressed the boy. "Tell me something I'm afraid of." + +Florence glanced about her. The tall roof of the barn caught her vision. + +"You wouldn't dare jump off the roof there, for one thing," she +ventured. + +Ben looked up. The point mentioned arose at least sixteen feet, and the +earth beneath was frozen like asphalt, but he did not hesitate. At the +north end, a stack of hay piled against the wall formed a sort of +inclined plane, and making a detour he began to climb. Half-way up he +lost his footing and came tumbling to the ground; but still he said +nothing. The next time he was more careful, and reached the ridge-pole +without accident. Below, the little girl, brilliant in her red jacket, +stood watching him; but he never even glanced at her. Instead, he raised +himself to his full height, looked once at the ground beneath, and +jumped. + +That instant a wave of contrition swept over Florence. In a sort of +vision she saw the boy lying injured, perhaps dead, upon the frozen +ground,--and all through her fault! She shut her eyes, and clasped her +hands over her face. + +A few seconds passed, bringing with them no further sound, and she +slowly opened her fingers. Through them, instead of a prostrate corpse, +she saw the boy standing erect before her. There was a smear of dust +upon his coat and face where he had fallen, and a scratch upon his +cheek, which bled a bit, but otherwise he was apparently unhurt. From +beneath his long lashes as she looked, the blue eyes met hers, +deliberate and unsmiling. + +As swiftly as it had come, the mood of contrition passed. In an +indefinite sort of way the girl experienced a sensation of +disappointment,--a feeling of being deprived of something which was her +due. She was only a child, a spoiled child, and her defiance arose anew. +A moment so the children faced each other. + +"Do you still think I'm afraid?" asked the boy at last. + +Again the hot color flamed beneath the brown skin. + +"Pooh!" said the girl, "_that_ was nothing!" She tossed her head in +derision. "Anyone could do that!" + +Ben slowly took off his cap, slapped it against his knee to shake off +the dust, and put it back upon his head. The action took only a half +minute, but when the girl looked at him again it hardly seemed he was +the same boy with whom she had just played. His eyes were no longer +blue, but gray. The chin, too, with an odd trick,--one she was destined +to know better in future,--had protruded, had become the dominant +feature of his face, aggressive, almost menacing. Except for the size, +one looking could scarcely have believed Ben's visage was that of a +child. + +"What," the boy's hands went back into his pockets, "what wouldn't +anyone do, then?" he asked directly. + +At that moment Florence Baker would have been glad to occupy some other +person's shoes. Obviously, the proper thing for her to do was to admit +her fault and clear the atmosphere, but that did not accord with her +disposition, and she looked about for a suggestion. One came promptly, +but at first she did not speak. Then the brown head tossed again. + +"Some folks would be afraid to ride one of those colts out there!" She +indicated the pasture near by. "Papa said the other day he'd rather not +be the first to try." + +The colts mentioned were a bunch of four-year-olds that Scotty had just +imported from an Eastern breeder. They were absolutely unbroken, but +every ounce thoroughbreds, and full to the ear-tips of what the +Englishman expressively termed "ginger." + +To her credit be it said, the small Florence had no idea that her +challenge would be accepted. Implicit trust in her father was one of her +virtues, and the mere suggestion that another would attempt to do what +he would not, was rankest heresy. But the boy Benjamin started for the +barn, and, securing a bridle and a pan of oats, moved toward the gate. +Instinctively Florence took a step after him. + +"Really, I didn't mean for you to try," she explained in swift +penitence. "I don't think you're afraid!" + +Ben opened and closed the gate silently. + +"Please don't do it," pleaded the girl. "You'll be hurt!" + +But for all the effect her petition had, she might as well have asked +the sun to cease shining. Nothing could stop that gray-eyed boy. Without +a show of haste he advanced toward the nearest colt, shook the oats in +the pan, and whistled enticingly. Full often in his short life he had +seen the trick done before, and he waited expectantly. + +Florence, forgetting her fears, watched with interest. At first the +colt was shy, but gradually, under stimulus of its appetite, it drew +nearer, then ran frisking away, again drew near. Ben held out the pan, +shook it at intervals, displaying its contents to the best advantage. +Colt nature could not resist the appeal. The sleek thoroughbred cast +aside all scruples, came close, and thrust a silken muzzle deep into the +grain. + +Still without haste, the boy put on the bridle, holding the pan near the +ground to reach the straps over the ears; then, pausing, looked at the +back far above his head. How he was to get up there would have perplexed +an observer. For a moment it puzzled the boy; then an idea occurred to +him. Once more holding the remnants of the oats near the ground, he +waited until the hungry nose was deep amongst them, the head well +lowered; then, improving his opportunity, he swung one leg over the +sleek neck and awaited developments. + +He was not long in suspense. The action was like touching flame to +powder; the resulting explosion was all but simultaneous. With a snort, +the head went high in air, tossing the grain about like seed, and down +the inclined plane of the neck thus formed the long-legged Benjamin slid +to the slippery back. Once there, an instinct told him to grip the +rounding flank with his ankles, and clutch the heavy mane. + +And he was none too quick. For a moment the colt paused in pure wonder +at the audacity of the thing; then, with a neigh, half of anger and half +of fear, it sprang away at top speed, circling and recircling, flashing +in and out among the other horses, the fragment of humanity on its back +meanwhile clinging to his place like a monkey. For a minute, then +another, the youngster kept his seat, pulling upon the reins at +intervals, gripping together his small knees until the muscles ached. +Then suddenly the colt, changing its tactics, planted its front feet +firmly into the ground, stopped short, and the small Benjamin shot +overhead, to strike the turf beyond with an impact which fairly drove +the breath from his body. But even then, half unconscious as he was, he +wouldn't let loose of the reins. Not until the now thoroughly aroused +colt had dragged him for rods, did the leather break, leaving the boy +and the bridle in a most disreputable-looking heap upon the earth. + +Florence had watched the scene with breathless interest. While Ben was +making his mount, she observed him doubtfully. While he retained his +seat, she clapped her hands in glee. Then, with his downfall, a great +lump came chokingly into her throat, and, without waiting to see the +outcome, she ran sobbing to the house. A moment later she rushed into +the little parlor where her father and Rankin, their cigars finished, +were sitting and chatting. + +"Papa," she pleaded, "papa, go quick! Ben's killed!" + +"Great Caesar's ghost!" exclaimed Scotty, springing up nervously, and +holding the little girl at arm's length. "What's the matter?" + +"Ben, Ben, I told you! He tried to ride one of the colts, and he's +killed--I know he is!" + +"Holy buckets!" Genuine apprehension was in the Englishman's voice. +Without waiting for further explanation he shot out of the door, and +ran full tilt to the paddock behind the barn. There he stopped, and +Rankin coming up a moment later, the two men stood side by side watching +the approach of a small figure still some rods away. The boy's face and +hands were marked with bloodstains from numerous scratches; one leg of +his trousers was torn disclosing the skin, and upon that side when he +walked he limped noticeably. All these things the two men observed at a +distance. When he came closer, they were forgotten in the look upon his +small face. The odd trick the boy had of throwing his lower jaw forward +was now emphasized until the lower teeth fairly overshot the upper. In +sympathy, the eyes had tightened, not morosely or cruelly, but with a +fixed determination which was all but uncanny. Scotty shifted a bit +uncomfortably. + +"By Jove!" he remarked, with his usual unconscious expletive, "I'd +rather have a tiger-cat on my trail than that youngster, if he was to +look that way. What do you suppose he's got in his cranium now?" + +Rankin shook his head. "I don't know. He's beyond me." + +Scarcely a minute passed before the boy returned. He had another bridle +in his hand and a fresh pan of oats. As before, he started to pass +without a word, but Rankin halted him. "What's the matter with your +clothes, Ben?" he queried. + +The lad looked at his questioner. "Horse threw me, sir." + +"And what are you going to do now?" + +"Going to try to ride him again, sir." + +Rankin paused, his face growing momentarily more severe. + +"Ben," he said at last, "did Mr. Baker hire you to break his horses? If +I were you I'd put those things away and ask his pardon." + +The boy looked from one man to the other uncertainly. Obviously, this +phase of the matter had not occurred to him. Obviously, too, the point +of view must be correct, for both Rankin and Scotty were solemn as the +grave. The lad shot out toward the pasture a glance that spoke volumes; +then he turned to Baker. + +"I beg your pardon, sir," he said. + +Scotty caught his cue. "Granted--this time," he answered. + +A half-hour later, Rankin and Ben, the latter carefully washed, the +rents in his trousers temporarily repaired, were ready to go home. Not +until the very last moment did Florence appear; then, her face a bit +flushed, she came out to the buckboard. + +"Good-bye," she said simply. There was a moment's pause; then, with a +deepening color, she turned to Ben Blair. "Come again soon," she added +in a low tone. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SANITY OF THE WILD + + +Summer, tan-colored, musical with note of katydid and cicada, and the +constant purr of the south wind, was upon the prairie country. Under the +eternal law of necessity,--the necessity of sunburnt, stunted +grass,--the boundaries of the range extended far in every direction. The +herds bearing the Box R brand no longer fed in one body, but scattered +far and wide. Often for a week at a time the men did not sleep under +cover. Morning and night, when a semblance of dew was upon the blighted +grass, the cattle grazed. The life was primitive and natural almost +beyond belief in a world of artificial civilization; but it was +independent, care-free, and healthy. + +The land surrounding the ranch-house was now almost as bare as the palm +of a hand. Only one object relieved the impression of desolation, and +that was a tree. It stood carefully fenced about in the drain from the +big artesian well,--a vivid blot of green against the dun background. +The first year after he came, Rankin had imported it,--a goodly sized +soft maple; and in the pathway of constantly trickling water, it had +grown and prospered. It was the only tree for miles and miles about, +except the scrawny scrub-oaks, cotton-woods, and wild plums that flanked +the infrequent creeks,--creeks which in Summer, save in deepest holes, +reverted to mere dry runs. Beneath its shade Rankin had constructed a +rough bench, and therein Ma Graham, day after day when her housework was +finished, dozed and sewed and dozed again, apparently as forgetful as +the cowboys upon the prairies that beyond her vision were great cities +where countless thousands of human beings sweltered and struggled in +desperate competition for daily bread. + +So much for the day. With the coming of dusk, a coolness like a +benediction took the place of heat. The south wind gradually died down +with the descending sun, until immediately following the setting it was +absolutely still; now it sprang up anew, and wandered on until the break +of day. + +Such an evening in late July found Rankin and Baker stretched out like +boys upon a pile of hay in the latter's yard. The big man had just +arrived; the old buckboard, with its mouse-colored mustangs, stood just +as he had driven it up. Scotty knew him well enough to know that he had +come for a purpose, and he awaited its revelation. Rankin slowly filled +and lit his pipe, drew thereon until the glow from the bowl was +reflected upon his face, and blew a great cloud of smoke out into the +gathering dusk. + +"Baker," he asked at last, "what are we going to do for the education of +these youngsters of ours? We can't let them grow up here like savages." + +Scotty rolled over on his side, and leaned his head comfortably in his +hand. + +"I've thought of that," he answered, "and there seems to me only one of +two things to do--either move into civilization, or import a pedagogue." +A pause, and a whimsical inflection came into his voice. "Unfortunately, +however, neither plan seems exactly practical at this time." + +Rankin smoked a minute in silence. "How would it do to move into +civilization six months of the year--the Winter six?" he suggested. + +Scotty considered for a moment. "Do you mean that seriously?" he asked. + +"Yes." + +By the sense of feeling alone, the Englishman rolled a cigarette +skilfully. "How about the stock here while we're gone," he said +hesitatingly. "Do you suppose we'd find anything left when we came back +in the Spring?" + +Rankin crowded the half-burned tobacco down into the pipe-bowl with his +little finger. "I don't think you got the idea," he explained. "My plan +was for you to go East in the Fall and put the kids in school. I'd stay +here and see that everything ran smoothly while you were gone. Mrs. +Baker has said a dozen times that she wanted a change--for a time, +anyway." + +Scotty threw one long leg over the other. "As usual you're right, +Rankin," he said slowly. "The Lord knows Mollie gets restless enough at +times. People were like ants in a hill where she was raised, and that +life was a part of her." He took a last puff at the cigarette, and with +a toss sent the smoking stump spinning like a firefly into the darkness. +"And Flossie can't grow up wild--I know that. I'll talk your suggestion +over with Mollie first, but I think I'd be safe in saying right now +that we'll accept." + +For a moment Rankin did not speak; then he knocked the ashes out of his +pipe upon his heel. + +"Excuse me if I keep going back to something unpleasant, Baker," he said +slowly, "but in considering the matter there's one thing I don't want +you to forget." Then, after a meaning pause, he went on: "It's the same +reason I had for not introducing Ben in the first place." + +Scotty drew out his book of rice-paper again almost involuntarily. + +"I'd thought of that this time," he said; then paused to finger a gauzy +sheet absently. "I don't see why I should consider it now, +though--seeing I didn't before." + +Rankin said nothing, and conversation lapsed. Irresistibly, but so +gradually as to be all but unconscious, the spirit of the prairie +night--a sensation, a conception of infinite vastness, of unassailable +serenity--stole over and took possession of the men. The ambitious and +manifold artificial needs for which men barter their happiness, their +sense of humanity, even life itself, seemed beyond belief out there +alone with the stars, with the prairie night-wind singing in the ears; +seemed so puny that they elicited only a smile. The lust of show, of +extravagance, follies, wisdoms, man's loves and hates--how their true +proportions stand revealed against the eternal background of +immeasurable distance, in nature's vast scheme! + +Scotty cleared his throat. "I used to think, when I first came here, +that I'd been a fool; but now, somehow, at times like this, I wonder if +I didn't blunder into the wisest act of my life." The prairie spirit +had taken hold of him. "And the longer I stay the more it grows upon me +that such a life as this, where one's success is not the measure of +another's failure, is the only one to live. It is the only life," he +added after a pause. + +Rankin said nothing. + +Scotty was silent for a moment, but the mood was too strong for him to +remain so, and he went on. + +"I know the ordinary person would laugh if I said it, but really, I +believe I'm developing a distaste for money. It's simply another term +for caste; and that word, with the unreasoning superiority it implies, +has somehow become hateful to me." He looked up into the night. + +"I used to think I was happy back in England. I had my home and my +associates; born so, because their fathers were friends of my father, +their grandfathers of my grandfather's class. As a small landlord I had +my gentlemanly leisure; but as well as I know my name, I realize now +that I could never return to that life again. Looking back, I see its +intolerable narrowness, its petty smugness. By comparison it's like the +relative clearness of the atmosphere there and here. There, perhaps I +could see a few miles: here, I look away over leagues and leagues of +distance. It's symbolic." The voice paused; the face, turned directly +toward his companion's, tried in the half-darkness to read its +expression. "I've been in this prairie country long enough now to +realize that financially I've made a mistake. I can earn a living, and +that's all; but nevertheless I'm happy--happier than I ever realized it +was possible for me to be. I've got enough--more would be a burden to +me. If I have a trouble in the world, it's because I see the inevitable +prospect of money in the future,--money I don't want, for I'm an only +son and my father is comparatively wealthy. Without turning his hand, +his rent-roll is five thousand pounds a year. He's getting along in +life. Some day--it may be five years, it may be fifteen--he will die and +leave it to me. I am to maintain and pass on the family name, the family +dignity. It was all cut and dried generations back, generations before I +was born." + +Still Rankin said nothing. For any indication he gave, the other's +revelation might have been only that he had a hundred dollars deposited +in the savings bank against a rainy day. + +But Scotty was now fairly under headway. He stripped his reserve and +confidence bare. + +"You see now why I'm glad to consider your proposition. Whatever I +believe myself must be of secondary importance. I've others to think +about--Florence and her mother. Flossie is only a child, but Mollie is a +woman, and has lived her life in sight of the brazen calf. She doesn't +realize, she never can realize, that it is of brass and not of gold. +Personally, I believe, as I believe in my own existence, that Flossie +would be immeasurably happier if she never saw the other side of +life,--the artificial side,--but lived right here, knowing what we +taught her and developing like a healthy animal; perhaps, when the time +came, marrying a rancher, having her own home, her own family interests, +and living close to nature. But it can't be. I've got to develop her, +cultivate her, fit her for any society." The voice paused, and the +speaker turned his face away. + +"God knows,--and He knows also that I love her dearly,--that looking +into the future I wish sometimes she were the daughter of another man." + +The minutes passed. The ponies shifted restlessly and then were still. +In the lull, the soft night-breeze crooned its minor song, while near or +far away--no human ear could measure the distance--a prairie owl gave +its weird cry. Then silence fell as before. + +Once more Scotty turned, facing his companion. + +"I've a question to ask you, Rankin; may I ask it without offence?" + +The big man nodded. By the starlight Baker caught the motion. + +"You told me once that you were a college man, and that you had a +Master's degree. From the very first you started cattle-raising on a big +scale. You must have had money. Still, such being the case, you left +culture and civilization far behind and came here to choose a life +absolutely different. I have told you why I wish to educate my daughter. +But why, feeling as you must have felt and must still feel, since you're +here, why do you wish to educate this waif boy you've picked up? By all +the standards of convention, he is at the very bottom of the social +scale. Why do you want to do this?" + +It was a psychological moment. Even in the semi-darkness, Rankin felt +the other's eyes fixed piercingly upon him. He passed his hand over his +face; he seemed about to speak. But the habit of reticence was too +strong upon him. Even the inspiration of the Englishman's confidence +was not sufficient to break the seal of his own reserve. He arose slowly +and shook the clinging wisps of hay from his clothes. + +"For somewhat the same reason as your own," he answered at last. "Ben, +like Flossie, is a child, an odd old child to be sure, but nevertheless +a child. I have no reason to know that when he grows up his beliefs will +be my beliefs. He must see both sides of the coin, and judge for +himself." + +The speaker paused, then walked slowly over to the old buckboard. "It's +getting late, and I've got a long drive home." With an effort he mounted +into the seat and picked up the reins. "Good-night." + +Scotty hesitated a moment, and then said, "Good-night." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE GLITTER OF THE UNKNOWN + + +Twelve years slipped by. Short as they seemed to those actually living +them, they had brought great material changes. No longer did the ranch +cattle graze at the will of their owners, but, under stress of +competition, they browsed within the confines of miles upon miles of +galvanized fencing. Neighbors, as Rankin said, were near now. There were +four within a radius of twenty miles. To be sure, there was still plenty +of land west of them, beyond the broad muddy Missouri,--open rough land, +gradually rising in elevation, where a traveller could journey for days +and days without seeing a human face. But this was not then a part of +the so-called "cattle ranges." In the parlance of the country, that was +"West,"--a place to hunt in, a refuge for criminals, but as yet giving +no indication of ever becoming of practical use. + +The Box R Ranch had evolved along with the others, and always well in +advance. The house now boasted six rooms; the barn and stock-sheds had +at a distance the appearance of a town in themselves; the collection of +haying implements--mowers, loaders, stackers--was almost complete enough +to stock a jobbing house. The herd itself had augmented, despite its +annual reduction, until one artesian well was inadequate to supply +water; and fifteen miles north, at the extreme limit of his home-ranch, +Rankin had sunk another well, making a sort of sub-station of that +point. From it an observer with good eyes could see the outlines of the +modern Big B Ranch property, built on the old site, and ostensibly +operated by a long-legged Yankee, Rob Hoyt by name, but in reality +owned, as had been the remnant of stock Tom Blair left behind him, by +saloon-keeper Mick Kennedy. + +The ranch force had changed very little. Rankin, stouter by a +quarter-hundred weight, shaggier of eyebrows and with an accentuated +droop in the upper eyelids, and if possible an increased taciturnity, +still lived his daytime life mainly on wheels. The old buckboard had +finally succumbed, but its counterpart, mud-spattered and +weather-bleached, had taken its place. In the kitchen, Ma Graham still +presided, her accumulated avoirdupois seeming to have been gathered at +the expense of her lord, who in equal ratio thinner and more weazened, +danced attendance as of old. Only one of the former cowboys now +remained. That one, strange to say, was Grannis, the "man from nowhere," +who had apparently taken root at last. Regularly on the last day of each +month he drew his pay, and without a word of explanation or comment +disappeared upon the back of a cow-pony, to reappear, perhaps in ten +hours, perhaps in sixty, dead broke, with a thirst seemingly +unappeasable, but quite non-committal concerning his experience, +apparently satisfied and ready to take up the dull routine of his life +again. + +Last of all, Benjamin Blair. Precisely as the boy had given promise, the +youth had developed. He was now mature in size, in poise, in action. +Long of leg, long of arm, long of face, he stood a half head above +Rankin, who had been the tallest man upon the place. Yet he was not +awkward. Physically he was of the type, but magnified, to which all +cowboys belong; and no one would ever call him awkward or uncouth. + +There had been less change upon the Baker ranch. Scotty was not an +expansionist. Scarcely a score more horses grazed in his paddock than of +old. The barn, though often repaired, was still of sod and thatch. The +house contained the original number of rooms. The experiment with trees +had never been repeated. If possible, the man himself had altered even +less than his surroundings. Scrupulously fresh-shaven each day, +fortified beyond the compound lenses of his spectacles, a stranger would +have guessed him anywhere from thirty-five to fifty. + +Time had not dealt as kindly with Mrs. Baker. She seemed to have aged +enough for both herself and her husband. Notwithstanding the fact that +for the first eight years of the twelve, the family had spent half their +time in the East, she had grown careless of her appearance. True to his +instincts, Scotty still dressed for dinner in his antiquated evening +clothes; but pathetic as was the example, it had long ceased to +stimulate her. The last four years had been dead years with Mollie +Baker. The future held but one promise. She referred to it daily, almost +hourly; and at such times only would a trace of youth and beauty return +to the one-time winsome face. She looked forward and dreamed of an +event after which she would do certain things upon which she had set her +heart; when, as she said, she would begin to live. It seemed to Scotty +ghastly to speak about that event, for it was the death of his father. + +The last member of the family had developed with the child's promise, +and at seventeen Florence was beautiful; not with a conventional +prettiness, but with a vital feminine attraction. All that the mother +had been, with her dark, oval face, her mass of walnut-brown hair, her +great dark eyes, her uptilted chin, the daughter was now; but with added +health and an augmented femininity that the mother had never known. +Moreover, she had an independence, a dominance, born perhaps of the wild +prairie influence, that at times made her parents almost gasp. Except in +the minute details of their daily existence, which habit had made +unchangeable, she ruled them absolutely. Even Rankin had become a +secondary factor. Scotty probably would have denied the assertion +emphatically, yet at the bottom of his consciousness he realized that +had she told him to sell everything he possessed for what he could get +and return to old Sussex he would have complied. Considering Mollie's +daily plaint, it was a constant source of wonder to him that the girl +did not do this; but she seemed wholly satisfied with things as they +were. For exercise and excitement she rode almost every horse upon the +place--rode astride like a man. For amusement she read everything she +could lay hands upon, both from the modest Baker library and from the +larger and more creditable collection which Rankin had imported from +the East. This was the first real library that had ever entered the +State, and, subject for speculation, it had uniformly the front +fly-leaves remaining as mere stubs, as though the pages had been torn +out by a hurried hand. What name was it that had been in those hundreds +of volumes? For what reason had it been so carefully removed? The girl +had often speculated thereon, and fitted theory after theory; but never +yet, wilful as she was, had she had the temerity to ask the only person +who could have given explanation,--Rankin himself. + +In common with her sisters everywhere, Florence had an instinctive love +of a fad. Realizing this fact, Scotty was not in the least deceived +when, during a lull at the dinner-table one evening late in the Fall, +she broke in with an irrelevant though seemingly innocent remark. + +"I saw several big jack-rabbits when I was out riding this morning." The +dark eyes turned upon her father quizzically, humorously. "They seem to +be very plentiful." + +"Yes," said Scotty; "they always are in the Fall." + +Florence ate for a moment in silence. + +"Did you ever think how much sport we could have if we owned a couple of +hounds?" she asked. + +Scotty was silent; but Mollie threw up her hands in horror. "You don't +really mean that you want any of those hungry-looking dogs around, do +you, Flossie?" she protested pettishly. "Seems as though you'd be +satisfied with riding the horses tomboy style without going to hunting +rabbits that way." + +The daughter's color heightened and the matter dropped; but Scotty knew +the main attack was yet to come. He had learned from experience the +methods of his daughter in attaining an object. + +Later in the evening father and daughter were alone beside a well-shaded +lamp in the cosey sitting-room. Mollie had retired early, complaining of +a headache, and carrying with her an air of martyrdom even more +pronounced than usual; so noticeable, in fact, that, absently watching +the door through which she had left, an expression of positive gloom +formed over Scotty's thin face. Two strong young arms fell suddenly +about his neck and abruptly changed his thoughts. A soft warm cheek was +laid against his own. + +"Poor old daddy!" whispered a caressing voice. + +For a moment Scotty did not move; then, turning, he looked into the +brown eyes. "Why?" he asked. + +"Because,"--her voice was low, her answering look was steady,--"because +it won't be but a little while until he'll have to move away--move back +into civilization." + +For a moment neither spoke; then, with a last pressure of her cheek +against her father's, the girl crossed the room and took another chair. +Scotty followed her with his eyes. + +"Are you against me, too, little girl?" he asked. + +Florence reached over to the table, took up an ever-ready strip of +rice-paper, and, rolling a cigarette, tendered it with the air of a +peace-offering. + +"No, I'm not against you; but it's got to come. Mamma simply can't +change. She can't find anything here to interest her, and we've got to +take her away--for good." + +Scotty slowly struck a sulphur match, waited until the flame had burned +well along the wood, then deliberately lit his cigarette and burned it +to a stump. + +"Aren't you happy here, Flossie?" he asked gently. + +The girl's hands were folded in her lap, her eyes looked past him +absently. + +"Really, for once in my life," she answered seriously, "I spoke quite +unselfishly. I was thinking only of mamma." There was a pause, and a +deeper concentration in the brown eyes. "As for myself, I hardly know. +Yes, I do know. I'm happy now, but I wouldn't be long. The life here is +too narrow; I'd lose interest in it. At last I'd have a frantic desire, +one I couldn't resist, to peep just over the edge of the horizon and +take part in whatever is going on beyond." She smiled. "I might run +away, or marry an Indian, or do something shocking!" + +Scotty flicked off a bit of ashes with his little finger. + +"Can't you think of anything that would interest you and broaden your +life enough to make it pleasant?" he ventured. + +This time mirth shone upon the girl's face, and a laugh sounded in her +voice. + +"Papa, papa," she said, "I didn't think that of you! Are you so anxious +to get rid of your daughter?" As swiftly as it had come, the smile +vanished, leaving in its place a softer and warmer color. + +"I'm not enough of a hypocrite," she added slowly, "to pretend not to +understand what you mean. Yes, I believe if there is a man in the world +I could care enough for to marry, I could live here or anywhere with him +and be perfectly happy; but that isn't possible. I'm of the wrong +disposition." The soft color in the cheek grew warmer, the brown eyes +sparkled. "I know myself well enough to realize that any man I could +care for wouldn't live out here. He'd be one who did things, and did +them better than others; and to do things he'd have to be where others +are. No, I never could live here." + +Scotty dropped the dead cigarette stump into an ash-tray, and brushed a +stray speck of dust from his sleeve. + +"In other words, you could never care for such a man as your father," he +remarked quietly. + +The girl instantly realized what she had said, and springing up she +threw her arms impulsively about her father's neck. + +"Dear old daddy!" she said. "There isn't another man in the world like +you! I love you dearly, dearly!" The soft lips touched his cheek again +and again. But for the first time in her life that Florence could +remember, her father did not respond. Instead, he gently freed himself. + +"Nevertheless," he said, steadily, "the fact remains. You could never +marry a man like your father,--one who had no desire to be known of men, +but who simply loved you and would do anything in his power to make you +happy. You have said it." Scotty rose slowly, the youthfulness of his +movements gone, the expression of age unconsciously creeping into the +wrinkles at his temples and at the corners of his mouth. "You have hurt +me, Florence." + +The girl was at once repentant, but her repentance came too late. She +dropped her face into her hands. + +"Oh, daddy, daddy!" she pleaded, but could not say another word. Indeed, +there was nothing to be said. + +Scotty moved silently about the room, closed a book he had laid face +downward upon the table, picked up a paper which had fallen to the +floor, and wound the clock for the night. At the doorway to his +sleeping-room he paused. + +"You said something at dinner to-night about wanting some hounds, +Florence. I know where I can buy a pair, and I'll see that you have +them." He opened the door slowly, then quietly closed it. "And about our +leaving here. I have always expected to go sometime, but I hoped it +wouldn't be necessary for a while yet." He paused, fingering the knob +absently. "I'm ready, though, whenever you and your mother wish." + +This time the door closed behind him, and, alone within the room, the +girl sobbed as though her heart would break. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A RIFFLE OF PRAIRIE + + +Florence got her dogs promptly. They were two big mouse-colored +grayhounds, with tails like rats and protruding ribs. They were named +"Racer" and "Pacer," and were warranted by their late owner to +out-distance any rabbit that ever drew breath. The girl felt that an +event as important as a coursing should be the occasion of a gathering +of the neighboring ranchers; but at the mere suggestion her conventional +mother threw up her hands in horror. It was bad enough for her daughter +to go out alone, but as the one woman among all that lot of cowboys--it +was too much for her to endure. Finally, as a compromise, Florence +agreed to invite only the people of the Box R Ranch to the first event. +So the invitations for a certain day, composed with fitting formality, +were sent, and in due time were ceremoniously accepted. + +The chase was scheduled to begin soon after daybreak, and before that +time Rankin and Ben Blair were at the Baker house. They wore their +ordinary clothes of wool and leather, but Scotty appeared in a wonderful +red hunting-coat, which, though a bit moth-eaten in spots, nevertheless +showed glaringly against the brown earth of the ranch-house yard. + +With the exception of the dogs, which were kept properly hungry for the +hunt, and Mollie, who had washed her hands of the whole affair, the +party all had breakfast, Scotty himself serving the coffee with the +skill of a head-waiter. Then the old buckboard, carefully oiled and +tightened for the occasion, was gotten out, a team of the fastest, +wiriest mustangs the Box R possessed was attached, and Rankin and Baker +upon the seat, Florence and Ben, well-mounted, trailing behind, the +party sallied forth. In order to avoid fences they had agreed to go ten +miles to the south before beginning operations. There a great tract of +government land, well grazed but untouched by the hand of man, gave all +but unlimited room. + +The morning was beautiful and clear beyond the comprehension of city +dwellers, a typical day of prairie Dakota in late Fall. Far out over the +broad expanse, indefinite as to distance, the rising sun seemed resting +upon the very rim of the world. All about, near at hand, stretching into +the horizon, glistening, sparkling, innumerable frost crystals, product +of the past night, gleamed like scattered gems, showing in their +coloring every blended shade of the rainbow. The glory of it all +appealed to the girl, and throwing back her head she drew in deep +breaths of the tonic air. + +"I'm going to miss these mornings terribly when I'm gone," she said +soberly. + +Ben Blair scrutinized the backs of the two men in the buckboard with +apparent interest. + +"I didn't know you intended leaving," he said. "Where are you going?" + +Florence regarded her companion from the corner of her eye. + +"I'm going away for good," she said. + +Ben shifted half around in the saddle and folded back the rim of his big +sombrero. + +"For good, you say?" + +The girl's brown eyes were cast down demurely. "Yes, for good," she +repeated. + +They had been losing ground. Now in silence they galloped ahead, the +regular muffled patter of their horses' feet upon the frozen sod +sounding like the distant rattle of a snare-drum. Once again even with +the buckboard, they lapsed into a walk. + +"You haven't told me where you're going," repeated Blair. + +The question seemed to be of purest politeness, as a host inquires if +his visitor has rested well; yet for a dozen years they two had lived +nearest neighbors, and had grown to maturity side by side. She concluded +there were some phases of this silent youth which she had not yet +learned. + +"We haven't decided where we're going yet," she replied. "Mamma wants to +go to England, but papa and I refuse to leave this country. Then daddy +wants to live in a small town, and I vote for a big one. Just now we're +at deadlock." + +A smile started in Ben's blue eyes and spread over his thin face. + +"From the way you talk," he said, "I have a suspicion the deadlock won't +last long. If I stretch my imagination a little I can guess pretty close +to the decision." + +Florence was sober a moment; then a smile flashed over her face and left +the daintiest of dimples in either cheek. + +"Maybe you can," she said. + +For the second time they galloped ahead and caught up with the slower +buckboard. + +"Florence," Ben threw one leg over the pommel of his saddle and faced +his companion squarely, "I've heard your mother talk, and of course I +understand why she wants to go back among her folks, but you were raised +here. Why do you want to leave?" + +The girl hesitated, and ran her fingers through her horse's mane. + +"Mamma's been here against her will for a good many years. We ought to +go for her sake." + +Ben made a motion of deprecation. "What I want to know is the real +reason,--your own reason," he said. + +The warm blood flushed Florence's face. "By what right do you ask that?" +she retorted. "You seem to forget that we've both grown up since we went +to school together." + +Ben looked calmly out over the prairie. + +"No, I don't forget; and I admit I have no right to ask. But I may ask +as a friend, I am sure. Why do you want to go?" + +Again the girl hesitated. Logically she should refuse to answer. To do +otherwise was to admit that her first answer was an evasion; but +something, an influence that always controlled her in Ben's presence, +prevented refusal. Slow of speech, deliberate of movement as he was, +there was about him a force that dominated her, even as she dominated +her parents, and, worst of all--to her inmost self she admitted the +fact--it fascinated her as well. With all her strength she rebelled +against the knowledge and combated the influence, but in vain. Instead +of replying, she chirruped to her horse. "It seems to me," she said, +"it's just as well to begin hunting here as to go further. I'm going on +ahead to ask papa and Mr. Rankin." + +With a grave smile, Blair reached over and caught her bridle-rein, +saying carelessly: "Pardon me, but you forget something you were going +to tell me." + +The girl's brown cheeks crimsoned anew, but this time there was no +hesitation in her reply. + +"Very well, since you insist, I'll answer your question; but don't be +surprised if I offend you." A dainty hand tugged at the loosened button +of her riding-glove. "I'm going away, for one reason, because I want to +be where things move, and where I don't always know what is going to +happen to-morrow." She turned to her companion directly. "But most of +all, I'm going because I want to be among people who have ambitions, who +do things, things worth while. I am tired of just existing, like the +animals, from day to day. I was only a young girl when we were going to +school, but now I know why I liked that life so well. It was because of +the intense activity, the constant movement, the competition, the +evolution. I like it! I want to be a part of it!" + +"Thank you for telling me," said Ben, quietly. + +But now the girl was in no hurry to hasten on. She forgot that her +explanation was given under protest. It had become a confession. + +"Up to the last few years I never thought much about the future--I took +it for granted; but since then it has been different. Unconsciously, +I've become a woman. All the little things that belong to women's lives, +too small to tell, begin to appeal to me. I want to live in a good house +and have good clothes and know people. I want to go to shops and +theatres and concerts; all these things belong to me and I intend to +have them." + +"I think I understand," said Ben, slowly. "Yes, I'm sure I understand," +he repeated. + +But the girl did not heed him. "Last of all, there's another reason," +she went on. "I don't know why I shouldn't speak it, as well as think +it, for it's the greatest of all. I'm a young woman. I won't remain such +long. I don't want to be a spinster. I know I'm not supposed to say +these things, but why not? I want to meet men, men of my own class, my +parents' class, men who know something besides the weight of a steer and +the value of a bronco,--some man I could respect and care for." Again +she turned directly to her companion. "Do you wonder I want to change, +that I want to leave these prairies, much as I like them?" + +It was long before Ben Blair spoke. He scarcely stirred in his seat; +then of a sudden, rousing, he threw his leg back over the saddle. + +"No," he said slowly, "I don't wonder--looking at things your way. It's +all in the point of view. But perhaps yours is wrong, maybe you don't +think of the other side of that life. There usually is another side to +everything, I've noticed." He glanced ahead. A half-mile on, the +blackboard had stopped, and Scotty was standing up on the seat and +motioning the laggards energetically. + +"I think we'd better dust up a little. Your father seems to have struck +something interesting." + +Florence seemed inclined to linger, but Scotty's waving cap was +insistent, and they galloped ahead. + +They found Rankin sitting upon the wagon seat, smoking impassively as +usual; but the Englishman was upon the ground holding the two hounds by +the collars. Behind the big compound lenses his eyes were twinkling +excitedly, and he was smiling like a boy. + +"Look out there!" he exclaimed with a jerk of his head, "over to the +west. We all but missed him! Are you ready?" + +They all looked and saw, perhaps thirty rods away, a grayish-white +jack-rabbit, distinct by contrast with the brown earth. The hounds had +also caught sight of the game and pulled lustily at their collars. + +Instantly Florence was all excitement. "Of course we're ready! No, wait +a second, until I see about my saddle." She dismounted precipitately. +"Tighten the cinch a bit, won't you, Ben? I don't mind a tumble, but it +might interfere at a critical moment." She put her foot in his extended +hand, and sprang back into her seat. "Now, I'm ready. Come on, Ben! Let +them go, papa! Be in at the finish if you can!" and, a second behind the +hounds, she was away. Simultaneously, the great jack-rabbit, scenting +danger, leaped forward, a ball of animate rubber, bounding farther and +farther as he got under full motion, speeding away toward the blue +distance. + +The chase that followed was a thing to live in memory. From the nature +of the land, gently rolling to the horizon without an obstruction the +height of a man's hand, there was no possibility of escape for the +quarry. The outcome was as mathematically certain as a problem in +arithmetic; the only uncertain element was that of time. At first the +jack seemed to be gaining, but gradually the greater endurance of the +hounds began to count, and foot by foot the gap between pursuers and +pursued lessened. In the beginning the rabbit ran in great leaps, as +though glorying in the speed that it would seem no other animal could +equal, but very soon his movements changed; his ears were flattened +tight to his head, and, with every muscle strained to the utmost, he ran +wildly for his life. + +Meanwhile, the four hunters were following as best they might. In the +all but soundless atmosphere, the rattle of the old buckboard could be +heard a quarter of a mile. Alternately losing and gaining ground as they +cut off angles and followed the diameter instead of the circumference of +the great circles the rabbit described, the drivers were always within +sight. Closer behind the hounds and following the same course, Florence +rode her thoroughbred like mad, with Ben Blair at her side. The pace was +terrific. The rush of the crisp morning air sang in their ears and cut +keenly at their faces. The tattoo of the horses' feet upon the hard +earth was continuous. Beneath her riding-cap, the girl's hair was +loosened and swept free in the wind. Her color was high, her eyes +sparkled. Never before had the man at her side seen her so fair to gaze +upon; but despite the excitement, despite the rush of action, there was +a jarring note in her beauty. Deep in his nature, ingrained, elemental, +was the love of fair play. Though he was in the chase and a part of it, +his sympathies were far from being with the hounds. That the girl should +favor the strong over the weak was something he could not understand--a +blemish that even her beauty did not excuse. + +A quarter-hour passed. The sun rose from the lap of the prairie and +scattered the frost-crystals as though they had been mist. The chase was +near its end. All moved more slowly. A dozen times since they had +started, it seemed as if the hounds must soon catch their prey, that in +another second all would be over; but each time the rabbit had escaped, +had at the last instant shot into the air, while the hounds rushed +harmlessly beneath, and, ere they recovered, had gained a goodly lead +again in a new course. But now that time was past, and he was tired and +weak. It was a straight-away race, with the hounds scarcely twenty feet +behind. Back of the latter, perhaps ten rods, were the riders, still +side by side as at first. Their horses were covered with foam and +blowing steadily, but nevertheless they galloped on gallantly. Bringing +up the rear, just in sight but now out of sound, was the buckboard. Thus +they approached the finish. + +Inch by inch the dogs gained upon the rabbit. Standing in his stirrups, +Ben Blair, the seemingly stolid, watched the scene. The twenty feet +lessened to eighteen, to fifteen, and, turning his head, the man looked +at his companion. Beautiful as she was, there now appeared to his eye an +expression of anticipation,--anticipation of the end, anticipation of a +death,--the death of a weaker animal! + +A determination which had been only latent became positive with Blair. +He urged on his horse to the uttermost and sprang past his companion. +His right hand went to his hip and lingered there. His voice rang out +above the sound of the horses' feet and of their breathing. + +"Hi, there, Racer, Pacer!" he shouted. "Come here!" + +There was no response from the hounds; no sign that they had heard him. +They were within ten feet of the rabbit now, and no voice on earth could +have stopped them. + +"Pacer! Racer!" shouted Ben. There was a pause, and then the quick bark +of a revolver. A puff of dust arose before the nose of the leading dog. + +Again no response, only the steadily lessening distance. + +For a second Ben Blair hesitated; but it was for a second only. Florence +watched him, too surprised to speak, and saw what for a moment made her +doubt her own eyes. The hand that held the big revolver was raised, +there was a report, then another, and the two dead hounds went tumbling +over and over with their own momentum upon the brown prairie. Beyond +them the rabbit bounded away into distance and safety. + +Without a word Ben Blair drew rein, returned the revolver to its +holster, and came back to where the girl had stopped. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. "I'll pay you for the dogs, if you like." +A pause and a straight glance from out the blue eyes. "I couldn't help +doing what I did." + +Having in mind the look he had last seen upon the girl's face, he +expected an explosion of wrath; but he was destined to surprise. There +was silence, instead, while two great tears gathered slowly in her soft +eyes, and brimmed over upon the brown cheeks. + +"I don't want you to pay for the dogs; I'm glad they're gone." She +brushed back a straggling lock of hair. "It's a horrid sport, and I'll +never have anything to do with it again." A look that set the youth's +heart bounding shot out sideways from beneath the long lashes. "I'm very +glad you did--what you did." + +Just then the noisy old buckboard, with Rankin and Scotty clinging to +the seat, drove up and stopped short, with a protest from every joint of +the ancient vehicle. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE DOMINANT ANIMAL + + +The chance to sell his stock, ostensibly his reason for delaying +departure, came to Scotty Baker much more quickly than he had +anticipated. Within a week after the hunt--in the very first mail he +received, in fact--came an offer from a Minneapolis firm to take every +scrap of horse-flesh he could spare. With much compunction and a doleful +face he read the letter aloud in the family council. + +"That means 'go' for sure, I suppose," he commented at its conclusion. + +Involuntarily Florence laughed. "You look as though you'd just got word +that the whole herd had stampeded over a ravine, instead of having had a +wave of good fortune," she bantered. "I believe you'd still back out if +you could." + +Scotty's face did not lighten. "I know I would," he admitted. + +"We'll not give you the chance, though," broke in Mollie, with the first +indication of enthusiasm she had shown in many a day. "Florence and I +will begin packing right away, and you can carry the things along with +you when you drive the horses to town." + +Scotty looked at his wife steadily and caught the trace of excitement in +her manner. + +"Yes, that is a good suggestion," he replied slowly. "It's liable to +turn cold any time now, and as long as we're going it may as well be +before Winter sets in." He filled a stubby meerschaum pipe with tobacco, +and put on cap and coat preparatory to going out of doors. "I spoke to +Rankin about the place the other day," he added, "and he says he'll take +it and pay cash whenever I'm ready. I'll drive over and see him this +morning." + +Rankin was not at home--so Ma Graham told Scotty when he arrived--and +probably he wouldn't return till afternoon; but Ben was around the barn +somewhere, more than likely out among the broncos. He usually was, when +he had nothing else in particular to do. + +Following her direction the Englishman loitered out toward the stock +quarters, looked with interest into the big sheds where the haying +machinery was kept, stopped to listen to the rush of water through the +four-inch pipe of the artesian well, lit his pipe afresh, and moved on +reflectively to the first of the great stock-yards that stretched +beyond. A tight board fence, ten feet high, built as a windbreak on two +sides, obstructed his way; and he started to walk around it. At the end +the windbreak merged into a well-built fence of six wires, and, a +wagon's breadth between, a long row of haystacks, built as a further +protection against the wind. These, together with the wires, formed the +third side of the yard. Leaning on the latter, Scotty looked into the +enclosure, at first carelessly, then with interest. A moment later, +without making his presence known, he stepped back to the hay, and, +selecting a pile of convenient height, sat down in the sunshine to +watch. + +What he saw was a tall slim young man, in chaparejos and sombrero, the +inevitable "repeater" at his hip, solitarily engaged in the process of +breaking a bronco. Ordinarily in this cattle-country the first time one +of these wiry little ponies is ridden is on a holiday or a Sunday, +whenever a company of spectators can be secured to assist or to applaud; +but this was not Ben Blair's way. By nature solitary, whenever possible +he did his work as he took his pleasure, unseen of men. At present, as +he went methodically about his business, he had no idea that a person +save Ma Graham was within miles, or that anyone anywhere had the +slightest interest in what he was doing. + +"Yard One," as the cowboys designated this corral, was the most used of +any on the ranch. Save for a single stout post set solidly in its +centre, it was entirely clear, and under the feet of hundreds of cattle +had been tramped firm as a pavement. At present it contained a +half-dozen horses, and one of these, a little mustang that was Ben's +particular pride, he was just saddling when Scotty appeared; the others, +a wild-eyed, evil-looking lot, scattering meantime as far as the +boundaries of the corral would permit. + +Very deliberately Ben mounted the pony, hitched up the legs of his +leather trousers, folded back the brim of the big sombrero, and +critically inspected the ponies before him. One of them, a demoniacal +looking buckskin, appeared more vixenish than the others, and very +promptly the youth made this selection; but to get in touch of the wily +little beast was another matter. Every time the rancher made a move +forward the herd found it convenient likewise to move, and to the limit +of the corral fence. Once clear around the yard the rider humored them; +and Scotty, the spectator, felt sure he must be observed. But Ben never +looked outside the fence. + +Starting to make the circle a second time, the rancher spoke a single +word to the little mustang and they moved ahead at a gallop. Instantly +responsive, the herd likewise broke into a lope, maintaining their lead. +Twice, three times, faster and faster, the rider and the riderless +completed the circle, the hard ground ringing with the din, the dust +rising in a filmy cloud; then of a sudden the figure on the mustang +passed from inaction into motion, the left hand on the reins tightened +and turned the pony's head to the side, straight across the diameter of +the circle. Simultaneously the right dropped to the lariat coiled on the +pummel of the saddle, loosed it, and swung the noose at the end freely +in air. On galloped the broncos, unmindful of the trick--on around the +limiting fence, until suddenly they found almost in their midst the +animal, man, whom they so feared, whom they were trying so to escape. +Then for a moment there was scattering, reversal, confusion, a denser +cloud of dust; but for one of their number, the buckskin, it was too +late. Ben Blair rose in his stirrups, the rawhide rope that had been +circling above his sombrero shot out, spread, dropped over the uplifted +yellow head. The little mustang the man rode recognized the song of the +lariat; well he knew what would follow. In anticipation he stopped dead; +his front legs stiffened. There was a shock, a protest of straining +leather which Scotty could hear clear beyond the corral, as, checked +under speed, the buckskin rose on his hind-feet and all but lost his +balance. That instant was Blair's opportunity. He turned his mustang +swiftly and headed straight for the centre-post, dragging the struggling +and half-strangled bronco; he rode around the post, sprang from the +saddle, took a skilful half-hitch in the lariat--and the buckskin was a +prisoner. + +Scotty polished his glasses excitedly. He was wondering how the sleek +young men with whom he would soon be mingling in the city would go at a +job like that; and he smiled absently. + +To "snub" the bronco up to the post so that he could scarcely turn his +head was an easy matter. To exchange the bridle to the new mount was +also comparatively simple. To adjust the great saddle, with the +unwilling victim struggling like mad, was a more difficult task; but +eventually all these came to pass, and Ben paused a moment to inspect +his handiwork. To a tenderfoot observer it might have seemed that the +battle was about over; but as a matter of fact it had scarcely begun. To +chronicle on paper that a certain person on a certain day rode a certain +bronco for the first time sounds commonplace; but to one who has seen +the deviltry lurking in those wild prairie ponies' eyes, who knows their +dogged fighting disposition, the reality is very different. + +Only a moment Ben Blair paused. Almost before Scotty had got his +spectacles back to his nose he saw the long figure spring into the +saddle, observed that the lariat which had held the bronco helpless to +the post had been removed, and knew that the fight was on in earnest. + +And emphatically it was on. With his first leap the pony went straight +into the air, to come down with a mighty jolt, stiff-legged; but Ben +Blair sat through it apparently undisturbed. If ever an animal showed +surprise it was the buckskin then. For an instant he paused, looked back +at the motionless rider with eyes that seemed almost green, then +suddenly started away at full speed around the corral as though Satan +himself were in pursuit. + +Instantly with the diminutive horse swift anger took the place of +surprise. Scotty, the spectator, could read it in the tightening of the +rippling muscles beneath the skin, in the toss of the sleek head. Fear +had passed long ago, if the little beast had ever really known the +sensation. It was now merely animal against animal, dogged obstinacy +against dogged tenacity, a fight until one or the other gave in, no +quarter asked or accepted. + +As before, the bronco was the aggressor. One by one, so swiftly that +they formed a continuous movement, he tried all the tricks which +instinct or ingenuity suggested. He bucked, his hind-quarters in the air +until it seemed he would reverse. He reared up until his front feet were +on the level of a man's head, until Scotty held his breath for fear the +animal would lose his balance backward; but when he resumed the normal +he found the man, ever relentless, firmly in place, impassively awaiting +the next move. He grew more furious with each failure. The sweat oozed +out in drops that became trickling streams beneath the short hair. His +breath came more quickly, whistling through the wide nostrils. A new +light came into the gray-green eyes and flashed from them fiendishly. As +suddenly as he had made his previous attacks he played his last trump. +Like a ball of lead he dropped in his tracks and tried to roll; but the +great saddle prevented, and when he sprang up again, there, as firmly +seated as before, was the hated man upon his back. + +Then overpowering and unreasoning anger, the wrath of a frenzied lion in +a cage, of a baited bull in a ring, took possession of the buckskin. He +went through his tricks anew, not methodically as before, but furiously, +desperately. The sweat churned into foam beneath the saddle and between +his legs. He screamed like a demon, until the other broncos retreated in +terror, and Scotty's hair fairly lifted on his head. But one idea +possessed him--to kill this being on his back, this hated thing he could +not move or dislodge. A suggestion of means came to him, and straight as +a line he made for the high board fence. There was no misunderstanding +his purpose. + +Then for the first time Ben Blair roused himself. The hand on the rein +tightened, as the lariat had tightened, until the small head with the +dainty ears curled back in a half-circle. Simultaneously the long rowels +of a spur bit deep into the foaming flank, the swish of a quirt sounded +keenly, a voice broke out in one word of command, "Whoa!" and repeated, +"Whoa!" + +It was like thunder out of a clear sky, like an unseen blow in the dark. +Within three feet of the fence the bronco stopped and stood trembling in +every muscle, expecting he knew not what. + +It was the man's time now--the beginning of the end. + +"Get up!" repeated the same authoritative voice, and the hand on the bit +loosened. "Get up!" and rowel and quirt again did their work. + +In terror this time the bronco plunged ahead, felt the guiding rein, and +started afresh around the circle of the corral fence. "Get up!" repeated +Ben, and like a streak of yellowish light they spun about the trail. +Round and round they went, the body of the man and horse alike tilted in +at an angle, the other ponies plunging to clear the way. Scotty counted +ten revolutions; then he awaited the end. It was not long in coming. Of +a sudden, as before, directly in front of where he sat, the bridle-reins +tightened, and he heard the one word, "Whoa!" and pony and rider stopped +like figures in clay. For a moment they stood motionless, save for their +labored breathing; then very deliberately Ben Blair dismounted. Not a +movement did the buckskin make, either of offence or to escape; he +merely waited. Still deliberately, the man removed the saddle and +bridle, while not a muscle of the bronco's body stirred. Scotty watched +the scene in fascination. Every trace of anger was out of the pony's +gray-green eyes now, every indication of terror as well. Dozens of +horses the Englishman had seen broken; but one like this--never before. +It was as though in the last few minutes an understanding had come about +between this fierce wild thing and its conqueror; as though, like every +human being with whom he came in contact, the latter had dominated by +the sheer strength of his will. It was all but uncanny. + +Slowly Blair laid the bridle beside the saddle, and stepping over to his +late mount he patted the damp neck and gently stroked the silken muzzle. + +"I think, old boy, you'll remember me when we meet again," Scotty heard +him say. "Good luck to you meantime," and with a last pat he picked up +his riding paraphernalia and started for the sheds. + +Scotty stood up. "Hello," he called. + +Ben halted and turned about, looking his surprise. + +"Well, in the name of all that's proper!" he ejaculated slowly; "where'd +you drop down from?" + +Scotty smiled broadly; frank admiration for the dusty cowboy was in his +gaze. + +"I didn't drop down at all; I walked around here about half an hour ago. +You were rather preoccupied at the time and didn't notice me." + +Blair came back to the fence and swung over the saddle and bridle. "You +took in the whole show then?" he asked. A trace of color came into his +face, as he vaulted over the rails. "I hope you enjoyed it." + +Scotty observed the latest feat, unconscious as its predecessor, with +augmented admiration. "I certainly did," he said, and the subject was +dropped. + +The two men walked together toward the ranch-house. + +"I came over to see Rankin," remarked the Englishman, "but I'm afraid +I'll have to wait a bit." + +"I guess you will," replied Ben. "He went up to the north well this +morning. They're building some sheds up there, and he's superintending +the job. He's as liable to forget about dinner as not. Nothing I can do +for you, is there?" + +Scotty thrust his hands into his pockets. + +"No, I guess not. I came over to see about selling him my place. We're +going to leave in a few days." + +Ben Blair made no comment, and for a moment they walked on in silence; +then an idea suddenly occurred to the Englishman. + +"Come to think of it," he said, "there is something you can do for me. +Bill and I have got to drive all the stock over to the station. I'd be a +thousand times obliged if you would help us." + +For a half-dozen steps Blair did not answer; then he turned fairly to +his companion. + +"You won't be offended if I refuse?" he asked. + +"No, certainly not." + +"Well, then, I don't want to help you myself, but I'll get Grannis to go +with you. He'll be just as useful." + +Ordinarily, despite his assertion to the contrary, Scotty would have +been offended; but he knew this long youth quite too well to +misunderstand. + +"Would you mind telling me why you refuse?" he said at last. + +Ben shifted the heavy saddle to his other shoulder. + +"No, I don't mind," he said bluntly. "I won't help you because I don't +want you to go." + +Scotty pondered, and a light dawned on his slow-moving brain. He looked +at Ben sympathetically. "My boy," he said, "I'm sorry for you; by Jove! +I am." + +They were even with the horse-barn now, and without a word Ben went in +and hung up the saddle, each stirrup upon a nail. Relieved of his load +he came back, slapping the dust from his clothes with his big gauntlets. + +"If it's a fair question," he asked, "why do I merit your sympathy?" + +The Englishman's hands went deeper into his pockets. + +"Why?" He all but stared. "Because you haven't a ghost of a chance with +Florence. She'd laugh at you!" + +Ben's blue eyes were raised to a level with the other's glasses. "She'd +laugh at me, you think?" he asked quietly. + +Scotty shifted uneasily. "Well, perhaps not that," he retracted, "but +anyway, you haven't a chance. I like you, Ben, and I'm dead sorry that +she is different. She comes, if I do say it, of a good family, and +you--" of a sudden the Englishman found himself floundering in deep +water. + +"And I am--an unknown," Ben finished for him. + +At that moment Scotty heartily wished himself elsewhere, but wishing did +not help him. "Yes, to put it baldly, that's the word. It's unfortunate, +damned unfortunate, but true, you know." + +Ben's eyes did not leave the other man's face. "You've talked with her, +have you?" he asked. + +Scotty fidgeted more than before, and swore silently that in future he +would keep his compassions to himself. + +"No, I've never thought it necessary so far; but of course--" + +Ben Blair lifted his head. "Don't worry, Mr. Baker, I'll tell her my +pedigree myself. I supposed she already knew--that everybody who had +ever heard of me knew." + +Scotty forgot his nervousness. "You'll--tell her yourself, you say?" + +"Certainly." + +The Englishman said nothing. It seemed to him there was nothing to say. + +For a moment there was silence. "Mr. Baker," said Blair at last, "as +long as we've started on this subject I suppose we might as well finish +it up. I love your daughter; that you've guessed. If I can keep her +here, I'll do so. It's my right; and if there's a God who watches over +us, He knows I'll do my best to make her happy. As to my mother, I'll +tell her about that myself--and consider the matter closed." + +Again there was silence. As before, there seemed to the Englishman +nothing to say. + +Blair turned toward the ranch-house. "I saw Ma Graham motioning for +dinner quite a while ago," he said. "Let's go in and eat." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +LOVE'S AVOWAL + + +A distinct path, in places almost a beaten road, connected the Box R and +the Baker ranches. Along it a tall slim youth was riding a buckskin +pony. He was clean-shaven and clean-shirted; but the shirt was of rough +brown flannel. His leather trousers were creased and baggy at the knees. +At his hip protruded the butt of a big revolver. Upon his head, +seemingly a load in itself, was a broad sombrero; and surrounding it, +beneath a band which at one time had been very gaudy but was now sobered +by sun and rain, were stuck a score or more of matches. Despite the +motion of the horse the youth was steadily smoking a stubby bull-dog +pipe. + +The time was morning, early morning; it was Winter, and the sun was +still but a little way up in the sky. The day, although the month was +December, was as warm as September. There had not even been a frost the +previous night. Mother Nature was indulging in one of her many whims, +and seemed smiling broadly at the incongruity. + +Though the rider was out thus early, his departure had been by no means +surreptitious. "I'm going over to Baker's, and may not be back before +night," he had said at the breakfast table; and, impassive as usual, the +older man had made no comment, but simply nodded and went about his +work. Likewise there was no subterfuge when the youth arrived at his +destination. "I came to see Florence," he announced to Scotty in the +front yard; then, as he tied the pony, he added: "I spoke to Grannis, +and he said he'd come over and help you. Do you know exactly when you'll +want him?" + +"Yes, day after to-morrow. This weather is too good to waste." + +Ben turned toward the house. "All right. I'll see that he's over here +bright and early." + +The visitor found the interior of the Baker home looking like a corner +in a storage warehouse. Florence, in a big checked apron reaching to her +chin, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, was busily engaged in still +further dismantling the once cosey parlor. Amidst the confusion, and +apparently a part of it, Mrs. Baker wandered aimlessly about. The front +door was wide open, letting in a stream of sunlight. + +"Good-morning," said Ben, appearing in the doorway. + +Mrs. Baker stopped long enough to nod, and Florence looked up from her +work. + +"Good-morning," she replied. A deliberate glance took in the new-comer's +dress from head to foot, and lingered on the exposed revolver hilt. "Are +you hunting Indians or bear?" + +Ben Blair returned the look, even more deliberately. + +"Bear, I judge from the question. I came in search of you." + +There was no answer, and the man came in and sat down on the corner of +a box. "You seem to be very busy," he said. + +The girl went on with her packing. "Yes, rather busy," she said +indifferently. + +Ben dangled one long leg over the side of the box. + +"Are you too busy to take a ride with me? I want to talk with you." + +"I'm pretty busy," non-committally. + +"Suppose I should ask it as a favor?" + +"Suppose I should decline?" + +The long leg stopped its swinging. "You wouldn't, though." + +The girl's brown eyes flashed. "How do you know I wouldn't?" + +Ben stood up and folded his arms. "Because it would be the first favor I +ever asked of you, and you wouldn't refuse that." + +They eyed each other a moment. + +"Where do you want to go?" temporized Florence. + +"Anywhere, so it's with you." + +"You don't want to stay long?" + +"I'll come back whenever you say." + +Florence rolled down her sleeves and sighed with assumed regret. "I +ought to stay here and work." + +"I'll help you when we come back, if you like." + +"Very well." She said it hesitatingly. + +"All right. I'll get your horse ready for you." + +Scotty watched them peculiarly, Molly doubtfully, as they rode out of +the ranch yard; but neither made any comment, and they moved away in +silence. + +"That's an odd looking pony you've got there," remarked the girl +critically, when they had turned into the half-beaten trail which led +south. "How does it happen you're on him instead of the other?" + +Ben patted the smooth neck before him, and the pony twitched his ears +appreciatively. + +"Buckskin and I had the misfortune not to meet until lately. We just got +acquainted a few days ago." + +The girl glanced at her companion quickly and caught the look upon his +face. + +"I believe you're fonder of your horses and cattle and things than you +are of people," she flashed. + +The man's hand continued patting the pony's yellow neck. + +"More fond than I am of some people, maybe you meant to say." + +"Perhaps so," she conceded. + +"Yes, I think I am," he admitted. "They're more worthy. They never abuse +a kindness, and never come down to the insult of class distinctions. +They're the same to-day, to-morrow, a year from now. They'll work +themselves to death for you, instead of sacrificing you to their +personal gain. Yes, they make better friends than some people." + +Florence smiled as she glanced at her companion. + +"Is that what you want to tell me? If it is, seeing I've just made my +choice and decided to return to civilization and mingle with human +beings of whom you have such a poor opinion, I think we may as well go +back. Mamma and I have been racking our brains for two days to find a +place for the china, and I've just thought of one." + +Blair was silent a moment; then he said, "I promised to return whenever +you wished, but I've not said what I wanted to say yet." + +Florence looked at the speaker with feigned surprise. "Is that so? I'm +very curious to hear!" + +Ben returned the look deliberately. "You'd like to hear now what I have +to say?" + +The girl's breath came more quickly, but she persisted in her banter. "I +can scarcely wait!" + +The line of the youth's big jaw tightened, "I won't keep you in suspense +any longer then. First of all, I want to relate a little personal +history. I was eight years old, as you know, when I was taken into the +Box R ranch. In those eight years, as far as I can remember, not one +person except Mr. Rankin ever called at my mother's home." + +Again the girl felt a thrill of anticipation, but the brown eyes opened +archly. "You must have kept a big fierce dog, or--or something." + +"No, that was not the reason." + +"I can't imagine what it could be, then." + +"The explanation is simple. My mother and Tom Blair were never married." + +Swiftly the color mounted into Florence's cheeks, and she drew up her +horse with a jerk. + +"So that is what you brought me out here to tell me!" she blazed. + +Ben drew up likewise, and wheeled his pony facing hers. + +"I beg your pardon, but I'm not to blame for the way I told you--of +myself. You forced it. For once in my life at least, Florence, I'm in +dead earnest to-day." + +The girl hesitated. Tears of anger, or of something else, came into her +eyes. "I'm going home," she announced briefly, and turned back the way +they had come. + +The man silently wheeled his buckskin and for five minutes, ten minutes, +they rode toward home together. + +"Florence," said the youth steadily, "I had something more I wished to +say to you; will you listen?" + +No answer--only the sound of the solid steps of the thoroughbred and the +daintier tread of the mustang. + +"Florence," he repeated, "I asked you a question." + +The girl's face was turned away. "Oh, you are cruel!" she said. + +Ben touched his pony, advanced, caught the bridle of the girl's horse, +and brought both to a standstill. The girl did not turn her head to look +at him, but she did not resist. Deliberately the man dismounted, loosed +the rolled blanket he carried back of his saddle, spread it upon the +ground, then looked fairly up into her brown eyes. + +"Florence," he said, as he held out his hand to assist her to dismount, +"I've something I wish very much to say to you. Won't you listen?" + +Florence Baker looked steadily down into the clear blue eyes. Why she +did not refuse she could not have told, could never tell. As well as she +knew her own name she realized what was coming--what it was the man +wished to say to her; but she did not refuse to listen. + +"Florence," he said gently, "I'm waiting," and as in a dream she +stepped into the proffered hand, felt herself lowered to the ground, +followed the young man over to the blanket, and sat down. The sun, now +high above them, shone down warmly and approvingly. Scarcely a breath of +air was stirring. Not a sound came from over the prairies. As completely +as though they were the only two people on the earth, they were alone. + +The man stretched himself at his companion's feet, where he could look +into her face and catch its every expression. + +"Florence Baker," his voice came to her ears like the sound of one +speaking afar off, "Florence Baker, I love you. In all that I'm going to +say, bear this in mind; don't forget it for a moment. To me you will +always be the one woman on earth. Why I haven't told you this before, +why I waited until you were passing from my life before I said it, I +don't know; but now I'm as sure as that I'm looking at you that it is +so." The blue eyes never shifted. Presently one big strong hand reached +over and enfolded within its grasp another tiny resistless hand, which +lay there passive. + +"You're getting ready to go away, Florence," he went on, "leaving this +country where you've spent almost your life, changing it for an +uncertainty. Don't do it--not for my sake, but for your own. You know +nothing of the city, its pleasures, its rush, its excitement, its +ambitions. Granted that you've been there, that we've both been there; +but we were only children then and couldn't see beneath the thinnest +surface. Yet there must be something beneath the glitter, something +you've never thought of and cannot realize; something which makes the +life hateful to those who have felt and known it. I don't know what it +is, you don't; but it must be there. If it weren't so, why would men +like your father, like Mr. Rankin, college men, men of wealth, men who +have seen the world, leave the city and come here to stay? They were +born in cities, raised in cities. The city was a part of their life; but +they left it, and are glad." The man clasped the little hand more +tightly, shook it gently. "Florence, are you listening?" + +"Yes, I'm listening." + +"I repeat then, don't go. You belong here. This life is your life. +Everything that is best for your happiness you will find here. You spoke +the other day of your birthright--to love and to be loved--as though +this could only be realized in a city. Do you think I don't care for you +as much as though my home were in a town?" + +Passive, motionless, Florence listened, feeling the subtle sympathy +which ever existed between her and this boy-man drawing them closer +together. His strong magnetism, never before so potent, gripped her +almost like a physical force. His personality, original, masterful, +convincing, fascinated her. For the time the tacit consent of her +position never occurred to her. It seemed but natural and fitting that +he should hold her hand. She had no desire to speak or move, merely to +listen. + +"Florence," the voice was very near now, and very low. "Florence, I love +you. I can't have you go away, can't have you pass out of my life. I'll +do anything for you,--live for you, die for you, fight for you, slave +for you,--anything but give you up." Of a sudden his arms were about +her, his lips touched her cheek. "Can't you love me in return? Speak to +me, tell me--for I love you, Florence!" + +The girl started, and drew away involuntarily. "Oh, don't, don't! please +don't!" she pleaded. The dream faded, and she awoke to the reality of +her position. The brown head bowed, dropped into her hands. Her whole +body shook. "Oh, what have I done!" she sobbed. "Oh, what have I done! +Oh--oh--oh--" + +For a time, neither of them realized nor cared how long, they sat side +by side, though separate now. Warmly and brightly as before, the sun +shone down upon them. A breath of breeze, born of the heated earth, +wandered gently over the land. The big thoroughbred shifted on its feet +and whinnied suggestively. + +Gradually the girl's hysterical weeping grew quieter. The sobs came less +frequently, and at last ceased. Ben Blair slowly arose, folded his arms, +and waited. Another minute passed. Florence Baker, the storm over, +glanced up at her companion--at first hesitatingly, then openly and +soberly. She stood up, almost at his side; but he did not turn. Awe, +contrition, strange feelings and emotions flooded her anew. She reached +out her hand and touched him on the arm; at first hesitatingly, then +boldly, she leaned her head against his shoulder. + +"Ben," she pleaded, "Ben, forgive me. I've hurt you terribly; but I +didn't mean to. I am as I am; I can't help it. I can't promise to do +what you ask--can't say I love you now, or promise to love you in the +future." She looked up into his face. "Won't you forgive me?" + +Still the man did not turn. "There's nothing to forgive, Florence," he +said sadly. "I misunderstood it all." + +"But there is something for me to say," she went on swiftly. "I knew +from the first what you were going to tell me, and knew I couldn't give +you what you asked; yet I let you think differently. It's all my fault, +Ben, and I'm so sorry!" She gently and timidly stroked the shoulder of +the rough flannel shirt. "I should have stopped you, and told you my +reasons; but they seemed so weak, and somehow I couldn't help listening +to you." There was a hesitating pause. "Would you like to hear my +reasons now?" + +"Just as you please." There was no unkindness in the voice--only +resignation and acceptance of the hard fact she had already made known +to him. + +Florence hesitated. A catch came into her throat, and she dropped her +head to the broad shoulder as before. + +"Ben, Ben!" she almost sobbed, "I can't tell you, after all. It'll only +hurt you again." + +He was looking out over the prairies, watching the heat-waves that arose +in fantastic circles, as in Spring. "You can't hurt me again," he said +wearily. + +The vague feeling of irreparable loss gripped the girl anew; but this +time she rushed on desperately, in spite of it. "Oh, why couldn't I have +met you somewhere else, under different circumstances?" she wailed. "Why +couldn't your mother have been--different?" She paused, the brown head +raised, the loosened hair tossed back in abandon. "Maybe, as you say, +it's a rainbow I'm seeking. Maybe I'll be sorry; but I can't help it. I +want them all--the things of civilization. I want them all," she +finished abruptly. + +Gently the man disengaged himself. "Is that all you wished to say?" + +"Yes," hesitatingly, "I guess that's all." + +Ben picked up the blanket and returned it to his saddle; then he led the +horse to the girl's side. "Can I help you up?" + +His companion nodded. The youth held down his hand, and upon it Florence +mounted to the saddle as she had done many times before. The thought +came to her that it might be the last time. + +Not a word did Ben speak as they rode back to the ranch-house; not once +did he look at his companion. At the door he held out his hand. + +"Good-bye," he said simply. + +"Good-bye," she echoed feebly. + +Ben made his adieu to Mrs. Baker, and then rode out to the barn where +Scotty was working. "Good-bye," he repeated. "We'll probably not meet +again before you go." The expression upon the Englishman's face caught +his eye. "Don't," he said. "I'd rather not talk now." + +Scotty gripped the extended hand and shook it heartily. + +"Good-bye," he said, with misty eyes. + +The youth wheeled the buckskin and headed for home. Florence and her +mother were still standing in the doorway watching him, and he lifted +his big sombrero; but he did not glance at them, nor turn his head in +passing. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A DEFERRED RECKONING + + +Time had dealt kindly with the saloon of Mick Kennedy. A hundred +electric storms had left it unscathed. Prairie fires had passed it by. +Only the relentless sun and rain had fastened the mark of their +handiwork upon it and stained it until it was the color of the earth +itself. Within, man had performed a similar office. The same old +cottonwood bar stretched across the side of the room, taking up a third +of the available space; but no stranger would have called it cottonwood +now. It had become brown like oak from continuous saturation with +various colored liquids; and upon its surface, indelible record of the +years, were innumerable bruises and dents where heavy bottles and +glasses had made their impress under impulse of heavier hands. The +continuous deposit of tobacco smoke had darkened the ceiling, modulating +to a lighter tone on the walls. The place was even gloomier than before, +and immeasurably filthier under the accumulated grime of a dozen years. +Once in their history the battered tables had been recovered, but no one +would have guessed it now. The gritty decks of cards had been often +replaced, but from their appearance they might have been those with +which Tom Blair long ago bartered away his honor. + +Time had left its impress also on bartender Mick. A generous sprinkling +of gray was in his hair; the single eye was redder and fiercer, seeming +by its blaze to have consumed the very lashes surrounding it; the cheeks +were sunken, the great jaw and chin prominent from the loss of teeth. +Otherwise Mick was not much changed. The hand which dealt out his wares, +which insisted on their payment to the last nickel, was as steady as of +yore. His words were as few, his control of the reckless and often +drunken frequenters was as perfect. He was the personified spirit of the +place--crafty, designing, relentless. + +Bob Hoyt, the foreman, shambled into Mick's lair at the time of day when +the lights were burning and smoking on the circling shelf. He peered +through the haze of tobacco smoke at the patrons already present, +received a word from one and a stare from another, but from none an +invitation to join the circle. + +Bob sidled up to the bar where Kennedy was impassively waiting. "Warmer +out," he advanced. + +Mick made no comment. "Something?" he suggested. + +Bob's colorless eyes blinked involuntarily. "Yes, a bit of rye." + +Mick poured a very small drink into a whiskey glass, set it with another +of water before the customer, on a big card tacked upon the wall added a +fresh line to those already succeeding the other's name, and leaned his +elbows once more upon the bar. + +Upon the floor of his mouth Bob Hoyt laid a foundation of water, over +this sent down the fiery liquor with a gulp, and followed the retreat +with the last of the water, unconsciously making a wry face. + +Kennedy whisked the empty glasses through the doubtful contents of a +convenient pail, and set them dripping upon a perforated shelf. "Found +the horses yet?" he queried, in an undertone. + +Bob shifted uncomfortably and searched for a place for his hands, but +finding none he let them hang awkwardly over the rail of the bar. + +"No, not even a trail." + +"Looked, have you?" The single searchlight turned unwinkingly upon the +other's face. + +"Yes, I've been out all day. Made a circle of the places within forty +miles--Russel's of the Circle R, Stetson's of the 'XI,' Frazier's, +Rankin's--none of them have seen a sign of a stray." + +"That settles it, then. Those horses were stolen." The red face with its +bristle of buff and gray came closer. "I didn't think they'd strayed. +The two best horses on a ranch don't wander off by chance; if they'd +been broncos it might have been different. It's the same thing as three +years ago; pretty nearly the same date too--early in January it was, you +remember!" + +Bob's long head nodded confirmation. "Yes. We thought then they'd come +around all right in the next round up, but they didn't, and never have." + +Kennedy stepped back, spread his hands palm down upon the bar, leaned +his full weight upon them, and gazed meditatively at the other occupants +of the room. A question was in his mind. Should he take these men into +his confidence and trust to their well-known method of dealing with +rustlers--a method very effective when successful in catching the +offender, but infinitely deficient in finesse--or depend wholly upon his +own ingenuity? He decided that in this instance the latter offered +little hope. His province was in dealing with people at close range. + +"Boys,"--his voice was normal, but not a man in the room failed to give +attention,--"boys, line up! It's on the house." + +Promptly the card games ceased. In one, the pot lay as it was, its +ownership undecided, in the centre of the table. The loungers' feet +dropped to the floor. An inebriate, half dozing in the corner, awoke. +Well they knew it was for no small reason that Mick interrupted their +diversions. Up they came--Grover of the far-away "XXX" ranch, who had +been here for two days now, and had lost the price of a small herd; +Gilbert of the "Lost Range," whose brand was a circle within a circle; +Stetson of the "XI," a short heavy-set man, with an immovable pugilist's +face, to-night, as usual, ahead of the game; Thompson, one-armed but +formidable, who drove the stage and kept the postoffice and inadequate +general store just across to the north of the saloon; McFadden, a wiry +little Scotchman with sandy whiskers, Rankin's nearest neighbor to the +south; a half-dozen lesser lights, in distinction from the big ranchers +called by their first names, "Buck" or "Pete" or "Bill" as the case +might be, mere cowmen employed at a salary. Elbow to elbow they leaned +upon the supporting bar, awaiting with interest the something they knew +Kennedy had to say. + +Kennedy did not ask a single man what he would have. It was needless. +Silently he placed a glass before each, and starting a bottle of red +liquor at one end of the line, he watched it, as, steadily emptying, it +passed on down to the end. + +"I never use it, you know," he explained, as, the preparation complete, +they looked at him expectantly. + +"Take something else, then," pressed McFadden. + +Mick poured out a glass of water and set it on the bar before him; but +not an observer smiled. They knew the man they were dealing with. + +"All right, boys,"--McFadden's glass went up on a level with his eye, +and one and all the others followed the motion,--"all right, boys! +Here's to you, Kennedy!"--mouthing the last word as though it were a hot +pebble, and in unison the dozen odd hands led the way to their +respective owners' mouths. There was a momentary pause; then a musical +clinking, as the empty glasses returned to the board. Silence, expectant +silence, returned. + +"Boys,"--Mick looked from face to face intimately,--"we've got work +ahead. Hoyt here reported this morning that two of the best horses on +the Big B were missing. He's made a forty-mile circuit to-day, and no +one has seen anything of them. You all know what that means." + +Stetson turned to the foreman. "What time did you see them last, Hoyt?" + +"About nine last evening." + +"Sure?" + +Bob's long head nodded emphatically. "Yes, one of the boys had the team +out mending fence in the afternoon, and when he was through he turned +them into the corral with the broncos. I'm sure they were there." + +"I'm not surprised," commented Thompson, swinging on his single elbow to +face the others. "It's been some time now since we've had a necktie +party and it's bound to come. The wonder is it hasn't come before." + +Gilbert and Grover, comparatively elderly men, said nothing, looked +nothing; but upon the faces of the half-dozen cowboys there appeared +distinct anticipation. The hunt of a "rustler" appealed to them as a +circus does to a small boy, as the prospect of a football game does to a +college student. + +Meanwhile, McFadden had been thinking. One could always tell when this +process was taking place with the Scotchman, from his habit of tapping +his chest with his middle finger as though beating time to the movement +of his mental machinery. + +"Got any plan, Kennedy?" he queried. "Whoever's done you has got a good +start by this time; but if we're going to do anything, there's no use in +giving him longer. How about it?" + +Mick's single eye shifted as before, and went from face to face. "No, I +haven't; but I've got an idea." A pause. "How many of you boys remembers +Tom Blair?" he digressed. + +"I do," said Grover. + +"Same here." It was Gilbert of the Lost Range who spoke. + +"I've heard of him," commented one of the cowboys. + +"I guess we all have," added another. + +Again Mick's eye, like a flashlight, passed from man to man. + +"Well," he announced, "I may be wrong, but I've got reason to believe it +was Tom Blair who did the job last night, and that he's somewhere this +side the river right now." + +For a moment there was silence, while the idea took root. + +"I supposed he was dead long ago," remarked Stetson at last. + +"So did I, until a month ago--until the last time I was in town stocking +up. I met a fellow there then from the country west of the river, and it +all came out. Blair's been stampin' that range for a year, and they're +suspicious of him. He disappears every now and then, and they think he +keeps in with a gang of rustlers who have their headquarters over in the +Johnson's Hole country in Wyoming. The fellow said he kept up +appearances by claiming he owned a ranch on this side--the Big B. That's +how we came to speak of him." + +"Queer," commented Stetson, "that if it's Blair, he hasn't been around +before. It's been ten years now since he disappeared, hasn't it?" + +"More than that," corrected Mick. "That's another reason I believe it's +him; that, and the fact that I didn't do nothin' the last time I was +held up. It must be one lone rustler who's operating or there'd be +more'n a couple of hosses missing. Then it must be some feller that +knows the Big B, and has a particular grudge against it, or why would +they have passed the Broken Kettle or the Lone Buffalo on the west? +Morris has a whole herd, and his main hoss sheds are in an old creek-bed +a mile away from the ranch-house. I tell you it's some feller who knows +this country and knows me." + +"I believe you're right about him being this side of the river," broke +in Thompson. "When I was over after the mail two days ago there was +water running on the ice; and it's been warmer since. It must be wide +open in spots now. A man who knows the crossings might make it afoot, +but he couldn't take a hoss over." + +Mick's lone eye burned more ominously than before. "Of course he can't. +He's run into a trap, and all we've got to do is to make a spread and +round him up. I'll bet a hundred to one we find him somewhere this side, +waiting for a freeze." Again the half-emptied bottle came from the shelf +and passed to the end of the line. "Have another whiskey on me, boys." + +They silently drank. Then grim Stetson suggested that they drink +again--"to our success"; and cowboy Buck, not to be outdone, proposed +another toast--"to the necktie party--after." The big bottle, empty now, +dinned on the surface of the bar. + +"By God! I hope we get him," flamed Grover. "He ought to be hung, +anyway. He killed his wife and burned up the body, they say, before he +left!" + +"Someone must call for Rankin and Ben," suggested another, "Ben +particularly. He ought to be there at the finish. Lord knows he's got +grudge enough." + +"We'll let him pull the trap," broke in Stetson grimly. + +Of a sudden above the confusion there sounded a snarl, almost like the +cry of an animal. Surprised, for the moment silenced, the men turned in +the direction whence it had come. + +"Rankin!" It was Mick Kennedy who spoke, but it was Mick transformed. +"Rankin!" The great veins of the bartender's neck swelled; the red face +congested until it became all but purple. "No! We won't go near him! +He'd put a stop to the whole thing. What we want is men, not cowards!" + +A moment only the silence lasted. "All right," agreed Stetson. "Have +another, boys! We'll drop Rankin!" + +Anew, louder than before, broke forth the confusion. The games of a +short time ago were forgotten. A heap of coin lay on the shelf behind +the bar where Mick, the banker, had placed it; but winner and loser +alike ignored its existence. The savage, ever so near the surface of +these rough frontiersmen, had taken complete possession of them. Drop +Rankin--forget civilization--ignore the slow practices of law and order! + +"Come on!" someone yelled. "We're enough to do the business. To the +river!" + +Instantly the crowd burst through the single front door. Momentarily +there followed a lull, while in the half darkness each rider found his +mount. Then sounded an "All ready!" from cowboy Buck, first in motion, a +straining of leather, a swish of quirts, a grunting of ponies as the +spurs dug into their flanks, a rush of leaping feet, a wild medley of +yells, and westward across the prairie, beneath the stars, there passed +a swiftly moving black shadow that grew momentarily lighter, and back +from which came a patter, patter, patter, that grew softer and softer; +until at last over the old saloon and its companion store fell silence +absolute. + +It was 10:28 when they left Kennedy's place. It was 12:36 when, without +having for a moment stopped their long swinging gallop, they pulled up +at the "Lone Buffalo" ranch, twenty-five miles away, and the last ranch +before they reached the river. The house was dark and silent as the +grave at their approach; but it did not remain so long. The display of +fireworks with which they illumined the night would have done credit to +an Independence Day celebration. The yells which accompanied it were +hair-raising as the shrieks from a band of maniacs. Instantly lights +began to burn, and the proprietor himself, Grey--a long Southerner with +an imperial--came rushing to the door, a revolver in either hand. + +But the visitors had not waited for him. With one impulse they had +ridden straight into the horse corral, had thrown off saddles and +bridles from their steaming mounts, and, every man for himself, had +chosen afresh from the ranch herd. Passing out in single-file through +the gate, they came upon Grey; but still they did not stop. The one word +"rustler" was sufficient password, and not five minutes from the time +they arrived they were again on the way, headed straight southwest for +their long ride to the river. + +Hour after hour they forged ahead. The mustangs had long since puffed +themselves into their second wind, and, falling instinctively into their +steady swinging lope, they moved ahead like machines. The country grew +more and more rolling, even hilly. From between the tufts of buffalo +grass now and then protruded the white face of a rock. Over one such, +all but concealed in the darkness, Grover's horse stumbled, and with a +groan, the rancher beneath, fell flat to earth. By a seeming miracle the +man arose, but the horse did not, and an examination showed the jagged +edge of a fractured bone protruding through the hide at the shoulder. +There was but one thing to do. A revolver spoke its message of relief, a +hastily-cast lot fell to McFadden, and without a word he faced his own +mount back the way they had come, assisted Grover to a place behind him, +turned to wish the others good luck, and found himself already too late. +Where a minute ago they had been standing there was now but vacancy. The +night and the rolling ground had swallowed the avengers up as completely +as though they had never existed; and the Scotchman rode slowly back. + +It was yet dark, but the eastern sky was reddening, when they reached +the chain of bluffs bordering the great river. They had made their plans +before, so that now without hesitating they split as though upon the +edge of a mighty wedge, half to the right, half to the left, each +division separating again into its individual members, until the whole, +like two giant hands whereof the cowboys, half a mile apart from each +other, were the fingers, moved forward until the end finger all but +touched the river itself. + +Still there was no pause. The details had been worked out to a nicety. +They had bent far to the south, miles farther than any man aiming at the +Wyoming border would have gone, and now, having arrived at the barrier, +they wheeled north again. It was getting daylight, and cowboy Pete,--in +our simile the left little finger,--first to catch sight of the surface +of the stream, waved in triumph to the nearest rider on his right. + +"We've got him, sure!" he yelled. "She's open in spots"; and though the +others could not hear, they understood the meaning, and the message went +on down the line. + +On, on, more swiftly now, at a stiff gallop, for it was day, the riders +advanced. As they moved, first one rider and then another would +disappear, as a depression in the uneven country temporarily swallowed +them up--but only to reappear again over a prominent rise, still +galloping on. They watched each other closely now, searching the +surrounding country. They were nearing a region where they might expect +action at any moment,--the remains of a camp-fire, a clue to him they +sought,--for it was on a line directly west of the Big B ranch. + +And they were not to be disappointed. Observing closely, Stetson, who +was nearest to Pete, saw the latter suddenly draw up his horse and come +to a full stop. At last the end had arrived--at last; and the rancher +turned to motion to his right. Only a moment the action took, but when +he shifted back he saw a sight which, stolid gambler as he was, sent a +thrill through his nerves, a mumbling curse to his lips. Coming toward +him, crazy-scared, bounding like an antelope, mane flying, stirrups +flapping, was the pony Pete had ridden, but now riderless. Of the cowboy +himself there was not a sign. Stetson had not heard a sound or caught a +motion. Nevertheless, he understood. Somewhere near, just to the west, +lay death, death in ambush; but he did not hesitate. Whatever his +faults, the man was no coward. A revolver in either hand, the reins in +his teeth, he spurred straight for the river. + +It took him but a minute to cover the distance--a minute until, almost +by the rivers bank, he saw ahead on the brown earth the sprawling form +of a dead man. With a jerk he drew up alongside, and, the muzzles of big +revolvers following his eye, sent swiftly about him a sweeping glance. +Of a sudden, three hundred yards out, seemingly from the surface of the +river itself, he caught a tiny rising puff of smoke, heard +simultaneously a sound he knew so well,--the dull spattering impact of a +bullet,--realized that the pony beneath him was sinking, felt the shock +as his own body came to earth, and heard just over his head the singing +passage of a rifle-ball. + +Unconscious profanity flowed from the rancher's lips in a stream; but +meanwhile his brain worked swiftly, and, freeing himself, he crawled +back hand over hand until a wave in the ground covered the river from +view; then springing to his feet he ran toward the others, approaching +now as fast as spurs would bring them, waving, shouting a warning as he +went. Within a minute they were all together listening to his story. +Within another, the rifles from off their saddles in their hands, the +ponies left in charge of lank Bob Hoyt, the eight others now remaining +moved back as Stetson had come: at first upright, then, crawling, hand +over hand until, peeping over the intervening ridge, they saw lying +before them the mingled ice patches and open running water of the +low-lying Missouri. Beside them at their left, very near, was the body +of Pete; but after a first glance and an added invective no man for the +present gave attention. He was dead, dead in his tracks, and their +affair was not with such, but with the quick. + +At first they could see nothing which explained the mystery of death, +only the forbidding face of the great river; then gradually to one after +another there appeared tell-tale marks which linked together into clues. + +"Ain't that a hoss-carcass?" It was cowboy Buck who spoke. "Look, a +hundred yards out, down stream." + +Gilbert's swift glance caught the indicated object. + +"Yes, and another beyond--farther down--amongst that ice-pack! Do you +see?" + +"Where?" Mick Kennedy trained his one eye like a fieldpiece upon the +locality suggested. "Where? Yes! I see them now--both of them. Blair's +own horse, if he had one, is probably in there too, somewhere." + +Meanwhile Stetson had been scrutinizing the spot on the river's face +from which had come the puff of smoke. + +"Say, boys!" a ring as near excitement as was possible to one of his +temperament was in his voice. "Ain't that an island, that brown patch +out there, pretty well over to the other side? I believe it is." + +The others followed his glance. Near the farther bank was a long +low-lying object, like a jam of broken ice-cakes, between which and them +the open water was flowing. At first they thought it was ice; then under +longer observation they knew better. They had seen too many other +formations of the kind in this shifting treacherous stream to be long +deceived. A flat sandy island it was, sure enough; and what they thought +was ice was driftwood. + +Almost simultaneously from the eight there burst forth an exclamation, a +rumbling curse of comprehension. They understood it all now as plainly +as though their own eyes had seen the tragedy. Blair had reached the +river and, despite its rotten ice, had tried to cross. One by one the +horses had broken through, had been abandoned to their fate. He alone, +somehow, had managed to reach this sandy island, and he was there now, +intrenched behind the driftwood, waiting and watching. + +In the brain of every cowboy there formed an unuttered curse. Their +impotence to go farther, to mete out retribution to this murderer of +their companion, came over them in a blind wave of fury. The sun, now +well above the horizon, shone warmly down upon them. They were in the +midst of an infrequent Winter thaw. The full current of the river was +between them and the desperado. It might be days, a week, before ice +would again form; yet, connecting the island with the western bank, it +was even now in place. Blair had but to wait until cover of night, and +depart in peace--on foot, to be sure, but in the course of days a man +could travel far afoot. Doubtless he realized all this. Doubtless he was +laughing at them now. The curses redoubled. + +Stetson had been taking off his coat. He now draped it about his +rifle-stock, and placed his sombrero on top. "All ready, boys," he +cautioned, and raised it slowly into view. + +Instantly from the centre of the driftwood heap there arose a tracing of +blue smoke. Simultaneously, irregular in outline as though punched by a +dull instrument, a jagged hole appeared in the felt of the hat. + +As instantly, eight rifles on the bank began to play. The crackling of +their reports was like infantry, the sliding click of the ejecting +mechanism as continuous and regular as the stamp-stamp of many presses. +The smoke rose over their heads in a blue cloud. Far out on the river, +under impact of the bullets, splinters of the rotted driftwood leaped +high into the air. Now and then the open water in front splashed into +spray as a ball went amiss. Not until the rifle magazines were empty did +they cease, and then only to reload. Again and once again they repeated +the onslaught, until it would seem no object the size of a human being +upon the place where they aimed could by any possibility remain alive. +Then, and not until then, did silence return, did the dummy upon +Stetson's rifle again raise its head. + +But this time there was no response. They waited a minute, two +minutes--tried the ruse again, and it was as before. Had they really hit +the man out there, as they hoped, or was he, conscious of a trick, +merely lying low? Who could tell? The uncertainty, the inaction, goaded +all that was reckless in cowboy Buck's nature, and he sprang to his +feet. + +"I'm going out there if I have to walk on the bottom of the river!" he +blazed. + +Instantly Stetson's hands were on his legs, pulling him, prostrate. + +"Down, you fool!" he growled. "At the bottom of the river is where you'd +be quick enough." The speaker turned to the others. "One of us is done +for already. There's no use for the rest to risk our lives without a +show. We've either potted Blair or we haven't. There's nothing more to +be done now, anyway. We may as well go back." + +For a moment there was a murmur of dissent, but it was short-lived. One +and all realized that what the rancher said was true. For the present at +least, nature was against them, on the side of the outlaw; and to combat +nature was useless. Another time--yes, there would surely be another +time; and grim faces grew grimmer at the thought. Another time it would +be different. + +"Yes, we may as well go." It was Mick Kennedy who spoke. "We can't stay +here long, that's sure." He tossed his rifle over to Stetson. "Carry +that, will you?" and rising, regardless of danger, he walked over to +cowboy Pete, took the dead body in his arms, without a glance behind +him, stalked back to where the horses were waiting, laid his burden +almost tenderly across the shoulder of his own mustang, and mounted +behind. Coming up, the others, likewise in silence, got into their +saddles, not as at starting, with one bound, but heavily, by aid of +stirrups. Still in silence, Mick leading, the legs of dead Pete dangling +at the pony's shoulder, they faced east, and started moving slowly along +the backward trail. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A SHOT IN THE DARK + + +Winter, long delayed, came at last in earnest. On the morning of the +seventeenth of January--the ranchers did not soon forget the date--a +warm snow, soft with moisture, drove tumbling in from the east. All the +morning it came, thicker and thicker, until on the level, several inches +had fallen; then, so rapidly that one could almost discern the change, +the temperature began lowering, the wind shifting from the east to the +north, from north to west, and steadily rising. The surface of the snow +froze to ice, the snowflakes turned to sleet, and went bounding and +grinding, forming drifts but to disperse again, journeying aimlessly on, +cutting viciously at the chance animal who came in their path like a +myriad of tiny knives. + +All that day the force of the Box R ranch labored in the increasing +storm to get the home herds safely behind the shelter of the corral. It +was impossible for cattle long to face such a storm; but with this very +emergency in mind, Rankin had always in Winter kept the scattered +bunches to the north and west, and under these conditions the feat was +accomplished by dusk, and the half-frozen cowboys tumbled into their +bunks, to fall asleep almost before they assumed the horizontal. The +other ranchers wondered why it was that Rankin was so prosperous and why +his herd seldom diminished in Winter. Had they been observant, they +could have learned one reason that day. + +All the following night the storm moaned and raged, and the cold became +more and more intense. It came in through the walls of houses and +through bunk coverings, and bit at one like a living thing. Nothing +could stop it, nothing unprotected could withstand it. In the great +corral behind the windbreak, the cattle, all headed east, were jammed +together for warmth, a conglomerate mass of brown heads and bodies from +which projected a wilderness of horns. + +The next morning broke with a clear sky but with the thermometer marking +many degrees below zero. Out of doors, when the sun had arisen, the +light was dazzling. As far as eye could reach not a spot of brown +relieved the white. The layer of frozen snow lay like a vast carpet +stretched tight from horizon to horizon. Although it was only snow, yet +so far as the herds of the ranchers were concerned it might have been a +protecting armor of steel. Well did the tired cowboys, stiff from the +previous day's struggle, know what was before them, when at daylight +Graham routed them out. Food the helpless multitude must have. If they +could not find it for themselves it must be found for them; and in +stolid disapproval the men ate a hasty breakfast by the light of a +kerosene lamp and went forth to the inevitable. + +Rankin and Ben and Graham were already astir, and under their +supervision the campaign was rapidly begun. For a few days the stock +must be fed on hay, and seven of the available fifteen men of the ranch +force were detailed to keep full the great racks in the cattle +stockade--a task in itself, with the myriad hungry mouths swarming on +every hand, all but Herculean. The others, Rankin himself among the +number, undertook the greater feat of in a measure opening the range for +the future. + +The device which the big man had evolved for this purpose, and had used +on previous similar occasions, was a simple triangular snow-plough +several feet in width, with guiding handles behind. Comparatively narrow +as was the ribbon path cleared by this appliance, its length was only +limited by the endurance of the horses and the driver, and in the course +of the day many an acre could be uncovered. Half an hour after sunrise, +the eight outfits thus equipped were lined up side by side and headed +due northwest to a range which had been but little pastured. + +For five miles straight as a taut line they went, leaving behind them +eight brown stripes alternating with bands of white between. Then back +and forth, back and forth, for the distance of another mile they +vibrated until it was noon, when eight more connecting brown ribbons +were stretched beside their predecessors back to the ranch-house. In the +afternoon the labor was repeated, until by night the clearing, a +gigantic mottled fan with an abnormally long handle, lay in vivid +contrast against the surrounding white. + +The second day was the same, except that but seven bands stretched out +behind the moving squad. Rankin, game as he was, could scarcely put one +foot ahead of the other, and in consequence, changing his tactics, he +mounted the old buckboard and departed on a tour of inspection toward +the north range. He was late in returning, and, as usual, very taciturn; +but after supper, as he and Ben were smoking in friendly silence by the +kitchen fire, he turned to the younger man. + +"Someone stayed at the north range last night," he announced abruptly. +"He slept there and had a fire." + +Ben showed no surprise. "I thought so, probably," he replied. "Late this +afternoon I ran across a trail leading in from the west along our +clearing, and headed that way. It was one lone chain of footprints." + +Rankin shivered, and replenished the fire. His long drive had chilled +him through and through. + +"I suppose you have an idea who made that trail?" he said. + +Though each knew that the other had heard the details of Pete's death, +neither had mentioned the incident. To do so had seemed superfluous. +Now, however, each realized the thought in the other's mind, and chose +not to avoid it. + +"Yes," answered Ben, simply. "I suppose it was made by Tom Blair." + +Never before had Rankin heard Benjamin Blair speak that name. He +stretched back heavily in his chair and lit his pipe afresh. + +"Ben," he said, "I'm getting old. I never began to realize the fact +until this Winter; but I sha'n't last many more years." Puff, puff went +two twin clouds of smoke toward the ceiling. "Civilization has some +advantages over the frontier, and this is one of them: it's kinder to +the old." + +Never before had Rankin spoken in this way, and the other understood the +strength of his conviction. + +"You work too hard," he said soberly, though he felt the inadequacy of +the trite remark. "It's unnecessary. I wish you wouldn't do it." + +Rankin threw an outward motion with his powerful hand. "Yes, I know; but +when I quit moving I want to die. I know I could get a steam-heated back +room in a quiet street of a sleepy town somewhere and coddle myself into +a good many years yet; but it isn't worth the price. I love this big +free life too well ever to leave it. Most of the people one meets here +are rough, but in time that will all change. It's changing now; and +meantime nature compensates for everything." + +There was a moment's silence, and then, as though there had been no +digression, Rankin went back to the former subject. "Yes," he said +slowly, "I think you're right about those being Tom Blair's tracks." He +turned and faced the younger man squarely. "If it is, Ben, it means he's +been frozen out from his hiding-place, wherever that is, and he's crazy +desperate. He'd do anything now. He wouldn't ever come back here +otherwise." + +Ben Blair's blue eyes tightened until the lashes were all but parallel. + +"Yes," Rankin repeated, "he's crazy desperate to come here at +all--especially so now." A pause, but the eyes did not shift. "God knows +I'm sorry he ever came back. I was glad we found that trail too late to +follow it to-day; but it's only postponing the end. I believe he'll be +here at the ranch to-night. He's got to get a horse--he's got to do +something right away; and I'm going to watch. If he don't come I'll take +up the old trail in the morning." + +Once more the pause, more intense than words. "He can't escape again, +unless--unless he gets me first--He must be desperate crazy." + +Rankin arose heavily and knocked the ashes out of his pipe preparatory +to bed. + +"There are a lot of things I might say now, Ben, but I won't say them. +We're not living in a land of law. We haven't someone always at hand to +shift our responsibility onto. In self-protection, we've got to take +justice more or less into our own hands. One thing I will say, though, +and I hope you'll never forget it. Think twice before you ever take the +life of another human being, Ben; think twice. Be sure your reasons are +mighty good--and then think again. Don't ever act in hot blood, or as +long as you live you'll know remorse." The speaker paused and his breath +came fast. Something more--who knew how much?--trembled on the end of +his tongue. He roused himself with an effort and turned toward his bunk. +"Good-night, Ben. I trust you as I'd trust my own son." + +The younger man watched the departing figure and felt the irony of the +separation that keeps us silent even when we wish to be nearest and most +helpful to our friends and makes our words a mockery. + +"Thank you, sir, I shall not forget. Good-night," he said. + +When a few minutes later the young man sauntered out to the barns, +everything was peaceful as usual. From the horse-stalls came the steady +monotonous grind of the animals at feed. In the cattle-yards was heard +the sleepy breathing of the multitude of cattle. Perfect contentment and +oblivion was the keynote of the place, and the watcher looked at the +lethargic mass thoughtfully. He had always responded instinctively to +the moods of dumb animals. He did so now. The passive trustfulness of +the great herd affected him deeply. Twice he made the circuit of the +buildings, but finding nothing amiss returned to his place. The sound of +the horses feeding had long since ceased. The sleepy murmur of the +cattle was lower and more regular. In the increasing coldness the vapor +of their breath, even though the night was dark and moonless, arose in +an indistinct cloud, like the smoke of smouldering camp-fires over the +tents of a sleeping army. For two days the man had been doing the +heaviest kind of work. Gradually, amid much opening and closing of +eyelids, consciousness lapsed into semi-consciousness, and he dozed. + +Suddenly--whether it was an hour or a minute afterwards, he did not +know--he awoke and sat up listening. Some sound had caught and held his +sub-conscious attention. He waited a moment, intent, scarcely breathing, +and then sprang swiftly to his feet. The sound now came definitely from +the sheds at the left. It was the deep chesty groan of a horse in pain. + +Once upon his feet, Ben Blair ran toward the barn, not cautiously but +precipitately. He had not grown to maturity amid animals without +learning something of their language; but even if such had been the +case, he could scarcely have mistaken that sound. Mortal pain and mortal +terror vibrated in those tones. No human being could have cried for help +more distinctly. The frozen snow squeaked under the rancher's feet as he +ran. "Stop there!" he shouted. "Stop there!" and throwing open the +nearest door, unmindful of danger, he dashed into the interior darkness. + +The barn was eighty odd feet in length, and as Ben swung open the door +at the east corner there was a flash of fire from the extreme west end, +and a bullet splintered the wood just back of his head. His precipitate +entry had been his salvation. He groped his way ahead, the groans of the +horses in his ears--for now he detected more than one voice. A growing +realization of what he would find was in his mind, and then a dark form +shot through the west door, and he was alone. Impulse told him to +follow, but the sound of pain and struggle kept him back. He struck a +match, held it like a torch above him, moved ahead, stopped. The flame +burned down the dry pine until it reached his fingers, blackened them, +went out; but he did not stir. He had expected the thing he saw, +expected it at the first cry he heard; yet infinitely more horrible than +a picture of imagination was the reality. He did not light another +match, he did not wish to see. To hear was bad enough--to hear and to +know. He started for the door; and behind him three great horses, +hopelessly maimed and crippled, struggled to rise, and failing, groaned +anew. + +It seemed Ben's fate this night to be just too late for service. Before +he reached the exit there sounded, spattering and intermittent, like the +first popping kernels of corn in a pan, a succession of pistol-shots +from the ranch-house. There was no answer, and as he stepped out into +the air the sound ceased. As he did so, the kitchen of the house sprang +alight from a lamp within. There was a moment of apparent inactivity, +and then, the door swinging open, fair against the lighted background, +shading his eyes to look into the outer darkness, stood Rankin. +Instantly a wave of premonition flooded the watching Benjamin. + +"Go back!" he shouted. "Go back! Back, quick!" and careless of personal +danger, he started running for the ranch-house as before he had raced +for the barn. + +The warning might as well have been ungiven. Almost before the last +words were spoken there came from the darkness at Ben's right the sound +he had been expecting--a single vicious rifle report; and as though a +mighty invisible weight were crushing him down, Rankin sank to the +floor. + +Then for the first time in his history Ben Blair lost self-control. +Quick as thought he changed his course from the house to the direction +from which the shot had come. The great veins of his throat swelled +until it seemed he could scarcely breathe. Curses, horrible, blighting +curses, combinations of malediction which had never even in thought +entered his mind before, rolled from his lips. His brain seemed afire. +But one idea possessed him--to lay hands upon this intruding being who +had in cold blood done that fiendish deed in the barn, and now had shot +his best friend on earth. The rage of primitive man who knew not steel +or gunpowder was his; the ferocity of the great monkey, the aborigine's +predecessor, whose means of offence were teeth and nails. Straight ahead +the man rushed, seeming not to run, but fairly to bound, turned suddenly +the angle at the corner of the machinery shed, stumbled over a +snow-plough drawn up carelessly by one of the men, fell, regained his +feet, and heard in his ears the thundering hoof-beats of a horse urged +away at full speed. + +For a moment Ben Blair stood as he had risen, gazing westward where the +other had departed, but seeing nothing, not even a shadow. Clouds had +formed over the sky, and the night was of intense darkness. To attempt +to follow a trail now was waste of time; and gradually, as he stood +there, the unevolved fury of the man transformed. His tongue became +silent; not a human being had heard the outburst. The physical paroxysm +relaxed. As he returned to the ranch-house no observer would have +detected in him other than the usual matter-of-fact rancher; yet beneath +that calm was a purpose infinitely more terrible than the animal blaze +of a few minutes before, a tenacity more relentless than a tiger on the +trail of its quarry, than an Indian stalking his enemy; a formulated +purpose which could patiently wait, but eventually and inevitably would +grind its object to powder. + +Meanwhile, back at the scene of the tragedy, there had been feverish +action. Many of the cowboys were already about the barns, and lanterns +gleamed in the horse corral. Within the house, in the nearest bunk where +they had laid him, stretched the proprietor of the ranch. About him +were grouped Grannis, Graham, and Ma Graham. The latter was weeping +hysterically--her head buried in her big checked apron, the great mass +of her body vibrating with the effort. As Ben approached, her husband +glanced up. Upon his face was the dull unreasoning indecision of a steer +which had lost its leader; an animal passivity which awaited command. + +"Rankin's dead," he announced dully. "He's hit here." A withered hand +indicated a spot on the left breast. "He went quick." + +Grannis said nothing, and walking up Ben Blair stopped beside the bunk. +He took a long look at the kindly heavy face of the only man he had ever +called friend; but not a feature of his own face relaxed, not a muscle +quivered. Grannis watched him fixedly, almost with fascination. +Gray-haired gambler and man of fortune that he was, he realized as +Graham could never do the emotions which so often lie just back of the +locked countenance of a human being; realized it, and with the grim +carelessness of a frontiersman admired it. + +Of a sudden there was a grinding of frosty snow in the outer yard, a +confused medley of human voices, a snorting of horses; and, turning, Ben +went to the door. One glance told him the meaning of the cluster of +cowboys. He walked out toward them deliberately. + +"Boys," he said steadily, "put up your horses. You couldn't find a +mountain in the darkness to-night." A pause. "Besides," slowly, "this is +my affair. Put them up and go to bed." + +For a moment there was silence. The hearers could scarcely believe their +ears. + +"You mean we're to let him go?" queried a hesitating voice at last. + +Blair folded up the broad brim of his hat and looked from face to face +as it was revealed by the uncertain light from the window. + +"I mean what I said," he repeated evenly. "I'll attend to this matter +myself." + +For a moment again there was silence, but only for a moment. + +"No you won't!" blazed a voice suddenly. "Rankin was the whitest man +that ever owned a brand. Just because the kyote that shot him lived with +your mother won't save him. I'm going--and now." + +Quicker than a cat, so swiftly that the other cowboys scarcely realized +what was happening, the long gaunt Benjamin was at the speaker's side. +With a leap he had him by the throat, had dragged him from the back of +the horse, and held him at arm's length. + +"Freeman,"--the voice was neither raised nor lowered, but steady as the +drip of falling water,--"Freeman, you know better than that, and you +know you know better." The grip of the long left hand on the throat +tightened. The fingers of the right locked. "Say so--quick!" + +Face to face, looking fair into each other's eyes, stood the two men, +while the spectators watched breathlessly as they would have done at a +climax in a play. It was a case of will against will, elemental man +against his brother. + +"I'm waiting," suggested Blair, and even in the dim light Freeman saw +the blue eyes beneath the long lashes darken. Instinctively the victim's +hand went to his hip and lingered there; but he could no more have +withdrawn the weapon which he felt there than he could have struck his +own mother. He started to speak; but his lips were dry, and he moistened +them with his tongue. + +"Yes, I know better," he admitted low. + +Ben Blair dropped his hand and turned to the spectators. "Men," he said +slowly and distinctly, "for the present at least I'm master of this +ranch, and when I give an order I expect to be obeyed." Again his eye +went from face to face fearlessly, dominantly. "Does any other man doubt +me?" + +Not a voice broke the stillness of the night. Only the restless movement +of the impatient mustangs answered. + +"Very well, then, you heard what I said. Go to bed, and to-morrow go on +with your work as usual. Grannis will be in charge while I'm gone," and +without a backward glance the long figure returned to the ranch-house. + +The weazened foreman and the tall adventurer had been watching him +impassively from the doorway. In silence they made room for him to pass. + +"Grannis," he asked directly, "have those horses been taken care of?" + +"No, sir." + +"See to it at once then." + +"Yes, sir." + +The blue eyes rested for a moment on the other's face. + +"You heard who I said would be in charge while I'm away?" + +"Yes, sir," again. + +Ben moved over to the bunk opposite to that in which lay the dead man +and took off his hat and coat. + +"Graham!" + +The foreman came close, stood at attention. + +"Keep awake and call me before daylight, will you?" + +"I will." + +"And, Graham!" + +"Yes." + +"I may be gone several days. You and Ma attend to the--burial. Dig the +grave out under the big maple." A pause. "I think," steadily, "he would +have liked it there." + +The foreman nodded silently. + +Benjamin Blair dropped into the bunk, drew the blankets over him and +closed his eyes. As he did so, from the direction of the barn there came +a succession of pistol shots--one, two, three. Then again silence fell. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE INEXORABLE TRAIL + + +Once more, westward across the prairie country, there moved a tall and +sinewy youth astride a vicious looking buckskin. This time, however, it +was very early in the morning. The rider moved slowly, his eyes on the +ground. His outfit was more elaborate than on the former journey. A +heavy blanket and a light camp kit were strapped behind his saddle, and +so attached that they could be quickly transferred to his back. A big +rifle was stretched across his right knee and the saddle-horn. At either +hip rode a great holster. The air, despite the cloudiness, was bitter +cold; and he wore a heavy sheepskin coat with the wool turned in, and +long gauntlets reaching half-way to his elbows. A broad leather belt +held the heavy coat in place, and attached to it was a thin sheath from +which protruded the stout handle of a hunting-knife. He also wore +another belt, fitted with many loops, each holding a gleaming little +brass cylinder. No one seeing the man this morning could have made the +mistake of considering him, as before, on a journey to see a lady. + +Slowly day advanced. The east resolved itself from flaming red into the +neutral tint of the remainder of the sky. The sun shone through the +clouds, dissipated them, was obscured, and shone again. The something +which the man had been watching so intently gradually grew clearer. It +was the trail of another horse--a galloping horse. It was easy to +follow, and the rider looked about him. After a few miles, when the +mustang had warmed to his second wind, a gauntleted hand dropped to the +yellow neck and stroked it gently. + +"Let 'em out a bit, Buck," said a voice, "let 'em out!" and with a flick +of the dainty ears, almost as if he understood, the little beast fell +into the steady swinging lope which was his natural gait, and which he +could follow if need be without a break from sun to sun. + +On they went, the trail they were following unwinding like a great tape +steadily before them, the crunch of the frozen snow in their ears, tiny +particles of it flying to the side and behind like spray. But, bravely +as they were going, the horse ahead which had unwound that band of +tracks had moved more swiftly. Not within inches did the best efforts of +the buckskin approach those giant strides. It had been a desperate rider +who had urged such a pace; and the grim face of the tall youth grew +grimmer at the thought. + +Not another sound than of their own making did they hear. Not an object +uncovered of white did they see, until, thirteen miles out, they passed +near the deserted Baker ranch; but the trail did not stop, nor did they, +and ere long it faded again from view. The course was dipping well to +the north now, and Ben realized that not again on his journey would he +pass in sight of a human habitation. + +All that mortal day the buckskin pounded monotonously ahead. The sun +rose to the meridian, gazed warmly down upon them, softened the surface +of the frozen snow until the crunch sounded mellower, and slowly +descended to their left. The dainty ears of the pony, as the day waned, +flattened close to his head. Foam gathered beneath the saddle and +between the animal's legs; but doggedly relentless as his rider, he +forged ahead. Much in common had these two beings; more closely than +ever was their comradery cemented that day. Many times, with the same +motion as at first, the man had leaned over and patted that muscular +neck, dark and soiled now with perspiration. "Good old Buck," he said as +to a fellow, "good old Buck!" and each time the set ears had flicked +intelligently in response. + +It was nearing sunset when they came in sight of the hills bordering the +river, and the last mile Ben drew the buckskin to a walk. The chain of +hoof-tracks had changed much since the morning. The buckskin could equal +the strides of the other now, and the follower was content. The evenings +were very short at this season of the year, and they would not attempt +to go farther to-night. At the margin of the stream Ben rode along until +he found a spot where the full strength of the current ate into the +bank. There on the thinner ice he hammered with the butt of his heavy +rifle until he broke a hole; then, the dumb one first, the two friends +drank their fill. After that, side by side, they walked back until in +the shelter of a high knoll the man found a space of perhaps half an +acre where the grass, thick and unpastured, was practically bare of +snow. Here he removed saddle and bridle, and without lariat or +hobble--for they knew each other now, these two--he turned the pony +loose to graze. He himself, with the kit and blanket and a handful of +dead wood, went to the hill-top, where he could see for miles around, +built a tiny fire, an Indian's fire, made a can of strong black coffee, +and ate of the jerked beef he had brought. Later, he cleared a spot the +size of a man's grave, and with grass and the blanket built a shallow +nest, in which he stretched himself, his elbow on the earth, his face in +his hand, thinking, thinking. + +The night came on. As the eastern sky had done in the morning, so now +the west crimsoned gloriously, became the color of blood, then gradually +shaded back until it was neutral again, and the stars from a few +scattering dots increased in numbers and filled the dome as scattered +sand-grains cover a floor. Darkness came, and with it the slight wind of +the day died down until the air was perfectly still. The cold, which had +retreated for a time, returned, augmented. As though it were a live +thing moving about, its coming could be heard in the almost +indistinguishable crackling of the snow-crust. As beneath a crushing +weight, the ice of the great river boomed and crackled from its touch. + +Wide-eyed but impassive, the man watched and listened. Scarcely a muscle +of his body moved. Not once, as the hours slipped by, did he drowse; not +for an instant was he off his guard. With the first trace of morning in +the east, he was astir. As on the night before, he made his Indian's +fire, ate his handful of beef, and drank of the strong black coffee. +The pony, sleepy as a child, was aroused and saddled. The ice which had +frozen during the night over their drinking-hole was broken. Then, both +man and horse stiff and sore from the exposure and the previous +exertion, the trail was taken up anew. + +For five miles, until both were warmed to their work, the man and beast +trotted along side by side. "Now, Buck, old boy!" said Ben, and +mounting, they were off in earnest. At first the trail they were +following was that of a horse that walked; but later it stretched out +into the old long-strided gallop, and the pursuer read the tale of quirt +and spur which had forced the change. + +Three hours out, thirty odd miles from the river as the rider calculated +the distance, he came to the first break in the seemingly endless trail +of hoofprints he was following. A heap of snow scraped aside and two +brown spots on the earth told the story of where the pursued man and +horse had paused to rest and sleep. No water was near. Neither the human +nor the beast had strayed from the direct line; they had merely halted +and dropped almost within their tracks. Just beyond was the spot where +the man had remounted, where the flight began anew; and again a tale lay +written on the surface of the snow. The prints of the horse's feet were +now unsteady and irregular. Within a few rods there was on the right a +red splash of blood; then others, a drop at a time. Very hard it had +been to put life into the beast at starting; deep the rowels of the +great spur had been dug. Ben Blair lightly touched the neck of his +buckskin and gave the word to go. + +"They were only thirty miles ahead last night, Buck, old chap," he said, +"and very tired. We'll gain on them fast to-day." + +But though they gained--the record of the tracks told that--they did not +gain fast. Notwithstanding he still galloped doggedly ahead, the gallant +little buckskin was plainly weakening. The eternal pounding through the +snow was eating up his strength, and though his spirit was indomitable +the end of his endurance was in sight. No longer would the dainty ears +respond to a touch on the neck. With head lowered he moved forward like +a machine. While the sun was yet above the horizon, the lope diminished +to a trot, the trot to a walk--a game walk, but only a walk. + +Then, for the second time that day, Ben dismounted. Silently he removed +saddle and bridle, transferred the blanket and kit to his own back, and +then, the rifle under his arm, stopped a moment by the pony's side and +laid the dainty muzzle against his face. + +"Buck, old boy," he said, "you've done mighty well--but I can beat you +now. Maybe some day we'll meet again. I hope we shall. Anyway, we're +better for having known each other. Good-bye." + +A moment longer his face lay so, as his hand would have lain in a +friend's hand at parting; then, with a last pat to the silken nose, he +started on ahead. + +At first the man walked steadily; then, warming to the work, he broke +into the swinging jog-trot of the frontiersman, the hunter who travels +afoot. Many Indians the youth had known in his day, and from them he had +learned much; one thing was that in walking or running to step +straight-footed instead of partially sideways, as the white man plants +his sole, was to gain inches at every motion, besides making it easier +to retrace his steps should he wish to do so. This habit had become a +part of him, and now the marks of his own trail were like the +alternately broken line which represents a railroad on a map. + +As long as he could see to read from the white page of the snow-blanket, +Ben Blair jogged ahead. Hot anger, that he could not repress, was with +him constantly now, for the trail before him was very fresh, and, +distinct beside it, more and more frequent were the red marks of an +animal's suffering. He knew what horse it was the other had stolen. It +was "Lady," one of Scotty's prize thoroughbred mares, the one Florence +had ridden so many times. Often during those last hours the man wondered +at the endurance of the mare. None but a thoroughbred would have stood +up this long; and even she, if she ever stopped,--but the man ahead +doubtless knew this also, for he would not let her stop, not so long as +life remained and spur and quirt had power to torture. + +Thus night came on, folding within its concealing arms alike the hunter +and the pursued. Ben did not build a fire this night. First of all, +though during the day at different times he had been able to see the +bordering trees of the White River at his left and the Bad River at his +right, the trail hung to the comparatively level land of the great +divide between, and not a scrap of wood was within miles. Again, +although he did not actually know, he could not believe he was far +behind, and he would run no risk of giving a warning sign to eyes which +must be watching the backward trail. The fierce hunger of a healthy +animal was his; but his supply of beef was limited, and he ate a meagre +allowance, washing it down with a draught of river water from his +canteen. Rolled up in the blanket, through which the stinging cold +pierced as though it were gossamer, shivering, beating his hands and +feet to prevent their stiffening, longing for protecting fur like a wolf +or a buffalo, keeping constant watch about him as does a great prairie +owl, the interminably long hours of his second night dragged by. + +"The beginning of the end," he soliloquized, when once more it was light +enough so that standing he could see the earth at his feet. Well he knew +that ere this the other horse was eliminated from the chase--that it was +now man against man. God! how his joints ached when he stretched +them!--how his muscles pained at the slightest motion! He ground his +teeth when he first began to walk, and hobbled like a rheumatic cripple; +but within a half-hour tenacity had won, and the relentless jog-trot of +the interrupted line was measuring off the miles anew. + +The chase was nearing an end. Long ere noon, in the distance toward +which he was heading, Blair detected a brown dot against the white. +Steadily, as he advanced, it resolved itself into the thing he had +expected, and stood revealed before him, the centre of a horribly +legible page, the last page in the biography of a noble horse. Let us +pass it by: Ben did, looking the other way. But a new and terrible +vitality possessed him. His weariness left him, as pain passes under an +opiate. He did not pause to eat, to drink. Tireless as a waterfall, +watchful as a hawk, he jogged on, on, a mile--two miles--five--came to a +rise in the great roll of the lands--stopped, his heart suddenly +pounding the walls of his chest. Before him, not half a mile away, +moving slowly westward, was the diminutive black shape of a man +travelling afoot! + +Instantly the primal hunting instinct of the Anglo-Saxon awoke in the +lank Benjamin. The incomparable fascination which makes man-hunting the +sport supreme of all ages gripped him tight. The stealthy cunning of a +savage became on the moment his. A plan of ambush, one which could +scarcely fail, flashed into his mind. The trail of the divide narrowing +now, stretched for miles and miles straight before them. That black +figure would scarcely leave it. The pursuer had but to make a great +detour, get far in advance, find a point of concealment, and wait. + +Swift as thought was action. Back on his trail until he was out of sight +went Ben Blair; then, turning to his right, he made straight for the +concealing bed of Bad River. Once there, he turned west again, following +the winding course of the stream toward its source. Faster than ever he +moved, the pat-pat of his feet on the deadening snow drowning the sound +of the great breaths he drew into his lungs and sent whistling out again +through his nostrils. As with the horse, the sweat oozed at every pore. +Collecting on his brow and face, it dripped slowly from his great chin. +Dampening, his clothes clung binding-tight to his body; but he never +noticed. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor behind +him; but, like a sprinter approaching the wire, only straight ahead. + +Under him the miles flowed past like water. Five, ten, a dozen he +covered; then of a sudden he turned again to the south, quitting his +shelter of the river-bed. For a time the country was very rough, but he +scarcely slackened his pace. Once he fell through the crust of a drift, +and went down nearly to his neck; but he crowded his way through by +sheer strength, emerging a powdered figure from the snow which clung to +his damp clothes. The sun was down now, and he knew darkness would come +very quickly and he must reach the divide, the probable trail, before it +fell, and there select his point of waiting. + +As he moved on, he saw some miles ahead that which decided him. A low +chain of hills, stretching to the north and south, crossed the great +divide as a fallen log spans a path. In these hills, appreciable even at +this distance, there was a dip, an almost level pass. A small diversity +it was on the face of nature, but to a weary man, fleeing afoot, seen in +the distance it would irresistibly appeal. Almost as certain as though +he saw the black figure already heading for it, the hunter felt it would +be utilized. Anyway, he would take the chance; and with a last spurt of +speed he put himself fairly in its way. To clear a narrow strip of +ground the length of his body, and build around it like a breastwork a +border of snow, was the work of but a few minutes; then, wrapped in his +blanket, too deadly tired to even attempt to eat, he dropped behind the +cover like a log. At first the rest was that of Paradise; but swiftly +came the reaction, the chill. To lie there in his present condition +meant but one thing, that never would he arise again; and with an effort +the man got to his feet and started walking. It was dark again now, and +the sky was becoming rapidly overcast. Within an hour it began to snow, +a steady big-flaked snow that fairly filled the air and lay where it +fell. The night grew slightly warmer, and, rolling in the blanket once +more, Ben lay down; but the warning chill soon had him again upon his +feet, walking back and forth in the one beaten path. + +Very long the two previous nights had been. Interminable seemed this +third. As long as the sun or moon or stars were shining, the man never +felt completely alone; but in this utter darkness the hours seemed like +days. The steadily falling snowflakes added to the impression of +loneliness and isolation. They were like the falling clods of earth in a +grave: something crowding between him and life, burying and suffocating +him where he stood. Try as he might, the man could not shake off the +weird impression, and at last he ceased the effort. Grimly stolid, he +lit his pipe, and, his damp clothing having dried at last, cleared a +fresh spot and lay down, the horrible loneliness still tugging at his +heart. + +Finally, after an eternity of waiting, the morning came. With it the +storm ceased and the sun shone brightly. Behind the barricade, Ben Blair +ate the last of his beef and drank the few remaining swallows of water +from his canteen. His muscles were stiff from the inaction, and, not +wishing to show himself, he kicked vigorously into space as he lay. At +intervals he made inspection of the east, looking out over the glitter +of white; but not a living thing was in sight. An hour he watched, two +hours, while the sun, beating down obliquely, warmed him back into +activity; then of a sudden his eyes became fixed, the grip upon his +rifle tightened. Far to the southeast, something dark against the snow +was moving,--was coming toward him. + +Rapidly the figure approached, while lower behind the barricade dropped +the body of Benjamin Blair. The sun was in his eyes, so that as yet he +could not make out whether it was man or beast. Not until the object was +within three hundred yards, until it passed by to the north, did Ben +make out that it was a great gray wolf headed straight for the bed of +Bad River. + +Again two hours of unbroken monotony passed. The sun had almost reached +the meridian, and the man behind the barricade had all but decided he +must have miscalculated somehow, when in the dim distance as before +there appeared a tiny dark object, but this time directly from the east. +For five minutes Ben watched it fixedly, his hand shading his eyes; +then, slowly as moves the second-hand of a great clock, a change +indescribable came over his face. No need was there now to ask whether +it was a human being that was approaching. There was no mistaking that +slow, swinging man-motion. At last the moment was approaching for which +the youth had been striving so madly for the last few days, the moment +he had for years been conscious would some day come. It would soon be +his; and with the thought his teeth set firmer, and a fierce joy tugged +at his heart. + +Five minutes, ten minutes dragged by; yet no observer, however close, +could have seen a muscle stir in the long body of the waiting man. Like +a great panther cat he lay there, the blue eyes peering just over the +surface of the ambush. Not ten paces away could an observer have told +the tip of that motionless sombrero from the protruding top of a +boulder. Gradually the approaching figure grew more distinct. A red +handkerchief showed clearly about the man's neck. Then a slight limp in +the left leg intruded itself, and a droop of the shoulders that spoke +weariness. He was very near by this time, so near that the black beard +which covered his face became discernible, likewise the bizarre breadth +of the Mexican belt above the baggy chaperejos. The crunch of the +snow-crust marked his every foot-fall. + +And still Ben Blair had not stirred. Slowly, as the other had +approached, the big blue eyes had darkened until they seemed almost +brown. Involuntarily the massive chin had moved forward; but that was +all. On the surface he was as calm as a lake on a windless night; but +beneath,--God! what a tempest was raging! Each one of those minutes he +waited so impassively marked the rush of a year's memories. Human hate, +primal instinct all but uncontrollable, throbbed in his accelerated +pulse-beats. Like the continuous shifting scenes in a panorama, the +incidents of his life in which this man had played a part appeared +mockingly before his mind's eye. Plainly, as though in his physical ear, +he heard the shuffle of an uncertain hand upon a latch; he saw a figure +with bloodshot eyes lurch into a rude floorless room, saw it approach a +bunk whereon lay a sick woman, his mother; heard the swift passage of +angry words, words which had branded themselves into his memory forever. +Once more he was on all fours, scurrying for his life toward the dark +opening of a protecting kennel. As plainly as though the memory were of +yesterday, he gazed into the blazing mouth of a furnace, felt its +scorching breath on his cheek. Swiftly the changing scenes danced before +his eyes. A rifle-shot, real almost as though he could smell the burning +powder, sounded in his brain. Within the circle of light from a kerosene +lamp a great figure sank in a heap to a ranch house floor. Against a +background of unbroken white a trail of red blotches ended in the mutely +pathetic figure of a prostrate dying horse--a noble thoroughbred. What +varied horrors seethed in the watcher's brain, crowded each other, +recurred and again recurred! How the long sinewy fingers itched to +clutch that throat above the red neckerchief! He could see the man's +face now, as, ignorant of danger so close, he was passing by fifty feet +to the left, looking to neither side, doggedly heading toward the pass. +With the first motion since the figure had appeared, the hand of the +watcher tightened on the rifle, raised it until its black muzzle peeped +over the elevation of snow. A pair of steady blue eyes gazed down the +long barrel, brought the sights in line with a spot between the +shoulders and the waist of the unsuspecting man, the trigger-finger +tightened, almost-- + +A preventing something, something not primal in the youth, gripped him, +held him for a second motionless. To kill a man from an ambush, even +such a one as this without giving him a chance--no, he could not quite +do that. But to take him by the throat with his bare hands, and then +slowly, slowly-- + +As noiselessly as the rifle had raised, it dropped again. The muscles of +the long legs tightened as do those of a sprinter awaiting the starting +pistol. Then over the barricade, straight as a tiger leaps, shot a tall +youth with steel-blue eyes, hatless, free of hand, straight for that +listless, moving figure; the scattered snow flying to either side, the +impact of the bounding feet breaking the previous stillness. Tom Blair, +the outlaw, could not but hear the rush. Instinctively he turned, and in +the fleeting second of that first glance Ben could see the face above +the beard-line blanch. As one might feel should the Angel of Death +appear suddenly before him, Tom Blair must have felt then. As though +fallen from the sky, this avenging demon was upon him. He had not time +to draw a revolver, a knife; barely to swing the rifle in his hand +upward to strike, to brace himself a little for the oncoming rush. + +With a crash the two bodies came together. Simultaneously the rifle +descended, but for all its effectiveness it might have been a dead +weed-stalk in the hands of a child. It was not a time for artificial +weapons, but only for nature's own; a war of gripping, strangling hands, +of tooth and nail. Nearly of a size were the two men. Both alike were +hardened of muscle; both realized the battle was for life or death. For +a moment they remained upright, clutching, parrying for an advantage; +then, locked each with each, they went to the ground. Beneath and about +them the fresh snow flew, filling their eyes, their mouths. Squirming, +straining, over and over they rolled; first the beardless man on top, +then the bearded. The sound of their straining breath was continuous, +the ripping of coarse cloth an occasional interruption; but from the +first, a spectator could not but have foreseen the end. The elder man +was fighting in self-defence: the younger, he of the massive protruding +jaw--a jaw now so prominent as to be a positive disfigurement--in +unappeasable ferocity. Against him in that hour a very giant could not +have held his own. Merely a glimpse of his face inspired terror. Again +and again as they struggled his hand had clutched at the other's throat, +but only to have his hold broken. At last, however, his adversary was +weakening under the strain. Blind terror began to grip Tom Blair. At +first a mere suggestion, then a horrible certainty, possessed him as to +the identity of the relentless being who opposed him. Again the other's +hand, like the creeping tentacle of an octopus, sought his throat, would +not be stayed. He struggled with all his might against it, until it +seemed the blood-vessels of his neck would burst, but still the hold +tightened. He clutched at the long fingers desperately, bit at them, +felt his breath coming hard. Freeing his own hand, he smashed with his +fist again and again into that long thin face so near his own, knew that +another tentacle had joined with the first, felt the impossibility of +drawing air into his lungs, realized that consciousness was deserting +him, saw the sun over him like a mocking face--then knew no more. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +IN THE GRIP OF THE LAW + + +How long Tom Blair was unconscious he did not know. When he awoke he +could scarcely believe his own senses; and he looked about him dazedly. +The sun was shining down as brightly as before. The snow was as white. +He had for some reason been spared, after all, and hope arose in his +breast. He began to look around him. Not two rods away, his face clearly +in sight, his eyes closed, dead asleep, lay the figure of the man who +had waylaid him. For a moment he looked at the figure steadily; then, in +distinct animal cunning, the lids of the close-set eyes tightened. +Stealthily, almost holding his breath, he started to rise, then fell +back with a jerk. For the first time he realized that he was bound hand +and foot, so he could scarcely stir. He struggled, at first cautiously, +then desperately, to be free; but the straps which bound him, those +which had held his own blanket, only cut the deeper; and he gave it up. +Flat on his back he lay watching the sleeper, his anger increasing. +Again his eyes tightened. + +"Wake up, curse you!" he yelled suddenly. + +No answer, only the steady rise and fall of the sleeper's chest. + +"Wake up, I say!" repeated the voice, in a tone to raise the dead. + +This time there was response--of action. Slowly Ben Blair roused, and +got up. A moment he looked about him; then, tearing a strip off his +blanket, he walked over, and, against the other's protests and promises +of silence, forced open the bearded lips, as though giving a horse the +bit, and tied a gag full in the cursing mouth. Without a word or a +superfluous look he returned and lay down. Another minute, and the +regular breathing showed he was again asleep. + +During all the warmth of that day Ben Blair slept on, as a child sleeps, +as sleep the very aged; and although the bearded man had freed himself +from the gag at last, he did not again make a sound. Too miserable +himself to sleep, he lay staring at the other. Gradually through the +haze of impotent anger a realization of his position came to him. He +could not avoid the issue. To be sure, he was still alive; but what of +the future? A host of possibilities flashed into his mind, but in every +one there faced him a single termination. By no process of reasoning +could he escape the inevitable end; and despite the chilliness of the +air a sweat broke out over him. Contrition for what he had done he could +not feel--long ago he had passed even the possibility of that; but fear, +deadly and absorbing fear, had him in its clutch. The passing of the +years, years full of lawlessness and violence, had left him the same man +whom bartender "Mick" had terrorized in the long ago; and for the first +time in his wretched life, personal death--not of another but of +himself--looked at him with steady eyes, and he could not return the +gaze. All he could do was to wait, and think--and thoughts were madness. +Again and again, knowing what the result would be, but seeking merely a +diversion, he struggled at the straps until he was breathless; but +relentless as time one picture kept recurring to his brain. In it was a +rope, a stout rope, dangling from something he could not distinctly +recognize; but what he could see, and see plainly, was a figure of a +man, a bearded man--_himself_--at its end. The body swayed back and +forth as he had once seen that of a "rustler" whom a group of cowboys +had left hanging to the scraggly branch of a scrub-oak; as a pendulum +marks time, measuring the velocity of the prairie wind. + +With each recurrence of the vision the perspiration broke out over the +man anew, the sunburned forehead paled. This was what it was coming to; +he could not escape it. If ever purpose was unmistakably written on a +human face, it had been on the face of the man who lay sleeping so near, +the man who had trailed him like a tiger and caught him when he thought +he was safe. From another, there might still be hope; but from this one, +Jennie Blair's son--The vision of a woman lying white and motionless on +the coarse blankets of a bunk, of a small boy with wonderfully clear +blue eyes pounding harmlessly at the legs of the man looking down; the +sound of a childish voice, accusing, menacing, ringing out over all, +"You've killed her! You've killed her!"--this like a chasm stood between +them, and could never be crossed. Clasped together, the long nervous +fingers, a gentleman's fingers still, twined and gripped each other. +No, there was no hope. Better that the hands he had felt about his +throat in the morning had done their work. He shut his eyes. A hot wave +of anger, anger against himself, swept all other thoughts before it. +Why, having gotten safely away, having successfully hidden himself, had +he ever returned? Why, having in the depths of his nest in the middle of +the island escaped once, had a paltry desire for revenge against the man +he fancied had led the attack sent him back? What satisfaction was it, +if in taking the life of the other man it cost him his own? Fool that he +had been to imagine he could escape where no one had ever escaped +before! Fool! Fool! Thus dragged by the long hours of the afternoon. + +With the coming of the chill of evening, Ben Blair awoke and rubbed his +eyes. A moment later he arose, and, walking over to his captive, looked +down at him, steadily, peculiarly. So long as he could, Tom Blair +returned the gaze; but at last his eyes fell. A voice sounded in his +ears, a voice speaking low and clearly. + +"You're a human being," it said. "Physically, I'm of your species, +modelled from the same clay." A long pause. "I wonder if anywhere in my +make-up there's a streak of such as you!" Again a moment of silence, in +which the elder man felt the blue eyes of the younger piercing him +through and through. "If I thought there was a trace, or the suggestion +of a trace, before God, I'd kill you and myself, and I'd do it now!" The +speaker scanned the prostrate figure from head to foot, and back again. +"And do it now," he repeated. + +Silence fell; and in it, though he dared not look, coward Tom Blair +fancied he heard a movement, imagined the other man about to put the +threat into execution. + +"No, no!" he pleaded. "People are different--different as day and night. +You belong to your mother's kind, and she was good and pure." Every +trace of the man's nerve was gone. But one instinct was active--to +placate this relentless being, his captor. He fairly grovelled. "I swear +she was pure. I swear it!" + +Without speaking a word, Ben turned. Going back to his snow-blind, he +packed his blanket and camp kit swiftly and strapped them to his +shoulders. Returning, he gathered the things he had found upon the +other's person--the rifle, the revolvers, the sheath-knife--into a pile; +then deliberately, one against the other, he broke them until they were +useless. Only the blanket he preserved, tossing it down by the side of +the prostrate figure. + +"Tom Blair," he said, no indication now that he had ever been nearer to +the other than a stranger, "Tom Blair, I've got a few things to say to +you, and if you're wise you'll listen carefully, for I sha'n't repeat +them. You're going with me, and you're going free; but if you try to +escape, or cause me trouble, as sure as I'm alive this minute I'll strip +off every stitch of clothing you wear and leave you where I catch you +though the snow be up to your waist." + +Slowly he reached over and untied first the feet then the hands. "Get +up," he ordered. + +Tom Blair arose, stretched himself stiffly. + +"Take that," Ben indicated the blanket, "and go ahead straight for the +river." + +The bearded man obeyed. To have secured his freedom he could not have +done otherwise. + +For ten minutes they moved ahead, only the crunching snow breaking the +stillness. + +"Trot!" said Ben. + +"I can't." + +"Trot!" There was no misunderstanding the tone. + +In single file they jogged ahead, reached the river, and descended to +the level surface of its bed. + +"Keep to the middle, and go straight ahead." + +On they went--jog, jog, jog. + +Of a sudden from under cover of the bank a frightened cottontail sprang +forth and started running. Instantly there was the report of a big +revolver, and Tom jumped as though he felt the bullet in his back. Again +the report sounded, and this time the rabbit rolled over and over in the +snow. + +Without stopping, Ben picked up the still struggling game and slipped a +couple of fresh cartridges into the empty revolver chambers. The banks +were lined with burrows and tracks, and within five minutes a second +cottontail met the fate of the first. + +"Come back!" called Ben to the man ahead. + +Again Tom obeyed. He would have gone barefoot in the snow without a +question now. + +"Can you make a fire?" + +"Yes." + +"Do it, then. I left the matches in your pocket." + +On opposite sides of the fire, from long forked sticks of green ash, +they broiled strips of the meat which Ben dressed and cut. Likewise +fronting each other, they ate in silence. Darkness was falling, and the +glow from the embers lit their faces like those of two friends camping +after a day's hunt. Had it not all been such deadly earnest, the scene +would have been farce-comedy. Suddenly Tom Blair raised his eyes. + +"What are you going to do with me?" he asked directly. + +Ben said nothing. + +The question was not repeated, but another trembled on the speaker's +lips. At last it found words. + +"When you had me down I--I thought you had done for me. Why did you--let +me up?" + +A pause followed. Then Ben's blue eyes raised and met the other's. + +"You'd really like to know?" + +"Yes." + +Another moment of hesitation, but the youth's eyes did not move. "Very +well, I'll tell you." More to himself than to the other he was speaking. +His voice softened unconsciously. "A girl saved you that time, Tom +Blair, a girl you never saw. You haven't any idea what it means, but I +love that girl, and I could never look her in the face again with blood +on my hands, even such blood as yours. That's the reason." + +For a moment Tom Blair was silent; then into his brain there flashed a +suggestion, and he grasped at it as a drowning man at a straw. + +"Wouldn't it be blood on your hands just the same if you take me back +where we're headed, back to Mick Kennedy and--" + +With a single motion, swift as though raised by a spring, Ben was upon +his feet. + +"Pick up your blanket!" + +"But--" + +"Silence!" The big square jaw shot forward like the piston of an engine. +"Not another word of that, now or ever. Not another word!" + +For a second the other paused doggedly, then taking up his load he moved +ahead into the shadow. + +Hour after hour they advanced, alternately walking and trotting, +following the winding bed of the stream. Darkness fell, until they could +not see each other's faces, until they were merely two black passing +shadows; but the figure behind was relentless. Stimulating, compelling, +he forced himself close. Ever and anon they could hear the frightened +dash of a rabbit away from their path. More than once a snow-owl +fluttered over their heads; but they took no notice. Twice the man in +advance stumbled and fell; but though Ben paused he spoke no word. Like +a soldier of the ranks on secret forced march, ignorant of his +destination, given only conjecture as to what the morrow would bring +forth, Tom Blair panted ahead. + +With the coming of daylight Ben slowed to a walk, and looked about in +quest of breakfast. Game was plentiful along the shelter of the stream, +and before they had advanced a half-mile farther he saw ahead a flock of +grouse roosting in the diverging branches of a cottonwood tree. At two +hundred yards, selecting those on the lowest branches, he dropped half a +dozen, one after the other, with the rifle; and still the remainder of +the flock did not fly. Very different were they from the open-land +prairie chicken, whom a mere sound will send a-wing. + +As on the night before, they broiled each what he wished, and, carefully +cleaning the others, Ben packed them with his kit. Then, stolid as an +Indian, he cleared a spot of earth, and wrapping himself in his blanket +lay down full in the sunshine, smoking his pipe impassively. Taking the +cue, Tom Blair likewise curled up like a dog near at hand. + +Slowly and more slowly came the puffs of smoke from the captor's pipe; +at last they ceased entirely. The lids of the youth's eyes closed, his +breath came deep and regular. Beneath the blanket a muscle here and +there twitched involuntarily, as in one who is very weary and asleep. + +An hour passed, an hour without a sound; then, looking closely, a +spectator could have seen one of Tom Blair's eyes open and close +furtively. Again it opened, and its mate as well--to remain so. For a +minute, two minutes, they studied the companion face uncertainly, +suspiciously, then savagely. Another minute, and the body had risen to +hands and knees. Still Ben did not stir, still the great expanse of his +chest rose and fell. Tom Blair was satisfied. Hand over hand, feeling +his way like a cat, he advanced toward the prostrate figure. Despite his +caution, the crust of the snow crackled once beneath his touch, and he +paused, a soundless curse forming upon his lips; but the warning passed +unheeded, and, bolder than before, he padded on. + +Eight feet he gained, then ten. His color heightened, the repressed +arteries throbbed above the gaudy neckerchief, the skulking animal +intensified in the tightened muscles of the temples. As many feet again; +but a few more minutes--then liberty and life. The better to guard his +movements, his gaze fell. Out and down went his right hand, then his +left, as his lithe body slid forward. Again he glanced up, paused--and +on the instant every muscle of his tense body went suddenly lax. Instead +of the closed eyes and sleeping face he had expected, two steady eyes +were giving him back look for look. There had not been a motion; the +face was yet that of a sleeper; the chest still rose and fell steadily; +but the eyes! + +Tom Blair's teeth ground each other like those of a dog with rabies. The +suggestion of froth came to his lips. + +"Curse you!" he cried. "Curse you forever!" + +A moment they lay so, a moment wherein the last vestige of hope left the +mind of the captive; but in it Ben Blair spoke no word. Maddening, +immeasurably worse than denunciation, was that relentless silence. It +was uncanny; and the bearded man felt the hairs of his head rising as +the mane of a dog or a wolf lifts at a sound it does not understand. + +"Say something," he pleaded desperately. "Shoot me, kill me, do +anything--but don't look at me like that!" and, fairly writhing, he +crawled back to his blanket and buried his head in its depths. + +With the coming of evening coolness, Ben again made preparation for the +journey. Neither of the men made reference to the incidents of the day, +but on Tom Blair's face there was a new expression, like that of a +criminal on his passage from the cell to the hangman's trap. If the +younger man saw it, he gave no sign; and as on the night before, they +jogged ahead. Before daylight broke, the comparatively smooth bed of Bad +River merged into the irregular surface of the Missouri. Then they +halted. Why they stopped there, Tom Blair could not at the time tell; +but with the coming of daylight he understood. Where he had crossed and +Ben had followed there was not now a single track, but many--a score at +least. At the margin of the stream, where the cavalcade had stopped, the +snow was tramped hard as a stockade; and in the centre of the beaten +place, distinct against the white, was a dark spot where a great +camp-fire had been built. At the river the party had stopped. Obviously, +there the last snow had obliterated the trail, and, seeing that they had +turned back, Tom Blair gave a sigh of relief. Whatever the future had in +store for him, it could reveal nothing so fearful as a meeting with +those whom intuition told him had made up that party. + +But his relief was short-lived. Again, after they had breakfasted from +the grouse in the pack, Ben ordered the onward march, along the bank of +the great river. As they moved ahead, a realization of their destination +at last came to the captive, and for the first time he balked. + +"Do what you wish with me," he cried. "I'll not go a step farther." + +They were perhaps a mile down the river. The bordering hills enclosed +them like an arena. + +"Very well." Ben Blair spoke as though the occurrence were one of +every-day repetition. "Give me your clothes!" + +Tom's face settled stubbornly. + +"You'll have to take them." + +The youth's hand sought his hip, and a bullet spat at the snow within +three inches of the other's feet. There was a meaning pause. Slowly the +bravado left the other's face. + +"Don't keep me waiting!" urged Ben. + +Slowly, very slowly, off came the captive's coat and vest. Despite his +efforts, the hands which loosened the buttons trembled uncontrollably. +Following the vest came the shirt, then a shoe, and the sock beneath. +His foot touched the snow. For the first time a faint realization of the +thing he was choosing came to him. The vicious bite of the frost upon +the bare skin was not a possibility of the future, but a condition of +the immediate now; and he weakened. But in the moment of his indecision, +the wave of stubbornness and of blinding hate again flooded him, and a +rush of hot curses left his lips. + +For a moment, the last time in their lives, the two men eyed each other +fairly. Indescribable hate was written upon one face; the other was as +blank as the surrounding snow. Its very immobility chilled Tom Blair and +cowed him into silence. Without a word he replaced shoe and coat and +took up his blanket. An advancing step sounded behind him, and, +understanding, he moved ahead. After a while the foot-fall again gained +upon him, and once more the walk merged into the interminable jog-jog of +the back-trail. + +It was morning when the two began that last relay. It was four o'clock +in the afternoon when they arrived amid the outskirts of the scattered +prairie terminus which was their destination. Within ten minutes +thereafter the two had separated. The older man, in charge of a lank, +unshaven frontiersman, chiefly noticeable from a quid of tobacco which +swelled one cheek like an abscess, and a nickle-plated star which he +wore on the lapel of his coat, was headed for the pretentious white +painted building known as the court-house. The younger, catching sight +of a wind-twisted sign lettered "Hotel," made for it as though sighting +the promised land. In the office, as he passed through, was a crowd of +men entirely too large to have gathered by chance in a frontier +hostelry, who eyed him peculiarly; but he took no notice, and five +minutes later, upon the bedraggled bed of the unplastered upper room +that the landlord gave him, without even his boots removed, he was deep +in the realm of oblivion. + +Some time later--he had no idea of the hour save that all was dark--he +was awakened by a confusion of voices in the room below, a slamming of +doors, a thumping of great boots upon the bare floor. Scarcely +remembering his whereabouts, he rolled from his bed and thrust his head +out of the narrow window. Here and there about the town were scattered +lights--some stationary, others, which he took to be lanterns, moving. +On the street beneath his window two men went by on a run. Half way up +the block, before the well-lighted front of a saloon, a motley crowd was +shifting back and forth, restless as ants in a hill, the murmur of their +voices sounding menacing as the distant hum of swarming bees. All at +once from out the door there burst fair into the crowd a heavy man with +great shoulders and a bull neck. About him, even in the uncertain light, +there seemed to the watcher something very familiar. What he said, Ben +could not understand; but he turned his head this way and that, and his +motions were unmistakable. The crowd made way before him as sheep before +a dog, and closing behind followed steadily in his wake. Gradually as +the leader advanced the mass gained momentum. At first the pace had been +a slow walk. In the space of seconds it became a swift one, then a run, +with a wild scramble by those in the rear to gain front place. The +frozen ground rumbled under their rushing feet. The direction of their +movement, at first uncertain, became definite. It was a direct line for +the centrally located court-house; and, no longer doubtful of their +purpose, Ben left the window, fairly tumbled downstairs, and rushed +through the now deserted office into the equally deserted street. + +The court-house square was but two blocks away; but the mob had a good +lead, and when the youth arrived he found the space within the +surrounding chain fence fairly covered. Where the people could all have +come from struck him even at that moment as a mystery. Certainly all +told the town could not in itself have mustered half the number. +Elbowing his way among them, however, he began soon to understand. Here +and there among the mass he caught sight of familiar faces,--Russell of +the Circle R Ranch, Stetson of the "XI," each taking no part, but with +hats slouched low over their eyes watching every movement of the drama. +Passing around a jam he could not press through, Ben felt a detaining +hand upon his arm, and turning, he was face to face with Grannis. The +grip of the overseer tightened. + +"I've been looking for you, Blair," he said, "I know what you've been +trying to do, but most of the crowd don't and won't. They're ugly. You'd +better keep back." + +For answer Ben eyed the cowboy squarely. + +"I thought I left you in charge of the ranch," he said evenly. + +The weather-stained face of the foreman reddened in the shifting lantern +light, but the eyes did not drop. + +"I have been. I just got here." A dignity which well became him spoke in +the steady voice. "I had a reason for coming." + +Ben released his gaze. + +"The others are here too?" + +"No, they're all at the ranch. Graham and I attended to that." + +"I just saw Russell and Stetson. They couldn't possibly have got here +to-day from home. Has--has this been planned?" + +Grannis nodded. "Yes. Kennedy and his gang have been watching here and +at the ranch for days. They thought you'd show up at one place or the +other. The whole country is out. There are lots of strangers here, from +ranches I never heard of before. Seems as though everybody knew Rankin +and heard of his being shot. You'd better let them have it their way. +It'll amount to the same in the end, and death itself couldn't stop them +now." + +He took a step forward; for Ben, understanding all, had at last moved +on. + +"Blair!" he called after him, again extending a detaining hand. His +voice took on a new note--intimate, personal, a tone of which no one +would have thought it capable. "Blair, listen to me! Stop!" + +But he might as well have spoken to the swiftly flowing water beneath +the ice of the great river. Of a sudden, from out a passage leading into +the cell-room of the court-house basement, a black swarm of men had +emerged, bearing by sheer animal force a struggling object in their +midst. The silence of those who waited, the lull before the storm, on +the instant ended. A very Babel of voices took its place. By common +consent, as though drawn by centripetal force, actors and spectators +crowded together until they were a solid block of humanity. Caught in +the midst, Grannis and Ben alike could for a moment but move with the +mass. So fierce was the crush that their very breath seemed imprisoned +in their lungs. + +Like molten metal the crowd began to flow--to the right, in the +direction of the railroad track. With each passing moment the confusion +was, if possible, greater than before. Here and there a cowboy, unable +to control his excess of feeling, emptied his revolver into the air. +Once Ben heard the wailing yelp of a dog caught under foot of the mass. +To his left, a little man with a white collar, obviously a mere +spectator, pleaded loudly to be released from the pressure. Adding to +the confusion, the bell on the town-hall began ringing furiously. + +On they went, a hundred yards, two hundred, reached the railroad track, +stopped. In the midst of the leaders, looming over their heads, was a +whitened telegraph pole. Of a sudden a lariat shot up over the painted +cross-arm, and dropped, the two ends dangling free; and, understanding +it all, the spectators again became silent. Everything moved like +clockwork. From somewhere in the darkness a bare-backed pony was +produced and brought directly under the dangling rope. Astride him a +dark-bearded figure with hands tied behind his back was placed and +firmly held. Swiftly a running noose, fashioned from the ends of the +lariat, was slipped over the captive's neck. A man grasped the bit of +the mustang. Before him, the crowd began to give way. The great +bull-necked leader--Mick Kennedy, every one now saw it was--held up his +hand for silence, and turned to the helpless figure astride the pony. + +"Tom Blair!" he said,--and such was now the silence that a whisper would +have been audible,--"Tom Blair, have you anything you wish to say?" + +The dark shape took no notice. Apparently it did not hear. + +Mick Kennedy hesitated. Upon his lips a repetition of the question was +forming--but it got no farther. In the midst of the mass of spectators +there was a sudden tumult, a scattering from one spot as from a lighted +bomb. + +"Make way!" demanded an insistent voice. "Let me through!" And +for a moment, forgetting the other interest, the spectators turned to +this newer one. + +At first they could distinguish nothing perfectly; then amidst the +confusion they made out the form of a long-armed, long-faced youth, his +head lowered, his shoulder before him like a wedge, crowding his way to +the fore. + +"Make room there!" he repeated. "Make room!" and again into the crowd, +like a snow-plough into a drift, he penetrated until his momentum was +exhausted, then paused for a fresh plunge. + +But before him a pathway was forming. Seemingly the thing was +impossible, but the trick of a spoken name was sufficient. + +"It's Ben Blair!" someone had announced, and others had loudly taken up +the cry. "It's Ben Blair! Let him through!" + +Along the pathway thus cleared the youth made his way and approached the +centre of activity. Previously the drama had moved swiftly,--so swiftly +that the spectators could merely watch developments, but under the +interruption it halted. The man at the pony's bridle--cowboy Buck it +was--paused, uncertain what to do, doubtful of the intent of the +long-faced man who so suddenly had come beside him. Not so Mick Kennedy. +Well he knew what was in store, and reaching over he gave the pony a +resounding slap on the flank. + +"Let him go, Buck!" he commanded of the cowboy. "Hurry!" + +But already he was too late. With a grip like a trap, Ben's hand was +likewise on the rein, holding the little beast, despite his struggles, +fairly in his tracks. Ben's head turned, met the bartender's Cyclopean +eye squarely, and held it with a look this bulldozer of men had never +before received in all his checkered career. + +"Mick Kennedy," he said quietly, "another move like that, and in five +minutes you'll be hanging from the other side." + +For the fraction of a second there was a pause; but, short as it was, +the Irishman felt the sweat start. "The day of such as you has passed, +Mick Kennedy." + +There was no time for more. As bystanders gather around a street fight, +the grim cowmen had closed in from all sides. On the outskirts men +mounted each other's shoulders the better to see. Of a sudden, from +behind, Ben felt himself grasped by a multitude of hands. Angry voices +sounded in his ears. + +"String him up too if he interferes!" suggested one. + +"That's the talk!" echoed a third. "Swing him, too!" + +The lust of blood was upon the crowd, crying to be satisfied. But they +had reckoned wrongly, and were soon to learn their error. Every atom of +the long youth's fighting blood was raised to boiling pitch. On the +instant, the all but superhuman strength at which we marvel in the +insane was his. Like flails, his doubled fists shot out in every +direction, meeting resistance at each blow. By the dim light he caught +the answering glint on sheath knives, but he took no notice. His hat had +come off, and his abundant brown hair shook about his shoulders. His +blue eyes blazed. A figure of war incarnate he stood, and a vacant +circle which no one cared to cross formed about him. One long hand, with +fingers outstretched, was raised above his head. The brilliant eyes +searched the surrounding sea of faces for those he knew; as one by one +he found them, lingered, conquered. Silence fell intense. + +"Men! Gentlemen!" The words went out like pistol-shots reaching every +acute ear. "Listen to me. I've a right to speak. Stop a moment, all of +you, and think. This is the twentieth century, not the first. We're in +America, free America. Think, I say, think! Don't act blindly! Think! +This man is guilty. We all know it. He's caught red-handed. But he can't +escape. Remember this, men, and think! As you value your own +self-respect, as you honor the country you live in, don't be savages, +don't do this deed you contemplate, this thing you've started doing. Let +the law take its course!" + +The speaker paused for breath, and, as though fascinated by his audacity +or something else, friend and enemy remained motionless and waiting. +Well fitting the drama was its setting: the darkness of night broken by +the flickering lanterns; on the pony the huddled helpless figure with a +running noose about its neck; the row upon row of rugged faces, of +gleaming eyes! + +"Ranchers, stockmen!" rushed on the insistent voice, "you know +responsibility; it's to you I'm talking. A principle is at stake +here,--the principle of law or of lawlessness. One of these--you know +which--has run this range too long; it's gripping us at this moment. +Before we can be free we must call it halt. Let's do it now; don't wait +for the next time or the next, but now, now!" Once more he paused, his +eyes for the last time making the circle swiftly, his hand in the air, +palm forward. "For law, the law of J. L. Rankin, instead of Judge +Lynch!" he challenged. "For civilization instead of savagery--not +to-morrow but now, now! Help me to uphold the law!" + +So swiftly that the spectators scarcely realized what he was doing, he +stepped over to the limp figure upon the pony, loosed the noose from +around the neck, and lifted him to the ground. + +"Sheriff Ralston!" he called; "come and take your prisoner! Russell! +Stetson! Grannis!" designating each by name, "every man who values life, +help me now!" + +The cry was the trumpet for action. Instantly every one was in motion. +Again arose the Babel of voices,--voices cursing, arguing, encouraging. +The circle of malevolent faces which had surrounded the youth would not +longer be stayed, closed hotly in. He felt the press of their bodies +against his, their breath in his face. With an effort, marking his +place, the extended right hand went up once more into the air. The +slogan again sprang to his tongue. + +"For the law of J. L. Rankin, men! The law of--" + +The sentence died on his lips. Suddenly, something lightning-like, +scorching hot, caught him beneath his right shoulder-blade. Before his +eyes the faces, the lighted lanterns, faded into darkness. A sound like +falling waters roared in his ears. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE QUICK AND THE DEAD + + +When Ben Blair again woke to consciousness the sunlight was pouring upon +him steadily. He was in a strange bed in a strange room; and he looked +about him perplexedly. Amid the unfamiliarity his eye caught an object +he recognized,--the broad angular back of a man. Memory slowly adjusted +itself. + +"Grannis--" + +The back reversed, showing a rather surprised face. + +"Where am I, Grannis?" + +The foreman came over to the bed. "In the hotel. In the bridal chamber, +they informed me, to be exact." + +Ben did not smile. Memory was clear now. "What happened after they--got +me last night?" + +Grannis's face showed distinct animation. "A lot of things--and mighty +fast. You missed the best part." Of a sudden he paused and looked at his +charge doubtfully. "But I forgot. You're not to talk: the doctor said +so." + +Ben made a grimace. "But I can listen, can't I?" + +"I suppose so," still doubtfully. + +"Well--" + +Grannis hearkened equivocally. No one was about, likely to overhear him +disobeying instructions, and the temptation was strong. + +"You know McFadden?" he queried suddenly. + +Blair nodded. + +"Well, say, that Scotchman is a tiger. He got to the front somehow when +you called for reinforcements, and when you went down he was +Johnny-on-the-spot taking your place. Some of the rest of us got in +there pretty soon, and for a bit things was lively. It was rather close +range for gun-work, but knives were as thick as frogs after a shower." +With a sudden movement Grannis slipped up the sleeve of his left arm, +showing a bandage through which the blood had soaked and dried. "All of +us got scratched some. One fellow of the opposition--Mick Kennedy--met +with an accident." + +"Serious?" + +"Rather. We planted him after things had quieted down." + +For a moment the two men looked at each other steadily, and the subject +was dropped. + +"Well," suggested Blair once more. + +"That's all, I guess--except that Ralston has the prisoner." A grim +reminiscent smile came to the speaker's lips. "That is, he's got him if +the floors of the cells here are paved good and thick. Last time I saw +T. Blair he was fairly shaking post-holes into the ground with his +feet." + +Ben tried to shift in bed, but with the movement a sudden pain made him +grit his teeth to keep from uttering a groan. For the first time he +thought of himself. + +"How much am I hurt, Grannis?" he queried directly. + +The foreman busied himself doing nothing about the room. "You?" +cheerfully. "Oh, you're all right." + +Ben looked at the other narrowly. "Nothing to bother about, I judge?" + +"No, certainly not." + +Beneath the bedclothes the long body lifted, but despite anything it +could do the face went pale. + +"Very well, I guess I'll get up then." + +Instantly Grannis was beside him, motioning him back, genuine concern +upon his face. + +"No, please don't. Not yet." + +"But if I'm not hurt much--" + +Grannis fingered his forelock in obvious discomfort. + +"Well, between you and me, it's this way. They ripped a seam for you--so +far," he indicated, "and it's open yet." + +Turning his free left arm, Ben touched the bandage at his side, and the +hand came back moist and red. Now that it occurred to him, he was +ridiculously weak. + +"I see. I'm liable to rip it more," he commented slowly. + +The other nodded. "Yes; don't talk. I ought to have stopped you before +this." + +"Grannis!" There was no escaping the blue eyes this time. "Honestly, +now, am I liable to be--done for, or not?" + +The foreman became instantly serious. "Honest, if you keep quiet you're +all right. Doc said so not an hour ago. At first he thought different, +that you'd never wake up; you bled like a pig with its throat cut; but +this is what he told me when he left. 'Keep him quiet. It may take a +month for that gap to heal, but if you're careful he'll pull through.'" +Again the look of concern, and this time of contrition as well. "I ought +to be ashamed of myself for letting you talk at all; but this is +straight. Now don't say any more." + +This time Ben obeyed. He couldn't well do otherwise. He had suddenly +grown weak and drowsy, and almost before Grannis was through speaking he +was again asleep. + +The doctor was right about the time of healing. During the remainder of +that month and well into the next, despite his restless protests, Ben +Blair was a prisoner in that dull little room; and through it all +Grannis remained with him. + +"You don't have to stay with me unless you like," Ben had said more than +once; but each time Grannis had displayed his own wound, at first +openly, at last, carefully concealed by bandages, whimsically. + +"Got to take good care of this arm of mine," he explained. "Blood +poisoning's liable to set in at any minute, and that's something awful, +they tell me." + +The invalid made no comment. + + * * * * * + +It was the evening following the afternoon of Blair's return to the Box +R ranch. In the cosey kitchen, around the new range which Rankin had +imported the previous Fall, sat three people,--Grannis, Graham, and Ma +Graham. The two men were smoking steadily and silently. The woman, her +hands folded in her lap, her eyes glued to the floor, was breathing +loudly with the difficulty of the very corpulent. Of a sudden, +interrupting, the door connecting with the room adjoining opened and Ben +Blair appeared. + +"Grannis," he requested, "come here a moment, please." + +In silence Blair closed the door behind them, motioned his companion to +a seat, and took another opposite him. He was very quiet, even for his +taciturn self; and, glancing at a heap of papers on a nearby table, +Grannis understood. For a long minute the two men eyed each other +silently. Not without result had they lived the events of the last +months together. It was the younger man who first spoke. + +"Grannis," he said impassively, "I'm going to ask you a question, and I +want an honest answer. Whatever you may think it leads to must cut no +figure. Will you give it?" + +Equally impassively the elder man nodded, "Yes." + +Blair selected a paper from the litter, and looked at it steadily. "What +I want to know is this: have I, has anyone, no matter what the incentive +may be, the right to make known after another's death things which +during that person's life were carefully concealed?" + +The steady gaze shifted to his companion, held there compellingly. "In +other words, is a tragedy any less a tragedy, any more public property, +because the actors are dead? Answer me honest, Grannis." + +Impassively as before the overseer shook his head. "No, I think not," +he said. "Let the dead past bury its dead." + +A moment longer the other remained motionless, then, before his +companion realized what he was doing, Ben had opened the door of the +sheet-iron heater and tossed the paper in his fingers fair among the +glowing coals. + +"Thank you, Grannis," he said, "I agree with you." He stood a second +looking into the suddenly kindled blaze. "As you say, to the living, +life. Let the dead past bury its dead." + +The flame died down until upon the coals lay a thin, curling film of +carbon. Grannis shifted in his seat. + +"Nevertheless," he commented indifferently, "you've done a foolish act." +A pause; then he went on deliberately as before. "You've destroyed the +only evidence that proves you Rankin's son." + +Involuntarily Blair stiffened, seeming about to speak. But he did not. +Instead, he closed the stove and resumed his former seat. + +"By the way," he digressed, "I just received a letter from Scotty Baker. +I wrote him some time ago about--Mr. Rankin. He answered from England." + +Grannis made no comment, and, the conversation being obviously at an +end, after a bit he rose, and with a taciturn "Good-night," left the +room. + + * * * * * + +Days and weeks passed. The dead rigor of Winter gave way to traces of +Spring. On the high places the earth began to turn brown, the buffalo +grass to peep into view. By day the water slushed under the feet of the +cattle, and ran merrily in the draws of the rolling country. By night +it froze into marvellous frost-work; daintier and more intricate of +pattern than any made by man. Overhead, flocks of wild ducks in +irregular geometric patterns sailed north at double the speed of express +trains. With their mellow "Honk--honk," sweetest sound of all to a +frontiersman's ears, harbingers of Spring indeed, far above the level of +the ducks, amid the very clouds themselves, the geese, in regular +triangles, winged their way toward the snow-lands. At first they seemed +to pass only by day; then, as the season advanced, the nights were +melodious with the sound of their voices. Themselves invisible, far +below on the surface of earth the swish of their migratory wings sounded +so distinctly that to a listening human ear it almost seemed it were a +troop of angels passing overhead. + +After them came the myriad small birds of the prairie,--the countless +flocks of blackbirds, whose "fl-ee-ce," in continuous chorus filled all +the daylight hours; the meadow-larks, singly or in pairs, announcing +their arrival with a guttural "tuerk" and a saucy flit of the tail, or +admonishing "fill your tea-kettle, fill your tea-kettle" with a +persistence worthy a better cause. + +Ere this the earth was bare and brown. The chatter of the snow streams +had ceased. In the high places, on southern slopes, there was even a +suggestion of green. At last, on the sunny side of a knoll, there peeped +forth the blue face of an anemone. The following day it had several +companions. Within a week a very army of blue had arrived, stood erect +at attention so far as the eye could reach and beyond. No longer was +there a doubt of the season. Not precursors of Spring, but Spring +itself had come. + +Meanwhile, on the Box R ranch everything moved on as of yore. Save on +that first night, Ben Blair made no man his confidant, accepted without +question his place as Rankin's successor. Most silent of these silent +people, he did his work and did it well, burying deep beneath an +impenetrable mask his thoughts and feelings. Not until an early Summer +was almost come did he make a move. Then at last a note of three +sentences went eastward: + + "Miss Baker: I'll be in New York in a few days, and if + convenient to you will call. The prairies send greetings in + advance. I saw the first wild rose of the season to-day. + + "Ben Blair." + +A week later, after giving directions for the day's work to Grannis one +morning, Ben added some suggestions for the days to follow. As to time, +they were rather indefinite, and the overseer looked a question. + +"I'm going away for a bit," explained Ben, simply, in answer. Then he +turned to Graham. "Hitch up the buckboard right away, please. I want you +to take me to town in time to catch the afternoon train East." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +GLITTER AND TINSEL + + +Clarence Sidwell--Chad, his friends called him--leaned farther back in +the big wicker chair, with an involuntary motion adjusted his +well-creased trousers so there might be no tension at the knees, and +looked across the tiny separating table at his _vis-a-vis_, while his +eyelids whimsically tightened. + +"Well," he queried, "what do you think of it?" + +The little brunette, his companion, roused herself almost with a start, +while a suggestion of conscious red tinged her face. "I beg your +pardon?" she said, inquiringly. + +The man smiled. "Forgotten already, wasn't I?" he bantered. + +"No, certainly not. I--" + +A hand, delicate and carefully manicured as a woman's, was raised in +protest. "Don't prevaricate, please. The occasion isn't worth it." The +hand returned to the chair-arm with a play of light upon the solitaire +it bore. The smile broadened. "You were caught. Confess, and the +sentence will be lighter." + +As a wave recedes, the red flood began to ebb from the girl's face. "I +confess, then. I was--thinking." + +"And I was--forgotten. My statement was correct." + +She looked up, and the two smiled companionably. + +"Admitted. I await the penalty." + +The man's expression changed into mock sternness. "Very well, Miss +Baker; having heard your confession and remembering a promise to +exercise clemency, this court is about to impose sentence. Are you +prepared to listen?" + +"I'm growing stronger every minute." + +The court frowned, the heavy black eyebrows making the face really +formidable. + +"I fear the defendant doesn't realize the enormity of the offence. +However, we'll pass that by. The sentence, Miss Baker, brings me back to +the starting-point. You are directed to answer the question just +propounded, the question which for some inexplicable reason you didn't +hear. What do you think of it--this roof-garden, and things in general?" +The stern voice paused; the brows relaxed, and he smiled again. "But +first, you're sure you won't have something more--an ice, a wee +bottle--anything?" + +The girl shook her head. + +"Then let's make room here at this table for a better man; to hint at +vacating for a better woman would be heresy! It's pleasanter over there +in the corner out of the light, where one can see the street." + +They found a vacant bench behind a skilfully arranged screen of palms, +and Sidwell produced a cigar. + +"In listening to a tale or a confession," he explained, "one should +always call in the aid of nicotine. I fancy Munchausen's listeners must +have been smokers." + +The girl steadily inspected the dark mobile face, half concealed in the +shadow. "You're making sport of me," she announced presently. + +Instantly her companion's smile vanished. "I beg your pardon, Miss +Baker, but you misunderstood. I thought by this time you knew me better +than that." + +"You really are interested, then? Would you truly like to know--what you +asked?" + +"I truly would." + +Florence hesitated. Her breath came a trifle more quickly. She had not +yet learned the trick of repression of the city folk. + +"I think it's wonderful," she said. "Everything is wonderful. I feel +like a child in fairyland; only the fairies must be giants. This great +building, for instance,--I can't make it seem a product of mere six-foot +man! In spite of myself, I keep expecting a great genie to emerge +somewhere. I suppose this seems silly to you, but it's the feeling I +have, and it makes me realize my own insignificance." + +Sidwell smoked in silence. + +"That's the first impression--the most vivid one, I think. The next is +about the people themselves. I've been here nearly a half-year now, but +even yet I stare at them--as you caught me staring to-night--almost with +open mouth. To see these men in the daylight hours down town one would +think they cared more for a minute than for their eternal happiness. I'm +almost afraid to speak to them, my little affairs seem so tiny in +comparison with the big ones it must take to make men work as they do. +And then, a little later,--apparently for no other reason than that the +sun has ceased to shine,--I see them, as here, for instance, unconscious +that not minutes but hours are going by. They all seem to have double +lives. I get to thinking of them as Jekylls and Hydes. It makes me a bit +afraid." + +Still Sidwell smoked in silence, and Florence observed him doubtfully. +"You really wish me to chatter on in this way?" she asked. + +"I was never more interested in my life." + +The girl felt her face grow warm. She was glad they were in the shadow, +so the man could not see it too clearly. For a moment she looked about +her, at the host of skilful waiters, at the crowd of brightly dressed +pleasure-seekers, at the kaleidoscopic changes, at the lights and +shadows. From somewhere invisible the string orchestra, which for a time +had been silent, started up anew, while her answering pulses beat to +swifter measure. The air was a familiar one, heard everywhere about +town; and she was conscious of a childish desire to join in singing it. +The novelty of the scene, the sparkle, the animation, the motion +intoxicated her. She leaned back in her seat luxuriously. + +"This is life," she murmured. "I never grasped the meaning of the word +until within the last few months, but now I begin to understand. To work +mightily when one works, to abandon one's self completely when one +rests--that is the secret of life." + +The man in the shadow shifted his position, and, looking up, Florence +found his eyes upon her. "Do you really believe that?" he asked. + +"I do, most certainly." + +Sidwell lit a fresh cigar, and for a moment the light of the burning +match showed his face clearly. He seemed about to say more; but he did +not, and Florence too was silent. In the pause that followed, the great +express elevator stopped softly at the roof floor. The gate opened with +a musical click, and a woman and a man stepped out. Both were +immaculately dressed, both had the unmistakable air of belonging to the +leisure class. They spied the place Florence and Sidwell had left +vacant, and leisurely made their way to it. A waiter appeared, a coin +changed hands, an order was given. The man drew out a cigarette case +that flashed in colors from the nearby arc-light. Smilingly the woman +held a match, and a moment later wreath after wreath of curling blue +smoke floated above them into the night. + +Florence Baker watched the scene with a strange fascination. She was +conscious of having at some time visited a play wherein a similar action +had taken place. She had thought it merely a creation of the writer's +imagination at the time, but in her present broadened experience she +knew better. It was real,--real as the air she breathed. She simply had +not known the meaning of life then; she was merely existing. Now she +knew! + +The waiter returned, bearing something in a cooler. There were a few +swift motions, a pop distinctly heard above the drone of the orchestra. +The man tossed aside his cigarette and leaned forward. Two glasses with +slender stems, each containing a liquid that effervesced and sparkled, +one in the man's hand, one in the woman's, met midway of the board. The +empty glasses returned to the table. + +Many other seekers of pleasure were about, but Florence had no eyes for +them. This pair alone, so indifferent to their surroundings, so +thoroughly a part of them, perfectly fulfilled her newly formed +conception. They had solved this puzzle of existence, solved it so +completely that she wondered it could ever have appealed to her as a +puzzle at all. Again the formula, distinct as the handwriting upon the +wall, stood revealed before her. One had but to _live_ life, not reason +it, and all would be well. + +Again and again, the delicate glasses sparkled to waiting lips, and +returned empty to the table. The man lit another cigarette, and its +smoke mingled with the darkness above. In the hands of the waiter the +cooler disappeared, and was returned; a second cork popped as had the +first. The woman's eyes sparkled as brilliantly as the gems upon her +fingers. The languor of the man had passed. With the old action +repeated, the brimming glasses touched across the board, were exchanged +after the foreign fashion, and again were dry. The figure of the man +leaned far over the table. He spoke earnestly, rapidly. Unconscious +motions of his hands added emphasis to his words. Neither he nor she who +listened was smiling now. Instead, there was a look, identical upon +either face, a look somehow strangely familiar to the watcher, one she +had met with before, somewhere--somewhere. Memory flew back on lightning +wings, searched all the paths of her experience, the dim +all-but-forgotten crannies, stopped with pointing finger; and with a tug +at her very being, she looked, and unbelieving looked again. Ah, could +it be possible--could it? Yes, there it was, unmistakable; the same +expression as this before her--there, blazing from the eyes of a group +of strange street-loafers, as she herself, she, Florence Baker, passed +by! + +In the shadow the face of the spectator crimsoned, the hot flood burned +at her ears, a tightness like a physical hand gripped at her throat; but +it seemed that her eyes could not leave the figures before her. Not the +alien interest of a watcher at the play, but a more intense, a more +personal meaning, was in her gaze now. Something of vital moment to her +own life was taking place out there so near, and she must see. A +fleeting wonder as to whether her own companion was likewise watching +came to her, but she did not turn to discover. The denouement, +inevitable as death, was approaching, might come if she for an instant +looked away. + +The man out there under the electric globe was still talking; the woman, +his companion, still listened. Florence caught herself straining her +ears to hear what he was saying; but to no purpose. She heard only the +repressed murmur of his well-modulated, resonant voice; yet that in +itself was enough. The old song of the sirens was flowing from his lips, +and passion flamed in his eyes. Farther and farther across the tiny +intervening table, nearer the woman's face, his own approached. The last +empty bottle, the thin-stemmed glasses, stood in his way, and he moved +them aside with his elbow. So near now was he that their breaths +mingled, and as the drone of his voice ceased, the music of the +orchestra, a waltz, flowed into the rift with its steady one-two-three. +He was motionless; but his eyes, intense blue eyes under long lashes, +were fixed absorbingly on hers. + +It was the woman's turn to move. Gradually, gracefully, unconsciously, +her own face came forward toward his. Sparkling in the light, a jewelled +hand rested on the surface of the table. A tinge of crimson mounted the +long white neck, and colored it to the roots of her hair. The arteries +at the throat throbbed under the thin skin. Simultaneously, the opening +gate of the elevator clicked, and a man--another with that unmistakable +air of leisure--approached; but still she did not notice, did not hear. +Instead, with a sudden motion, heedless of surroundings, reckless of +spectators, her face crossed the gap intervening between her and her +companion; her lips touched his lips, caught fire with the contact, met +them again and again. + +Watching, scarcely breathing, Florence saw the figure of the man come +closer. His eyes also were upon the pair. He caught their every motion; +but he did not hurry. On he came, leisurely, impassively, as though out +for a stroll. He stopped by their side, a darkening shadow with a +mask-like face. Instinctively the two glanced up. There was a crash of +glassware, as the tiny table lurched in the woman's hand--and they were +on their feet. A moment the three looked into each others' eyes, looked +deep and long; then together, without a word, they turned toward the +elevator. Again, droning monotonously, the car appeared and disappeared. +After them, vibrant, mocking, there beat the unvarying rhythm of the +waltz, one-two-three, one-two-three. + +In the shadow, Florence Baker's face dropped into her hands. When at +last she glanced up another couple, likewise immaculate of attire, +likewise debonair and smiling, were seated at the little table. She +turned to her companion. His cigar was still glowing brightly. He had +not moved. + +"I think I'll go home now, if you please," she said, and every trace of +animation had left her voice. "I'm rather tired." + +The man roused himself. "It's early yet. There'll be vaudeville here in +a little while, after the theatre." + +The girl observed him curiously. "It's early, did you say?" + +Sidwell smiled indulgently. "Beg your pardon. I had forgotten our +standards were not yet in conformity. It is so considered--here." + +Florence was very quiet until they reached the steps of her own home. A +light was in the open vestibule, another in the library, where Scotty, +his feet comfortably enclosed in carpet-slippers and elevated above his +head, was reading. Then she turned to her escort. + +"You won't be offended, Mr. Sidwell, if I ask you a question?" + +The electric light on the nearby corner shone full upon her soft brown +face, a very serious face now, and the man's glance lingered there. +"Certainly not," he answered. + +Florence hesitated. Somehow, now that the moment for speaking had +arrived, the thing she had in mind to say did not seem so easy after +all. At last she spoke, hesitatingly: "You seem to be interested in me, +seem to take pleasure in being in my company. For the last few months we +have been together almost daily, but up to that time we had lived lives +as unlike as--as the city is from the prairie. I know you have many +other friends, friends you've known all your life, whose ideals and +points of view came from the same experience as your own." She +straightened with dignity. "Why is it that you leave those friends to +come here? Why do you find pleasure in taking me about as you do? Why is +it?" + +Not once while she was speaking had the man's eyes left her face; not +once had he stirred. Even after she was silent he remained so; and +despite the compelling influence which had prompted the question, +Florence could not but realize what she had done, what she had all but +suggested. The warm color flooded her face, though she held her eyes up +bravely. "Tell me why," she repeated firmly. + +Sidwell still hesitated. Complex product of the higher civilization, +mixture of good and bad, who knows what thoughts were running riot in +his brain? At last he aroused and came closer. "You ask me a very hard +question," he said steadily; "the most difficult, I think, you could +have chosen; one, also, which perhaps I have already asked myself." +Again he took a step nearer. "It is a question, Florence, that admits of +but one answer; one both adequate and inadequate. It is because you are +you and woman, and I am I and man." Of a sudden his dark face grew +swarthier still, his voice lapsed from its customary impersonal. "It +means, Florence Baker--" + +But the sentence was not completed. As suddenly as the change had come +to the man's face, the girl had understood. With an impulse she could +not have explained to herself, she had drawn away and swiftly mounted +the steps of the house. Not until she reached the porch did she turn. + +"Don't, don't, please!" she urged. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have +asked what I did. Forget that I spoke at all." She was struggling for +words, for breath. Her color came and went. "Good-night." And not +trusting herself to look back, oblivious of courtesy, she almost ran +into the house. + +Standing as she had left him, his hat in his hand, Clarence Sidwell +watched her pass through the lighted vestibule into the darkness +beyond. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +PAINTER AND PICTURE + + +Scotty Baker dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee and stirred the +mixture carefully, glancing the while smilingly at his wife and +daughter. + +"By Jove!" he exclaimed; "it seems good to be back here again." + +Mrs. Baker was deep in a letter she had just opened, but Florence +returned the smile companionably. + +"And it seems mighty good to have you back, daddy," she replied. "Just +think of our being alone, a pair of poor defenceless women, three whole +months without a man about the house! If you ever dare do it again +you're liable to find one in your place when you return. Isn't he, +mamma?" + +Her mother looked up reproachfully. "For shame, Florence!" she cried. + +But Scotty only observed his daughter quizzically. "I did--almost, this +time, didn't I?" he bantered. "By the way, who is this wonderful being, +this Sidwell, I've heard so much about the last few hours?" He was as +obtuse as a post to his wife's meaning look. "Tell me about him, won't +you?" + +Florence laughed a bit unnaturally. It seemed her words had a way of +returning like a boomerang. + +"He's a writer," she explained laconically. + +"A writer?" Scotty paused, a teaspoonful of coffee between the cup and +his mouth. "A real one?" + +The smile left the girl's face. "His family is one of the oldest in the +city," she explained coldly. "His work sells by the thousand. You can +judge for yourself." + +Scotty sipped his coffee impassively, but behind the big glasses the +twinkle left his eyes. + +"The inference you suggest would have been more obvious if you hadn't +made the first remark," he said a little sharply. "I've noticed the +matter of good family has quite an influence in this world." + +The subject was dropped, but nevertheless it left its aftermath. +Easy-going Scotty did not often say an unpleasant thing, and for that +very reason Florence knew that when he did it had an especial +significance. + +"By the way," he observed after a moment, "we ought to celebrate to-day +in some manner. I rather expected to find a band at the station to +welcome me yesterday upon my return, but I didn't, and I fear there's +been no public demonstration arranged. What do you say to our packing up +our dinner, taking the elevated, and spending the day in the country? +What say you, Mollie?" + +His wife looked at her daughter helplessly. "Just as Florence says. I'm +willing," she replied. + +"What speaks the oracle?" smiled Scotty. "Shall we or shall we not? +Personally, I feel a desire for cooling springs, to step on a good-sized +plat of green without having a watchful bluecoat loom in the distance." + +Florence fingered the linen of the tablecloth with genuine discomfort. +"You two can go. I'll help you get ready," she ventured at last. "I'm +sorry, but I promised Mr. Sidwell last night I'd visit the art gallery +with him this afternoon. He says they've some new canvases hung lately, +one of them by a particular friend of his. He's such a student of art, +and I know so little about it that I hate to miss going." + +Again the smile left Scotty's eyes. "Can't you write a note explaining, +and postpone the visit until some other time?" It took quite an effort +for this undemonstrative Englishman to make the request. + +The girl glanced out the window with a look her father understood very +well. "I hardly think so," she said. "He's going away for the Summer +soon, and his time is limited." + +Scotty said no more, and soon after he left the table and went into the +library. Florence sat for a moment abstractedly; then with her old +impulsive manner she followed him. + +"Daddy," the girl's arms clasped around his neck, her cheek pressed +against his, "I'm awful sorry I can't go with you to-day. I'd like to, +really." + +But for one of the very few times that Florence could remember her +father did not respond. Instead, he removed her arms rather coldly. + +"Oh, that's all right," he said; "I hope you'll have a good time." And +picking up the morning paper he lit a cigar and moved toward the shady +veranda. + +Watching him, the girl had a desire to follow, to prevent his leaving +her in that way. But she hesitated and the moment passed. + +Yet, although a cloud shadowed Florence Baker's morning, by afternoon it +had departed. Sidwell's carriage came promptly, creating something of a +stir behind the drawn shades of the adjoining residences--for the Bakers +were not located in a fashionable quarter. Sidwell himself, immaculate, +smiling, greeted her with the deference which became him well, and in +itself conveyed a delicate compliment. Neither made any reference to the +incident of the night before. His manner gave no hint of the constraint +which under the circumstances might have been expected. A few months +before, the girl would have thought he had taken her request literally, +and had forgotten; but now she knew better. In this fascinating new life +one could pass pleasantries with one's dearest enemy and still smile. In +the old life, under similar circumstances, there would have been +gun-play, and probably later a funeral; but here--they knew better how +to live. Already, in the few social events she had attended, she had +seen them juggle with emotions as a conjurer with knives--to emerge +unhurt, unruffled. To be sure, she could not herself do it--yet; but she +understood, and admired. + +Out of doors the sun was uncomfortably hot, but within the high walled +gallery it was cool and pleasant. Florence had been there before, but +earlier in the season, and many other visitors were present. To-day she +and Sidwell were practically alone, and she faced him with a little +receptive gesture. + +"You're always getting me to talk," she said. "To-day I'm going to +exchange places. Don't expect me to do anything but listen." + +Sidwell smiled. "Won't you even condescend to suggest channels in which +my discourse may flow?" he bantered. + +The girl hesitated. "Perhaps," she ventured, "if I find it necessary." + +For an hour they wandered about, moving slowly, and pausing often to +rest. Sidwell talked well, but somewhat impersonally. At last, in an +out-of-the-way corner, they came to the modest canvas of his friend, and +they sat down before it. The picture was unnamed and unsigned. Without +being extraordinary as a work of art, its subject lent its chief claim +to distinction. Interested because her companion seemed interested, +Florence looked at it steadily. At first there appeared to her nothing +but a mountain, steep and rugged, and a weary man who, climbing it, had +lain down to rest. Far down at the mountain's base she saw where the +figure had begun its ascent. The way was easy there, and the trail, +through the abundant grasses crushed underfoot, was of one who had moved +rapidly. Gradually, with the upward incline, obstacles had increased, +and the footprints drew nearer together. Still higher, from a straight +line the trail had become tortuous and irregular. Here the climber had +passed around a thicket of trees; there a great boulder had stood in the +path; but, ever indomitable, the way had been steadily upward toward +some point the climber had in view. Steeper and steeper the way had +grown. The prints on the rocky mountain-side, from being those of feet +only, merged into those made by hands. The man had begun to crawl, +making his way inch by inch. Fragments of his torn clothing hung on the +points of rocks. Dim brown lines showed the path his body had taken, as +he sometimes slipped back. Breaks in the scant vegetation told where his +fingers had clutched desperately to halt his descent. Yet each time the +reverse had been but temporary; he had returned, and mounted higher and +higher. But at last there had come the end. He had reached his present +place in the picture. By gripping tightly he could hold his own, but to +advance was impossible. Straight above him, a sheer wall, many times his +own height, was the blank, unbroken face of the rock. That he had tried +to scale even this was evident, for finger-marks from bleeding hands +were thick thereon; but he had finally abandoned the effort. Physically, +he was conquered. It seemed that one could almost hear the quick coming +and going of his breath. Yet, prostrate as he lay, his eyes were turned +toward the barrier his body could not scale, to a something which +crowned its utmost height,--something indefinite and unattainable,--the +supreme desire and purpose of his life. + +The two spectators sat silent. Other visitors came near, glanced at the +canvas and at the pair of observers, and passed on with muffled +footsteps. + +The girl turned, and, as on the night at the roof-garden, found the +man's eyes upon her. + +"What name does your friend give to his work?" she asked. + +"He calls it 'The Unattainable.'" + +"And what is its meaning?" + +"Ambition, perfection, complete happiness--anything striven for with +one's whole soul." + +Florence was studying her companion now as steadily as he had been +studying her a moment before. "To your--friend it meant--" + +"Happiness." + +The girl's hands were clasped in her lap in a way she had when her +thoughts were concentrated. "And he never found it?" she asked. + +Unconsciously one of Sidwell's hands made a downward motion of +deprecation. "He did not. We made the circuit of the earth together in +pursuit of it--but all was useless. It seemed as though the more he +searched the more he was baffled in his quest." + +For a moment the girl made no reply, but in her lap her hands clasped +tighter and tighter. A thought that made her finger-tips tingle was +taking form in her mind. A dim comprehension of the nature of this man +had first suggested it; the fact that the canvas was unsigned had helped +give it form. The speaker's last words, his even tone of voice, had not +passed unnoticed. She turned to the canvas, searched the skilfully +concealed outlines of the tattered figure with the upturned eyes. The +clasped hands grew white with the tension. + +"I didn't know before you were an artist as well as a writer," she said +evenly. + +Sidwell turned quickly. The girl could feel his look. "I fear," he said, +"I fail to grasp your meaning. You think--" + +Florence met the speaker's look steadily. "I don't think," she said, "I +know. You painted the picture, Mr. Sidwell. That man there on the +mountain-side is you!" + +Her companion hesitated. His face darkened; his lips opened to speak and +closed again. + +The girl continued watching him with steady look. "I can hardly believe +it," she said absently. "It seems impossible." + +Sidwell forced a smile. "Impossible? What? That I should paint a daub +like that?" + +The girl's tense hands relaxed wearily. + +"No, not that you paint, but that the man there--the one finding +happiness unattainable--should be you." + +The lids dropped just a shade over Sidwell's black eyes. "And why, if +you please, should it be more remarkable that I am unhappy than +another?" + +This time Florence took him up quickly. "Because," she answered, "you +seem to have everything one can think of that is needed to make a human +being happy--wealth, position, health, ability--all the prizes other +people work their lives out for or die for." Again the voice dropped. "I +can't understand it." She was silent a moment. "I can't understand it," +she repeated. + +From the girl's face the man's eyes passed to the canvas, and rested +there. "Yes," he said slowly, "I suppose it is difficult, almost +impossible, for you to realize why I am--as I am. You have never had the +personal experience--and we only understand what we have felt. The +trouble with me is that I have experienced too much, felt too much. I've +ceased to take things on trust. Like the youth and the key flower I've +forgotten the best." The voice paused, but the eyes still kept to the +canvas. + +"That picture," he went on, "typifies it all. I painted it, not because +I'm an artist, but because in a fashion it expresses something I +couldn't put into words, or express in any other way. When I began to +climb, the object above me was not happiness but ambition. Wealth and +social place, as you say, I already had. They meant nothing to me. What +I wanted was to make a name in another way--as a literary man." The dark +eyes shifted back to the listener's face, the voice spoke more rapidly. + +"I went after the thing that I wanted with all the power and tenacity +that was in me. I worked with the one object in view; worked without +resting, feverishly. I had successes and failures, failures and +successes--a long line of both. At last, as the world puts it, I +_arrived_. I got to a position where everything I wrote sold, and sold +well; but in the meantime the thing above me, which had been ambition, +gradually took on another shape. Perfection it was I longed for now, +perfection in my art. It was not enough that the public had accepted me +as I was; I was not satisfied with my work. Try as I might, nothing that +I wrote ever reached my own standard in its execution. I worked harder +than ever; but it was useless. I was confronting the blank wall--the +wall of my natural limitations." + +The voice paused, and for a moment lowered. "I won't say what I did +then; I was--mad almost--the finger-marks of it are on the rock." + +The girl could not look longer into the speaker's eyes. She felt as if +she were gazing upon a naked human soul, and turned away. + +"At last," he went on in his confession, "I came to myself, and was +forced to see things as they were. I saw that as well as I thought I had +understood life I had not even grasped its meaning. I had fancied the +attainment of my object the supreme end, and by every human standard I +had succeeded in my purpose; but the thing I had gained was trash. +Wealth, power, notoriety--what were they? Bubbles, nothing more; bubbles +that broke in the hand of him who clasped them. The real meaning and +object of existence lay deeper, and had nothing whatever to do with the +estimate of a person by his fellows. It was a frame of mind of the +individual himself." + +Florence's face turned farther away, but Sidwell did not notice. "Then, +for the last time," he hurried on, "the unattainable changed form for +me, and became what it seems now--happiness. For a little time I think I +was happy--happy in merely having made the discovery. Then came the +reaction. I was as I was, as I am now--a product of my past life, of a +civilization essentially artificial. In striving for a false ideal I had +unfitted myself for the real when at last I discovered it." + +Unconsciously the man had come closer, and his eyes glowed. At last his +apathy was shaken off, and his words came in a torrent. "What I was then +I am to-day. Mentally, I am like an inebriate, who no longer finds +satisfaction in plain food and drink, but craves stimulants. I demand +activity, excitement, change. In every hour of my life I realize the +narrowness and artificiality of it all; but without it I am unhappy. I +sometimes think Mother Nature herself has disowned me; when I try to get +near her she draws away--I fancy with a shudder. Solitude of desert, of +forest, or of prairie is no longer solitude to me. It is filled with +voices--accusing voices; and I rush back to the crowd and the unrest of +the city. Even my former pleasures seem to have deserted me. You have +spoke often of accomplishing big things, doing something better than +anyone else can do it, as an example of pleasure supreme. If you +realized what you were saying you would know its irony. You cannot do a +thing better than anyone else. People, like water, strike a dead level. +No matter how you strive, dozens of others can do the thing you are +doing. Were you to die, your place would be filled to-morrow, and the +world would wag on just the same. There is always someone just beneath +you watchfully waiting, ready to seize your place if you relax your +effort for a moment. The term 'big things' is relative. To speak it is +merely to refer to something you do not personally understand. Nothing +seems really big to the one who does it. Nothing is difficult when you +understand it. The growing of potatoes in a backyard is just as +wonderful a performance as the painting of one of these pictures; it +would be more so were it not so common and so necessary. The +construction of a steam-engine or an electric dynamo is incomparably +more remarkable than the merging of separate thousands of capital into +millions of combination, yet multitudes of men everywhere can do either +of the former things and are unnoticed. We worship what we do not +understand, and call it big; but the man in the secret realizes the +mockery and smiles." + +Closer came the dark face. The black eyes, intense and flashing, held +the listener in their gaze. + +"I said that even my pleasures seem to have deserted me. It is true. I +used to like to wander about the city, to see it at its busiest, to +loiter amid the hum and the roar and the ceaseless activity. I saw in it +then only friendly rivalry, like a hurdle race or a football +game--something pleasing and stimulating. Now it all affects me in just +the reverse way. I look beneath the surface, and my heart sinks to find +not friendly competition, but a battle, where men and women fight for +daily bread, where the weak are crowded and trampled upon by the strong. +In ordinary battle the maimed and the crippled are spared, but here they +still fight on. Mercy or quarter is unknown. Oh, it is ghastly! I used +to take pleasure in books, in the work of others; but even this +satisfaction has been taken from me--except such grim satisfaction as a +physician may feel at a _post mortem_. The very labor that made me a +success in literature caused me to be a dissector of things around me. +To learn how others attained their ends I must needs tear their work +apart and study the fragments. This habit has become a part of me. I +overlook the beauty of the product in the working of the machinery that +produced it. I watch the mixing of literary confections, served to the +reader so that upon laying down the book he may have a good taste in his +mouth. People themselves, those I meet from day to day, inevitably go +through the same metamorphosis. I see them as characters in a book. +Their foibles and peculiarities are grist for my mill. Everything, +everyone, when I appear, slips into the narrow confines of a printed +page. I can't even spare myself. Fragments of me can be had for a price +at any of the book-stalls. I've become public property--and with no one +to blame but myself." + +The flow of speech halted. The speaker's face was so near now that the +girl could not avoid looking at it. + +"Do you wonder," he concluded, "that I am not happy?" + +The girl looked up. The two pairs of brown eyes met. Outwardly, she who +answered was calm; but in her lap the small hands were clasping each +other tightly, so that the blood had left the fingers. + +"No, I do not wonder now," she answered simply. + +"And you understand?" + +"Yes, I--no, there's so much--Oh, take me home, please!" The sentence +ended abruptly in a plea. The slender body was trembling as with cold. +"Take me home, please. I want to--to think." + +"Florence!" The word was a caress. "Florence!" + +But the girl was already on her feet. "Don't say any more to-day! I +can't stand it. Take me home!" + +Sidwell looked at her closely for a moment; then the mask of +conventionality, which for a time had lifted from his face, dropped once +more, and he also arose. In silence, side by side, the two made their +way down the long hall to the exit. Out of doors, the afternoon sun, +serene and smiling, gave them a friendly greeting. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A VISITOR FROM THE PLAINS + + +"Papa," said Florence, next morning, as they two sat alone at breakfast, +her mother having reported a headache and failed to appear, "let's go +somewhere, away from folks, for a week or so." + +"Why this sudden change of front?" her father queried. "Not being of the +enemy I'm entitled to the plan of campaign, you know." + +Florence observed him steadily, and the father could not but notice how +much more mature she seemed than the prairie girl of a few months ago. + +"There is no change of front or plan of campaign as far as I know," she +replied. "I simply want to get away a bit, that's all." She returned to +her neglected breakfast. "There's such a thing as mental dyspepsia, you +know, and I feel a twinge of it now and then. I think this new life is +being fed to me in doses too large for my digestion." + +Mr. Baker eventually acquiesced, as anyone who knew him could have +foretold he would do. His wife, also, when the plan was broached to her, +hesitatingly agreed, but at the last moment balked and declined to go; +so they left without her. + +The small town to which they went had ample grass and trees, and a small +lake convenient. A farmer's family reluctantly consented to board and +lodge them; also to give them the use of a bony horse and a disreputable +one-seated wagon. After their arrival they promptly proceeded to +segregate themselves from their fellow-boarders. The first day they +fished a little, talked, read, slept, meditated, and smoked--that is, +Mr. Baker did, enough for two; and Florence assisted by rolling +cigarettes when the bowl of the meerschaum grew uncomfortably hot. The +next day they repeated the programme, and also the next, and the next. + +"I think I could stay here always," said Mr. Baker. + +"I rather like it myself," Florence admitted. + +Nevertheless, they returned promptly on schedule-time. Mrs. Baker was +awaiting them, her stiff manner indicating that she had not been doing +much else while they were away. Without finesse, one member of the two +delinquents was informed that a certain man of considerable social +prominence, Clarence Sidwell by name, had called daily, and, Mrs. Baker +fancied, with increasing dissatisfaction at their absence. Florence +found in her mail a short note, which after some consideration she +handed without comment to her father. + +He read--and read again. "When was this mailed?" he asked. + +"Over a week ago," answered Florence. "It has been here for several +days." + +It was therefore no surprise to the Englishman when that very evening, +as he sat on the front veranda, his heels on the railing, watching the +passage of equipages swift and slow, he saw a tall young man, at whom +passers-by stared more than was polite, coming leisurely up the +sidewalk, inspecting the numbers on the houses. As he came closer, Mr. +Baker took in the details of the long free stride, of the broad chest, +the square uplifted chin, with something akin to admiration. Vitality +and power were in every motion of the supple body; health--a life free +as the air and sunshine--was written in the brown of the hands, the tan +of the face. Even his clothes, though not the conventional costume of +city streets, seemed a part of their wearer, and had a freedom all their +own. The broad-brimmed felt hat was obviously for comfort and +protection, not for show. The light-brown flannel shirt was the color of +the sinewy throat. The trousers, of darker wool, rolled up at the +bottom, exposed the high-heeled riding-boots. About the whole man--for +he was very near now--there was that immaculate cleanliness which the +world prizes more than godliness. + +Scotty dropped his feet from the railing and advanced to the steps. +"Hello, Ben Blair!" he said. + +The visitor paused and smiled. "How do you do, Mr. Baker?" he answered. +"I thought I'd find you along here somewhere." He swung up the short +walk, and, mounting the steps, grasped the Englishman's extended hand. +For a moment the two said nothing. Then Scotty motioned to a chair. "Sit +down, won't you?" he invited. + +Ben stood as he was. The smile left his face. "Would you really--like me +to?" he asked directly. + +"I really would, or I wouldn't have asked you," Scotty returned, with +equal directness. + +Ben took the proffered chair, and crossed his legs comfortably. The two +sat for a moment in silent companionship. + +"Tell me about Rankin," suggested Scotty at last. + +Ben did so. It did not take long, for he scarcely mentioned himself, and +quite omitted that last incident of which Grannis had been witness. + +"And--the man who shot him?" Scotty found it a bit difficult to put the +query into words. + +"They swung him a few days later. Things move rather fast out there when +they move at all." + +"Were 'they' the cowboys?" + +"No, the sheriff and the rest. It was all regular--scarcely any +spectators, even, I heard." + +"And now about yourself. Shall you be in the city long?" + +"I hardly know. I came partly on business--but that won't take me long." +He looked at his host significantly. "I also had another purpose in +coming." + +Scotty moved uncomfortably in his seat. "Ben," he said at last, "I'd +like to ask you to stay with us if I could, but--" he paused, looking +cautiously in at the open door--"but Mollie, you know--It would mean the +dickens' own time with her." + +Ben showed neither surprise nor resentment. "Thank you," he replied. "I +understand. I couldn't have accepted had you invited me. Let's not +consider it." + +Again the seat which usually fitted the Englishman so well grew +uncomfortable. He was conscious that through the curtains of the library +window some one was watching him and the new-comer. He had a mortal +dread of a scene, and one seemed inevitable. + +"How's the old ranch?" he asked evasively. + +"It's just as you left it. I haven't got the heart somehow to change +anything. We use up a good many horses one way and another during a +year, and when I get squared around I'm going to start a herd there with +one of the boys to look after it. It was Rankin's idea too." + +"You expect to keep on ranching, then?" + +"Why not?" + +"I thought, perhaps, now that you had plenty to do with--You're young, +you know." + +Ben looked out across the narrow plat of turf deliberately. + +"Am I--young? Really, I'd never thought of it in that way." + +The Englishman's feet again mounted the railing in an attempt at +nonchalance. + +"Well, usually a man at your age--" He laughed. "If it were an old +fellow like me--" + +"Mr. Baker, I thought you said you really wished me to sit down and chat +awhile?" + +Scotty colored. "Why, certainly. What makes you think--" + +"Let's be natural then." + +Scotty stiffened. His feet returned to the floor. + +"Blair, you forget--" But somehow the sentence, bravely begun, halted. +Few people in real life acted a part with Benjamin Blair's blue eyes +upon them. "Ben," he said instead, "I'm an ass, and I beg your pardon. +I'll call Florence." + +But the visitor's hand restrained him. + +"Don't, please. She knows I am here. I saw her a bit ago. Let her do as +she wishes." He drew himself up in the cane rocker. "You asked me a +question. As far as I know I shall ranch it always. It suits me, and +it's the thing I can do best. Besides, I like being with live things. +The only trouble I have," he smiled frankly, "is in selling stock after +I raise them. I want to keep them as long as they live, and put them in +greener pastures when they get old. It's the off season, but I brought a +couple of car-loads along with me to Chicago, to the stock-yards. I'll +never do it again. It has to be done, I know; people have to be fed; but +I've watched those steers grow from calves." + +Scotty searched his brain for something relevant and impersonal, but +nothing suggested itself. "Ben Blair," he ventured, "I like you." + +"Thank you," said Ben. + +They were silent for a long time. Pedestrians, singly and in pairs, +sauntered past on the walk. Vehicle after vehicle scurried by in the +street. At last a team of brown thoroughbreds, with one man driving, +drew up in front of the house. The man alighted, tied the horses to the +stone hitching-post, and came up the walk. Simultaneously Ben saw the +curtains at the library window sway as though in a sudden breeze. + +"Splendid horses, those," he commented. + +"Yes," answered Scotty, wishing he were somewhere else just then. "Yes," +he repeated, absently. + +"Good-evening, Mr. Baker!" said the smiling driver of the thoroughbreds. + +"Good-evening," echoed Scotty. Then, with a gesture, he indicated the +passive Benjamin. "My friend Mr. Blair, Mr. Sidwell." + +Sidwell mounted the steps. Ben arose. The library curtains trembled +again. The two men looked each other fairly in the eyes and then shook +hands. + +"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Blair," said Sidwell. + +"Thank you," responded Ben, evenly. + +Down in the depths of his consciousness, Scotty was glad this frontier +youth had seen fit to come to town. Taking off his big glasses he +polished them industriously. + +"Won't you sit down?" he invited the new-comer. + +Sidwell moved toward the door. "No, thank you. With your permission I'll +go inside. I presume Miss Baker--" + +But the Englishman was ahead of him. "Yes," he said, "she's at home. +I'll call her," and he disappeared. + +Watching the retreating figure, Sidwell's black eyes tightened, but he +returned and took the place Scotty had vacated. He gave his companion a +glance which, swift as a flash of light upon a sensitized plate, took in +every detail of the figure, the bizarre dress, the striking face. + +"You are from the West, I judge, Mr. Blair?" he interrogated. + +"Dakota," said Ben, laconically. + +Sidwell's gaze centred on the sombrero. "Cattle raising, perhaps?" he +ventured. + +Ben nodded. "Yes, I have a few head east of the river." He returned the +other's look, and Sidwell had the impression that a searchlight was +suddenly shifted upon him. "Ever been out there?" + +The city man indicated an affirmative. "Yes, twice: the last time about +four years ago. I went out on purpose to see a steer-roping contest, on +the ranch of a man by the name of Gilbert, I remember. A cowboy they +called Pete carried off the honors; had his 'critter' down and tied in +forty-two seconds. They told me that was slow time, but I thought it +lightning itself." + +"The trick can be done in thirty-five with the wildest," commented Ben. + +Sidwell looked out on the narrow street meditatively. "I think that +cowboy exhibition," he went on slowly, "was the most typically American +scene I have ever witnessed. The recklessness, the dash, the splendid +animal activity--there's never been anything like it in the world." His +eyes returned to Ben's face. "Ever hear of Gilbert, did you?" + +"I live within twenty-three miles of him." + +Sidwell looked interested. "What ranch, if I may ask?" + +"The Right Angle Triangle we call it." + +"Oh, yes," Sidwell nodded in recollection. "Rankin is the proprietor--a +big man with a grandfather's-shay buckboard. I saw him while I was +there." + +Involuntarily one of Ben's long legs swung over the other. "That's the +place! You have a good memory." + +Sidwell smiled. "I couldn't help having in this case. He reminded me of +the satraps of ancient Persia. He was monarch of all he surveyed." + +Ben said nothing. + +"He's still the big man of the country, I presume?" + +"He is dead." + +"Dead?" + +"I said so." + +The light of understanding came to the city man. "I see," he observed. +"He is gone, and you--" + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Sidwell," interrupted the other, "but suppose we +change the subject?" + +Sidwell colored, then he laughed. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Blair. No +offence was intended, I assure you. Mr. Rankin interested me, that was +all." + +Again Ben said nothing, and the conversation lapsed. + +Meanwhile within doors another drama had been taking place. A very +discomposed young lady had met Scotty just out of hearing. + +"What made you stop Mr. Sidwell, papa?" she asked indignantly. "Why +didn't you let him come in?" + +"Because I didn't choose to," explained Scotty, bluntly. + +"But I wanted him to," she said imperiously. "I don't care to see Ben +to-night." + +Her father looked at her steadily. "And I wish you to see him," he +insisted. "You must be hypnotized to behave the way you're doing! You +forget yourself completely!" + +The brown eyes of the girl flashed. "And you forget yourself! I'm no +longer a child! I won't see him to-night unless I wish to!" + +Easy-going Scotty was aroused. His weak chin set stubbornly. + +"Very well. You will see neither of them, then. I won't have a man +insulted without cause in my own house. I'll tell them both you're +sick." + +"If you do," flamed Florence, "I'll never forgive you! You're--horrid, +if you are my father. I--" She took refuge in tears. "Oh, you ought to +be ashamed to treat your daughter so!" + +The Englishman flicked a speck of ash off his lounging coat. "I _am_ +ashamed," he admitted; "but not of what you suggest." He turned toward +the door. + +"Daddy," said a pleading voice, "don't you--care for me any more?" + +An expression the daughter had never seen before, but one that ever +after haunted her, flashed over the father's face. + +"Care for you?" he exclaimed. "Care for you? That is just the trouble! I +care for you--have always cared for you--too much. I have sacrificed my +self-respect to humor you, and it's all been a mistake. I see it now too +late." + +For a moment the two looked at each other; then the girl brushed past +him. "Very well," she said calmly, "if I must see them both, at least +permit me to see them by myself." + +The men on the porch arose as Florence appeared. Their manner of doing +so was characteristic of each. Sidwell got to his feet languidly, a bit +stiffly. He had not forgotten the past week. Ben Blair arose +respectfully, almost reverently, unconscious that he was following a +mere social form. Six months had passed since he had seen this little +woman, and his soul was in his eyes as he looked at her. + +Just without the door the girl halted, her color like the sunset. It was +the city man she greeted first. + +"I'm very glad to see you again," she said, and a dainty hand went out +to meet his own. + +Sidwell was human. He smiled, and his hand detained hers longer than was +really necessary. + +"And I'm happy indeed to have you back," he responded. "I missed you." + +The girl turned to the impassive but observing Benjamin. + +"I am glad to see you, too, Mr. Blair," she said, but the voice was as +formal as the handshake. "Papa introduced you to Mr. Sidwell, I +suppose?" + +Her reserve was quite unnecessary. Outwardly, Ben was as coldly polite +as she. He placed a chair for her deferentially and took another +himself, while Sidwell watched the scene with interest. Somewhere, some +time, if he lived, that moment would be reproduced on a printed page. + +"Yes," responded Ben, "Mr. Sidwell and I have met." He turned his chair +so that he and the girl faced each other. "You like the city, your new +life, as well as you expected, I trust?" + +They chatted a few minutes as impersonally as two chance acquaintances +meeting by accident; then again Ben arose. "I judge you were going +driving," he said simply. "I'll not detain you longer." + +Florence melted. Such delicate consideration was unexpected. + +"You must call again while you are in town," she said. + +"Thank you, I shall," Ben responded. + +Sidwell felt that he too could afford to be generous. + +"If there's anything in the way of amusement or otherwise that I can do +for you, Mr. Blair, let me know," he said, proffering his address. "I am +at your service at any time." + +Ben had reached the walk, but he turned. For a moment wherein Florence +held her breath he looked steadily at the city man. + +"We Western men, Mr. Sidwell," he said at last slowly, "are more or less +solitaries. We take our recreation as we do our work, alone. In all +probability I shall not have occasion to accept your kindness. But I may +call on you before I leave." He bowed to both, and replaced his hat. A +"good-night" and he was gone. + +Watching the tall figure as it disappeared down the street, Sidwell +smiled peculiarly. "Rather a positive person, your friend," he remarked. + +Like an echo, Florence took up the word. "Positive!" The small hands +pressed tightly together in the speaker's lap. "Positive! You didn't get +even a suggestion of him by that. I saw a big prairie fire once. It +swept over the country for miles and miles, taking everything clean; and +the men fighting it might have been so many children in arms. I always +think of it when I think of Ben Blair. They are very much alike." + +The smile left Sidwell's face. "One can start a back-fire on the +prairie," he said reflectively. "I fancy the same process might work +successfully with Blair also." + +"Perhaps," admitted Florence. The time came when both she and Sidwell +remembered that suggestion. + +But the subject was too large to be dropped immediately. + +"Something tells me," Sidwell added, after a moment, "that you are a bit +fearful of this Blair. Did the gentleman ever attempt to kidnap you--or +anything?" + +Florence did not smile. "No," she answered. + +"What was it, then? Were you in love, and he cold--or the reverse?" + +Florence dropped her chin into her hands. "To be frank with you, it +was--the reverse; but I would rather not speak of it." She was silent +for a moment. "You are right, though," she continued, rather recklessly, +"when you say I'm afraid of him. I don't dare think of him, even. I want +to forget he was ever a part of my life. He overwhelms me like sleep +when I'm tired. I am helpless." + +Unconsciously Sidwell had stumbled upon the closet which held the +skeleton. "And I--" he queried, "are you afraid of me?" + +The girl's great brown eyes peered out above her hands steadily. + +"No; with us it is not of you I'm afraid--it's of myself." She arose +slowly. "I'm ready to go driving if you wish," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +CLUB CONFIDENCES + + +Late the same evening, in the billiard-room of the "Loungers Club" +Clarence Sidwell met one Winston Hough, seemingly by chance, though in +fact very much the reverse. Big and blonde, addicted to laughter, Hough +was one of the few men with whom Sidwell fraternized,--why, only the +Providence which makes like and unlike attract each other could have +explained. However, it was with deliberate intent that Sidwell entered +the most brilliantly lighted room in the place and sought out the group +of which Hough was the centre. + +"Hello, Chad!" the latter greeted the new-comer. "I've just trimmed up +Watson here, and I'm looking for new worlds to conquer. I'll roll you +fifty points to see who pays for a lunch afterward." + +Sidwell smiled tolerantly. "I think it would be better for my reputation +to settle without playing. Put up your stick and I'm with you." + +Hough shook his head. "No," he objected, "I'm not a Weary Willie. I +prefer to earn my dole first. Come on." + +But Sidwell only looked at him. "Don't be stubborn," he said. "I want to +talk with you." + +Hough returned his cue to the rack lingeringly. "Of course, if you put +it that way there's nothing more to be said. As to the stubbornness, +however--" He paused suggestively. + +Sidwell made no comment, but led the way directly toward the street. + +"What's the matter?" queried Hough, when he saw the direction they were +taking. "Isn't the club grill-room good enough for you?" + +Sidwell pursued his way unmoved. "I said I wished to talk with you." + +"I guess I must be dense," Hough answered gayly. "I certainly never saw +any house rules that forbid a man to speak." + +Sidwell looked at his companion with a whimsical expression. "The +trouble isn't with the house rules but with you. A fellow might as well +try to monopolize the wheat-pit on the board of trade as to keep you +alone here. You're too confoundedly popular, Hough! You draw people as +the proverbial molasses-barrel attracts flies." + +The big man laughed. "Your compliment, if that's what it was, is a bit +involved, but I suppose it'll have to do. Lead on!" + +Sidwell sought out a modest little _cafe_ in a side street and selected +a secluded booth. + +"What'll you have?" he asked, as the waiter appeared. + +Hough's blue eyes twinkled. "Are you with me, whatever I order?" + +Sidwell nodded. + +"Club sandwiches and a couple of bottles of beer," Hough concluded. + +His companion made no comment. + +"Been some time, hasn't it, since you surprised your stomach with +anything like this?" bantered the big man, when the order had arrived +and the waiter departed. + +Sidwell smiled. "I shall have to confess it," he admitted. + +"I thought so," remarked Hough dryly. "Next time you depict a plebeian +scene you can remember this and thank me." + +This time Sidwell did not smile. "You're hitting me rather hard, old +man," he said. + +"You deserve it," laconically answered Hough. + +"But not from you!" + +Hough meditatively watched the beads bursting on the surface of the +liquor. + +"Admitted," he said; "but the people who ought to touch you up are +afraid to do so, and someone ought to." He smiled across the table. +"Pardon the brutal frankness, but it's true." + +Sidwell returned the glance. "You think it's the duty of some intimate +to perform the kindness of this--touching up process occasionally, do +you?" + +Hough drank deep and sighed with satisfaction. "Jove! that tastes good! +I limbered up my joints with a two-mile walk before I went to the club +this evening, and I've been as dry as a harvest-hand ever since. All the +wine in France or elsewhere won't touch the spot like a little good old +brew when a man is really healthy." He recalled himself. "Your pardon, +Sidwell. Seriously, I do think it's the duty of our best friends to +bring us back to earth now and then when we've strayed too far away. No +one who doesn't care for us will take the trouble." + +"Our _very_ best friends, I judge," suggested Sidwell. + +"Certainly." The big man wondered what was coming next. + +"A--wife, for instance." + +Hough straightened in his chair. His jolly face grew serious. + +"Are you in earnest, Chad," he queried, "or are you just drawing me +out?" + +"I never was more in earnest in my life." + +Hough lost sight of the original question in the revelation it +suggested. + +"Do you mean you're really going to get married at last?" + +Sidwell forced a smile. "If the matter were already settled, it would be +too late to consider the advisability of the move, wouldn't it?" he +returned. "It would be an established fact, and as such useless to +discuss. I haven't asked the lady, if that answers your question." + +Hough made a gesture of impatience. "Theoretically, yes, but +practically, no. In your individual case, desire and gratification +amount to the same. You're mighty fascinating with the ladies, Chad. Few +women would refuse you, if you made an effort to have them do the +reverse." + +"Thank you," said Sidwell, equivocally. + +His companion scowled. "Appreciation is unnecessary. I'm not even sure +the remark was complimentary." + +They sat a moment in silence, while the beer in their glasses grew +stale. + +"Suppose I were to consider marriage, as you suggest," said Sidwell at +last. "What do you think would be the result? Judging from your +expression, some opinion thereon is weighing heavily upon your mind." + +The blonde man looked up keenly. One would hardly have recognized him as +the easy-going person of a few moments before. + +"It will, of course, depend entirely upon whom you choose. That's +hackneyed. From the motions of straws, though, this Summer, I presume +it's admissible that I jump at conclusions concerning the lady." + +The other nodded. + +"In that case, Chad, as surely as night follows day it'll be a failure." +The blue eyes all but flashed. "Moreover, it's a hideous injustice to +the girl." + +Sidwell stiffened involuntarily. + +"Your prediction sounds a bit strong from one who is himself a +benedict," he returned coldly. "Upon what, if you please, do you base +your opinion?" + +Hough fidgeted in his chair. + +"You want me to be frank, brutally frank, once more?" + +"Anything you wish. I'd like to know why you spoke as you did." + +"The reason, then, is this. You two would no more mix than oil and +water." + +Sidwell's face did not change. "You and Elise seem to jog along fairly +well together," he observed. + +Hough scowled as before. "Yes, but there's no possible similarity +between the cases. You and I are no more alike than a dog and a rabbit. +To come down to the direct issue, you're city bred, and Miss Baker has +been reared in the country. She--" + +Sidwell held up his hand deprecatingly. "To return to the illustration, +Elise was originally from the country." + +"And to repeat once more," exclaimed Hough, "there's again no +similarity. Elise and I have been married eight years. We met at +college, and grew together normally. We were both young and adaptable. +Besides, at the risk of being tedious, I reiterate that you and I are +totally unlike. I'm only partially urban; you are completely so--to your +very finger-tips. I'm half savage, more than half. I like to be out in +the country, among the mountains, upon the lakes. I like to hunt and +fish, and dawdle away time; you care for none of these things. I can +make money because I inherited capital, and it almost makes itself; but +it's not with me a definite ambition. I have no positive object in life, +unless it is to make the little woman happy. You have. Your work absorbs +the best of you. You haven't much left for friendships, even mild ones +like ours. I've been with you for a good many years, old man, and I know +what I'm talking about. You are old, older than your years, and you're +not young even in them. You're selfish--pardon me, but it's +true--abominably selfish. Your character, your point of view, your +habits--are all formed. You'll never change; you wouldn't if you could. +Miss Baker is hardly more than a child. I know her--I've made it a +point to know her since I saw you were interested in her. Everything in +the world rings genuine to her as yet. She hasn't learned to detect the +counterfeit, and when the knowledge does come it will hurt her cruelly. +She'll want to get back to nature as surely as a child with a bruised +finger wants its mother; and you can't go with her. Most of all, Chad, +she's a woman. You don't know what that means--no unmarried man does +know. Even we married ones never grasp the subtleties of woman-nature +completely. I've been studying one for eight years, and at times she +escapes me. But one thing I have learned; they demand that they shall be +first in the life of the man they love. Florence Baker will demand this, +and after the first novelty has worn off you won't satisfy her. I repeat +once more, you're too selfish for that. As sure as anything can be, Chad +Sidwell, if you marry that girl it will end in disaster--in divorce, or +something worse." + +The voice ceased, and the place was of a sudden very quiet. Sidwell +tapped on his thin drinking-glass with his finger-nail. His companion +had never seen him nervous before. At last he looked up unshiftingly. +"You've given me a pretty vivid portrait of myself, of what I'm good +for, and what not," he said. "Would you like me to return the +compliment?" + +Again Hough wondered what was coming. "Yes, I suppose so," he answered +hesitatingly. + +"You've often remarked," said Sidwell, slowly, "that you knew of no work +for which you were especially adapted. I think I could fit you out +exactly to your liking. Just get a position as guard to a lake of +brimstone in the infernal regions." + +Hough laughed, but Sidwell did not. "I fancy," he continued +monotonously, "I see you now, a long needle-pointed spear in your hands, +jabbing back the poor sinners who tried to crawl out." + +"Chad!" interrupted the other reproachfully. "Chad!" But Sidwell did not +stop. + +"You'd stand well back, so that the sulphur fumes wouldn't irritate your +own nostrils, and so that when the bubbles from the boiling broke they +wouldn't spatter you, and with the finest kind of intuition and the most +delicate aim you'd select the tenderest place in your intended victim's +anatomy for your spear-point." He smiled ironically at the picture. +"Gad! you'd be a howling success there, old man!" + +An expression of genuine contrition formed on Hough's jolly face. "I'm +dead sorry I hurt you, Chad," he said, "but you asked me to be frank." + +"You certainly were frank," rejoined the other bluntly. + +"What I said, though, was true," reiterated Hough. + +Sidwell leaned a bit forward, his face, handsome in spite of its +shadings of discontent, clear in the light. + +"Perhaps," he went on. "The trouble with you is that you don't give me +credit for a single redeeming virtue. No one in this world is wholly +good or wholly bad. You forget that I'm a human being, with natural +feelings and desires. You make me out a sort of machine, cunningly +constructed for a certain work. You limit my life to that work alone. A +human being, even one born of the artificial state called civilization, +isn't a contrivance like a typewriter which you can make work and then +shut up in a box until it is wanted again. There are certain emotions, +certain wants, you can't suppress by logic. Even a dog, if you imprison +him alone, will go mad in time. I'm a living man, with red blood instead +of ink in my veins, not an abstract mathematical problem. I've had my +full share of work and unhappiness. You'll have to give me a better +reason for remaining without the gate of the promised land than you've +yet done." + +Hough looked at the speaker impotently. "You misunderstood me, Chad, if +you thought I was trying to keep you from your due, or from anything +which would really make for your happiness. I was simply trying to +prevent something I feel morally certain you'll regret. Because one +isn't entirely happy is no adequate reason why he should make himself +more unhappy. I can't say any more than I've already said; there's +nothing more to say. My best reason for disapproving your contemplated +action I gave you first, and you've not considered it at all. It's the +injustice you do to a girl who doesn't realize what she is doing. With +your disposition, Chad, you'd take away from her something which neither +God nor man can ever give her back--her trust in life." + +Sidwell's long fingers restlessly twirled the glass before him. The +remainder of the untouched beer was now as so much stagnant water. + +"If I don't undeceive her someone else will," he said. "It's inevitable. +She'll have to adjust herself to things as they are, as we all have to +do." + +Hough made a motion of deprecation. + +"Miss Baker is no longer a child," continued Sidwell. "If you've studied +her as you say you've done, you've discovered that she has very definite +ideas of her own. It's true that I haven't known her long, but she has +had an opportunity to know me well such as no one else has ever had, not +even you. No one can say that she is leaping in the dark. Time and time +again, at every opportunity, I have stripped my very soul bare for her +observation. The thing has not been easy for me; indeed, I know of +nothing I could have done that would have been more difficult. Though +the present instance seems to give the statement the lie, I am not +easily confidential, my friend. I have had a definite object in doing as +I have done with Miss Baker. I am trying, as I never tried before in my +life, to get in touch with her--as I'll never try again, no matter how +the effort results, to get in touch with a person. She knows the good +and bad of me from A to Z. She knows the life I lead, the kind of people +who make up that life, their aims, their amusements, their standards, +social and moral, as thoroughly as I can make her know them. I have +taken her everywhere, shown her every phase of my surroundings. For once +in my life at least, Hough, I have been absolutely what I +am,--absolutely frank. Farther than that I cannot go. I am not my +brothers keeper. She is an individual in a world of individuals; a free +agent, mental, moral, and physical. The decision of her future actions, +the choice she makes of her future life, must of necessity rest with +her. For some reason I cannot point to a definite explanation and say +this or that is why she is attractive to me. She seems to offer the +solution of a want I feel. No system of logic can convince me that, +after having been honest as I have been with her, if she of her own free +will consents to be my wife, I have not a moral right to make her so." + +Again Hough made a deprecatory motion. "It is useless to argue with +you," he said helplessly, "and I won't attempt it. If I were to try, I +couldn't make you realize that the very methods of frankness you have +used to make Miss Baker know you intimately have defeated their own +purpose, and have unconsciously made you an integral part of her life. I +said before that when you wish you're irresistibly fascinating with +women. All that you have said only exemplifies my statement. It does +not, however, in the least change the homely fact that oil and water +won't permanently mix. You can shake them together, and for a time it +may seem that they are one; but eventually they'll separate, and stay +separate. As I said before, though, I do not expect you to realize this, +or to apply it. I can't make what I know by intuition sufficiently +convincing. I wish I could. I feel that somehow this has been my +opportunity and I have failed." + +For the instant Sidwell was roused out of himself. He looked at his +companion with appreciation. "At least you can have the consolation of +knowing you have honestly tried," he said earnestly. + +Hough returned the look with equal steadiness. "But nevertheless I have +failed." + +Sidwell put on his hat, its broad brim shading his eyes and concealing +their expression. + +"Providence willing," he said finally, "I shall ask Miss Baker to be my +wife." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +LOVE IN CONFLICT + + +The habits of a lifetime are not changed in a day. Ben Blair was +accustomed to rising early, and he was astir next morning long before +the city proper was thoroughly awake. In the hotel where he was +stopping, the night clerk looked his surprise as he nodded a stereotyped +"Good-morning." The lobby was in confusion, undergoing its early morning +scrubbing, and the guest sought the street. The sun was just risen, but +the air was already sultry, casting oppression and languor over every +detail of the scene. The bare brick and stone fronts of the buildings, +the brown cobblestones of the pavements, the dull gray of the sidewalks, +all looked inhospitable and forbidding. Few vehicles were yet in +motion--distributors of necessities, of ice, of milk, of vegetables--and +they partook of the general indolence. The horses' ears swayed +listlessly, or were set back in dogged endurance. The drivers lounged +stolidly in their seats. Even the few passengers on the monotonously +droning cars but added to the impression of tacit conformity to the +inevitable. Poorly dressed as a rule, tired looking, they gazed at their +feet or glanced out upon the street with absent indifference. It was all +depressing. + +Ben, normal, vigorous, country bred, shook himself and walked on. He was +as susceptible as a child to surrounding influences, and to those now +about him he was distinctly antagonistic. Life, as a whole, particularly +work, the thing that does most to fill life, he had found good. That +others should so obviously find it different grated upon him. He wanted +to get away from their presence; and making inquiry of the first +policeman he met, he sought the nearest park. + +All his life he had heard of the beauty of the New York parks. The few +people he knew who had visited them emphasized this beauty above all +other features. Perhaps in consequence he was expecting the impossible. +At least, he was disappointed. Here was nature, to be sure, but nature +imprisoned under the thumb of man. The visitor had a healthy desire to +roll on the grass, to turn himself loose, to stretch every joint and +muscle; yet signs on each side gave warning to "keep off." The trees, it +must be admitted, were beautiful and natural,--they could not live and +be otherwise; but somehow they had the air of not being there of their +own free-will. + +Ben chose a bench and sat down. A listlessness was upon him that the +ozone of the prairies had never let him feel. He felt cramped for room, +as though, should he draw as full a breath as he wished, it would +exhaust the supply. A big freshly-shaven policeman strolled by, eying +him suspiciously. It gave the young man the impression of being a +prisoner out on good behavior; and in an indefinite way it almost +insulted his self-respect. For the lack of something better to do he +watched the minion of the law as he pursued his beat. Not Ben Blair +alone, but every person the officer passed, went through this +challenging inspection. The countryman had been too much preoccupied to +notice that he had companions; but now that his interest was aroused, he +began inspecting the occupants of the other benches. The person nearest +him was a little old man in a crumpled linen suit. Most of the time his +nose was close to his morning paper; but now and then he raised his face +and looked away with an absent expression in his faded near-sighted +eyes. Was he enjoying his present life? Ben would have taken his oath to +the contrary. Again there flashed over him the impression of a prison +with this fellow-being in confinement. There was indescribable pathos in +that dull retrospective gaze, and Ben looked away. In the land from +which he came there could not be found such an example of hopeless and +useless age. There the aged had occupation,--the care of their +children's children, a garden, an interest in crops and growing things, +a fame as prophets of weather,--but such apathy as this, never. + +A bit farther away was another type, also a man, badly dressed and +unshaven. His battered felt hat was drawn low over the upper half of his +face, and he was stretched flat upon the narrow bench. He was far too +long for his bed, and to accommodate his superfluous length his knees +were bent up like a jack-knife. Carrying with them the baggy +trousers,--he wore no underclothes,--they left a hairy expanse between +their ends and the yellow, rusty shoes. His chest rose and fell in the +motion of sleep. + +Ben Blair had seen many a human derelict on the frontier; the country +was full of them,--adventurers, searchers after lost health--popularly +denominated "one-lungers"--soldiers of fortune; but he had never known +such a class as this man represented,--useless cumberers of the earth, +wanderers by day, sleepers on the benches of public parks by night. Had +he been a student of sociology he might have found a certain morbid +interest in the spectacle; but it was merely depressing to him; it +destroyed what pleasure he might otherwise have taken in the place. This +man was but a step beneath those dull toilers he had seen on the cars. +They had not yet given up the struggle against the inevitable, or were +too stolid to rebel; while he-- + +Ben sprang to his feet and began retracing his steps. People bred in the +city might be callous to the miseries of their fellows; those provided +with plenty might be content to live their lives side by side with such +hopeless poverty, might even apply to their own profit the necessities +of others; but his was the hospitality and consideration of the +frontier, the democracy that shares its last loaf with its fellow no +matter who he may be, and shares it without question. The heartless +selfishness of the conditions he was observing almost made his blood +boil. He felt that he was amid an alien people: their standards were not +as his standards, their lives were not of his life, and he wanted to +hurry through with his affairs and get away. He returned to the hotel. + +Breakfast was ready by this time, and after some exploration he +succeeded in finding the dining-room. The head-waiter showed him to a +seat and held his chair obsequiously. Another, a negro of uncertain +age, fairly exuding dignity and impassive as a sphinx, poured water over +the ice in his glass with a practised hand, produced the menu, and +waited for his order. Without intending it, the countryman had selected +a rather fashionable place, and the bill of fare was unintelligible as +Sanskrit to him. He looked at it helplessly. A man across the table, +observing his predicament, smiled involuntarily. Ben caught the +expression, looked at its bearer meaningly, looked until it vanished, +and until a faint red, obviously a stranger to that face, took its +place. By a sudden inspiration Blair's hand went to his pocket and +returned with a silver coin. + +"Bring me what a healthy man usually eats at this time of day, and +plenty of it," he said. He glanced absently, blandly past his companion. + +The gentleman of color looked at the speaker as though he were a strange +animal in a "zoo." + +"Yes, sah," he said. + +While he was waiting, Ben looked around him with interest. The room was +big, high, massive of pillars and of beams. Every detail had been +carefully arranged. The heavy oak tables, the spotless linen, the +sparkling silver and glassware appealed to the sense of luxury. The +coolness of the place, due to unseen ventilating fans which he heard +faintly droning somewhere in the ceiling, and increased by the tile +floor and the skilfully adjusted shades, was delightful. The few other +people present were as immaculate as bath, laundry, tailor, and modiste +could make them. From one group at which Ben looked came the suppressed +sound of a woman's laugh; from another, a man's voice, well modulated, +illustrated a point with a story. At a small table in an alcove sat four +young men, and notwithstanding the fact that for them it was yet very +early in the day, the pop of a champagne cork was heard, and soon +repeated. Blair, fresh from a glimpse of the outer and under world, +observed it all, and drew comparisons. Again he saw the huddled figure +of the tramp on the bench; and again he heard the careless music of the +woman's laugh. He saw the dull animal stare of workers on their way to +uncongenial toil; the hands still unsteady from yesterday's excesses +lifting to dry lips the wine that would make them still more unsteady on +the morrow. Could these contrasts be forever continued? he wondered. +Would they be permitted to exist indefinitely side by side? Again, +problem more difficult, could it be possible that the condition in which +they existed was life? He could not believe it. His nature rebelled at +the thought. No; life was not an artificial formula like this. It was +broad and free and natural, as the prairies, his prairies, were natural +and free. This other condition was a delirium, a momentary oblivion, of +which the four young men in the alcove were a symbol. Transient +pleasure, the life might mean; but the reverse, the inevitable reaction +as from all intoxication, that-- + +Finishing his breakfast, Ben lit a cigar and sauntered out to the +street. He had intended spending the morning seeing the town; but for +the present he felt he had had enough--all he could mentally digest. +Without at first any definite destination, in mere excess of healthy +animal activity, he began to walk; but his principal object in coming +to the city, the object he made no effort to conceal, acted upon him +like a lodestone, and almost ere he was aware he was well out in the +residence portion of the city and headed directly for the Baker home. He +was unaware that morning was not the fashionable time to call upon a +lady. To him the fact of inclination and of presence in the vicinity was +sufficient justification; and mounting the well-remembered steps he rang +the doorbell stoutly. A prim maid in cap and diminutive apron, a recent +addition to the household, answered his ring. + +"I'd like to see Miss Baker, if you please," said Ben. + +The girl inspected the visitor critically. Beneath her surface decorum +he had a suspicion that she was inclined to smile. + +"I hardly think Miss Baker is up yet," she announced at last. "Will you +leave your card?" + +Ben looked at the sun, now well elevated in the sky, with an eye trained +in the estimate of time. He drew mental conclusions silently. + +"No," he said. "I will call later." + +He did call later,--two hours later,--to receive from Scotty himself the +intelligence that Florence was out but would soon return. Evidently the +Englishman had been instructed; for, though he added an invitation to +wait, it was only half-hearted, and being declined the matter was not +pressed. + +Ben returned to the hotel, ate his lunch, and considered the situation. +A lesser man would have given up the fight and hidden his bruise; but +Benjamin Blair was in no sense of the word a little man. He had come to +town with definite intent of seeing a certain girl alone, and see her +alone he would. At four o'clock in the afternoon he again pressed the +button on the Baker door-post, and again waited. + +Again it was the maid who answered, and at the expected query she smiled +outright. It seemed to her a capital joke that she was assisting in +playing upon this man of unusual attire. + +"Miss Baker is engaged," she announced, with the glibness of previous +preparation. + +To her surprise the visitor did not depart. Instead, he gave her a look +which sent her mirth glimmering. + +"Very well," he said. The door leading into the vestibule and from +thence into the library was open, and without form of invitation he +entered. "Tell her, please, that I will wait until she is not engaged." + +The girl hesitated. This particular exigency had not been anticipated. + +"Shall I give her a name?" she suggested, with an attempt at formality. + +Ben Blair did not turn. "Tell her what I said." + +He chose a chair facing the entrance and sat down. Departing on her +mission, he heard the maid open another door on the same floor. There +was for a moment a murmur of feminine voices, one of which he +recognized; then silence again, as the door closed. + +A half-hour passed, lengthened into an hour, all but repeated itself, +and still apparently Florence was engaged; and still the visitor sat on. +No power short of fire or an earthquake could have moved him now. Every +fragment of the indomitable perseverance of his nature was aroused, and +instead of discouraging him each minute as it passed only made his +determination the stronger. He shifted his chair so that it faced the +window and the street, crossed his legs comfortably, half closed his +eyes, resting yet watchful, and meditatively observed the growing +procession of homeward bound wage-earners in car and on foot. + +Suddenly there was the rustle of a woman's skirts, and he was conscious +that he was no longer alone. He turned as he saw who it was, sprang to +his feet, and despite the intentional slight of the long wait, a smile +flashed to his face. He started to advance, but stopped. + +"You wished to see me, I understand," a voice said coldly, as the +speaker halted just within the doorway. + +Ben Blair straightened. The hot blood mounted to his brain, throbbing at +his throat and temples. It was not easy for him to receive insult; but +outwardly he gave no sign. + +"I think I have demonstrated the fact you mention," he replied calmly. + +Florence Baker clasped her hands together. "Yes, your persistency is +admirable," she said. + +Ben Blair caught the word. "Persistency," he remarked, "seems the only +recourse when past friendship and common courtesy are ignored." + +Florence made no reply, and going forward Ben placed a chair +deferentially. "It seems necessary for me to reverse the position of +host and guest," he said. "Won't you be seated?" + +The girl did not stir. + +"I hardly think it necessary," she answered. + +"Florence," Ben Blair's great chin lifted meaningly, "I will not be +offended whatever you may do. I have something I wish to say to you. +Please sit down." + +The girl hesitated, and almost against her will looked the man fairly in +the eyes, while her own blazed. Once more she felt his dominance +controlling her, felt as she did when, in what seemed the very long ago, +he had spread his blanket for her upon the prairie earth. + +She sat down. + +Ben drew up another chair and sat facing her. "Why," he was leaning a +bit forward, his elbow on his knee, "why, Florence Baker, have you done +everything in your power to prevent my seeing you? What have I done of +late, what have I ever done, to deserve this treatment from you?" + +The girl evaded his eyes. "It is not usually considered necessary for a +lady to give her reasons for not wishing to see a gentleman," she +parried. The handkerchief in her lap was being rolled unconsciously into +a tight little ball. "The fact itself is sufficient." + +Ben's free hand closed on the chair-arm with a mighty grip. "I beg your +pardon," he said, "but I cannot agree with you. There's a certain amount +of courtesy due between a woman and a man, as there is between man and +man. It is my right to repeat the question." + +The girl felt the cord drawing tighter, felt that in the end she would +bend to his will. + +"And should I refuse?" she asked. + +"You won't refuse." + +The girl's eyes returned to his. Even now she wondered that they did so, +that try as she might she could not deny him. His dominance over her was +well-nigh absolute. Yet she was not angry. An instinct that she had felt +before possessed her; the longing of the weaker for the stronger--the +impulse to give him what he wished. Her whole womanhood went out to him, +with an entire confidence that she would never give to another human +being. Naturally, he was her mate; naturally,--but she was not natural. +She hesitated as she had done once before, a multitude of conflicting +desires and ambitions seething in her brain. If she could but eliminate +the artificial in her nature, the desire for the empty things of the +world, then--But she could not yet give them up, and he could never be +made to care for them with her. She was nearer now to giving them up, to +giving up everything for his sake, than when she had sat alone with him +out on the prairie. She realized this with an added complexity of +emotion; but even yet, even yet-- + +A minute passed in silence, a minute of which the girl was unconscious. +It was Ben Blair's voice repeating his first question that recalled her. +This time she did not hesitate. + +"I think you know the reason as well as I do. If we were mere friends or +acquaintances I would be only too glad to see you; but we are not, and +never can be merely friends. We have got to be either more or less." The +voice, brave so far, dropped. A mist came over the brown eyes. "And we +can't be more," she added. + +The man's grip on the chair-arm loosened. He bent his face farther +forward. "Miss Baker," he exclaimed. "Florence!" + +Interrupting, almost imploring, the girl drew back. "Don't! Please +don't!" she pleaded; then, as she saw the futility of words, with the +old girlish motion her face dropped into her hands. "Oh, I knew it would +mean this if I saw you!" she wailed. "You see for yourself we cannot be +mere friends!" + +The man did not stir, but his eyes changed color and seemed to grow +darker. "No," he said, "we cannot be mere friends; I care for you too +much for that. And I cannot be silent when I came away off here to see +you. I would never respect myself again if I were. You can do what you +please, say what you please, and I'll not resent it--because it is you. +I will love you as long as I live. I am not ashamed of this, because it +is you I love, Florence Baker." He paused, looking tenderly at the +girl's bowed head. + +"Florence," he went on gently, "you don't know what you are to me, or +what your having left me means. I often go over to your old ranch of a +night and sit there alone, thinking of you, dreaming of you. Sometimes +it is all so vivid that I almost feel that you are near, and before I +know it I speak your name. Then I realize you are not there, and I feel +so lonely that I wish I were dead. I think of to-morrow, and the next +day, and the next--the thousands of days that I'll have to live through +without you--and I wonder how I am going to do it." + +The girl's face sank deeper into her hands. A muffled sob escaped her. +"Please don't say any more!" she pleaded. "Please don't! I can't stand +it!" + +But the man only looked at her steadily. + +"I must finish," he said. "I may never have a chance to say this to you +again, and something compels me to tell you of myself, for you are my +good angel. In many ways it is of necessity a rough life I lead, but you +are always with me, and I am the better for it. I haven't drank a drop +since I came to know that I loved you, and we ranchers are not +accustomed to that, Florence. But I never will drink as long as I live; +for I'll think of you, and I couldn't then if I would. Once you saved me +from something worse than drink. There was a man who shot Mr. Rankin and +before this, from almost the first thought I can remember, I had sworn +that if I ever met him I would kill him. We did meet. I followed him day +after day until at last I caught up with him, until he was down and my +hands were upon his throat. But I didn't hurt him, Florence, after all; +I thought of you just in time." + +He was silent, and suddenly the place seemed as still as an empty +church. The girl's sobs were almost hysterical. The man's mood changed; +he reached over and touched her gently on the shoulder. + +"Forgive me for hurting you, Florence," he said. "I--I couldn't help +telling you." + +Involuntarily the girlish figure straightened. + +"Forgive you!" A tear-stained face was looking into his. "Forgive you! +I'll never be able to forgive myself! You are a million times too good +for me, Ben Blair. Forgive you! I ought never to cease asking you to +forgive me!" + +"Florence!" pleaded the man. "Florence!" + +But the girl, in her turn, went on. "I have felt all the while that +certain things I saw here were unreal, that they were not what they +seemed. I have prevaricated to you deliberately. I haven't really been +here long, but it seems to me now that it's been years. As you said I +would, I've looked beneath the surface and seen the sham. At first I +wouldn't believe what I saw; but at last I couldn't help believing it, +and, oh, it hurt! I never expect to be so hurt again. I couldn't be. One +can only feel that way once in one's life." The small form trembled with +the memory, and the listener made a motion as if to stop her; but she +held him away. + +"It isn't that I'm any longer blind; I am acting now with my eyes wide +open. It is something else that keeps me from you now, something that +crept in while I was learning my lesson, something I can't tell you." +Once more the girl could not control herself, and sobbing, trembling, +she covered her face. "Ben, Ben," she wailed, "why did you ever let me +come here? You could have kept me if you would--you can do--anything. I +would have loved you--I did love you all the time; only, only--" She +could say no more. + +For a second the man did not understand; then like a flash came +realization, and he was upon his feet pacing up and down the narrow +room. To lose an object one cares for most is one thing; to have it +filched by another is something very different. He was elemental, this +man from the plains, and in some phases very illogical. The ways of the +higher civilization, where man loves many times, where he dines and +wines in good fellowship with him who is the husband of a former +love--these were not his ways. White anger was in his heart, not against +the woman, but against that other man. His fingers itched to be at his +throat, regardless of custom or law. Temporarily, the rights and wishes +of the woman, the prize of contention, were forgotten. Two young bucks +in the forest do not consider the feelings of the doe that is the reward +of the victor in the contest when they meet; and Ben Blair was very like +these wild things. Only by an effort of the will could he keep from +going immediately to find that other man,--intuition made it unnecessary +to ask his name. As it was, he wanted now to be away. The tiny room +seemed all at once stifling. He wanted to be out of doors where the sun +shone, out where he could think. He seized his hat, then suddenly +remembered, paused to glance--and that instant was his undoing, and +another man's--Clarence Sidwell's--salvation. + +And Florence Baker, at whom he had glanced? She was not tearful or +hysterical now. Instead, she was looking at him out of wide-open eyes. +Well she knew this man, and knew the volcano she had aroused. + +"You won't hurt him, Ben!" she said. "You won't hurt him! For my sake, +say you won't!" + +The devil lurking in the cowboy's blue eyes vanished, but the great jaw +was still set. He reached out and caught the girl by the shoulder. +"Florence Baker," he said, "on your honor, is he worth it--is he worth +the sacrifice you ask of me? Answer!" + +But the girl did not answer, did not stir. "You won't hurt him!" she +repeated. "Say you won't!" + +A moment longer Ben Blair held her; then his hands dropped and he turned +toward the vestibule. + +"I don't know," he said. "I don't know." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +TWO FRIENDS HAVE IT OUT + + +Clarence Sidwell was alone in his down-town bachelor quarters; that is, +alone save for an individual the club-man's friends termed his "Man +Friday," an undersized and very black negro named Alexander Hamilton +Brown, but answering to the contraction "Alec." Valet, man of all work, +steward, Alec was as much a fixture about the place as the floor or the +ceiling; and, like them, his presence, save as a convenience, was +ignored. + +The rooms themselves were on the eleventh floor of a down-town +office-building, as near the roof as it had been possible for him to +secure suitable quarters. For eight years Sidwell had made them his home +when he was in town. The circle of his friends had commented, his mother +and sisters (his father had been long dead) had protested, when, a much +younger man, he first severed himself from the semi-colonial mansion +which for three generations had borne the name of Sidwell; but as usual, +he had had his own way. + +"I want to work when I feel so inclined, when the mood is on me, whether +it's two o'clock of the afternoon or of the morning,'" he had explained; +"and I can't do it without interruption here with you and your +friends." + +For the same reason he had chosen to live near the sky. There, high +above the noise and confusion, he could observe and catch the influence +of the activity which is in itself a powerful stimulant, without +experiencing its unpleasantness. Essentially, the man was an aesthete. If +he went to a race or a football game he wished to view it at a distance. +To be close by, to mingle in the dust of action, to smell the sweat of +conflict, to listen to the low-voiced imprecations of the defeated, +detracted from his pleasure. He could not prevent these +features--therefore he avoided them. + +This particular evening he was doing nothing, which was very unusual for +him. The necessity for society, or for activity, physical or mental, had +long ago become as much a part of his nature as the desire for food. +Dilettante musician as well as artist, when alone at this time of the +evening he was generally at the upright piano in the corner. Even Alec +noticed the unusual lack of occupation on this occasion, and exposed the +key-board suggestively; but, observing the action, Sidwell only smiled. + +"Think I ought to, Alec?" he queried. + +The negro rolled his eyes. Despite his long service, he had never quite +lost his awe of the man he attended. + +"Sho, yo always do that, or something, sah," he said. + +Sidwell smiled again; but it was not a pleasant smile. So this was the +way of it! Even his servant had observed his habitual restlessness, and +had doubtless commented upon it to his companions in the way servants +have of passing judgment upon their employers. And if Alec had noticed +this, then how much more probable it was that others of Sidwell's +numerous acquaintances had noticed it also! He winced at the thought. +That this was his skeleton, and that he had endeavored to keep it +hidden, Sidwell did not attempt to deny to himself. One of the reasons +he had _not_ given to his family for establishing these down-town +quarters was this very one. Time and again, when he had felt the mood of +protest strong upon him, he had come here and locked the doors to fight +it out alone. But after all, it had been useless. The fact had been +obvious, despite the trick; mayhap even more so on account of it. Like +the Wandering Jew he was doomed, followed by a relentless curse. + +He shook himself, and walking over to the sideboard poured out a glass +of Cognac and drank it as though it were wine. Sidwell did not often +drink spirits. Experience had taught him that to begin usually meant to +end with regret the following day; but to-night, with his present mood +upon him, the action was as instinctive as breathing. He moved back to +his chair by the window. + +The evening was hot, on the street depressingly so, but up here after +the sun was set there was always a breeze, and it was cool and +comfortable. The man looked out over the sooty, gravelled roofs of the +surrounding lower buildings, and down on the street, congested with its +flowing stream of cars, equipages, and pedestrians. Times without number +he had viewed the currents and counter-currents of that scene, but never +before had he so caught its vital spirit and meaning. Born of the +elect,--reared and educated among them,--the supercilious superiority of +his class was as much a part of him as his name. While he realized that +physically the high and the low were constructed on practically the same +plan, he had been wont to consider them as on totally separate mental +planes. That the clerk and the roustabout on ten dollars a week, +breathing the same atmosphere,--seeing daily, hourly, minute by minute, +from separate viewpoints, the same life,--that they should have in +common the constant need of diversion had never before occurred to him. +Multitudes of times, as a sociologist, or as a literary man in search of +realism, he had visited the haunts of the under-man. Languidly, +critically, as he would have observed at the "zoo" an animal with whose +habits he was unacquainted, he had watched this rather curious under-man +in his foolish, or worse than foolish, endeavor to find amusement or +oblivion. He had often been interested, as by a clown at a circus; but +more frequently the sight had merely inspired disgust, and he had +returned to his own diversions, his own efforts to secure the same end, +with an all but unconscious thankfulness that he was not such as that +other. To-night, for the first time, and with a wonder we all feel when +the obvious but long unseen suddenly becomes apparent, the primary fact +of human brotherhood, irrespective of caste, came home to him. To-night +and now he realized, diminutive in the distance as they were, that the +swarm of figures that he had hitherto considered mere animals vain of +display were impelled upon the street, compelled to keep moving, moving, +without a pre-arranged destination, by the same spirit of unrest that +had sent him to the buffet. At that moment he was probably nearer to his +fellow-man than ever before in his life; but the truth revealed made +him the more unhappy. He had grown to consider his own unhappiness +totally different and infinitely more acute than that of others; he had +even taken a sort of morbid, paradoxical pleasure in considering it so; +and now even this was taken from him. Not only had his own secret +skeleton been visible when he believed it concealed, but all around him +there suddenly sprang up a very cemetery of other skeletons, grinning at +his blindness and discomfiture. His was not a nature to extract content +from common discomfort, and but one palliative suggested itself,--the +dull red decanter on the sideboard. Rising again and filling a glass, he +returned and stood for a moment full before the open casement of the +window gazing down steadily. + +How long he stood there he hardly knew. Once Alec's dark face peered +into the room, and disappeared as suddenly. At last there was a knock at +the door. + +"Come in," invited Sidwell, without moving. The door opened and closed, +and Winston Hough stood inside. The big man gave one glance at the +surroundings, saw the empty glass, and backed away. "Pardon my +intrusion," he said with his hand on the knob. + +Sidwell turned. "Intrusion--nothing!" He placed the decanter with +glasses and a box of cigars on a convenient table. "Come and have a +drink with me," and the liquor flowed until both glasses were nearly +full. + +Hough hesitated in a reluctance that was not feigned. He felt that +discretion was the better part of valor, and that it would be well to +escape while he could, even at the price of discourtesy. + +"Really," he said, "I only dropped in to say hello. I--" + +"Nonsense!" interrupted Sidwell. "You must think I'm as innocent as a +new-born lamb. Come over here and sit down." + +Hough hesitated, but yielded. + +Sidwell lifted his glass. "Here's to--whatever the trouble may be that +brought you here. People don't visit me for pleasure, or unless they +have nowhere else to go. Drink deep!" + +They drank; and then Sidwell looking at Hough said, "Well, what is it +this time? Going to reform again, or something of that kind, are you?" + +Hough did not attempt evasion. He knew it would be useless. "No," he +said; "to tell you the truth, I'm lonesome--beastly lonesome." + +Sidwell smiled. "Ah, I thought so. But why, pray? Aren't you a married +man with an ark of refuge always waiting?" + +Hough made a grimace. "Yes, that's just the trouble. I'm too much +married, too thoroughly domesticated." + +The other looked blank. "I fail to understand. Certainly you and Elise +haven't at last--" + +"No, no; not that." Hough repelled the suggestion with a gesture as +though it were a tangible object. "Elise left to-day to spend a month +with her uncle up in northern Wisconsin, and I can't get out of town for +a week. I feel as I fancy a small bird feels when it has fallen out of +the nest while its mother is away. The bottom seems to have dropped out +of town and left me stranded." + +The host observed his guest humorously--a bit maliciously. "It is good +for you, you complacent benedict," he remarked unsympathetically. "You +can understand now the normal state of mind of bachelors. Perhaps after +a few more days you'll have been tortured enough to retract the argument +you made to me about matrimony. I repeat, it's poetic justice, and good +for a man now and then to have a dose of his own medicine." + +Hough smiled as at an oft-heard joke. "All right, old man, have it as +you please; only let's steer clear of a useless discussion of the +subject to-night." + +"With all my heart," said Sidwell. The decanter was once more in his +hand. "Let's drink to the very good health of Elise on her journey." + +Hough hesitated. He had a feeling that there was an obscure desecration +in the toast, but it was not tangible enough to resent. "To her very +good health," he repeated in turn. + +For a moment he looked steadily into the face of his companion, now a +trifle flushed. Again an inward monitor warned him it were better to go; +but the first flood of the liquor had reached his brain, and the +temptation to remain was strong. + +"By the way, how are you coming on with your own affair of the heart? +Have you propounded the momentous question to the lady?" + +Sidwell pulled forward the box of cigars and helped himself to one. +"No," he returned with deliberation. "I haven't had a good opportunity. +A gentleman from the West, where they wear their hair long and their +coat-tails short, has suddenly appeared like an obscuring cloud on the +Baker sky. I have a suspicion that he has aspirations for the hand of +the lady in question. Anyhow, he's haunted the house like a ghost +to-day. Mother Baker has for some reason taken a fancy to your humble +servant, and over the 'phone she has kept me informed of the stranger's +tribulations. He seems to be meeting with sufficient difficulties +without my interposition, so out of the goodness of my heart I've given +him an open field. I hope you appreciate my consideration. I fear he's +not of a stripe to do so himself." + +Hough lit his cigar. "Yes, it certainly was kind of you," he said. "Very +kind." + +With a sweep of his hand Sidwell brought the two glasses together with a +click. "I think so. Kind enough to deserve commemoration by a taste of +the elixir of life, don't you agree?" and the liquor flowed beneath a +hand steady in the first stages of intoxication. + +Hough pushed back his chair. "No," he protested. "I've had enough." + +"Enough!" The other laughed unmusically. "Enough! You haven't begun yet. +Drink, and forget your loneliness, you benedict disconsolate!" + +But again the big man shook his head. "No," he repeated. "I've had +enough, and so have you. We'll be drunk, both of us, if we keep up this +clip much longer." + +The smile left the host's face. "Drunk!" he echoed. "Since when, pray, +has that exalted state of the consciousness begun to inspire terror in +you? Drunk! Winston Hough, you're the last man I ever thought would fail +to prove game on an occasion like this! We're no nearer being babes +than we were the last time we got together, unless the termination of +life approximates the beginning. Drink!" + +But still, this time in silence, Hough shook his head. From a partially +open door leading into the adjoining room the negro's eyes peered out. + +Sidwell shifted in his seat with exaggerated deliberation and leaned +forward. His dark mobile face worked passionately, compellingly. +"Winston Hough," he challenged, "do you wish to remain my friend?" + +"I certainly do." + +"Then you know what to do." + +Deep silence fell upon the room. Not only the eyes but the whole of +Alec's face appeared through the doorway. Hough could no more have +resisted longer than he could have leaped from the open window. They +drank together. + +"Now," said Sidwell, "just to show that you mean it, we'll have +another." + +And soon the enemy that puerile man puts into his mouth to steal his +brains was enthroned. + +Sidwell sank into his chair, and lighting his cigar sent a great cloud +of smoke curling up over his head. Hand and tongue were steady, +unnaturally so, but the mood of irresponsible confidence was upon him. + +"Since you've decided to remain my friend," he said, "I'm going to tell +you something confidential, very confidential. You won't give it away?" + +"Never!" Hough shook his head. + +"On your honor?" + +The big man crossed his hands over his heart in the manner of small +boys. + +Sidwell was satisfied. "All right, then. This is the last time you and I +will ever get--this way together." + +Hough looked as solemn as though at a funeral. "Why so?" he protested. +"Are you angry with me yet?" + +"No, it's not that. I've forgiven you." + +"What is it, then?" Hough felt that he must know the reason of his lost +position, and if in his power remove it. + +"I'm going to quit drinking after to-night, for one thing," explained +Sidwell. "It isn't adequate. But even if I didn't, I don't expect we'll +ever be together again after a few days, after you go away." + +The listener looked blank. Even with his muddled brains he had an +intimation that there was more in the statement than there seemed. + +"I don't see why," he said bewilderedly. + +Again Sidwell leaned forward. Again his face grew passionate and +magnetic. + +"The reason why is this. I have had enough, and more than enough, of +this life I've been living. Unless I can find an interest, an +extenuation, I would rather be dead, a hundred times over. I've become a +nightmare to myself, and I won't stand it. In a few days you'll have +departed, and before you return I'll probably have gone too. Nothing but +an intervention of Providence can prevent my marrying Florence Baker +now. Life isn't a story-book or we who live it undiscerning clods. She +knows I am going to ask her to marry me, and I know what her answer +will be. We'll be away on our wedding-trip long before you and Elise +return in the Fall." The speaker's voice was sober. Only the heightened +color of his face betrayed him. + +"I say I'm through with this sort of thing," he repeated, "and I mean +it. I've tried everything on the face of the earth to find an +interest--but one--and Florence Baker represents that one. I hope +against hope that I'll find what I'm searching for there, but I am +skeptical. I have been disappointed too many times to expect happiness +now. This is my last trump, old man, and I'm playing it deliberately and +carefully. If it fails, Florence will probably return; but before God, I +never will! I have thought it all out. I will leave her more money than +she can ever spend--enough if she wishes to buy the elect of the elect. +She is young, and she will soon forget--if it's necessary. With me, my +actions have largely ceased to be a matter of ethics. I am desperate, +Hough, and a desperate man takes what presents itself." + +But Hough was in no condition to appreciate the meaning of the selfish +revelation of his friend's true character. Since he married his lapses +had been infrequent, and already his surroundings were becoming a bit +vague. His one ambition was to appear what he was not--sober; and he +straightened himself stiffly. + +"I see," he said, "sorry to lose you, old pal, very sorry; but what must +be must be, I s'pose," and he drew himself together with a jerk. + +Sidwell glanced at the speaker sarcastically, almost with a shade of +contempt. "I know you're sorry, deucedly sorry," he mocked. "So sorry +that you'd probably like to drown your excess of emotion in the flowing +bowl." Again the ironic glance swept the other's face. "Another smile +would be good for you, anyway. You're entirely too serious. Here you +are!" and the decanter once more did service. + +Hough picked up his glass and nodded with gravity "Yes, I always was a +sad devil." By successive movements the liquor approached his lips. +"Lots of troubles and tribulations all my--" + +The sentence was not completed; the Cognac remained untasted. At that +moment there was a knock upon the door. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE BACK-FIRE + + +When Ben Blair left the Baker home he went back to his room at the +hotel, closed and locked the door, and, throwing off coat and hat, +stretched himself full-length upon the floor, gazing up at the ceiling +but seeing nothing. It had been a hard fight for self-control there on +the prairie the day Florence rejected him, but it was as nothing to the +tumult that now raged in his brain. Then, despite his pain, hope had +remained. Now hope was lost, and in its place stood a maddening +might-have-been. Under the compulsion of his will, the white flood of +anger had passed, but it only made more difficult the solution of the +problem confronting him. Under the influence of passion the situation +would have been a mere physical proposition; but with opportunity to +think, another's wishes and another's rights--those of the woman he +loved--challenged him at every turn. + +At first it seemed that a removal of his physical presence, a going away +never to return, was adequate solution of the difficulty; but he soon +realized that it was not. Deeper than his own love was his desire for +the happiness of the girl he had known from childhood. Had he been +certain that she would be happy with the man who had fascinated her, he +could have conquered self, could have returned to his prairies, his +cattle, his work, and have concealed his hurt. But it was impossible for +him to believe she would be happy. Without volition on his part he had +become an actor in this drama, this comedy, this tragedy,--whatever it +might prove to be; and he felt that it would be an act of cowardice upon +his part to leave before the play was ended. He was not in the least +religious in the sense of creed and dogma. In all his life he had +scarcely given a thought to religion. His knowledge of the Almighty by +name had been largely confined to that of a word to conjure with in +mastering an obstreperous bronco; but, in the broad sense of personal +cleanliness and individual duty, he was religious to the core. He would +not shirk a responsibility, and a responsibility faced him now. + +Hour after hour he lay prone while his active brain suggested one course +after another, all, upon consideration, proving inadequate. Gradually +out of the chaos one fundamental fact became distinct in his mind. He +must know more of this man Clarence Sidwell before he could leave the +city, and this decision brought him to his feet. Under the +circumstances, a strategist might have employed others to gather +surreptitiously the information desired; but such was not the nature of +Benjamin Blair. One thing he had learned in dealing with his fellows, +which was that the most effective way to secure the thing one wished was +to go direct to the man who had it to give. In this case Sidwell was the +man. With a grim smile Ben remembered the invitation and the address he +had received the first night he was in town. He would avail himself of +both. + +Night had fallen long ere this; when Ben arose the room was in darkness, +save for the reflected light which came through the heavily curtained +windows from the street lamps. He turned on an electric bulb and made a +hasty toilet. In doing so his eye fell upon the two big revolvers within +the drawer of the dresser; and the same impulse that had caused him to +bring them into this land of civilization made him thrust them into his +hip pockets. It was more habit than anything else, just as a man with a +dog friend feels vaguely uncomfortable unless his pet is with him. Blair +had the vigorously recurring appetite of a healthy animal, and it +suddenly occurred to him that he had not yet dined. Descending to the +street, he sought a _cafe_ and ate a hearty meal. + +A half-hour later, the elevator boy of the Metropolitan Block, where +Sidwell had his quarters, was surprised, on answering the indicator, to +find a young man in an abnormally broad hat and flannel shirt awaiting +him. The youth was of vivid imagination, and knowing that a Wild West +troupe was performing in town, one glance at Ben's hat, his suspicions +became certainty. + +"Eleventh floor," he announced, when the passenger had told his +destination; then as the car moved upward he gathered courage and looked +the rancher fair in the eye. + +"Say, Mister," he ventured, "give me a pass to the show, will you?" + +For an instant Ben looked blank; then he understood, and his hand +sought his trousers' pocket. "Sorry," he explained, "but I don't happen +to have any with me. Will this do instead?" and he produced a +half-dollar. + +The boy brought the car deftly to a stop within a half-inch of the level +of the desired floor. "Thank you. Mr. Sidwell--straight ahead, and turn +to the left down the short hall," he said obligingly. + +Blair stepped out, saying, "Don't fail to be around to-morrow when I do +my stunt." + +With open-mouthed admiration the boy watched the frontiersman's long +free stride--a movement that struck the floor with the springiness of a +cat, very different from the flat-footed jar of pedestrians on paved +streets. + +"I won't!" he called after him. "I'd rather see't than a dozen +ball-games! I'll look for you, Mister!" + +At the interrupting tap upon the door, Sidwell voiced a languid "Come +in," and merely shifted in his seat; but his big companion, with the +hospitality of inebriation, had returned his glass unsteadily to the +table and arisen. He had taken a couple of uncertain steps, as if to +open the door, when, in answer to the summons, Ben Blair stepped inside. +Hough halted with a suddenness which all but cost him his equilibrium. +The expansive smile upon his face vanished, and he stared as though the +bottomless pit had opened at his feet. For a fraction of a minute not +one of the three men spoke or stirred, but in that time the steady blue +eyes of the countryman took in the details of the scene--the luxurious +furnishings, the condition of the two men--with the rapidity and +minuteness of a sensitized plate. Ironic chance had chosen an +unpropitious night for his call. Intoxication surrounding a bar, under +the stimulus of numbers, and preceding or following some exciting event, +he could understand, could, perhaps, condone; but this solitary +dissipation, drunkenness for its own sake, was something new to him. The +observing eyes fastened themselves upon the host's face. + +"In response to your invitation," he said evenly, "I've called." + +Sidwell roused himself. His face flushed. Despite the liquor in his +brain, he felt the inauspicious chance of the meeting. + +"Glad you did," he said, with an attempt at ease. "Deucedly glad. I +don't know of anyone in the world I'd rather see. Just speaking of you, +weren't we?" he said, appealing to Hough. "By the way, Mr.--er--Blair, +shake hands with Mr. Hough, Mr. Winston Hough. Mighty good fellow, +Hough, but a bit melancholy. Needs cheering up a bit now and then. +Needed it badly to-night--almost cried for it, in fact"; and the speaker +smiled convivially. + +Hough extended his hand with elaborate formality. "Delighted to meet +you," he managed to articulate. + +"Thank you," returned the other shortly. + +Sidwell meanwhile was bringing a third chair and glass. "Come over, +gentlemen," he invited, "and we'll celebrate this, the proudest moment +of my life. You drink, of course, Mr. Blair?" + +Ben did not stir. "Thank you, but I never drink," he said. + +"What!" Sidwell smiled sceptically. "A cattle-man, and not refresh +yourself with good liquor? You refute all the precedents! Come over and +take something!" + +Ben only looked at him steadily. "I repeat, I never drink," he said +conclusively. + +Sidwell sat down, and Hough followed his lead. + +"All right, all right! Have a cigar, then. At least you smoke?" + +"Yes," assented Blair, "I smoke--sometimes." + +The host extended the box hospitably. "Help yourself. They're good ones, +I'll answer for that. I import them myself." + +Ben took a step forward, but his hands were still in his pockets. "Mr. +Sidwell," he said, "we may as well save time and try to understand each +other. In some ways I am a bit like an Indian. I never smoke except with +a friend, and I am not sure you are a friend of mine. To be candid with +you, I believe you are not." + +Hough stirred in his chair, but Sidwell remained impassive save that the +convivial smile vanished. + +A quarter of a minute passed. Once the host took up his glass as if to +drink, but put it down untasted. At last he indicated the vacant chair. + +"Won't you be seated?" he invited. + +Ben sat down. + +"You say," continued Sidwell, "that I am not your friend. The statement +and your actions carry the implication that of necessity, then, we must +be enemies." + +The speaker was sparring for time. His brain was not yet normal, but it +was clearing rapidly. He saw this was no ordinary man he had to deal +with, no ordinary circumstance; and his plan of campaign was unevolved. + +"I fail to see why," he continued. + +"Do you?" said Ben, quietly. + +Sidwell lit a cigar nonchalantly and smoked for a moment in silence. + +"Yes," he reiterated. "I fail to see why. To have made you an enemy +implies that I have done you an injury, and I recall no way in which I +could have offended you." + +Ben indicated Hough with a nod of his head. "Do you wish a third party +to hear what we have to say?" he inquired. + +Sidwell looked at the questioner narrowly. Deep in his heart he was +thankful that they two were not alone. He did not like the look in the +countryman's blue eyes. + +"Mr. Hough," he said with dignity, "is a friend of mine. If either of +you must leave the room, most assuredly it will not be he." His eyes +returned to those of the visitor, held there with an effort. "By the +bye," he challenged, "what is it we have to say, anyway? So far as I can +see, there's no point where we touch." + +Ben returned the gaze steadily. "Absolutely none?" he asked. + +"Absolutely none." Sidwell spoke with an air of finality. + +The countryman leaned a bit forward and rested his elbow upon his knee, +his chin upon his hand. + +"Suppose I suggest a point then: Miss Florence Baker." + +Sidwell stiffened with exaggerated dignity. "I never discuss my +relations with a lady, even with a friend. I should be less apt to do so +in speaking with a stranger." + +The lids of Ben's eyes tightened just a shade. "Then I'll have to ask +you to make an exception to the rule," he said slowly. + +"In that case," Sidwell responded quickly, "I'll refuse." + +For a moment silence fell. Through the open window came the ceaseless +drone of the shifting multitude on the street below. + +"Nevertheless, I insist," said Ben, calmly. + +Sidwell's face flushed, although he was quite sober now. "And I must +still refuse," he said, rising. "Moreover, I must request that you leave +the room. You forget that you are in my home!" + +Ben arose calmly and walked to the door through which he had entered. +The key was in the lock, and turning it he put it in his pocket. Still +without haste he returned to his seat. + +"That this is your home, and that you were its dictator before I came +and will be after I leave, I do not contest," he said; "but temporarily +the place has changed hands. I do not think you were quite in earnest +when you refused to talk with me." + +For answer, Sidwell jerked a cord beside the table. A bell rang +vigorously in the rear of the apartments, and the big negro hurried into +the room. + +"Alec," directed the master, "call a policeman at once! At once--do you +hear?" + +"Yes, sah," and the servant started to obey; but the visitor's eye +caught his. + +"Alec," said Ben, steadily, "don't do that! I'll be the first person to +leave this room!" + +Instantly Sidwell was on his feet, his face convulsed with passion. +"Curse you!" he cried. "You'll pay for this! I'll teach you what it +means to hold up a man in his own house!" He turned to his servant with +a look that made the latter recoil. "I want you to understand that when +I give an order I mean it. Go!" + +Blair was likewise on his feet, his long body stretched to its full +height, his blue eyes fastened upon the face of the panic-stricken +darky. + +"Alec," he repeated evenly, "you heard what I said." Without a motion +save of his head he indicated a seat in the corner of the room. "Sit +down!" + +Sidwell took a step forward, his clenched fists raised menacingly. + +"Blair! you--you--" + +"Yes." + +"You--" + +"Certainly, I--" + +That was all. It was not a lengthy conversation, or a brilliant one, but +it was adequate. Face to face, the two men stood looking in each other's +eyes, each taking his opponent's measure. Hough had also risen; he +expected bloodshed; but not once did Blair stir as much as an eyelid, +and after that first step Sidwell also halted. Beneath his supercilious +caste dominance he was a physical coward, and at the supreme test he +weakened. The flood of anger passed as swiftly as it had come, leaving +him impotent. He stood for a moment, and then the clenched fist dropped +to his side. + +For the first time, Ben Blair moved. Unemotionally as before, his nod +indicated the chair in the corner. + +"Sit over there as long as I stay, Alec," he directed; and the negro +responded with the alacrity of a well-trained dog. + +Ben turned to the big man. "And you, too, Hough. My business has nothing +to do with you, but it may be well to have a witness. Be seated, +please." + +Hough obeyed in silence. Sober as Sidwell now, his mind grasped the +situation, and in spite of himself he felt his sympathy going out to +this masterful plainsman. + +Ben Blair now turned to the host, and as he did so his wiry figure +underwent a transformation that lived long in the spectators' minds. +With his old characteristic motion, his hands went into his trousers' +pockets, his chest expanded, his great chin lifted until, looking down, +his eyes were half closed. + +"You, Mr. Sidwell," he said, "can stand or sit, as you please; but one +thing I warn you not to do--don't lie to me. We're in the home of lies +just now, but it can't help you. Your face says you are used to having +your own way, right or wrong. Now you'll know the reverse. So long as +you speak the truth, I won't hurt you, no matter what you say. If you +don't, and believe in God, you'd best make your peace with Him. Do you +doubt that?" + +One glance only Sidwell raised to the towering face, and his eyes fell. +Every trace of fight, of effrontery, had left him, and he dropped weakly +into his chair. + +"No, I don't doubt you," he said. + +Ben likewise sat down, but his eyes were inexorable. + +"First of all, then," he went on, "you will admit you were mistaken when +you said there was no point where we touched?" + +"Yes, I was mistaken." + +"And you were not serious when you refused to talk with me?" + +A spasm of repugnance shot over the host's dark face. He heard the +labored breathing of the negro in the corner, and felt the eyes of his +big friend upon him. + +"Yes, I was not serious," he admitted slowly. + +Ben's long legs crossed, his hands closed on the chair-arms. + +"Very well, then," he said. "Tell me what there is between you and Miss +Baker." + +Sidwell lit a cigar, though the hand that held the match trembled. + +"Everything, I hope," he said. "I intend marrying her." + +The ranchman's face gave no sign at the confession. + +"You have asked her, have you?" + +"No. Your coming prevented. I should otherwise have done so to-day." + +The long fingers on the chair-arms tightened until they grew white. + +"You knew why I came to town, did you not?" + +Sidwell hesitated. + +"I had an intuition," he admitted reluctantly. + +Again silence fell, and the subdued roar of the city came to their ears. + +"You have not called at the Baker home to-day," continued Blair. "Was it +consideration for me that kept you away?" The thin, weather-browned face +grew, if possible, more clean-cut. "Remember to talk straight." + +Sidwell took the cigar from his lips. An exultation he could not quite +repress flooded him. His eyes met the other's fair. + +"No," he said, "it was anything but consideration for you. I knew she +was going to refuse you." + +In the corner the negro's eyes widened. Even Hough held his breath; but +not a muscle of Ben Blair's body stirred. + +"You say you knew," he said evenly. "How did you know?" + +Sidwell flicked the ash from his cigar steadily. He was regaining, if +not his courage, at least some of his presence of mind. This seeming +desperado from the West was a being upon whom reason was not altogether +wasted. + +"I knew because her mother told me--about all there was to tell, I +guess--of your relations before Florence came here. I knew if she +refused you then she would be more apt to do so now." + +Still the figure in brown was that of a statue. + +"She told you--what--you say?" + +Sidwell shifted uncomfortably. He saw breakers ahead. + +"The--main reason at least," he modified. + +"Which was--" insistently. + +Sidwell hesitated, his new-found confidence vanishing like the smoke +from his cigar. But there was no escape. + +"The reason, she said, was because you were--minus a pedigree." + +The last words dropped like a bomb in the midst of the room. Ben Blair +swiftly rose from his seat. The negro's eyes rolled around in search of +some place of concealment. With a protesting movement Hough was on his +feet. + +"Gentlemen!" he implored. "Gentlemen!" + +But the intervention was unnecessary. Ben Blair had settled back in his +seat. Once more his hands were on the chair-arms. + +"Do you," he insinuated gently, "consider the reason she gave an +adequate one? Do you consider that it had any rightful place in the +discussion?" + +The question, seemingly simple, was hard to answer. An affirmative +trembled on the city man's tongue. He realized it was his opportunity +for a crushing rejoinder. But cold blue eyes were upon him and the +meaning of their light was only too clear. + +"I can understand the lady's point of view," he said evasively. + +Ben Blair leaned forward, the great muscles of his jaw and temples +tightening beneath the skin. + +"I did not ask for the lady's point of view," he admonished, "I asked +for your own." + +Again Sidwell felt his opportunity, but physical cowardice intervened. +No power on earth could have made him say "yes" when the other looked at +him like that. + +"No," he lied, "I do not see that it should make the slightest +difference." + +"On your honor, you swear you do not?" + +Sidwell repeated the statement, and sealed it with his honor. + +Ben Blair relaxed, and Hough mopped his brow with a sigh of relief. Even +Sidwell felt the respite, but it was short-lived. + +"I think," Ben resumed, "that what you've just said and sworn to gives +the lie to your original statement that you have given me no cause for +enmity. According to your own showing you are the one existing obstacle +between Florence Baker and myself. Is it not so?" + +Like a condemned criminal, Sidwell felt the noose tightening. + +"I can't deny it," he admitted. + +For some seconds Ben Blair looked at him with an expression almost +menacing. When he again spoke the first trace of passion was in his +voice. + +"Such being the case, Clarence Sidwell," he went on, "caring for +Florence Baker as I do, and knowing you as I do, why in God's name +should I leave you, coward, in possession of the dearest thing to me in +the world?" For an instant the voice paused, the protruding lower jaw +advanced until it became a positive disfigurement. "Tell me why I should +sacrifice my own happiness for yours. I have had enough of this +word-play. Speak!" + +In every human life there is at some time a supreme moment, a tragic +climax of events; and Sidwell realized that for him this moment had +arrived. Moreover, it had found him helpless and unprepared. Artificial +to the bone, he was fundamentally disqualified to meet such an +emergency; for artifice or subterfuge would not serve him now. One hasty +glance into that relentless face caused him to turn his own away. Long +ago, in the West, he had once seen a rustler hung by a posse of +ranchers. The inexorable expression he remembered on the surrounding +faces was mirrored in Ben Blair's. His brain whirled; he could not +think. His hand passed aimlessly over his face; he started to speak, but +his voice failed him. + +Ben Blair shifted forward in his seat. The long sinewy fingers gripped +the chair like a panther ready to spring. + +"I am listening," he admonished. + +Sidwell felt the air of the room grow stifling. A big clock was ticking +on the wall, and it seemed to him the second-beats were minutes apart. +His downcast eyes just caught the shape of the hands opposite him, and +in fancy he felt them already tightening upon his throat. Like a +drowning man, scenes in his past life swarmed through his brain. He saw +his mother, his sisters, at home in the old family mansion; his friends +at the club, chatting, laughing, drinking, smoking. In an impersonal +sort of way he wondered how they would feel, what they would say, when +they heard. On the vision swept. It was Florence Baker he saw +now--Florence, all in fleecy white; the girl and himself were on the +broad veranda of the Baker home. They were not alone. Another +figure--yes, this same menacing figure now so near--was on the walk +below them, his broad-brimmed hat in his hand, but leaving. Florence +was speaking; a smile was upon her lips. + +Like a flash of lightning the images of fancy passed, the present +returned. At last came the solution once before suggested,--the +back-fire! Sidwell straightened, every nerve in his body tense. He +spoke--and scarcely recognized his own voice. + +"There is a reason," he said, "a very adequate reason, one which +concerns another more than it does us." With a supreme effort of will +the man met the blue eyes of his opponent squarely. "It is because +Florence Baker loves me and doesn't love you. Because she would never +forgive you, never, if you did--what you think of doing now." + +For an instant the listening figure remained tense, and it seemed to +Sidwell that his own pulse ceased beating; then the long sinewy body +collapsed as under a physical blow. + +"God!" said a low voice. "I forgot!" + +Not one of the three spectators stirred or spoke. Like sheep, they +awaited the lead of their master. + +And it came full soon. Stiffly, clumsily, still in silence, Ben Blair +arose. His face was drawn and old, his step was slow and halting. Like +one walking in his sleep, he made his way to the door, took the key from +his pocket, and turned the lock. Not once did he speak or glance back. +The door closed softly, and he was gone. + +Behind him for a second there was silence, inactive incredulity as at a +miracle performed; then, in a blaze of long repressed fury, Sidwell +stood beside the table. Not pausing for a glass, he raised the red +decanter to his lips and drank, drank, as though the liquor were water. + +"Curse him! I'll marry that girl now if for no other reason than to get +even with him. If it's the last act of my life, I swear I'll marry +her!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE UPPER AND THE NETHER MILLSTONES + + +Out on the street once more, Ben Blair looked about him as one awakening +from a dream. From the darkened arch of a convenient doorway he watched +the endless passing throng with a dull sort of wonder. He was surprised +that the city should be awake at that late hour; and stepping out into +the light he held up his watch. The hands indicated a few minutes past +ten, and in surprise he carried the timepiece to his ear. Yes, it was +running, and must be correct. He had seemed to be up there on the +eleventh floor for hours; but as a matter of fact it had been only +minutes. Practically, the whole night was yet before him. + +Slowly, in a listless way, he started to walk back to his hotel. Instead +of the night becoming cooler it had grown sultrier, and in places the +walk was fairly packed with human beings. More than once he had to turn +out of his way to pass the chattering groups. In so doing he was often +conscious that the flow of small talk suddenly ceased, and that, nudging +each other, the chatterers pointed his way. At first he looked about to +see what had attracted them, but he very soon realized that he himself +was the object of attention. Even here, cosmopolitan as were the +surroundings, he was a marked man, was recognized as a person from a +wholly different life; and his feeling of isolation deepened. He moved +on more swiftly. + +The sidewalk in front of his hotel was fringed with a row of chairs, in +which sat guests in various stages of negligee costume. Nearly every man +was smoking, and the effect in the semi-darkness was like that of +footlights turned low. Steps and lobby were likewise crowded; but Ben +made his way straight to his room. One idea now possessed him. His +business was finished, and he wanted to be away. Turning on a light, he +found a railroad guide and ran down the columns of figures. There was no +late night train going West; he must wait until morning. Extinguishing +the light, he drew a chair to the open window and lit a cigar. + +With physical inactivity, consciousness of his surroundings forced +themselves on his attention. Subdued, pulsating, penetrating, the murmur +of the great hotel came to his ears; the drone of indistinguishable +voices, the pattering footsteps of bell-boys and _habitues_, the purr of +the elevator as it moved from floor to floor, the click of the gate as +it stopped at his own level, the renewed monotone as it passed by. + +Continuous, untiring, the sounds suggested the unthinking vitality of a +steam-engine or of a dynamo in a powerhouse. A mechanic by nature, as a +school-boy Ben had often induced Scotty to take him to the electric +light station, where he had watched the great machines with a +fascination bordering on awe, until fairly dragged away by the prosaic +Englishman. This feeling of his childhood recurred to him now with +irresistible force. The throb of the motor of human life was pulsating +in his ears; but added to it was something more, something elusive, +intangible, but all-powerful. The moment he had arrived within the city +limits he had felt the first trace of its presence. As he approached the +centre of congestion it had deepened, had become more and more a guiding +influence. Since then, by day or by night, wherever he went, augmenting +or diminishing, it was constantly with him. And it was not with him +alone. Every human being with whom he came in contact was likewise +consciously or unconsciously under the spell. The crowds he had passed +on the streets were unthinkingly answering its guidance. The trolley +cars echoed its voice. It was the spirit of unrest--a thing ubiquitous +and all-penetrating as the air that filled their lungs--a subtle +stimulant that they took in with every breath. + +Ben Blair arose and put on his hat. He had been sitting only a few +minutes, but he felt that he could not longer bear the inactivity. To do +so meant to think; and thought was the thing that to-night he was +attempting to avoid. Moreover, for one of the few times in his life he +could remember he was desperately lonely. It seemed to him that nowhere +within a thousand miles was another of his own kind. Instinctively he +craved relief, and that alleviation could come in but one way,--through +physical activity. Again he sought the street. + +To some persons a great relief from loneliness is found in mingling with +a crowd, even though it be of strangers; but Ben was not like these. His +desire was to be away as far as possible from the maddening drone. +Boarding a street car, he rode out into the residence section, clear to +the end of the loop; then, alighting, he started to walk back. A full +moon had arisen, and outside the shadow-blots of trees and buildings the +earth was all alight. The asphalt of the pavements and the cement of the +walks glistened white under its rays. Loth to sacrifice the comparative +out-of-door coolness for the heat within, practically every house had +its group on the doorsteps, or scattered upon the narrow lawns. +Accustomed to magnificent distances, to boundless miles of surrounding +country, to privacy absolute, Ben watched this scene with a return of +the old wonder,--the old feeling of isolation, of separateness. Side by +side, young men and women, obviously lovers, kept their places, +indifferent to his observation. Other couples, still more careless, sat +with circling arms and faces close together, returning his gaze +impassively. Nothing, apparently, in the complex gamut of human nature +was sacred to these folk. To the solitary spectator, the revelation was +more depressing than even the down-town unrest; and he hurried on. + +Further ahead he came to the homes of the wealthy,--great piles of stone +and brick, that seemed more like hotels than residences. The forbidding +darkness of many of the houses testified that their owners were out of +town, at the seaside or among the mountains; but others were brilliantly +lighted from basement to roof. Before one a long line of carriages was +drawn up. Stiffly liveried footmen, impassive as automatons, waited the +erratic pleasure of their masters. A little group of spectators was +already gathered, and Ben likewise paused, observing the spectacle +curiously. + +A social event of some sort was in progress. From some concealed place +came the music of a string orchestra. Every window of the great pile was +open for ventilation, and Ben could hear and see almost as plainly as +the guests themselves. For a time, deep, insistent, throbbing in +measured beat, came the drone of the 'cello, the wail of the clarionet, +and, faintly audible beneath, the rustle of moving feet. Then the music +ceased; and a few seconds later a throng of heated dancers swarmed +through the open doorway to the surrounding veranda, and simultaneously +a chatter broke forth. Fans, like gigantic butterfly wings, vibrated to +and fro. Skilful waiters, in black and white, glanced in and out. +Laughter, thoughtless and care-free, mingled in the general scene. + +The music still, Ben Blair was about to move on, when suddenly a man and +a girl in the shadow of a window on the second floor caught and held his +attention. As far as he could see, they were alone. Evidently one or the +other of them knew the house intimately, and had deliberately sought the +place. From the veranda beneath, the flow of talk continued +uninterruptedly; but they gave it no attention. The spectator could +distinctly see the man as he leaned back in the light and spoke +earnestly. At times he gesticulated with rapid passionate motions, such +as one unconsciously uses when deeply absorbed. Now and again, with the +bodily motions that we have learned to connect with the French, his +shoulders were shrugged expressively. He was obviously talking against +time; for his every motion showed intense concentration. No spectator +could have mistaken the nature of his speech. Passion supreme, abandon +absolute, were here personified. As he spoke, he gradually leaned +farther forward toward the woman who listened. His face was no longer in +the light. Suddenly, at first low, as though coming from a distance, +increasing gradually until it throbbed into the steady beat of a waltz, +the music recommenced. It was the signal for action and for throwing off +restraint. The man leaned forward; his arm stretched out and closed +about the figure of the woman. His face pressed forward to meet hers, +again and again. + +Not Ben alone, but a half-dozen other spectators had watched the scene. +An overdressed girl among the number tittered at the sight. + +But Ben scarcely noticed. With the strength of insulted womanhood, the +girl had broken free, and now stood up full in the light. One look she +gave to the man, a look which should have withered him with its scorn; +then, gathering her skirts, she almost ran from the room. + +Only a few seconds had the girl's face been clear of the shadow; yet it +had been long enough to permit recognition, and instantly liquid fire +flowed in the veins of Benjamin Blair. His breath came quick and short +as that of a runner passing under the wire, and his great jaw set. The +woman he had seen was Florence Baker. + +With one motion he was upon the terrace leading toward the house. +Another second, and he would have been well upon his way, when a hand +grasped him from behind and drew him back. With a half-articulated +imprecation Ben turned--and stood fronting Scotty Baker. The +Englishman's face was very white. Behind the compound lenses his eyes +glowed in a way Ben had not thought possible; but his voice was steady +when he spoke. + +"I saw too, Ben," he said, "and I understand. I know what you want to +do, and God knows I want to do the same thing myself; but it would do no +good; it would only make the matter worse." He looked at the younger man +fixedly, almost imploringly. His voice sank. "As you care for Florence, +Ben, go away. Don't make a scene that will do only harm. Leave her with +me. I came to take her home, and I'll do so at once." The speaker +paused, and his hand reached out and grasped the other's with a grip +unmistakable. "I appreciate your motive, my boy, and I honor it. I know +how you feel; and whatever I may have been in the past, from this time +on I am your friend. I am your friend now, when I ask you to go," and he +fairly forced his companion away. + +Once outside the crowd, Ben halted. He gave the Englishman one long +look; his lips opened as if to speak; then, without a word, he moved +away. + +There was no listlessness about him now. He was throbbing with repressed +energy, like a great engine with steam up. His feet tapped with the +regularity of clock-ticks over mile after mile of the city walks. He +longed for physical weariness, for sleep; but the day, with its manifold +mental exaltations and depressions, prevented. It seemed to him that he +could never sleep again, could never again be weary. He could only walk +on and on. + +Down town again, he found the crowds smaller and the border of chairs in +front of his hotel largely empty. A few cigars still burned in the +half-light, but they were the last flicker of a conflagration now all +but extinguished. The restless throb of the human dynamo was lower and +more subdued. The street cars were practically empty. Instead of a +constant stream of vehicles, an occasional cab clattered past. The city +was preparing for its brief hours of fitful rest. + +Straight on Ben walked, between the towering office buildings, beside +the now darkened department-store hives, past the giant wholesale +establishments and warehouses; until, quite unintentionally on his part, +and almost before he realized it, he found himself in another world, +another city, as distinct as though it were no part of the cosmopolitan +whole. Again he came upon throbbing life; but of quite another type. +Once more he met people in abundance, noisy, chattering human beings; +but more frequently than his own he now heard foreign tongues that he +did not understand, and did not even recognize. No longer were the +pedestrians well dressed or apparently prosperous. Instead, poverty and +squalor and filth were rampant. More loth even than the well-to-do of +the suburbs to go within doors, the swarming mass of humanity covered +the steps of the houses, and overflowed upon the sidewalk, even upon the +street itself. There were men, women, children; the lame, the halt, the +blind. The elders stared at the visitor, while the youngsters, secure +in numbers, guyed him to their hearts' content. + +It was all as foreign to any previous experience of this countryman as +though he had come from a different planet. He had read of the city +slums as of Stanley's Central African negro tribes with unpronounceable +names; and he had thought of them in much the same way. To him they had +been something known to exist, but with which it was but remotely +probable he would ever come in contact. Now, without preparation or +premeditation, thrown face to face with the reality, it brought upon him +a sickening feeling, a sort of mental nausea. Ben was not a +philanthropist or a social reformer; the inspiring thought of the +inexhaustible field for usefulness therein presented had never occurred +to him. He wished chiefly to get away from the stench and ugliness; and, +turning down a cross street, he started to return. + +The locality he now entered was more modern and better lighted than the +one he left behind. The decorated building fronts, with their dazzling +electric signs, partook of the characteristics of the inhabitants, who +seemed overdressed and vulgarly ostentatious. The gaudily trapped +saloons, _cafes_, and music halls, spoke a similar message. This was the +recreation spot of the people of the quarter; their land of lethe. So +near were the saloons and drinking gardens that from their open doorways +there came a pungent odor of beer. Every place had instrumental music of +some kind. Mandolins and guitars, in the hands of gentlemen of color, +were the favorites. Pianos of execrable tone, played by youths with +defective complexions, or by machinery, were a close second. Before one +place, a crowd blocked the sidewalk; and there Ben stopped. A vaudeville +performance was going on within--an invisible dialect comedian doing a +German stunt to the accompaniment of wooden clogs and disarranged verbs. +A barker in front, coatless, his collar loosened, a black string tie +dangling over an unclean shirt front, was temporarily taking a +much-needed rest. An electric sign overhead dyed his cheeks with +shifting colors--first red, then green, then white. Despite its veneer +of brazen effrontery, the face, with its great mouth and two days' +growth of beard, was haggard and weary looking. Ben mentally pictured, +with a feeling of compassion, other human beings doing their idiotic +"stunts" inside, sweltering in the foul air; and he wondered how, if an +atom of self-respect remained in their make-up, they could fail to +despise themselves. + +But the comedian had subsided in a roar of applause, and again the +barker's hands were gesticulating wildly. + +"Now's your time, ladies and gentlemen," he harangued. "It's continuous, +you know, and Madame--" + +But Ben did not wait for more. Elbow first, he pushed into the crowd, +and as it instantly closed about him the odor of unclean bodies made him +fairly hold his breath. + +Straight ahead, looking neither to right nor to left, went the +countryman; he turned the corner of the block, a corner without a light. +Suddenly, with an instinctive tightening of his breath, he drew back. He +had nearly stepped upon a man, dead drunk, stretched half in a darkened +doorway, half on the walk. The wretch's head was bent back over one of +the iron steps until it seemed as if he must choke, and he was snoring +heavily. + +Not a policeman was in sight, and Ben, in great physical disgust, +carried the helpless hulk to one side, out of the way of pedestrians, +took off the tattered coat and rolled it into a pillow for the head, and +then moved on with the sound of the stertorous drunken breathing still +in his ears. + +Still other experiences were in store for him. He made a half block +without further interruption; then he suddenly heard at his back a +frightened scream, and a young woman came running toward him, followed +at a distance by a roughly dressed man, the latter apparently the worse +for liquor. Blair stopped, and the girl coming up, caught him by the arm +imploringly. + +"Help me, Mister, please!" she pleaded breathlessly. "He--Tom, back +there--insulted me. I--" A burst of hysterical tears interrupted the +confession. + +Meanwhile, seeing the turn events had taken, the pursuer had likewise +stopped, and now he hesitated. + +"All right," replied Ben. "Go ahead! I'll see that the fellow doesn't +trouble you again." And he started back. + +But the girl's hand was again upon his arm. "No," she protested, "not +that way, please. He's my steady, Tom is, only to-night he's drank too +much, and--and--he doesn't realize what he's doing." The grip on his arm +tightened as she looked imploringly into his face. "Take me home, +please!" A catch was in her voice. "I'm afraid." + +Ben hesitated. Even in the half-light the petitioner's face hinted +brazenly of cosmetics. + +"Where do you live?" he asked shortly. + +"Only a little way, less than a block, and it's the direction you're +going. Please take me!" + +"Very well," said Blair, and they moved on, the girl still clinging to +him and sobbing at intervals. Before a dark three-story and basement +building, with a decidedly sinister aspect, she stopped and indicated a +stairway. + +"This is the place." + +"All right," responded Ben. "I guess you're safe now. Good-night!" + +But she clung to him the tighter. "Come up with me," she insisted. +"We're only on the second floor, and I haven't thanked you yet. Really, +I'm so grateful! You don't know what it means to be a girl, and--and--" +Her feelings got the better of her again, and she paused to wipe her +eyes on her sleeve. "My mother will be so thankful too. She'd never +forgive me if I didn't bring you up. Please come!" and she led the way +up the darkened stair. + +Again Ben hesitated. He did not in the least like the situation in which +circumstances had placed him. The prospect of the girl's mother, like +herself, scattering grateful tears upon him was not alluring; but it +seemed the part of a cad to refuse, and at last he followed. + +His guide led him up a short flight of stairs and turned to the right, +down a dimly lighted hall. The ground-floor of the building was used for +store purposes. This second floor was evidently a series of apartments. +Lights from within the rooms crept over the curtained transoms. Voices +sounded; glasses clinked. A piano banged out ragtime like mad. + +At the fourth door the girl stopped. "Thank you so much for coming," she +said. "Walk right in," and throwing open the door she fairly shoved the +visitor inside. + +From out the semi-darkness, Ben now found himself in a well-lighted +room, and the change made him blink about him. Instead of the motherly +old lady in a frilled cap, whom he had expected to see, he found himself +in the company of a half-dozen coatless young men and under-dressed +women, lounging in questionable attitudes on chairs and sofas. At his +advent they all looked up. A sallow youth who had been operating the +piano turned in his seat and the music stopped. Not yet realizing the +trick that had been played upon him, Ben turned to look for his guide; +but she was nowhere in sight, and the door was closed. His eyes shifted +back and met a circle of amused faces, while a burst of mocking laughter +broke upon his ears. + +Then for the first time he understood, and his face went white with +anger. Without a word he started to leave the room. But one of the women +was already at his side, her detaining hand upon his sleeve. "No, no, +honey!" she said, insinuatingly. "We're all good fellows! Stay awhile!" + +Ben shook her off roughly. Her very touch was contaminating. But one of +the men had had time to get between him and the door; a sarcastic smile +was upon his face as he blocked the way. + +"I guess it's on you, old man!" he bantered. "About a half-dozen quarts +will do for a starter!" He nodded to a pudgy old woman who was watching +interestedly from the background. "You heard the gent's order, mother! +Beer, and in a hurry! He looks dry and hot." + +Again a gale of laughter broke forth; but Ben took no notice. He made +one step forward, until he was within arm's reach of the humorist. + +"Step out of my way, please," he said evenly. + +Had the man been alone he would have complied, and quickly. No human +being with eyes and intelligence could have misread the warning on Ben +Blair's countenance. He started to move, when the girl who had first +come forward turned the tide. + +"Aw, Charley!" she goaded. "Is that all the nerve you've got!" and she +laughed ironically. + +Instantly the man's face reddened, and he fell back into his first +position. + +"Sorry I can't oblige you, pal," he said, "but you see it's agin de +house. Us blokes has got--" + +The sentence was never completed. Ben's fist shot out and caught the +speaker fair on the point of his jaw, and he collapsed in his tracks. +For a second no one in the room stirred; then before Ben could open the +door, the other men were upon him. The women fled screaming to the +farthest corner of the room, where they huddled together like sheep. +Returning with the tray, the old woman realized an only too familiar +condition. + +"Gentlemen!" she pleaded. "Gentlemen!" + +But no one paid the slightest attention to her. Forced by sheer odds of +mass toward a corner, Ben's long arms were working like flails. Another +man fell, and was up again. The first one also was upon his feet now, +his face white, and a tiny stream of blood trickling from his bruised +jaw. A heavy beer-bottle flung by one of the women crashed on the wall +over the countryman's head, the contents spattering over him like rain. +One of the men had seized a chair and swung it high, to strike, with +murder in his eye. Attracted by the confusion, the other occupants of +the floor had rushed into the hall. The door was flung open and +instantly blocked with a mass of sinister menacing faces. + +Until then, Ben had been silent as death, silent as one who realizes +that he is fighting for life against overwhelming odds. Now of a sudden +he leaped backward like a great cat, clear of all the others. From his +throat there issued a sound, the like of which not one of those who +listened had ever heard before, and which fairly lifted their hair--the +Indian war-whoop that the man had learned as a boy. With the old +instinctive motion, comparable in swiftness to nothing save the passage +of light, the cowboy's hands went to his hips, and as swiftly returned +with the muzzles of two great revolvers protruding like elongated index +fingers. With equal swiftness, his face had undergone a transformation. +His jaw was set and his blue eyes flashed like live coals. + +"Stand back, little folks!" he ordered, while the twin weapons revolved +in circles of reflected flame about his trigger fingers. "You seem to +want a show, and you shall have it!" The whirling circles vanished. A +deep report fell upon the silence, and a gaudy vase on the mantle flew +into a thousand pieces. "Stand back, people, or you might get hurt!" + +Awed into dumb helplessness, the spectators stared with widening eyes; +but the spectacle had only begun. Like the reports of giant +fire-crackers, only seconds apart, the great revolvers spoke. A nudely +suggestive cast in the corner followed the vase. A quaintly carved clock +paused in its measure of time, its hands chronicling the minute of +interruption. A decanter of whiskey burst spattering over a table. Two +bacchanalian pictures on the wall suddenly had yawning wounds in their +centre. The portrait of a queen of the footlights leaped into the air. +One of the beer-bottles, which the madame had placed on a convenient +table, popped as though it were champagne. Fragments of glass and +porcelain fell about like hail. The place was lighted by a tuft of three +big incandescent globes; and, last of all, one by one, they crashed into +atoms, and the room was in total darkness. Then silence fell, startling +in contrast to the late confusion, while the pungent odor of burnt +gunpowder intruded upon the nostrils. + +For a moment there was inaction; then the assembly broke into motion. No +thought was there now of retaliation or revenge; only, as at a sudden +conflagration or a wreck, of individual safety and escape. The hallway +was cleared as if by magic. Within the room the men and women jostled +each other in the darkness, or jammed imprecating in the narrow doorway. +In a few seconds Ben was alone. Calmly he thrust the empty revolvers +back into his pockets and followed leisurely into the hall. There the +dim light revealed an empty space; but here and there a lock turned +gratingly, and from more than one room as he passed came the sound of +furniture being hastily drawn forward as a barricade. + +No human being ever knew what occurred behind the locked door of Ben +Blair's room at the hotel that night. Those hours were buried as deep as +what took place in his mind during the months intervening between the +coming of Florence Baker to the city and his own decision to follow her. +By nature a solitary, he fought his battles alone and in silence. That +he never once touched his bed, the hotel maids could have testified the +next morning. As to the decision that followed those sleepless hours, +his own action gave a clue. He had left a call for an early train West, +and at daylight a tap sounded on his door, while a voice announced the +time. + +"Yes," answered the guest; but he did not stir. + +In a few minutes the tap was repeated more insistently. "You've only +time to make your train if you hurry," warned the voice. + +For a moment Blair did not answer. Then he said: "I have decided not to +go." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +OF WHAT AVAIL? + + +It was late next morning, almost noon in fact, when Florence Baker +awoke; and even then she did not at once rise. A physical listlessness, +very unusual to her, lay upon her like a weight. A year ago, by this +time of day, she would have been ravenously hungry; but now she had a +feeling that she could not have taken a mouthful of food had her life +depended on it. The room, although it faced the west and was well +ventilated, seemed hot and depressing. A breeze stirred the lace +curtains at the window, but it was heated by the blocks of city +pavements over which it had come. The girl involuntarily compared this +awakening with that of a former life in what now seemed to her the very +long ago. She remembered the light morning wind of the prairies, which, +always fresh with the coolness of dew and of growing things, had drifted +in at the tiny windows of the Baker ranch-house. She recalled the sweet +scent of the buffalo grass with a vague sense of depression and +irrevocable loss. + +She turned restlessly beneath the covers, and in doing so her face came +in contact with the moistened surface of her pillow. Propping herself up +on her elbow, she looked curiously at the tell-tale bit of linen. +Obviously, she had been crying in her sleep; and for this there must +have been a reason. Until that moment she had not thought of the +previous night; but now the sudden recollection overwhelmed her. She was +only a girl-woman--a child of nature, incapable of repression. Two great +tears gathered in her soft brown eyes; with instinctive desire of +concealment the fluffy head dropped to the pillow, and the sobs broke +out afresh. + +Minutes passed; then her mother's hesitating steps approached the door. + +"Florence," called a voice. "Florence, are you well?" + +The dishevelled brown head lifted, but the girl made no motion to let +her mother in. + +"Yes--I am well," she echoed. + +For a moment Mrs. Baker hesitated, but she was too much in awe of her +daughter to enter uninvited. + +"I have a note for you," she announced. "Mr. Sidwell's man Alec just +brought it. He says there's to be an answer." + +But still the girl did not move. It was an unpropitious time to mention +the club-man's name. The fascination of such as he fades at early +morning; it demands semi-darkness or artificial light. Just now the +thought of him was distinctly depressing, like the sultry breeze that +wandered in at the window. + +"Very well," said Florence, at last. "Leave it, please, and tell Alec to +wait. I'll be down directly." + +In response, an envelope with a monogram in the corner was slipped in +under the door, and the bearer's footsteps tapped back into silence. + +Slowly the girl crawled from her bed, but she did not at once take up +the note. Instead, she walked over to the dresser, and, leaning on its +polished top, gazed into the mirror at the reflection of her +tear-stained face, with its mass of disarranged hair. It was not a happy +face that she saw; and just at this moment it looked much older than it +really was. The great brown eyes inspected it critically and +relentlessly. + +"Florence Baker," she said to the face in the mirror, "you are getting +to be old and haggard." A prophetic glimpse of the future came to her +suddenly. "A few years more, and you will not be even--good-looking." + +She stood a moment longer, then, walking over to the door, she picked up +the envelope and tore it open. + +"Miss Baker," ran the note, "there is to be an informal little +gathering--music, dancing, and a few things cool--at the Country Club +this evening. You already know most of the people who will be there. May +I call for you?--Sidwell." + +Florence read the missive slowly; then slowly returned it to its cover. +There was no need to tell her the meaning of the unwritten message she +read between the lines of those few brief sentences. It is only in +story-books that human beings do not even suspect the inevitable until +it arrives. As well as she knew her own name, she realized that in her +answer to that evening's invitation lay the choice of her future life. +She was at the turning of the ways--a turning that admitted of no +reconsideration. Dividing at her feet, each equally free, were the +trails of the natural and the artificial. For a time they kept side by +side; but in the distance they were as separate as the two ends of the +earth. By no possibility could both be followed. She must choose between +them, and abide by her decision for good or for ill. + +As slowly as she had read the note, Florence dressed; and even then she +did not leave the room. Bathing her reddened eyes, she drew a chair in +front of the window and gazed wistfully down at the handful of green +grass, with the unhealthy-looking elm in its centre, which made the +Baker lawn. Against her will there came to her a vision of the natural, +impersonated in the form of Ben Blair as she had seen him yesterday. +Masterful, optimistic, compellingly honest, splendidly vital, with loves +and hates like elemental forces of nature, he intruded upon her horizon +at every crisis. Try as she would to eliminate him from her life, she +could not do it. With a little catch of the breath she remembered that +last night, when that man had done--what he did--it was not of what her +father or Clarence Sidwell would think, if either of them knew, but of +what Ben Blair would think, what he would do, that she most cared. +Reluctant as she might be to admit it even to herself, yet in her inner +consciousness she knew that this prairie man had a power over her that +no other human being would ever have. Still, knowing this, she was +deliberately turning away from him. If she accepted that invitation for +to-night, with all that it might mean, the separation from Ben would be +irrevocable. Once more the brown head dropped into the waiting hands, +and the shoulders rocked to and fro in indecision and perplexity. + +"God help me!" she pleaded, in the first prayer she had voiced in +months. "God help me!" + +Again footsteps approached her door, and a hand tapped insistently +thereon. + +"Florence," said her father's voice. "Are you up?" + +The girl lifted her head. "Yes," she answered. + +"Let me in, then." The insistence that had been in the knock spoke in +the voice. "I wish to speak with you." + +Instantly an expression almost of repulsion flashed over the girl's +brown face. Never in his life had the Englishman understood his +daughter. He was a glaring example of those who cannot catch the +psychological secret of human nature in a given situation. From the +girl's childhood he had been complaisant when he should have been +severe, had stepped in with the parental authority recognized by his +race when he should have held aloof. + +"Some other time, please," replied Florence. "I don't feel like talking +to-day." + +Scotty's knuckles met the door-panel with a bang. "But I do feel like +it," he responded; "and the inclination is increasing every moment. You +would try the patience of Job himself. Come, I'm waiting!" and he +shifted from one foot to the other restlessly. + +Within the room there was a pause, so long that the Englishman thought +he was going to be refused point-blank; then an even voice said, "Come +in," and he entered. + +He had expected to find Florence defiant and aggressive at the +intrusion. If he did not understand this daughter of his, he at least +knew, or thought he knew, a few of her phases. But she had not even +risen from her seat, and when he entered she merely turned her head +until her eyes met his. Scotty felt his parental dignity vanishing like +smoke,--his feelings very like those of a burglar who, invading a +similar boudoir, should find the rightful owner at prayer. His first +instinct was to beat a retreat, and he stopped uncertainly just within +the doorway. + +"Well?" questioned Florence, and the pupils of her brown eyes widened. + +Scotty flushed, but memory of the impassive Alec waiting below returned, +and his anger arose. + +"How much longer are you going to keep that negro waiting?" he demanded. +"He has been here an hour already by the clock." + +A look of almost childlike surprise came over the face of the girl, an +expression implying that the other was making a mountain out of a +mole-hill. "I really don't know," she said. + +Scotty took a chair, and ran his long fingers through his hair +perplexedly. "Florence," he said, "at times you are simply maddening; +and I do not want to be angry with you. Alec says he is waiting for an +answer. What is it an answer to, please? It is my right to know." + +Again there was a pause, so long that Scotty expected unqualified +refusal: and again he was disappointed. Without a word, the girl removed +the note from the envelope and passed it over to him. + +Scotty read it and returned the sheet. + +"You haven't written an answer yet, I judge?" + +"No." + +The Englishman's fingers were tapping nervously on the edge of the +chair-seat. + +"I wish you to decline, then." + +The childish expression left the girl's eyes, the listlessness left her +attitude. + +"Why, if I may ask?" A challenge was in the query. + +Scotty arose, and for a half-minute walked back and forth across the +disordered room. At last he stopped, facing his daughter. + +"The reason, first of all, is that I do not like this man Sidwell in any +particular. If you respect my wishes you will have nothing to do with +him or with any of his class in future. The second reason is that it is +high time some one was watching the kind of affairs you attend." The +speaker looked down on the girl sternly. "I think it unnecessary to +suggest that neither of us desires a repetition of last night's +experience." + +Of a sudden, her face very red, Florence was likewise upon her feet. In +the irony of circumstances, Sidwell could not have had a more powerful +ally. Her decision was instantly formed. + +"I quite agree with you about the incident of last evening," she flamed. +"As to who shall be my associates, and where I shall go, however, I am +of age--" and she started to leave the room. + +But preventing, Scotty was between her and the door. "Florence,"--his +face was very white and his voice trembled,--"we may as well have an +understanding now as to defer it. Maybe, as you say, I have no authority +over you longer; but at least I can make a request. You know that I +love you, that I would not ask anything which was not for your good. +Knowing this, won't you at my request cease going with this man? Won't +you refuse his invitation for to-night?" + +Nearer than ever before in his life was the Englishman at that moment to +grasping the secret of control of this child of many moods. Had he but +learned it a few years, even a few months, sooner--But again was the +satire of fate manifest, the same irony which, jealously withholding the +rewards of labor, keeps the student at his desk, the laborer at his +bench, until the worse than useless prizes flutter about like Autumn +leaves. + +For a moment following Scotty's request there was absolute silence and +inaction; then, with a little appealing movement, the girl came close to +him. + +"Oh, daddy!" she cried. "Dear old daddy! You make it so hard for me! I +know you love me, and I do want to do as you wish; I want to be good; +but--but"--the brown head was upon Scotty's shoulder, and two soft arms +gripped him tight,--"but," the voice was all but choking, "I can't let +him go now. It's too late!" + + * * * * * + +The driving of his own conveyance was to Sidwell a source of pride. It +was therefore no surprise to Florence that at dusk he and his pair of +thoroughbreds should appear alone. The girl, very grave, very quiet, had +been waiting for him, and was ready almost before he stopped. With a +smile of parental pride upon her face, Mollie was on the porch to say +good-bye. At the last moment she approached and kissed her daughter on +the cheek. Not in months before had the mother done such a thing as +that; and despite herself, as she walked toward the waiting carriage, +there came to the girl the thought of another historic kiss, and of a +Judas, the betrayer. Once within the narrow single-seated buggy she +looked back, hoping against hope; but her father was nowhere in sight. + +After the first greeting, neither she nor Sidwell spoke for some +minutes. For a time Florence did not even look at her companion. She had +a suspicion that he already knew most if not all that had taken place in +the Baker home the last day; and the thought tinged her face scarlet. At +last she gave a furtive glance at him. He was not looking, and her eyes +lingered on his face. It was paler than she had ever seen it before; +there were deep circles under the eyes, and he looked nervous and tired; +but over it all there was an expression of exaltation that could have +but one meaning to her. + +"You must let me read it when you get it in shape," she began suddenly. + +Sidwell turned blankly. "Read what, please?" he asked. + +The girl smiled triumphantly. "The story you have just written. I know +by your face it must be good." + +The flame of exaltation vanished. The man understood now. + +"What if I should refute your theory?" he asked. + +"I hardly believe that is possible. I know of nothing else which could +make you look like that." + +Sidwell hesitated. "There are but few things," he admitted, "but +nevertheless I spoke the truth. It was one of them this time." + +Florence smiled interestedly. "I am very curious," she suggested. + +The brown eyes and the black met steadily. "Very well, then," said the +man, "I'll tell you. The reason was, because I have with me the +handsomest girl in the whole city." + +Instantly the brown eyes dropped; the face reddened, but not with the +flush of pleasure. Florence was not yet sufficiently artificial for such +empty compliment. + +"I'd rather you wouldn't say such things," she said simply. "They hurt +me." + +"But not when they're true," he persisted. + +There was no answer, and they drove on again in silence; the tap of the +thoroughbreds' feet on the asphalt sounding regular as the rattle of a +snare-drum, the rows of houses at either side running past like the +shifting scenes of a panorama. They passed numbers of other carriages, +and to the occupants of several Sidwell lifted his hat. Each as he did +so glanced at his companion curiously. The man was far too well known to +have his actions pass without gossip. At last they reached a semblance +of the open country, and a few minutes later Sidwell pointed out the row +of lights on the broad veranda of the big one-story club-house. The +affair had begun in the afternoon with a golf tournament, and when the +two drove up and Sidwell turned over his trotters to a man in waiting, +the entertainment was in full blast, although the hour was still early. + +The building itself, ordinarily ample for the organization's rather +exclusive membership, was fairly crowded on this occasion. The +club-house had been given up to the orchestra and dancers, and +refreshments were being served on the lawn and under the adjoining +trees. Even the veranda had been cleared of chairs. + +As Sidwell and his companion approached the place, he said in an +undertone, "Let's not get in the crush yet; if we do, we won't escape +all the evening." His dark eyes looked into his companion's face +meaningly. "I have something I wish especially to say to you." + +Florence did not meet his eyes, but she well knew the message therein. +She nodded assent to the request. + +Making a detour, they emerged into the park, and strolled back to a +place where, seeing, they themselves could not be seen. Sidwell found a +bench, and they sat down side by side. The girl offered no suggestion, +no protest. Since that row of lights had appeared in the distance she +had become passive. She knew beforehand all that was to take place; +something that she had decided to accede to, the details of which were +unimportant. An apathy which she did not attempt to explain held her. +The music heard so near, the glimpses of shifting, faultlessly dressed +figures, the loveliness of a perfect night--things that ordinarily would +have been intensely exhilarating--now passed by her unnoticed. Her +senses were temporarily in lethargy. If she had a conscious wish, it was +that the inevitable would come, and be over with. + +From without this land of unreality she was suddenly conscious of a +voice speaking to her. "Florence," it said, "Florence Baker, you know +before I say a word the thing I wish to tell you, the question I wish to +ask. You know, because more than once I've tried to speak, and at the +last moment you have prevented. But you can't stop me to-night. We have +run on understanding each other long enough; too long. I have never lied +to you yet, Florence, and I am not going to begin now. I will not even +analyze the feeling I have for you, or call it by name. I know this is +an unheard-of-way to talk to a girl, especially one so impressionable as +you; but I cannot help it. There is something about you, Florence, that +keeps me from untruth, when probably under the same circumstances I +would lie to any other woman in the world. I simply know that you +impersonate a desire of my nature ungratified; that without you I have +no wish to live." + +Strange and cold-blooded as this proposal would have seemed to a +listener, Florence heard it without a sign. It did not even affect her +with the shock of the unexpected. It was merely a part of that +inevitable something she had anticipated, and had for months watched +slowly taking form. + +"I suppose it seems unaccountable to you," the voice went on, "that I +should have been attracted to you in the first place. It has often been +so to me, and I've tried to explain it. Beautiful, you undeniably are, +Florence; but I do not believe it was that. It was, I think, because, +despite your ideals of something which--pardon me--doesn't exist, you +were absolutely natural; and the women I'd met before were the reverse +of that. Like myself, they had tasted of life and found it flat. I +danced with them, drank with them, went the round of so-called gayety +with them; but they repelled me. But you, Florence, are very different. +You make me think of a prairie anemone with the dew on its petals. I +haven't much to offer you save money, which you already have in plenty, +and an empty fame; but I'll play the game fair. I'll take you anywhere +in the world, do anything you wish." Out of the shadow an arm crept +around the girl's waist, closed there, and she did not stir. "I am +writing an English story now, and the principal character, a soldier, +has been ordered to India. To catch the atmosphere, I've got to be on +the spot. The boat I wish to take will leave in ten days. Will you go +with me as my wife?" + +The voice paused, and the face so near her own remained motionless, +waiting. Into the pause crept the music of the orchestra--beat, beat, +beat, like the throbbing of a mighty heart. Above it, distinct for an +instant, sounded the tinkle of a woman's laugh; then again silence. It +was now the girl's turn to speak, to answer; but not a sound left her +lips. She had an odd feeling that she was playing a game of checkers, +and that it was her turn to play. "Move!" said an inward monitor. "Move! +move!" But she knew not where or how. + +The man's arm tightened around her; his lips touched hers again and +again; and although she was conscious of the fact, it carried no +particular significance. It all seemed a part of the scene that was +going on in which she was a silent actor--of the game in which she was a +player. + +"Florence," said an insistent voice, "Florence, Florence Baker! Don't +sit like that! For God's sake, speak to me, answer me!" + +This time the figure stirred, the head drooped in assent. + +"Yes," she said. + +Again the circling arm tightened, and the man's lips touched her own, +again and again. The very repetition aroused her. + +"And you will sail with me in ten days?" + +Fully awake was Florence Baker now, fully conscious of all that had +happened and was happening. + +"Yes," she said. "The sooner the better. I want to have it over with." A +moment longer she sat still as death; then suddenly the mood of apathy +departed, and in infinite weakness, infinite pathos, the dark head +buried itself on the man's shoulder. "Promise me," she pleaded brokenly, +"that you will be kind to me! Promise me that you always will be kind!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +LOVE'S SURRENDER + + +Scotty Baker was not an adept at concealing his emotions, and he stared +in unqualified surprise at the long figure in brown which of a sudden +intruded into his range of vision. The morning paper upon his knees +fluttered unnoticed to the floor of the porch. + +"Ben Blair, by all that's good and proper!" he exclaimed to the man who, +without a look to either side, turned up the short walk. "Where in +heaven's name did you come from? I supposed you'd gone home a week ago." + +Blair stopped at the steps, and deliberately wiped the perspiration from +his face. + +"You were misinformed about my going," he explained. "I changed hotels, +that was all." + +Scotty stared harder than before. + +"But why?" he groped. "I inquired of the clerk, and he said you had gone +by an afternoon train. I don't see--" + +Ben mounted the steps and took a chair opposite the Englishman. + +"If you will excuse me," he said, "I would rather not go into details. +The fact's enough--I am still here. Besides--pardon me--I did not call +to be questioned, but to question. You remember the last time I saw +you?" + +Scotty nodded an affirmative. He had a premonition that the unexpected +was about to happen. + +"Yes," he said. + +Ben lit a cigar. "You remember, then, that you made me a certain +promise?" + +Scotty threw one leg over the other restlessly. "Yes, I remember," he +repeated. + +The visitor eyed him keenly. "I would like to know if you kept it," he +said. + +Scotty felt the seat of his chair growing even more uncomfortable than +before, and he cast about for an avenue of escape. One presented itself. + +"Is that what you stayed to find out?" he questioned in his turn. + +Ben blew out a cloud of smoke, and then another. + +"No, not the main reason. But that has nothing to do with the subject. I +have a right to ask the question. Did you or did you not keep your +promise?" + +The Englishman's first impulse was to refuse point-blank to answer; +then, on second thought, he decided that such a course would be unwise. +The other really did have a right to ask. + +"I--" he hesitated, "decided--" + +But interrupting, Ben raised his hand, palm outward. + +"Don't dodge the question. Yes or no?" + +Scotty hesitated again, and his face grew red. + +"No," he said. + +The visitor's hand, fingers outspread, returned to his knee. + +"Thank you. I have one more question to ask. Do you intend, without +trying to prevent it, to let your daughter throw away her every chance +of future happiness? Are you, Florence's father, going to let her marry +Sidwell?" + +With one motion Scotty was on his feet. The eyes behind the thick lenses +fairly flashed. + +"You are insulting, sir," he blazed. "I can stand much from you, Ben +Blair, but this interference in my family affairs I cannot overlook. I +request you to leave my premises!" + +Blair did not stir. His face remained as impassive as before. + +"Your pardon again," he said steadily, "but I refuse. I did not come to +quarrel with you, and I won't; but we will have an understanding--now. +Sit down, please." + +The Englishman stared, almost with open mouth. Had any one told him he +would be coerced in this way within his own home he would have called +that person mad; nevertheless, the first flash of anger over, he said no +more. + +"Sit down, please," repeated Ben; and this time, without a word or a +protest, he was obeyed. + +Ben straightened in his seat, then leaned forward. "Mr. Baker," he said, +"you do not doubt that I love Florence--that I wish nothing but her +good?" + +Scotty nodded a reluctant assent. + +"No; I don't doubt you, Ben," he said. + +The thin face of the younger man leaned forward and grew more intense. + +"You know what Sidwell is--what the result will be if Florence marries +him?" + +Scotty's head dropped into his hands. He knew what was coming. + +"Yes, I know," he admitted. + +Ben paused, and had the other been looking he would have seen that his +ordinarily passive face was working in a way which no one would have +thought possible. + +"In heaven's name, then," he said, slowly, "why do you allow it? Have +you forgotten that it is only three days until the date set? God! man, +you must be sleeping! It is ghastly--even the thought of it!" + +Surprised out of himself, Scotty looked up. The intensity of the appeal +was a thing to put life into a figure of clay. For an instant he felt +the stimulant, felt his blood quicken at the suggestion of action; then +his impotence returned. + +"I have tried, Ben," he explained weakly, "but I can do nothing. If I +attempted to interfere it would only make matters worse. Florence is as +completely out of my control as--" he paused for a simile--"as the +sunshine. I missed my opportunity with her when she was young. She has +always had her own way, and she will have it now. It is the same as when +she decided to come to town. She controls me, not I her." + +Blair settled back in his chair. The mask of impassivity dropped back +over his face, not again to lift. He was again in command of himself. + +"You expect to do nothing more, then?" he asked finally. + +Scotty did not look up. "No," he responded. "I can do nothing more. She +will have to find out her mistake for herself." + +Ben regarded the older man steadily. It would have been difficult to +express that look in words. + +"You'd be willing to help, would you," he suggested, "if you saw a way?" + +The Englishman's eyes lifted. Even the incredible took on an air of +possibility in the hands of this strong-willed ranchman. + +"Yes," he repeated. "I will gladly do anything I can." + +For half a minute Ben Blair did not speak. Not a nerve twitched or a +muscle stirred in his long body; then he stood up, the broad sinewy +shoulders squared, the masterful chin lifted. + +"Very well," he said. "Call a carriage, and be ready to leave town in +half an hour." + +Scotty blinked helplessly. The necessity of sudden action always threw +him into confusion. His mind needed not minutes but days to adjust +itself to the unpremeditated. + +"Why?" he queried. "What do you intend doing?" + +But Ben did not stop to explain. Already he was at the door of the +vestibule. "Don't ask me now. Do as I say, and you'll see!" And he +stepped inside. + +Within the entrance, he paused for a moment. He had never been in any +room of the house except the library adjoining; and after a few +seconds, walking over, he tapped twice on the door. + +There was no answer, and he stepped inside. The place was empty, but, +listening from the dining-room on the left he heard the low intermittent +murmur of voices in conversation and the occasional click of china. +Sliding doors connected the rooms, and again for an instant he +hesitated. Then, pulling them apart, he stood fairly in the aperture. + +As he had expected, Florence and her mother were at breakfast. The doors +had slid noiselessly, and for an instant neither observed him. Florence +was nearest, half-facing him, and she was the first to glance up. As she +did so, the coffee-cup in her hand shook spasmodically and a great brown +blotch spread over the white tablecloth. Simultaneously her eyes +widened, her cheeks blanched, and she stared as at a ghost. Her mother, +too, turned at the spectacle, and her color shifted to an ashen gray. + +For some seconds not one of the three spoke or stirred. It was Mrs. +Baker who first arose and advanced toward the intruder, as threateningly +as it was possible for her to do. + +"Who, if I might ask, invited you to come this way?" she challenged. + +Ben took one step inside the room and folded his arms. + +"I came without being asked," he explained evenly. + +Mollie's weak oval face stiffened. She felt instinctively that her +chiefest desires were in supreme menace. But one defense suggested +itself--to be rid of the intruder at once. + +"I trust, then, you are enough of a gentleman to return the way you +came," she said icily. + +Ben did not even glance at her. He was looking at the dainty little +figure still motionless at the table. + +"If that is the mark of a gentleman, I am not one," he answered. + +The mother's face flamed. Like Scotty, her brain moved slowly, and on +the spur of the moment inadequate insult alone answered her call. + +"I might have expected such a remark from a cowman!" she burst forth. + +Instantly Florence was upon her feet; but Ben Blair gave no indication +that he had heard. His arms still folded, he took two steps nearer the +girl, then stopped. + +"Florence," he said steadily, "I have just seen your father. We +three--he, you, and I--are going back home, back to the prairies. Our +train leaves at eleven o'clock. The carriage will be here in half an +hour. You have plenty of time if you hurry." + +Again there was silence. Once more it was the mother who spoke first. + +"You must be mad, both of you!" she cried. "Florence is to be married in +three days, and it would take two to go each way. You must be mad!" + +It was the girl's turn to grow pale. She began to understand. + +"You say you and papa evolved this programme?" she said sarcastically. +"What part, pray, did he take?" + +Blair was as impassive as before. + +"I suggested it, and your father acquiesced." + +"And the third party, myself--" The girl's eyes were very bright. + +"I undertook the task of having you ready when the carriage comes." + +One of Florence's brown hands grasped the back of the chair before her. + +"I trust you did not underestimate the difficulty," she commented +ironically. "Otherwise you might be disappointed." + +Ben said nothing. He did not even stir. + +Another group of seconds were gathered into the past. The inactivity +tugged at the girl's nerves. + +"By the way," she asked, "where are we going to stay when we arrive, and +for how long?" + +"You are to be my guests," answered Blair. "As to the length of time, +nothing has been arranged." + +Florence made one more effort to consider the affair lightly. + +"You speak with a good deal of assurance," she commented. "Did it never +occur to you that at this particular time I might decide not to go?" + +Ben returned her look. + +"No," he said. + +Beneath the trim brown figure one foot was nervously tapping the floor. + +"In other words, you expect to take me against my will,--by physical +force?" + +"No." Ben again spoke deliberately. "You will come of your own choice." + +"And leave Mr. Sidwell?" + +"Yes." + +"Without an explanation?" + +"None will be necessary, I think. The fact itself will be enough." + +"And never--marry him?" + +"And never marry him." + +"You think he would not follow?" + +"I know he would not!" + +There was a pause in the swift passage of words. The girl's breath was +coming with difficulty. The spell of this indomitable rancher was +settling upon her. + +"You really imagine I will do such an unheard-of thing?" she asked +slowly. + +"I imagine nothing," he answered quickly. "I know." + +It was the crisis, and into it Mollie intruded with clumsy tread. +"Florence," she urged, "Florence, don't listen to him any longer. He +must be intoxicated. Come with me!" and she started to drag the girl +away. + +Without a word, Ben Blair walked across to the door leading into the +room beyond, and stood with his hand on the knob. + +"Mrs. Baker," he said slowly, "I thought I would not speak an unkind +word to-day, no matter what was said to me; but you have offended too +often." His glance took in the indolently shapeless figure from head to +toe, and back again until he met her eye to eye. "You are the +personification of cowardice, of selfishness and snobbery, that makes +one despise his kind. For mere personal vanity you would sacrifice your +own daughter--your own flesh and blood. Probably we shall never meet +again; but if we should, do not dare to speak to me. Do not speak to me +now!" He swung open the door, and indicated the passage with a nod of +his head. "Go," he said, "and if you are a Christian, pray for a better +heart--for forgiveness!" + +The woman hesitated; her lips moved, but she was dumb. She wanted to +refuse, but the irresistible power in those relentless blue eyes +compelled her to obey. Without a word she left the room and closed the +door behind her. + +Ben Blair came back. The girl had not moved. + +"Florence," he said, "there are but twenty minutes left. I ask you again +to get ready." + +The girl's color rose anew; her blood flowed tumultuously, until she +could feel the beating of the pulses at her wrists. + +"Ben Blair," she challenged, "you are trying to prevent my marrying +another man! Is it not so?" + +The rancher folded his arms again. + +"I am preventing it," he said. + +Florence's brown eyes blazed. She clasped her hands together until the +fingers were white. + +"You admit it, then!" she cried, looking at her companion steadily, a +world of scorn in her face. "I never thought such a thing possible--that +you would let your jealousy get the better of you like this!" She +paused, and hurled the taunt she knew would hurt him most. "You are the +last person on earth I would have selected to become a dog in the +manger!" + +Ben did not stir, although the brown of his sun-tanned face went white. + +"I looked for that," he said simply. + +Florence's brown eyes widened in wonder--and in something +more--something she did not understand. Her heart was beating more +wildly than before. She felt her self-control slipping from her grasp, +like a rope through her hands. + +"There seems nothing more to be said, then," she said, "except that I +will not go." + +Even yet Blair did not move. + +"You will go. The carriage comes in ten minutes," he reiterated calmly. + +The small figure stiffened, the dainty chin tilted in the air. + +"I defy you to tell me how you can force me to go!" + +It was the supreme moment, but Benjamin Blair showed no trace of +excitement or of passion. His folded arms remained passive across his +chest. + +"Florence Baker, did I ever lie to you?" + +The girl's lip trembled. She knew now what to expect. + +"No," she said. + +"You are quite sure?" + +"Yes, I am quite sure." + +"Did I ever say I would do anything that I did not do?" + +The girl had an all but irrepressible desire to cry out, to cover her +face like a child. A flash of anger at her inability to maintain her +self-control swept over her. + +"No," she admitted. "I never knew you to break your word." + +"Very well, then," still no haste, no anger,--only the relentless calm +which was infinitely more terrible than either. "I will tell you why of +your own choice you will go with me. It is because you value the life of +Clarence Sidwell; because, as surely as I have not lied to you or to any +human being in the past, there is no power on earth that can otherwise +keep me away from him an hour longer." + +Realization came instantaneously to Florence Baker and blotted out +self-consciousness. The nervous tension vanished as fog before the sun. + +"You would not do it," she said, very steadily. "You could not do it!" + +Ben Blair said not a word. + +"You could not," repeated the girl swiftly; "could not, because +you--love me!" + +One of the man's hands loosened in an unconscious gesture. + +"Don't repeat that, please, or trust in it," he answered. "You misled me +once, but you can't mislead me again. It is because I love you that I +will do what I said." + +There was but one weapon in the arsenal adequate to meet the emergency. +With a sudden motion, the girl came close to him. + +"Ben, Ben Blair," her arms flashed around the man's neck, the brown +eyes--moist, sparkling--were turned to his face, "promise me you will +not do it." The dainty throat swelled and receded with her short quick +breaths. "Promise me! Please promise me!" + +For a second the rancher did not stir; then, very gently, he freed +himself and moved a step backward. + +"Florence," he said slowly, "you do not know me even yet." He drew out +his big old-fashioned silver watch, once Rankin's. "You still have four +minutes to get ready--no more, no less." + +Silence like that of a death-chamber fell over the bright little +dining-room. From the outside came the sound of Mollie's step as she +moved back and forth, back and forth, but dared not enter. A boy was +clipping the lawn, and the muffled purr of the mower, accompanied by the +bit of popular ragtime he was whistling, stole into the room. + +Suddenly a carriage drove up in front of the house, and leaping from his +seat the driver stood waiting. The door of the vestibule opened, and +Scotty himself stepped uncertainly within. At the library entrance he +halted, but the odor of the black cigar he was smoking was wafted in. + +Through it all, neither of the two in that room had stirred. It would +have been impossible to tell what Ben Blair was thinking. His eyes never +left the watch in his hand. During the first minute the girl had not +looked at her companion. Unappeasable anger seemed personified in her. +For half of the next minute she still stood impassive; then she glanced +up almost surreptitiously. For the long third minute the eyes held where +they had lifted, and slowly over the soft brown face, taking the place +of the former expression, came a look that was not of anger or of +hatred, not even of dislike, but of something the reverse, something all +but unbelievable. Her dark eyes softened. A choking lump came into her +throat; and still, in seeming paradox, she was of a sudden happier than +at any time she could remember. + +Before the last minute was up, before Ben Blair had replaced the watch, +she was in the adjoining room saying good-bye to Mollie hurriedly; +saying something more,--a thing that fairly took the mother's breath. + +"Florence Baker!" she gasped, "you shall not do it! If you do, I will +disown you! I will never forgive you--never! never!" + +But, unheeding, the girl was already back, and looking into Ben's face. +Her eyes were very bright, and there was about her a suppressed +excitement that the other did not clearly understand. + +"I am ready," she said, "on one condition." + +Blair's blue eyes looked a question. In any other mood he would have +recognized Florence, but this strange person he hardly seemed to know. + +"I am listening," he said. + +The girl hesitated, the rosy color mounting to her cheeks. Decision of +action was far easier than expression. + +"I will go with you," she faltered, "but alone." + +A suggestion of the flame on the other's face sprang to the man's also. + +"I think, under the circumstances," he stammered, "it would be better to +have your father go too." + +The dainty brown figure stiffened. + +"Very well, then--I will not go!" + +The man stood for a moment immovable, with unshifting eyes, like a +figure in clay; then, turning, without a word, he started to leave the +room. He had almost reached the door, when he heard a voice behind him. + +"Ben Blair," it said insistently, "Ben Blair!" + +He paused, glanced back, and could scarcely believe his eyes. The girl +was coming toward him; but it was a Florence he had not previously +known. Her face was rosier than before, red to her very ears and to the +waves of her hair. Her chin was held high, and beneath the thin brown +skin of the throat the veins were athrob. + +"Ben Blair," she repeated intensely, "Ben Blair, can't you understand +what I meant? Must I put it into words?" The soft brown eyes were +looking at him frankly. "Oh, you are blind, blind!" + +For a second, like the lull before the thunderclap, the man did not +move; then of a sudden he grasped the girl by the shoulders, and held +her at arm's length. + +"Florence," he cried, "are you playing with me?" + +She spoke no word, but her gaze held his unfalteringly. + +Minutes passed, but still the man could not believe the testimony of his +eyes. The confession was too unexpected, too incredible. Unconsciously +the grip of his hands tightened. + +"Am I--mad?" he gasped. "You care for me--you are willing to go--because +you love me?" + +Even yet the girl did not answer; but no human being could longer +question the expression on her face. Ben Blair could not doubt it, and +the reflection of love glowing in the tear-wet eyes flashed into his +own. The past, with all that it had held, vanished like the memory of an +unpleasant dream. The present, the vital throbbing present, alone +remained. Suddenly the tense arms relaxed. Another second, and the brown +head was upon his shoulder. + +"Florence," he cried passionately, "Florence, Florence!" + +He could say no more, only repeat over and over her dear name. + +"Ben," sobbed the girl, "Ben! Ben!" An interrupting memory drew her to +him closer and closer. "I loved you all the time!--loved you!--and yet I +so nearly--can you ever forgive me?" + +Wondering at the prolonged silence, Scotty came hesitatingly into the +library, peered in at the open doorway, and stood transfixed. + + + THE END + + + + +POPULAR COPYRIGHT BOOKS +AT MODERATE PRICES + +Any of the following titles can be bought of your +Bookseller at the price you paid for this volume + +Adventures of Captain Kettle. 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Price, +$1.00. + + In 1829 Mr. James published his first romance, "Richelieu," and was + recognized at once as one of the masters of the craft. + + In this book he laid the story during those later days of the great + cardinal's life, when his power was beginning to wane, but while it + was yet sufficiently strong to permit now and then of volcanic + outbursts which overwhelmed foes and carried friends to the topmost + wave of prosperity. One of the most striking portions of the story + is that of Cinq Mar's conspiracy; the method of conducting criminal + cases, and the political trickery resorted to by royal favorites, + affording a better insight into the state-craft of that day than + can be had even by an exhaustive study of history. It is a powerful + romance of love and diplomacy, and in point of thrilling and + absorbing interest has never been excelled. + + +A COLONIAL FREE-LANCE. A story of American Colonial Times. By Chauncey +C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. +Price, $1.00. + + A book that appeals to Americans as a vivid picture of + Revolutionary scenes. The story is a strong one, a thrilling one. + It causes the true American to flush with excitement, to devour + chapter after chapter, until the eyes smart, and it fairly smokes + with patriotism. The love story is a singularly charming idyl. + + +THE TOWER OF LONDON. A Historical Romance of the Times of Lady Jane +Grey and Mary Tudor. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth. Cloth, 12mo. with four +illustrations by George Cruikshank. Price, $1.00. + + This romance of the "Tower of London" depicts the Tower as palace, + prison and fortress, with many historical associations. The era is + the middle of the sixteenth century. + + The story is divided into two parts, one dealing with Lady Jane + Grey, and the other with Mary Tudor as Queen, introducing other + notable characters of the era. Throughout the story holds the + interest of the reader in the midst of intrigue and conspiracy, + extending considerably over a half a century. + + +IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING. A Romance of the American Revolution. By +Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00. + + Mr. Hotchkiss has etched in burning words a story of Yankee + bravery, and true love that thrills from beginning to end, with the + spirit of the Revolution. The heart beats quickly, and we feel + ourselves taking a part in the exciting scenes described. His whole + story is so absorbing that you will sit up far into the night to + finish it. As a love romance it is charming. + + +GARTHOWEN. A story of a Welsh Homestead. By Allen Raine. Cloth, 12mo. +with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00. + + "This is a little idyl of humble life and enduring love, laid bare + before us, very real and pure, which in its telling shows us some + strong points of Welsh character--the pride, the hasty temper, the + quick dying out of wrath.... We call this a well-written story, + interesting alike through its romance and its glimpses into another + life than ours. A delightful and clever picture of Welsh village + life. The result is excellent."--Detroit Free Press. + + +MIFANWY. The story of a Welsh Singer. By Allan Raine. Cloth, 12mo. +with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00. + + "This is a love story, simple, tender and pretty as one would care + to read. The action throughout is brisk and pleasing; the + characters, it is apparent at once, are as true to life as though + the author had known them all personally. Simple in all its + situations, the story is worked up in that touching and quaint + strain which never grows wearisome, no matter how often the lights + and shadows of love are introduced. It rings true, and does not tax + the imagination."--Boston Herald. + + +DARNLEY. A Romance of the times of Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey. By +G.P.R. James. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. +Price, $1.00. + + As a historical romance "Darnley" is a book that can be taken up + pleasurably again and again, for there is about it that subtle + charm which those who are strangers to the works of G.P.R. James + have claimed was only to be imparted by Dumas. + + If there was nothing more about the work to attract especial + attention, the account of the meeting of the kings on the historic + "field of the cloth of gold" would entitle the story to the most + favorable consideration of every reader. + + There is really but little pure romance in this story, for the + author has taken care to imagine love passages only between those + whom history has credited with having entertained the tender + passion one for another, and he succeeds in making such lovers as + all the world must love. + + +WINDSOR CASTLE. A Historical Romance of the Reign of Henry VIII., +Catharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth. Cloth. +12mo. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank. Price, $1.00. + + "Windsor Castle" is the story of Henry VIII., Catharine, and Anne + Boleyn. "Bluff King Hal," although a well-loved monarch, was none + too good a one in many ways. Of all his selfishness and + unwarrantable acts, none was more discreditable than his divorce + from Catharine, and his marriage to the beautiful Anne Boleyn. The + King's love was as brief as it was vehement. Jane Seymour, waiting + maid on the Queen, attracted him, and Anne Boleyn was forced to the + block to make room for her successor. This romance is one of + extreme interest to all readers. + + +HORSESHOE ROBINSON. A tale of the Tory Ascendency in South Carolina in +1780. By John P. Kennedy. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. +Watson Davis. Price, $1.00. + + Among the old favorites in the field of what is known as historical + fiction, there are none which appeal to a larger number of + Americans than Horseshoe Robinson, and this because it is the only + story which depicts with fidelity to the facts the heroic efforts + of the colonists in South Carolina to defend their homes against + the brutal oppression of the British under such leaders as + Cornwallis and Tarleton. + + The reader is charmed with the story of love which forms the thread + of the tale, and then impressed with the wealth of detail + concerning those times. The picture of the manifold sufferings of + the people, is never over-drawn, but painted faithfully and + honestly by one who spared neither time nor labor in his efforts to + present in this charming love story all that price in blood and + tears which the Carolinians paid as their share in the winning of + the republic. + + Take it all in all, "Horseshoe Robinson" is a work which should be + found on every book-shelf, not only because it is a most + entertaining story, but because of the wealth of valuable + information concerning the colonists which it contains. That it has + been brought out once more, well illustrated, is something which + will give pleasure to thousands who have long desired an + opportunity to read the story again, and to the many who have tried + vainly in these latter days to procure a copy that they might read + it for the first time. + + +THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. A story of the Coast of Maine. By Harriet +Beecher Stowe. Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated. Price, $1.00. + + Written prior to 1862, the "Pearl of Orr's Island" is ever new; a + book filled with delicate fancies, such as seemingly array + themselves anew each time one reads them. One sees the "sea like an + unbroken mirror all around the pine-girt, lonely shores of Orr's + Island," and straightway comes "the heavy, hollow moan of the surf + on the beach, like the wild angry howl of some savage animal." + + Who can read of the beginning of that sweet life, named Mara, which + came into this world under the very shadow of the Death angel's + wings, without having an intense desire to know how the premature + bud blossomed? Again and again one lingers over the descriptions of + the character of that baby boy Moses, who came through the tempest, + amid the angry billows, pillowed on his dead mother's breast. + + There is no more faithful portrayal of New England life than that + which Mrs. Stowe gives in "The Pearl of Orr's Island." + + +BURT'S SERIES _of_ STANDARD FICTION. + +THE SPIRIT OF THE BORDER. A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio +Valley. By Zane Grey. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00. + + A book rather out of the ordinary is this "Spirit of the Border." + The main thread of the story has to do with the work of the + Moravian missionaries in the Ohio Valley. Incidentally the reader + is given details of the frontier life of those hardy pioneers who + broke the wilderness for the planting of this great nation. Chief + among these, as a matter of course, is Lewis Wetzel, one of the + most peculiar, and at the same time the most admirable of all the + brave men who spent their lives battling with the savage foe, that + others might dwell in comparative security. + + Details of the establishment and destruction of the Moravian + "Village of Peace" are given at some length, and with minute + description. The efforts to Christianize the Indians are described + as they never have been before, and the author has depicted the + characters of the leaders of the several Indian tribes with great + care, which of itself will be of interest to the student. + + By no means least among the charms of the story are the vivid + word-pictures of the thrilling adventures, and the intense + paintings of the beauties of nature, as seen in the almost unbroken + forests. + + It is the spirit of the frontier which is described, and one can by + it, perhaps, the better understand why men, and women, too, + willingly braved every privation and danger that the westward + progress of the star of empire might be the more certain and rapid. + A love story, simple and tender, runs through the book. + + +CAPTAIN BRAND, OF THE SCHOONER CENTIPEDE. By Lieut. Henry A. Wise, +U.S.N. (Harry Gringo). Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00. + + The re-publication of this story will please those lovers of sea + yarns who delight in so much of the salty flavor of the ocean as + can come through the medium of a printed page, for never has a + story of the sea and those "who go down in ships" been written by + one more familiar with the scenes depicted. + + The one book of this gifted author which is best remembered, and + which will be read with pleasure for many years to come, is + "Captain Brand," who, as the author states on his title page, was a + "pirate of eminence in the West Indies." As a sea story pure and + simple, "Captain Brand" has never been excelled, and as a story of + piratical life, told without the usual embellishments of blood and + thunder, it has no equal. + + +NICK OF THE WOODS. A story of the Early Settlers of Kentucky. By +Robert Montgomery Bird. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. +Watson Davis. Price, $1.00. + + This most popular novel and thrilling story of early frontier life + in Kentucky was originally published in the year 1837. The novel, + long out of print, had in its day a phenomenal sale, for its + realistic presentation of Indian and frontier life in the early + days of settlement in the South, narrated in the tale with all the + art of a practiced writer. A very charming love romance runs + through the story. This new and tasteful edition of "Nick of the + Woods" will be certain to make many new admirers for this + enchanting story from Dr. Bird's clever and versatile pen. + + +GUY FAWKES. A Romance of the Gunpowder Treason. By Wm. Harrison +Ainsworth. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank. +Price, $1.00. + + The "Gunpowder Plot" was a modest attempt to blow up Parliament, + the King and his Counsellors. James of Scotland, then King of + England, was weak-minded and extravagant. He hit upon the efficient + scheme of extorting money from the people by imposing taxes on the + Catholics. In their natural resentment to this extortion, a handful + of bold spirits concluded to overthrow the government. Finally the + plotters were arrested, and the King put to torture Guy Fawkes and + the other prisoners with royal vigor. A very intense love story + runs through the entire romance. + +TICONDEROGA: A Story of Early Frontier Life in the Mohawk Valley. By +G.P.R. James. Cloth, 12mo. with four page illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00. + + The setting of the story is decidedly more picturesque than any + ever evolved by Cooper: The frontier of New York State, where dwelt + an English gentleman, driven from his native home by grief over the + loss of his wife, with a son and daughter. Thither, brought by the + exigencies of war, comes an English officer, who is readily + recognized as that Lord Howe who met his death at Ticonderoga. As a + most natural sequence, even amid the hostile demonstrations of both + French and Indians, Lord Howe and the young girl find time to make + most deliciously sweet love, and the son of the recluse has already + lost his heart to the daughter of a great sachem, a dusky maiden + whose warrior-father has surrounded her with all the comforts of a + civilized life. + + The character of Captain Brooks, who voluntarily decides to + sacrifice his own life in order to save the son of the Englishman, + is not among the least of the attractions of this story, which + holds the attention of the reader even to the last page. The tribal + laws and folk lore of the different tribes of Indians known as the + "Five Nations," with which the story is interspersed, shows that + the author gave no small amount of study to the work in question, + and nowhere else is it shown more plainly than by the skilful + manner in which he has interwoven with his plot the "blood" law, + which demands a life for a life, whether it be that of the murderer + or one of his race. + + A more charming story of mingled love and adventure has never been + written than "Ticonderoga." + + +ROB OF THE BOWL: A Story of the Early Days of Maryland. By John P. +Kennedy. Cloth, 12mo. with four page illustrations by J. Watson Davis. +Price, $1.00. + + It was while he was a member of Congress from Maryland that the + noted statesman wrote this story regarding the early history of his + native State, and while some critics are inclined to consider + "Horse Shoe Robinson" as the best of his works, it is certain that + "Rob of the Bowl" stands at the head of the list as a literary + production and an authentic exposition of the manners and customs + during Lord Baltimore's rule. The greater portion of the action + takes place in St. Mary's--the original capital of the State. + + As a series of pictures of early colonial life in Maryland, "Rob of + the Bowl" has no equal, and the book, having been written by one + who had exceptional facilities for gathering material concerning + the individual members of the settlements in and about St. Mary's, + is a most valuable addition to the history of the State. + + The story is full of splendid action, with a charming love story, + and a plot that never loosens the grip of its interest to its last + page. + + +BY BERWEN BANKS. By Allen Raine. + + It is a tender and beautiful romance of the idyllic. A charming + picture of life in a Welsh seaside village. It is something of a + prose-poem, true, tender and graceful. + + +IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING. A romance of the American Revolution. By +Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00. + + The story opens in the month of April, 1775, with the provincial + troops hurrying to the defense of Lexington and Concord. Mr. + Hotchkiss has etched in burning words a story of Yankee bravery and + true love that thrills from beginning to end with the spirit of the + Revolution. The heart beats quickly, and we feel ourselves taking a + part in the exciting scenes described. You lay the book aside with + the feeling that you have seen a gloriously true picture of the + Revolution. His whole story is so absorbing that you will sit up + far into the night to finish it. As a love romance it is charming. + + +POPULAR LITERATURE FOR THE MASSES, COMPRISING CHOICE SELECTIONS FROM THE +TREASURES OF THE WORLD'S KNOWLEDGE, ISSUED IN A SUBSTANTIAL AND +ATTRACTIVE CLOTH BINDING, AT A POPULAR PRICE + +BURT'S HOME LIBRARY is a series which includes the standard works of the +world's best literature, bound in uniform cloth binding, gilt tops, +embracing chiefly selections from writers of the most notable English, +American and Foreign Fiction, together with many important works in the +domains of History, Biography, Philosophy, Travel, Poetry and the +Essays. + +A glance at the following annexed list of titles and authors will +endorse the claim that the publishers make for it--that it is the most +comprehensive, choice, interesting, and by far the most carefully +selected series of standard authors for world-wide reading that has been +produced by any publishing house in any country, and that at prices so +cheap, and in a style so substantial and pleasing, as to win for it +millions of readers and the approval and commendation, not only of the +book trade throughout the American continent, but of hundreds of +thousands of librarians, clergymen, educators and men of letters +interested in the dissemination of instructive, entertaining and +thoroughly wholesome reading matter for the masses. + + +BURT'S HOME LIBRARY. Cloth. Gilt Tops. Price, $1.00 + +Abbe Constantin. By Ludovic Halevy. +Abbott. By Sir Walter Scott. +Adam Bede. By George Eliot. +Addison's Essays. Edited by John Richard Green. +Aeneid of Virgil. Translated by John Connington. +Aesop's Fables. +Alexander, the Great, Life of. By John Williams. +Alfred, the Great, Life of. By Thomas Hughes. +Alhambra. By Washington Irving. +Alice in Wonderland, and Through the Looking-Glass. By Lewis Carroll. +Alice Lorraine. By R. D. Blackmore. +All Sorts and Conditions of Men. By Walter Besant. +Alton Locke. By Charles Kingsley. +Amiel's Journal. Translated by Mrs. Humphrey Ward. +Andersen's Fairy Tales. +Anne of Geirstein. By Sir Walter Scott. +Antiquary. By Sir Walter Scott. +Arabian Nights' Entertainments. +Ardath. By Marie Corelli. +Arnold, Benedict, Life of. By George Canning Hill. +Arnold's Poems. By Matthew Arnold. +Around the World in the Yacht Sunbeam. By Mrs. Brassey. +Arundel Motto. By Mary Cecil Hay. +At the Back of the North Wind. By George Macdonald. +Attic Philosopher. By Emile Souvestre. +Auld Licht Idylls. By James M. Barrie. +Aunt Diana. By Rosa N. Carey. +Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. +Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. By O. W. Holmes. +Averil. By Rosa N. Carey. +Bacon's Essays. By Francis Bacon. +Barbara Heathcote's Trial. By Rosa N. Carey. +Barnaby Rudge. By Charles Dickens. +Barrack Room Ballads. By Rudyard Kipling. +Betrothed. By Sir Walter Scott. +Beulah. By Augusta J. Evans. +Black Beauty. By Anna Sewell. +Black Dwarf. By Sir Walter Scott. +Black Rock. By Ralph Connor. +Black Tulip. By Alexandre Dumas. +Bleak House. By Charles Dickens. +Blithedale Romance. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. +Bondman. By Hall Caine. +Book of Golden Deeds. By Charlotte M. Yonge. +Boone, Daniel, Life of. By Cecil B. Hartley. +Bride of Lammermoor. By Sir Walter Scott. +Bride of the Nile. By George Ebers. +Browning's Poems. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning. +Browning's Poems. (selections.) By Robert Browning. +Bryant's Poems. (early.) By William Cullen Bryant. +Burgomaster's Wife. By George Ebers. +Burn's Poems. By Robert Burns. +By Order of the King. By Victor Hugo. +Byron's Poems. By Lord Byron. +Caesar, Julius, Life of. By James Anthony Froude. +Carson, Kit, Life of. By Charles Burdett. +Cary's Poems. By Alice and Phoebe Cary. +Cast Up by the Sea. By Sir Samuel Baker. +Charlemagne (Charles the Great), Life of. By Thomas Hodgkin, D.C.L. +Charles Auchester. By E. Berger. +Character. By Samuel Smiles. +Charles O'Malley. By Charles Lever. +Chesterfield's Letters. By Lord Chesterfield. +Chevalier de Maison Rouge. By Alexandre Dumas. +Chicot the Jester. By Alexandre Dumas. +Children of the Abbey. By Regina Maria Roche. +Child's History of England. By Charles Dickens. +Christmas Stories. By Charles Dickens. +Cloister and the Hearth. By Charles Reade. +Coleridge's Poems. By Samuel Taylor Coleridge. +Columbus, Christopher, Life of. By Washington Irving. +Companions of Jehu. By Alexandre Dumas. +Complete Angler. By Walton And Cotton. +Conduct of Life. By Ralph Waldo Emerson. +Confessions of an Opium Eater. By Thomas de Quincey. +Conquest of Granada. By Washington Irving. +Conscript. By Erckmann-Chatrian. +Conspiracy of Pontiac. By Francis Parkman, Jr. +Conspirators. By Alexandre Dumas. +Consuelo. By George Sand. +Cook's Voyages. By Captain James Cook. +Corinne. By Madame de Stael. +Countess de Charney. By Alexandre Dumas. +Countess Gisela. By E. Marlitt. + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's notes: + +Punctuation normalized. + +The phrase "Box R" has been used where a literal cattle brand symbol +of the letter R inside two sides of a box was used in the original text. +Similarly, an R within a circle indicating a ranch has been rendered as +the "Circle R" ranch in this transcription. + +Page 113, "life" changed to "city" (The city was part of their life). + +Page 210, "clapsed" changed to "clasped" (girls hands were clasped). + +Page 341, "Sewall" changed to "Sewell" (Anna Sewell). + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ben Blair, by Will Lillibridge + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEN BLAIR *** + +***** This file should be named 17844.txt or 17844.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/8/4/17844/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ben Blair + The Story of a Plainsman + +Author: Will Lillibridge + +Release Date: February 24, 2006 [EBook #17844] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEN BLAIR *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em;"> + <span style="font-size: 250%;">Ben Blair</span><br /> + <span style="font-size: 200%;">The Story of a Plainsman</span> + <br />by<br /> + <span style="font-size: 140%;"> + Will Lillibridge<br /> + </span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <span style="font-size: 80%"> + Author of "Where the Trail Divides," etc. + </span> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + <div class="figcenter"> + <img class="plain" src="images/title.jpg" width="80" alt="Emblem" title="Emblem" /> + </div> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + <span style="font-size: 120%"> + A. L. Burt Company, Publishers<br /> + New York + </span> +</div> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div> +<p style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em;"> + <span class="smcap">Copyright by</span><br /> + <span class="smcap">A. C. McClurg & Co.</span><br /> + <span class="smcap">a. d. 1905</span><br /> + Entered at Stationers' Hall, London<br /> + <span class="italic">All rights reserved</span> + <br /><br /> +</p> + +<table summary="publication_dates"> +<tr><td>Published October 21, 1905</td></tr> +<tr><td>Second Edition October 28, 1905</td></tr> +<tr><td>Third Edition November 29, 1905</td></tr> +<tr><td>Fourth Edition December 9, 1905</td></tr> +<tr><td>Fifth Edition December 14, 1905</td></tr> +<tr><td>Sixth Edition February 28, 1907</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<p class='center'><i>To My Wife</i></p> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px"> + <img src="images/fpiece.jpg" width="400" + alt="[Illustration: Florence touched his arm. "Ben," she pleaded, "Ben, forgive +me. I've hurt you. I can't say I love you." Page 114.]" title="" /> + <p class="photocaption">Florence touched his arm. "Ben," she pleaded, "Ben, forgive +me. I've hurt you. I can't say I love you." Page 114.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<table width="80%" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<tr><th colspan='3'><h2>Contents</h2></th></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>I. </td><td align='left'>In Rude Border Land</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II. </td><td align='left'>Desolation</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">9</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III. </td><td align='left'>The Box R Ranch</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">23</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IV. </td><td align='left'>Ben's New Home</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">37</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>V. </td><td align='left'>The Exotics</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">44</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VI. </td><td align='left'>The Soil and the Seed</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">53</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VII. </td><td align='left'>The Sanity of the Wild</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">66</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VIII. </td><td align='left'>The Glitter of the Unknown</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">74</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IX. </td><td align='left'>A Riffle of Prairie</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">83</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>X. </td><td align='left'>The Dominant Animal</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">94</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XI. </td><td align='left'>Love's Avowal</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">106</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XII. </td><td align='left'>A Deferred Reckoning</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">117</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIII. </td><td align='left'>A Shot in the Dark</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">134</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIV. </td><td align='left'>The Inexorable Trail</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">148</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XV. </td><td align='left'>In the Grip of the Law</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">164</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVI. </td><td align='left'>The Quick and the Dead</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">185</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVII. </td><td align='left'>Glitter and Tinsel</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">193</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVIII. </td><td align='left'>Painter and Picture</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">204</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIX. </td><td align='left'>A Visitor from the Plains</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">217</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XX. </td><td align='left'>Club Confidences</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">230</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXI. </td><td align='left'>Love in Conflict</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">242</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXII. </td><td align='left'>Two Friends Have It Out</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">258</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXIII. </td><td align='left'>The Back-Fire</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">270</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIV. </td><td align='left'>The Upper and the Nether Millstones</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">287</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XV. </td><td align='left'>Of What Avail?</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">304</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVI. </td><td align='left'>Love's Surrender</td><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">318</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span> +<h1 style="text-align: center">BEN BLAIR</h1> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> +<h3>IN RUDE BORDER-LAND</h3> +</div> + +<p>Even in a community where unsavory reputations were the rule, Mick +Kennedy's saloon was of evil repute. In a land new and wild, his +establishment was the wildest, partook most of the unsubdued, unevolved +character of its surroundings. There, as irresistibly as gravitation +calls the falling apple, came from afar and near—mainly from afar—the +malcontent, the restless, the reckless, seeking—instinctively +gregarious—the crowd, the excitement of the green-covered table, the +temporary oblivion following the gulping of fiery red liquor.</p> + +<p>Great splendid animals were the men who gathered there; hairy, powerful, +strong-voiced from combat with prairie wind and frontier distance; +devoid of a superfluous ounce of flesh, their trousers, uniformly baggy +at the knees, bearing mute testimony to the many hours spent in the +saddle; the bare unprotected skin of their hands and faces speaking +likewise of constant contact with sun and storm.</p> + +<p>By the broad glow of daylight the place was anything but inviting. The +heavy bar, made of cottonwood, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> no more elegance than the rude sod +shanty of the pioneer. The worn round cloth-topped tables, imported at +extravagant cost from the East, were covered with splashes of grease and +liquor; and the few fly-marked pictures on the walls were coarsely +suggestive. Scattered among them haphazard, in one instance through a +lithographic print, were round holes as large as a spike-head, through +which, by closely applying the eye, one could view the world without. +When the place was new, similar openings had been carefully refilled +with a whittled stick of wood, but the practice had been discontinued; +it was too much trouble, and also useless from the frequency with which +new holes were made. Besides, although accepted with unconcern by +<i>habitués</i> of the place, they were a source of never-ending interest to +the "tenderfeet" who occasionally appeared from nowhere and disappeared +whence they had come.</p> + +<p>But at night all was different. Encircling the room with gleaming points +of light were a multitude of blazing candles, home-made from tallow of +prairie cattle. The irradiance, almost as strong as daylight, but +radically different, softened all surrounding objects. The prairie dust, +penetrating with the wind, spread itself everywhere. The reflection from +cheap glassware, carefully polished, made it appear of costly make; the +sawdust of the floor seemed a downy covering; the crude heavy chairs, an +imitation of the artistic furniture of our fathers. Even the face of +bartender Mick, with its stiff unshaven red beard and its single +eye,—merciless as an electric headlight,—its broad flaming scar +leading down from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> blank socket of its mate, became less repulsive +under the softened light.</p> + +<p>With the coming of Fall frosts, the premonition of Winter, the +frequenters of the place gathered earlier, remained later, emptied more +of the showily labelled bottles behind the bar, and augmented when +possible their well-established reputation for recklessness. About the +soiled tables the fringe of bleared faces and keen hawk-like eyes was +more closely drawn. The dull rattle of poker-chips lasted longer, +frequently far into the night, and even after the tardy light of morning +had come to the rescue of the sputtering stumps in the candlesticks.</p> + +<p>On such a morning, early in November, daylight broadened upon a +characteristic scene. Only one table was in use, and around it sat four +men. One by one the other players had cashed out and left the game. One +of them was snoring in a corner, his head resting upon the sawdust. +Another leaned heavily upon the bar, a half-drained glass before him. +Even the four at the table were not as upon the night before. The hands +which held the greasy cards and toyed with the stacks of chips were +steady, but the heads controlling them wavered uncertainly; and the hawk +eyes were bloodshot.</p> + +<p>A man with a full beard, roughly trimmed into the travesty of a Vandyke, +was dealing. He tossed out the cards, carefully inclining their faces +downward, and returned the remainder of the pack softly to the table.</p> + +<p>"Pass, damn it!" growled the man at the left.</p> + +<p>"Pass," came from the next man.</p> + +<p>"Pass," echoed the last of the quartette.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> + +<p>Five blue chips dropped in a row upon the cloth.</p> + +<p>"I open it."</p> + +<p>The dealer took up the pack lovingly.</p> + +<p>"Cards?"</p> + +<p>The man at the left, tall, gaunt, ill-kempt, flicked the pasteboards in +his hand to the floor and ground them beneath his heavy boots.</p> + +<p>"Give me five."</p> + +<p>The point of the Vandyke beard was aimed straight past the speaker.</p> + +<p>"Cards?" repeated the dealer.</p> + +<p>"Five! Can't you hear?"</p> + +<p>The man braced against the bar looked around with interest. In the mask +of Mick Kennedy the single eye closed almost imperceptibly. Slowly the +face of the dealer turned.</p> + +<p>"I can hear you pretty well when you cash into the game. You already owe +me forty blues, Blair."</p> + +<p>The long figure stiffened, the face went pale.</p> + +<p>"You—mean—you—" the tongue was very thick. "You cut me out?"</p> + +<p>For a moment there was silence; then once more the beard pointed to the +player next beyond.</p> + +<p>"Cards?" for the third time.</p> + +<p>Five chips ranged in a row beside their predecessors.</p> + +<p>"Three."</p> + +<p>A hand, almost the hand of a gentleman, went instinctively to the gaunt +throat of the ignored gambler and jerked at the close flannel shirt; +then without a word the owner got unsteadily to his feet and followed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +an irregular trail toward the interested spectator at the bar.</p> + +<p>"Have a drink with me, pard," said the gambler, as he regarded the +immovable Mick. "Two whiskeys, there!"</p> + +<p>Kennedy did not stir, and for five seconds Blair blinked his dulled eyes +in wordless surprise; then his fist came down upon the cottonwood board +with a mighty crash.</p> + +<p>"Wake up there, Mick!" he roared. "I'm speaking to you! A couple of +'ryes' for the gentleman here and myself."</p> + +<p>Another pause, momentary but effective.</p> + +<p>"I heard you." The barkeeper spoke quietly but without the slightest +change of expression, even of the eye. "I heard you, but I'm not dealing +out drinks to deadbeats. Pay up, and I'll be glad to serve you."</p> + +<p>Swift as thought Blair's hand went to his hip, and the rattle of +poker-chips sympathetically ceased. A second, and a big revolver was +trained fair at the dispenser of liquors.</p> + +<p>"Curse you, Mick Kennedy!" muttered a choking voice, "when I order +drinks I want drinks. Dig up there, and be lively!"</p> + +<p>The man by the speaker's side, surprised out of his intoxication, edged +away to a discreet distance; but even yet the Irishman made no move. +Only the single headlight shifted in its socket until it looked +unblinkingly into the blazing eyes of the gambler.</p> + +<p>"Tom Blair," commanded an even voice, "Tom Blair, you white livered +bully, put up that gun!"</p> + +<p>Slowly, very slowly, the speaker turned,—all but the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> terrible +Cyclopean eye,—and moved forward until his body leaned upon the bar, +his face protruding over it.</p> + +<p>"Put up that gun, I tell you!" A smile almost fiendish broke over the +furrows of the rugged face. "You wouldn't dast shoot, unless perhaps it +was a woman, you coward!"</p> + +<p>For a fraction of a minute there was silence, while over the visage of +the challenged there flashed, faded, recurred the expression we pay good +dollars to watch playing upon the features of an accomplished actor; +then the yellow streak beneath the bravado showed, and the menacing hand +dropped to the holster at the hip. Once again Kennedy, who seldom made a +mistake, had sized his man correctly.</p> + +<p>"What do I owe you altogether, Mick?" asked a changed and subdued voice. +"Make it as easy as you can."</p> + +<p>Kennedy relaxed into his lounging position.</p> + +<p>"Thirty-five dollars. We'll call it thirty. You've been setting them up +to everybody here for a week on your face."</p> + +<p>"Can't you give me just a little more credit, Mick?" An expression meant +to be a smile formed upon the haggard face. "Just for old time's sake? +You know I've always been a good customer of yours, Kennedy."</p> + +<p>"Not a cent."</p> + +<p>"But I've got to have liquor!" One hand, ill-kept, but long of fingers +and refined of shape, steadied the speaker. "I can't get along without +it!"</p> + +<p>"Sell something, then, and pay up."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<p>The man thought a moment and shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I haven't anything to sell; you know that. It's the wrong time of the +year." He paused, and the travesty of a smile reappeared. "Next +Winter—"</p> + +<p>"You've got a horse outside."</p> + +<p>For an instant Blair's gaunt face darkened at the insult; he grew almost +dignified; but the drink curse had too strong a grip upon him and the +odor of whiskey was in the air.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've a good horse," he said slowly. "What'll you give for him?"</p> + +<p>"Seventy dollars."</p> + +<p>"He's a good horse, worth a hundred."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad of that, but I'm not dealing in horses. I make the offer just +to oblige you. Besides, as you said, it's an off season."</p> + +<p>"You won't give me more?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>Blair looked impotently about the room, but his former companions had +returned to their game. Filling in the silence, the dull clatter of +chips mingled with the drunken snores of the man on the floor.</p> + +<p>"Very well, give me forty," he said at last.</p> + +<p>"You accept, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"All right."</p> + +<p>Blair waited a moment. "Aren't you going to give me what's coming?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>Slowly the single eye fixed him as before.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you had anything coming."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why, you just said forty dollars!"</p> + +<p>There was no relenting in Kennedy's face.</p> + +<p>"You owe that gentleman over there at the table for forty blues. I'll +settle with him."</p> + +<p>Instinctively, as before, Blair's thin hand went to his throat, +clutching at the coarse flannel. He saw he was beaten.</p> + +<p>"Well, give me a drink, anyway!"</p> + +<p>Silently Mick took a big flask from the shelf and set it with a decanter +upon the bar. Filling the glass, Blair drained it at a gulp, refilled +and drained it—and then again.</p> + +<p>"A little drop to take along with me," he whined.</p> + +<p>Kennedy selected a pint bottle, filled it from the big flask, and +silently proffered it over the board.</p> + +<p>Blair took the extended favor, glanced once more about the room, and +stumbled toward the exit. Mick busied himself wiping the soiled bar with +a towel, if possible, even more filthy. At the threshold, his hand upon +the knob, Blair paused, stiffened, grew livid in the face.</p> + +<p>"May Satan blister your scoundrel souls, all of you!" he cursed.</p> + +<p>Not a man within sound of his voice gave sign that he had heard, as the +opened door returned to its casing with a crash.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> +<h3>DESOLATION</h3></div> + +<p>Ten miles out on the prairies,—not lands plane as a table, as they are +usually pictured, but rolling like the sea with waves of tremendous +amplitude—stood a rough shack, called by courtesy a house. Like many a +more pretentious domicile, it was of composite construction, although +consisting of but one room. At the base was the native prairie sod, +piled tier upon tier. Above this the superstructure, like the bar of +Mick Kennedy's resort, was of warping cottonwood. Built out from this +single room and forming a part of it was what the designer had called a +woodshed; but as no tree the size of a man's wrist was within ten miles, +or a railroad within fifty, the term was manifestly a misnomer. Wood in +any form it had never contained; instead, it was filled with that +providential fuel of the frontiersman, found superabundantly upon the +ranges,—buffalo chips.</p> + +<p>From the main room there was another and much smaller opening into the +sod foundation, and below it,—a dog-kennel. Slightly apart from the +shack stood a twin structure even less assuming, its walls and roof +being wholly built of sod. It was likewise without partition, and was +used as a barn. Hard by was a corral<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> covering perhaps two acres, +enclosed with a barbed-wire fence. These three excrescences upon the +face of nature comprised the "improvements" of the "Big B Ranch."</p> + +<p>Within the house the furnishings accorded with their surroundings. Two +folding bunks, similar in conception to the upper berths of a Pullman +car, were built end to end against the wall; when they were raised to +give room, four supports dangled beneath like paralyzed arms. A +home-made table, suggesting those scattered about country picnic +grounds, a few cheap chairs, a row of chests and cupboards variously +remodelled from a common foundation of dry-goods boxes, and a stove, +ingeniously evolved out of the cylinder and head of a portable engine, +comprised the furniture.</p> + +<p>The morning sunlight which dimmed the candles of Mick Kennedy's saloon +drifted through the single high-set window of the Big B Ranch-house, +revealing there a very different scene. From beneath the quilts in one +of the folding bunks appeared the faces of a woman and a little boy. At +the opening of the dog-kennel the head of a mottled yellow-and-white +mongrel dog projected into the room, the sensitive muzzle pointing +directly at the occupied bunk. The eyes of woman, child, and beast were +open and moved restlessly about.</p> + +<p>"Mamma," and the small boy wriggled beneath the clothes, "Mamma, I'm +hungry."</p> + +<p>The white face of the woman turned away, more pallid than before. An +unfamiliar observer would have been at a loss to guess the age of the +owner. In that haggard,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> non-committal countenance there was nothing to +indicate whether she was twenty-five or forty.</p> + +<p>"It is early yet, son. Go to sleep."</p> + +<p>The boy closed his eyes dutifully, and for perhaps five minutes there +was silence; then the blue orbs opened wider than before.</p> + +<p>"Mamma, I can't go to sleep. I'm hungry!"</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Benjamin. The horses, the rabbits, the birds,—all get +hungry sometimes." A hacking cough interrupted her words. "Snuggle close +up to me, little son, and keep warm."</p> + +<p>"But, mamma, I want something to eat. Won't you get it for me?"</p> + +<p>"I can't, son."</p> + +<p>He waited a moment. "Won't you let me help myself, then, mamma?"</p> + +<p>The eyes of the mother moistened.</p> + +<p>"Mamma," the child repeated, gently shaking his mother's shoulder, +"won't you let me help myself?"</p> + +<p>"There's nothing for you to eat, sonny, nothing at all."</p> + +<p>The blue child-eyes widened; the serious little face puckered.</p> + +<p>"Why ain't there anything to eat, mamma?"</p> + +<p>"Because there isn't, bubby."</p> + +<p>The reasoning was conclusive, and the child accepted it without further +parley; but soon another interrogation took form in his active brain.</p> + +<p>"It's cold, mamma," he announced. "Aren't you going to build a fire?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> + +<p>Again the mother coughed, and a flush of red appeared upon her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"No," she answered with a sigh.</p> + +<p>"Why not, mamma?"</p> + +<p>There was not the slightest trace of irritation in the answering voice, +although it was clearly an effort to speak.</p> + +<p>"I can't get up this morning, little one."</p> + +<p>Mysteries were multiplying, but the small Benjamin was equal to the +occasion. With a spring he was out of bed, and in another moment was +stepping gingerly upon the cold bare floor.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to build a fire for you, mamma," he announced.</p> + +<p>The homely mongrel whined a welcome to the little lad's appearance, and +with his tail beat a friendly tattoo upon the kennel floor; but the +woman spoke no word. With impassive face she watched the shivering +little figure as it hurried into its clothes, and then, with celerity +born of experience, went about the making of a fire. Suddenly a hitherto +unthought-of possibility flashed into the boy's mind, and leaving his +work he came back to the bunk.</p> + +<p>"Are you sick, mamma?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Instantly the woman's face softened.</p> + +<p>"Yes, laddie," she answered gently.</p> + +<p>Carefully as a nurse, the small protector replaced the cover at his +mother's back, where his exit had left a gap; then returned to his work.</p> + +<p>"You must have it warm here," he said.</p> + +<p>Not until the fire in the old cylinder makeshift was burning merrily did +he return to his patient; then, stand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>ing straight before her, he looked +down with an air of childish dignity that would have been comical had it +been less pathetic.</p> + +<p>"Are you very sick, mamma?" he said at last, hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"I am dying, little son." She spoke calmly and impersonally, without +even a quickening of the breath. The thin hand, lying on the tattered +cover, did not stir.</p> + +<p>"Mamma!" the old-man face of the boy tightened, as, bending over the +bed, he pressed his warm cheek against hers, now growing cold and white.</p> + +<p>At the mouth of the kennel two bright eyes were watching curiously. +Their owner wriggled the tip of his muzzle inquiringly, but the action +brought no response. Then the muzzle went into the air, and a whine, +long-drawn and insistent, broke the silence.</p> + +<p>The boy rose. There was not a trace of moisture in his eyes, but the +uncannily aged face seemed older than before. He went over to a peg +where his clothes were hanging and took down the frayed garment that +answered as an overcoat. From the bunk there came another cough, quickly +muffled; but he did not turn. Cap followed coat, mittens cap; then, +suddenly remembering, he turned to the stove and scattered fresh chips +upon the glowing embers.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, mamma," said the boy.</p> + +<p>The mother had been watching him, although she gave no sign. "Where are +you going, sonny?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"To town, mamma. Someone ought to know you're sick."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was a moment's pause, wherein the mongrel whined impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you going to kiss me first, Benjamin?"</p> + +<p>The little lad retraced his steps, until, bending over, his lips touched +those of his mother. As he did so, the hand which had lain upon the +coverlet shifted to his arm detainingly.</p> + +<p>"How were you thinking of going, son?"</p> + +<p>A look of surprise crept into the boy's blue eyes. A question like this, +with its obvious answer, was unusual from his matter-of-fact mother. He +glanced at her gravely.</p> + +<p>"I'm going afoot, mamma."</p> + +<p>"It's ten miles to town, Benjamin."</p> + +<p>"But you and I walked it once together. Don't you remember?"</p> + +<p>An expression the lad did not understand flashed over the white face of +Jennie Blair. Well she remembered that other occasion, one of many like +the present, when she and the little lad had gone in company to the +settlement of which Mick Kennedy's place was a part, in search of +someone whom after ten hours' delay they had succeeded in bringing +home,—the remnant and vestige of what was once a man.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know we did, Bennie."</p> + +<p>The boy waited a moment longer, then straightened himself.</p> + +<p>"I think I'd better be starting now."</p> + +<p>But instead of loosening its hold, the hand upon the boy's shoulder +tightened. The eyes of the two met.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You're not going, sonny. I'm glad you thought of it, but I can't let +you go."</p> + +<p>Again there was silence for so long that the waiting dog, impatient of +the delay, whined in soft protest.</p> + +<p>"Why not, mamma?"</p> + +<p>"Because, Benjamin, it's too late now. Besides, there wouldn't be a +person there who would come out to help me."</p> + +<p>The boy's look of perplexity returned.</p> + +<p>"Not if they knew you were very sick, mamma?"</p> + +<p>"Not if they knew I was dying, my son."</p> + +<p>The boy took off hat, mittens, and coat, and returned them to their +places. Never in his short life had he questioned a statement of his +mother's, and such heresy did not occur to him now. Coming back to the +bunk, he laid his cheek caressingly beside hers.</p> + +<p>"Is there anything I can do for you, mamma?" he whispered.</p> + +<p>"Nothing but what you are doing now, laddie."</p> + +<p>Tired of standing, the mongrel dropped within his tracks flat upon his +belly, and, his head resting upon his fore-paws, lay watching intently.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When the door of Mick Kennedy's saloon closed with an emphasis that +shook the very walls, it shut out a being more ferocious, more evil, +than any beast of the jungle. For the time, Blair's alcohol-saturated +brain evolved but one chain of thought, was capable of but one +emotion—hate. Every object in the universe, from its Creator to +himself, fell under the ban. The language of hate is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> curses; and as he +moved out over the prairie there dripped from his lips continuously, +monotonously, a trickling, blighting stream of malediction. Swaying, +stumbling, unconscious of his physical motions, instinct kept him upon +the trail; a Providence, sometimes kindest to those least worthy, +preserved him from injury.</p> + +<p>Half way out he met a solitary Indian astride a faded-looking mustang, +and the current of his wrath was temporarily diverted by a surly "How!" +Even this measure of friendliness was regretted when the big revolver +came out of the rancher's holster like a flash, and, head low on the +neck of the mustang, heels in the little beast's ribs, the aborigine +retreated with a yell, amid a shower of ill-aimed bullets. Long after +the figure on the pony had passed out of range, Blair stood pulling at +the trigger of the empty repeater and cursing louder than before because +it would not "pop."</p> + +<p>Two hours later, when it was past noon, an uncertain hand lifted the +wooden latch of the Big B Ranch-house door, and, heralded by an inrush +of cold outside air, Tom Blair, master and dictator, entered his domain. +The passage of time, the physical exercise, and the prairie air, had +somewhat cleared his brain. Just within the room, he paused and looked +about him with surprise. With premonition of impending trouble, the +mongrel bristled the yellow hair of his neck, and, retreating to the +mouth of his kennel, stood guard; but otherwise the scene was to a +detail as it had been in the morning. The woman lay passive within the +bunk. The child by her side, holding her hand, did not turn. The very +atmosphere of the place tingled with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> an ominous quiet,—a silence such +as one who has lived through a cyclone connects instinctively with a +whirling oncoming black funnel.</p> + +<p>The new-comer was first to make a move. Walking over to the centre of +the room, he stopped and looked upon his subjects.</p> + +<p>"Well, of all the infernally lazy people I ever saw!" he commented, "you +beat them, Jennie! Get up and cook something to eat; it's way after +noon, and I'm hungry."</p> + +<p>The woman said nothing, but the boy slid to his feet, facing the +intruder.</p> + +<p>"Mamma's sick and can't get up," he explained as impersonally as to a +stranger. "Besides, there isn't anything to cook. She said so."</p> + +<p>The man's brow contracted into a frown.</p> + +<p>"Speak when you're spoken to, young upstart!" he snapped. "Out with you, +Jennie! I don't want to be monkeyed with to-day!"</p> + +<p>He hung up his coat and cap, and loosened his belt a hole; but no one +else in the room moved.</p> + +<p>"Didn't you hear me?" he asked, looking warningly toward the bunk.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she replied.</p> + +<p>Autocrat under his own roof, the man paused in surprise. Never before +had a command here been disobeyed. He could scarcely believe his own +senses.</p> + +<p>"You know what to do, then," he said sharply.</p> + +<p>For the first time a touch of color came into the woman's cheeks, and +catching the man's eyes she looked into them unfalteringly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Since when did I become your slave, Tom Blair?" she asked slowly.</p> + +<p>The words were a challenge, the tone was that of some wild thing, +wounded, cornered, staring death in the face, but defiant to the end. +"Since when did you become my owner, body and soul?"</p> + +<p>Any sportsman, any being with a fragment of admiration for even animal +courage, would have held aloof then. It remained for this man, bred amid +high civilization, who had spent years within college halls, to strike +the prostrate. As in the frontier saloon, so now his hand went +involuntarily to his throat, clutched at the binding collar until the +button flew; then, as before, his face went white.</p> + +<p>"Since when!" he blazed, "since when! I admire your nerve to ask that +question of me! Since six years ago, when you first began living with +me. Since the day when you and the boy,—and not a preacher within a +hundred miles—" Words, a flood of words, were upon his lips; but +suddenly he stopped. Despite the alcohol still in his brain, despite the +effort he made to continue, the gaze of the woman compelled silence.</p> + +<p>"You dare recall that memory, Tom Blair?" The words came more slowly +than before, and with an intensity that burned them into the hearer's +memory. "You dare, knowing what I gave up for your sake!" The eyes +blazed afresh, the dark head was raised on the pillows. "You know that +my son stands listening, and yet you dare throw my coming to you in my +face?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> + +<p>White to the lips went the scarred visage of the man, but the madness +was upon him.</p> + +<p>"I dare?" To his own ears the voice sounded unnatural. "I dare? To be +sure I dare! You came to me of your own free-will. You were not a +child!" His voice rose and the flush returned to his face. "You knew the +price and accepted it deliberately,—deliberately, I say!"</p> + +<p>Without a sound, the figure in the rough bunk quivered and stiffened; +the hand upon the coverlet was clenched until the nails grew white, then +it relaxed. Slowly, very slowly, the eyelids closed as though in sleep.</p> + +<p>Impassive but intent listener, an instinct now sent the boy Benjamin +back to his post.</p> + +<p>"Mamma," he said gently. "Mamma!"</p> + +<p>There was no answer, nor even a responsive pressure of the hand.</p> + +<p>"Mamma!" he repeated more loudly. "Mamma! Mamma!"</p> + +<p>Still no answer, only the limp passivity. Then suddenly, although never +before in his short life had the little lad looked upon death, he +recognized it now. His mamma, his playmate, his teacher, was like this; +she would not speak to him, would not answer him; she would never speak +to him or smile upon him again! Like a thunderclap came the realization +of this. Then another thought swiftly followed. This man,—one who had +said things that hurt her, that brought the red spots to her +cheeks,—this man was to blame. Not in the least did he understand the +meaning of what he had just heard. No human being had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> suggested to him +that Blair was the cause of his mother's death; but as surely as he +would remember their words as long as he lived, so surely did he +recognize the man's guilt. Suddenly, as powder responds to the spark, +there surged through his tiny body a terrible animal hate for this man, +and, scarcely realizing the action, he rushed at him.</p> + +<p>"She's dead and you killed her!" he screamed. "Mamma's dead, dead!" and +the little doubled fists struck at the man's legs again and again.</p> + +<p>Oblivious to the onslaught, Tom Blair strode over to the bunk.</p> + +<p>"Jennie," he said, not unkindly, "Jennie, what's the matter?"</p> + +<p>Again there was no response, and a shade of awe crept into the man's +voice.</p> + +<p>"Jennie! Jennie! Answer me!" A hand fell upon the woman's shoulder and +shook it, first gently, then roughly. "Answer me, I say!"</p> + +<p>With the motion, the head of the dead shifted upon the pillow and turned +toward the man, and involuntarily he loosened his grasp. He had not +eaten for twenty-four hours, and in sudden weakness he made his way to +one of the rough chairs, and sat down, his face buried in his hands.</p> + +<p>Behind him the boy Benjamin, his sudden hot passion over, stood watching +intently,—his face almost uncanny in its lack of childishness.</p> + +<p>For a time there was absolute silence, the hush of a death-chamber; then +of a sudden the boy was conscious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> that the man was looking at him in a +way he had never looked before. Deep down below our consciousness, far +beneath the veneer of civilization, there is an instinct, relic of the +vigilant savage days, that warns us of personal danger. By this instinct +the lad now interpreted the other's gaze, and knew that it meant ill for +him. For some reason which he could not understand, this man, this big +animal, was his mortal enemy; and, in the manner of smaller animals, he +began to consider an avenue of escape.</p> + +<p>"Ben," spoke the man, "come here!"</p> + +<p>Tom Blair was sober now, and wore a look of determination upon his face +that few had ever seen there before; but to his surprise the boy did not +respond. He waited a moment, and then said sharply:</p> + +<p>"Ben, I'm speaking to you. Come here at once!"</p> + +<p>For answer there was a tightening of the lad's blue eyes and an added +watchfulness in the incongruously long childish figure; but that was +all.</p> + +<p>Another lagging minute passed, wherein the two regarded each other +steadily. The man's eyes dropped first.</p> + +<p>"You little devil!" he muttered, and the passion began showing in his +voice. "I believe you knew what I was thinking all the time! Anyway, +you'll know now. You said awhile ago that I was to blame for your mother +being—as she is. You're liable to say that again." A horror greater +than sudden passion was in the deliberate explanation and in the slow +way he rose to his feet. "I'm going to fix you so you can't say it +again, you old-man imp!"</p> + +<p>Then a peculiar thing happened. Instead of running<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> away, the boy took a +step forward, and the man paused, scarcely believing his eyes. Another +step forward, and yet another, came the diminutive figure, until almost +within the aggressor's reach; then suddenly, quick as a cat, it veered, +dropped upon all fours to the floor, and head first, scrambling like a +rabbit, disappeared into the open mouth of the dog-kennel.</p> + +<p>Too late the man saw the trick, and curses came to his lips,—curses fit +for a fiend, fit for the irresponsible being he was. He himself had +built that kennel. It extended in a curve eight feet into the solid sod +foundation, and to get at the spot where the boy now lay he would have +to tear down the house itself. The temper which had made the man what he +now was, a drunkard and fugitive in a frontier country, took possession +of him wholly, and with it came a madman's cunning; for at a sudden +thought he stopped, and the cursing tongue was silent. Five minutes +later he left the place, closing the door carefully behind him; but +before that time a red jet of flame, like the ravenous tongue of a +famished beast, was lapping at a hastily assembled pile of tinder-dry +furniture in one corner of the shanty.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> +<h3>THE BOX R RANCH</h3></div> + +<p>Mr. Rankin moved back from a well-discussed table, and, the room being +conveniently small, tilted his chair back against the wall. The +protesting creak of the ill-glued joints under the strain of his +ponderous figure was a signal for all the diners, and five other men +likewise drew away from around the board. Rankin extracted a match and a +stout jack-knife from the miscellaneous collection of useful articles in +his capacious pocket, carefully whittled the bit of wood to a point, and +picked his teeth deliberately. The five "hands," sun-browned, unshaven, +dissimilar in face as in dress, waited in expectation; but the +housekeeper, a shapeless, stolid-looking woman, wife of the foreman, +Graham, went methodically about the work of clearing the table. Rankin +watched her a moment indifferently; then without turning his head, his +eyes shifted in their narrow slits of sockets until they rested upon one +of the cowboys.</p> + +<p>"What time was it you saw that smoke, Grannis?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The man addressed paused in the operation of rolling a cigarette.</p> + +<p>"'Bout an hour ago, I should say. I was just thinking of coming in to +dinner."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> + +<p>The lids met over Rankin's eyes, then the narrow slit opened.</p> + +<p>"It was in the no'thwest you say, and seemed to be quite a way off?"</p> + +<p>Grannis nodded.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I couldn't make out any fire, only the smoke, and that didn't last +long. I thought at first maybe it was a prairie fire, and started to +see; but it was getting thinner before I'd gone a mile, so I turned +round and by the time I got back to the corral there wasn't nothing at +all to see."</p> + +<p>Two of the other hands solemnly exchanged a wink.</p> + +<p>"Think you must have eaten too many of Ma Graham's pancakes this +morning, and had a blur over your eyes," commented one, slyly. "Prairie +fires don't stop that sudden when the grass is like it is now."</p> + +<p>The portly housewife paused in her work to cast a look of scorn upon the +speaker, but Grannis rushed into the breach.</p> + +<p>"Don't you believe it. There was a fire all right. Somebody stopped it, +or it stopped itself, that's all."</p> + +<p>Tilting his chair forward with an effort, Rankin got to his feet, and, +as usual, his action brought the discussion to an end. The woman +returned to her work; the men put on hats and coats preparatory to going +out of doors. Only the proprietor stood passive a moment absently +drawing down his vest over his portly figure.</p> + +<p>"Graham," he said at last, "hitch the mustangs to the light wagon."</p> + +<p>"All right."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And, Graham—"</p> + +<p>The man addressed paused.</p> + +<p>"Throw in a couple of extra blankets."</p> + +<p>"All right."</p> + +<p>Out of doors the men took up the conversation where they had left off.</p> + +<p>"You better begin to hope the old man finds something that's been afire +up there, Grannis," said the joker of the house. "If he don't, you've +cooked your goose proper."</p> + +<p>Grannis was a new-comer, and looked his surprise.</p> + +<p>"Why so?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"You'll find out why," retorted the other. "Fire here's 'most as +uncommon as rain, and the boss don't like them smoky jokes."</p> + +<p>"But I saw smoke, I tell you," reiterated Grannis, defensively; "smoke, +dead sure!"</p> + +<p>"All right, if you're certain sure."</p> + +<p>"Marcom knows what he's talking about, Grannis," said Graham. "He tried +to ginger things up a bit when he was new here, like you are; found a +litter of coyotes one September—thought they were timber wolves, I +guess, and braced up with his story to the old man." The speaker paused +with a reflective grin.</p> + +<p>"Well, what happened?" asked Grannis.</p> + +<p>"What happened? The boss sent me dusting about forty miles to get some +hounds. Nearly spoiled a good team to get back inside sixteen hours, +and—they found out Bill here in the next thirty minutes, that was all!" +Once more the story ended in a grin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What'd Rankin say?" asked Grannis, with interest.</p> + +<p>"How about it, Bill?" suggested Graham.</p> + +<p>The big cowboy looked a trifle foolish.</p> + +<p>"Oh, he didn't say much; 'tain't his way. He just remarked, sort of +off-hand, that as far as I was concerned the next year had only about +four pay-months in it. That was all."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing at once. This was the +motto of the master of the Box R Ranch. In ten minutes' time Rankin's +big shapeless figure, seated in the old buckboard, was moving northwest +at the steady jog-trot typical of prairie travel, and which as the hours +pass by annihilates distance surprisingly. Simply a fat, an abnormally +fat, man, the casual observer would have said. It remained for those who +came in actual contact with him to learn the force beneath the +forbidding exterior,—the relentless bull-dog energy that had made him +dictator of the great ranch, and kept subordinate the restless, roving, +dissolute men-of-fortune he employed,—the deliberate and impartial +judgment which had made his word as near law as it was possible for any +mandate to be among the motley inhabitants within a radius of fifty +miles. Had Rankin chosen he could have attained honor, position, power +in his native Eastern home. No barrier built of convention or of +conservatism could have withstood him. Society reserves her prizes +largely for the man of initiative; and, uncomely block as he was, Rankin +was of the true type. But for some reason, a reason known to none of his +associates, he had chosen to come to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> West. Some consideration or +other had caused him to stop at his present abode, and had made him +apparently a fixture in the midst of this unconquered country.</p> + +<p>There was no road in the direction Rankin was travelling,—only the +unbroken prairie sod, eaten close by the herds that grazed its every +foot. Even under the direct sunlight the air was sharp. The regular +breath of the mustangs shot out like puffs of steam from the exhaust of +an engine, and the moisture frosted about their flanks and nostrils. But +the big man on the seat did not notice temperature. He had produced a +pipe from the depths beneath the wagon seat, and tobacco from a jar +cunningly fitted into one corner of the box, both without moving from +his place, the seat being hinged and divided in the centre to facilitate +the operation. More a home to him than the ranch-house itself was that +battered buckboard. Here, on an average, he spent eight hours out of the +twenty-four, and that seat-box was a veritable storehouse of articles +used in his daily life. As the jog-trot measured off the miles he +replenished the pipe again and again, leaving behind him the odor of +strong tobacco.</p> + +<p>Not until he was within a mile of the "Big B" property, and a rise in +the monotonous roll of the land brought him in range of vision, did +Rankin show that he felt more than ordinary interest in his expedition; +then, shading his eyes, he looked steadily ahead. The sod barn stood in +its usual place; the corral, with its posts set close together, +stretched by its side; but where the house had stood there could not be +distinguished even a mound. The hand on the reins tightened meaningly, +and in sympa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>thy the mustangs moved ahead at a swifter pace, leaving +behind a trail of tobacco-smoke denser than before.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When the little Benjamin Blair, fugitive, had literally taken to the +earth, it was with definite knowledge of the territory he was entering. +He had often explored its depths with childish curiosity, to the +distress of his mother and the disgust of the rightful owner, the +mongrel dog. Retreating to the farther end of the cave, the instinct of +self-preservation set hands and feet to work like the claws of a gopher, +filling with loose dirt the narrow passage through which he had entered. +Panting and perspiring with the effort, choked with the dust he raised, +all but suffocated, he dug until his strength gave out; then, curling up +in his narrow quarters, he lay listening. At first he heard nothing, not +even a sound from the dog; and he wondered at the fact. He could not +believe that Tom Blair would leave him in peace, and he breathlessly +awaited the first tap of an instrument against his retreat. A minute +passed, lengthened to five—to ten—and with the quick impatience of +childhood he started to learn the reason of the delay. His active little +body revolved in its nest. In the darkness a wiry arm scratched at the +recently erected barricade. A head with a tousled mass of hair poked its +way into the opening, crowded forward a foot—two feet, then stopped, +the whole body quivering. He had passed the curve, and of a sudden it +was as though he had opened the door of a furnace and gazed inside. +Instead of the familiar room, a great sheet of flame walled him in. +Instead of silence, a roar as of a hurricane was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> in his ears. Never in +his life had he seen a great fire, but instantly he understood. +Instantly the instinctive animal terror of fire gripped him; he +retreated to the very depths of the kennel, and burying his small head +in his arms lay still. But not even then, child though he was, did he +utter a cry. The endurance which had made Jennie Blair stare death +impassively in the face was part and parcel of his nature.</p> + +<p>For the space of perhaps a minute Ben lay motionless. Louder than before +came to his ears the roar of the fire. Occasionally a hot tongue of +flame intruded mockingly into the mouth of his retreat. The confined air +about him grew close, narcotic. He expected to die, and with the +premonition of death an abnormal activity came to the child-brain. +Whatever knowledge he possessed of death was connected with his mother. +It was she who had given him his vague impression of another life. She +herself, as she lay silent and unresponsive, had been the first concrete +example of it. Inevitably thought of her came to him now,—practical, +material thought, crowding from his brain the blind terror that had been +its predecessor. Where was his mother now? He pictured again the furnace +into which he had gazed from the mouth of the kennel. Though perhaps she +would not feel it, she would be burned—burned to a crisp—destroyed +like the fuel he had tossed into the makeshift stove! Instinctively he +felt the sacrilege, and the desire to do something to prevent it. +Something—yes, but what? He was himself helpless; he must seek outside +aid—but where? Suddenly there occurred to the child-mind a suggestion +appli<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>cable to his difficulty, an adequate solution, for it involved +everything he had learned to trust in life. He remembered a Being more +powerful than man, more powerful than fire or cold,—a Being whom his +mother had called God. Believing in Him, it was necessary only to ask +for whatever one wished. For himself, even to save his life, he would +not call upon this Being; but for his mamma! In childish faith he folded +his hands and closed his eyes in the darkness.</p> + +<p>"God," he prayed, "please put out this fire and save my mamma from +burning!"</p> + +<p>The small hands loosened and the lips parted to hear the first +diminution in the growl of the flame. But it roared on.</p> + +<p>"God!" The hands were clasped again, the voice vibrant with pleading. +"God, please put out the fire! Please put it out!"</p> + +<p>Silence again within, but without only the steady roaring crackle. Could +it be possible the petition had not been heard? The childish hands met +more tightly than before. The small body fairly writhed.</p> + +<p>"God! God!" he implored for the third time. "Listen to me, please! Save +my mamma, my mamma!"</p> + +<p>For a moment the little figure lay still. Surely there would be an +answer now. His mamma had said there would be, and whatever his mamma +had told him had always come true. The air about him was so close he +could scarcely breathe; but he did not notice it. Reversing head and +feet, he started out of the kennel. It was certainly time to leave. The +roar he had heard must have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> been of the wind. Assuredly God had acted +before this. Head first, gasping, he moved on, reached the curve, and +looked out.</p> + +<p>Indignation took possession of the little figure. The fingers clinched +until the nails bit deep into the soft palms. The whole body trembled in +impotent anger and outraged self-respect. Upon the face of the small man +was suddenly written the implacable defiance which one sees in carnivora +when wounded and cornered—intensified as an expression can only be +intensified upon a human face—as, almost unconsciously, he returned to +the hollow he had left, and fairly thrust his tousled head into the +kindly earth.</p> + +<p>How long he remained there he did not know. The stifling atmosphere of +the place gradually overcame him. Anger, wonder, the multitude of +thoughts crowding his child-brain, slowly faded away; consciousness +lapsed, and he slept.</p> + +<p>When he awoke it was with a start and a vague wonder as to his +whereabouts. Then memory returned, and he listened intently. Not a sound +could he distinguish save his own breathing, as he slowly made his way +to the mouth of the kennel. Before him was the opposite sod wall of the +house standing as high as his head; above that, the blue of the sky; +upon what had been the earthen floor, a strewing of ashes; over all, +calm, glorious, the slanting rays of the low afternoon sun. A moment the +boy lay gazing out; then he crawled to his feet, shaking off the dirt as +a dog does. One glance about, and the blue eyes halted. A moisture came +into them, gathered into drops,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> and then, breaking over the barrier of +the long lashes, tears flowed through the accumulated grime, down the +thin cheeks, leaving a clean pathway behind. That was all, for an +instant; then a look—terrible in a mature person and doubly so in a +child—came over the long face,—an expression partaking of both hate +and vengeance. It mirrored an emotion that in a nature such as that of +Benjamin Blair would never be forgotten. Some day, for some one, there +would be a moment of reckoning; for the child was looking at the +charred, unrecognizable corpse of his mother.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A half-hour later, Rankin, steaming into the yard of the Big B Ranch, +came upon a scene that savored much of a play. It was so dramatic that +the big man paused in contemplation of it. He saw there the sod and +ashes of what had once been a home. The place must have burned like +tinder, for now, but a few hours from the time when Grannis had first +given the alarm, not an atom of smoke ascended. At one end of the +quadrangular space enclosed by the walls stood the makeshift stove, +discolored with the heat, as was the length of pipe by its side. Near by +was a heap of warped iron and tin cooking utensils. At one side, covered +by an old gunny-sack and a boy's tattered coat, was another object the +form of which the observer could not distinguish.</p> + +<p>In the middle of the plat, standing a few inches below the surface, was +a small boy, and in his hands a very large spade. He wore a man's +discarded shirt, with sleeves rolled up at the wrist, and neck-band +pinned tight at one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> side. Obviously, he had been digging, for a small +pile of fresh dirt was heaped at his right. Now, however, he was +motionless, the blue eyes beneath the long lashes observing the +new-comer inquiringly. That was all, save that to the picture was added +the background of the unbroken silence of the prairie.</p> + +<p>The man was the first to break the spell. He got out of the wagon +clumsily, walked around the wall, and entered the quadrangle by what had +been the door.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Digging," replied the boy, resuming his work.</p> + +<p>"Digging what?"</p> + +<p>The boy lifted out a double handful of dirt upon the big spade.</p> + +<p>"A grave."</p> + +<p>The man glanced about again.</p> + +<p>"For some pet?"</p> + +<p>The boy shook his head.</p> + +<p>"No—sir," the latter word coming as an after-thought. His mother had +taught him that title of respect.</p> + +<p>Rankin changed the line of interrogation.</p> + +<p>"Where's Tom Blair, young man?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, sir."</p> + +<p>"Your mother, then, where is she?"</p> + +<p>"My mother is dead."</p> + +<p>"Dead?"</p> + +<p>The child's blue eyes did not falter.</p> + +<p>"I am digging her grave, sir."</p> + +<p>For a time Rankin did not speak or stir. Amid the stubbly beard the +great jaws closed, until it seemed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> pipe-stem must be broken. His +eyes narrowed, as when, before starting, he had questioned the cowboy +Grannis; then of a sudden he rose and laid a detaining hand upon the +worker's shoulder. He understood at last.</p> + +<p>"Stop a minute, son," he said. "I want to talk with you."</p> + +<p>The lad looked up.</p> + +<p>"How did it happen—the fire and your mother's death?"</p> + +<p>No answer, only the same strangely scrutinizing look.</p> + +<p>Rankin repeated the question a bit curtly.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair calmly removed the man's hand from his shoulder and looked him +fairly in the eyes.</p> + +<p>"Why do you wish to know, sir?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The big man made no answer. Why did he wish to know? What answer could +he give? He paced back and forth across the narrow confines of the four +sod walls. Once he paused, gazing at the little lad questioningly, not +as one looks at a child but as man faces man; then, tramp, tramp, he +paced on again. At last, as suddenly as before, he halted, and glanced +sidewise at the uncompleted grave.</p> + +<p>"You're quite sure you want to bury your mother here?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The lad nodded silently.</p> + +<p>"And alone?"</p> + +<p>Again the nod.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I heard her say once she wished it so."</p> + +<p>Without comment, Rankin removed his coat and took the spade from the +boy's hand.</p> + +<p>"I'll help you, then."</p> + +<p>For a half-hour he worked steadily, descending lower<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> and lower into the +dry earth; then, pausing, he wiped the perspiration from his face.</p> + +<p>"Are you cold, son?" he asked directly.</p> + +<p>"Not very, sir." But the lad's teeth were chattering.</p> + +<p>"A bit, though?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," simply.</p> + +<p>"All right, you'll find some blankets out in the wagon, Ben. You'd +better go out and get one and put it around you."</p> + +<p>The boy started to obey. "Thank you, sir," he said.</p> + +<p>Rankin returned to his work. In the west the sun dropped slowly beneath +the horizon, leaving a wonderful golden light behind. The waiting +horses, too well trained to move from their places, shifted uneasily +amid much creaking of harness. Within the grave the digger's head sunk +lower and lower, while the mound by the side grew higher and higher. The +cold increased. Across the prairie, a multitude of black specks +advanced, grew large, whizzed overhead, then retreated, their wings +cutting the keen air, and silence returned.</p> + +<p>Darkness was falling when at last Rankin clambered out to the surface.</p> + +<p>"Another blanket, Ben, please."</p> + +<p>Without a glance beneath, he wrapped the object under the old gunny-sack +round and round with the rough wool winding-sheet, and, carrying it to +the edge of the grave, himself descended clumsily and placed it gently +at his feet. The pit was deep, and in getting out he slipped back twice; +but he said nothing. Outside, he paused a moment, looking at the boy +gravely.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Anything you wish to say, Benjamin?"</p> + +<p>The lad returned the gaze with equal gravity.</p> + +<p>"I don't know of anything, sir."</p> + +<p>The man paused a moment longer.</p> + +<p>"Nor I, Ben," he said gently.</p> + +<p>Again the spade resumed its work; and the impassive earth returned dully +to its former resting-place. Dusk came on, but Rankin did not look about +him until the mound was neatly rounded; then he turned to where he had +left the little boy so bravely erect. But the small figure was not +standing now; instead, it was prone on the ground amid the dust and +ashes.</p> + +<p>"Ben!" said Rankin, gently. "Ben!"</p> + +<p>No answer.</p> + +<p>"Ben!" he repeated.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>For a moment a small thin face appeared above the dishevelled figure, +and a great sob shook the little frame. Then the head disappeared again.</p> + +<p>"I can't help it, sir," wailed a muffled voice. "She was my mamma!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<h3>BEN'S NEW HOME</h3></div> + +<p>Supper was over at the Box R Ranch. From the tiny lean-to the muffled +rattle of heavy table-ware proclaimed the fact that Ma Graham was +putting things in readiness for breakfast. Beside the sheet-iron heater +in the front room, her husband, carefully swaddled in a big checked +apron with the strings tied in a bow under his left ear, was busily +engaged in dressing the half-dozen prairie chickens he had trapped that +day. As fast as he removed the feathers he thrust them into the stove, +and the pungent odor mingled with the suggestive tang of the bacon that +had been the foundation of the past supper, and with the odor of +cigarettes with which the other four men were permeating the place.</p> + +<p>Graham critically held up to the light the bird upon which he had just +been operating, removed a few scattered feathers, and, with practised +hand, attacked its successor.</p> + +<p>"If I were doing this job for myself," he commented, "I'd skin the +beasts. Life is too blamed short to waste it in pulling out feathers!"</p> + +<p>Grannis, the new-comer from no one knew where, smiled.</p> + +<p>"It would look to me that you were doing it," he remarked. "I'd like to +ask for information, who is if you ain't?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> + +<p>The clatter of dishes suddenly ceased, and Graham's labor stopped in +sympathy.</p> + +<p>"My boy," he asked in reply, "were you ever married?"</p> + +<p>Beneath its coat of tan, Grannis's face flushed; but he did not answer.</p> + +<p>A second passed; then the plucking of feathers was continued.</p> + +<p>"I reckon you've never been, though," Graham went on, "else you'd never +ask that question."</p> + +<p>During the remainder of the evening, Grannis sought no further +information; and to Ma Graham's narrow life a new interest was added.</p> + +<p>Ordinarily the cowboys went to their bunks in an adjoining shed almost +directly after supper, but this evening, without giving a reason, they +lingered. The housekeeper finished her work, and, coming into the main +room, took a chair and sat down, her hands folded in her lap. The grouse +dressed, Graham ranged them in a row upon the lean-to table, removed the +apron, and lit his pipe in silence. The cowboys rolled fresh cigarettes +and puffed at them steadily, the four stumps close together glowing in +the dimness of the room. As everywhere upon the prairie, the quiet was +almost a thing to feel.</p> + +<p>At last, when the silence had become oppressive, the foreman took the +pipe from his mouth and blew a short puff of smoke.</p> + +<p>"Seems like the boss ought to've got back before this," he said with a +sidelong glance at his wife.</p> + +<p>Ma Graham nodded corroboration.</p> + +<p>"Yes; must have found something wrong, I guess."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> She refolded her +hands, and once more relapsed into silence.</p> + +<p>It was the breaking of the ice, however.</p> + +<p>"Where d'ye suppose the trouble could have been, Graham?" It was another +late-comer, Bud Buck, young and narrow of hips, who spoke.</p> + +<p>"At Blair's," was the answer. "The Big B is the closest."</p> + +<p>"Blair?" The questioner puffed at his cigarette thoughtfully. "Guess I +never heard of him."</p> + +<p>"Must be a stranger in these parts, then," said Marcom. "Most everybody +knows Tom Blair." He paused to give an all-including glance. "At least +well enough to get a slice of his dough," he finished with a sarcastic +laugh.</p> + +<p>"Does he handle the pasteboards?" asked Buck, with interest.</p> + +<p>"Tries to," contemptuously.</p> + +<p>The curiosity of the youthful Bud was now thoroughly aroused.</p> + +<p>"What kind of a fellow is he, anyway?" he went on. "Does he go it alone +up at his ranch?"</p> + +<p>At the last question Bill Marcom, discreetly silent, shifted his eyes in +the direction of the foreman, and, following them, Bud surprised a +covert glance between Graham and his wife. It was the latter who finally +answered.</p> + +<p>"Not <i>exactly</i>."</p> + +<p>Buck was not without intuition, and he shifted to safer ground.</p> + +<p>"Got much of a herd, has he?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> + +<p>Marcom rolled a fresh cigarette skilfully, and drew the string of the +tobacco pouch taut with his teeth.</p> + +<p>"He did have, one time, but I don't believe he's got many left now. +There's been a bunch lost there every storm I can remember. He don't +keep any punchers to look after 'em, and he's never on hand himself. The +woman and the kid," with a peculiar glance at the stout housekeeper, +"saved 'em part of the time, but mostly they just drifted." The speaker +blew a great cloud of smoke, and the veins at his temples swelled. "It's +a shame, the way he neglects his stock and lets 'em starve and freeze!"</p> + +<p>The blood coursed hot in the veins of Bud Buck.</p> + +<p>"Why don't somebody step in?"</p> + +<p>There was a meaning silence, broken at last by Graham.</p> + +<p>"We would've—with a rope—if it hadn't been for the boss. He tried to +help the fellow; went over there lots of times himself—weather colder +than the devil, too, and with the wind and sleet so bad you couldn't see +the team ahead of you—until one time last Winter Blair came home full, +and caught him there." The narrative paused, and the black pipe puffed +reminiscently. "The boss never said much, but I guess they must have had +quite a session. Anyway, Rankin never went again, and from the way he +looked when he got back here, half froze, and the mustangs beat out, I +reckon Blair never knew how close he come to a necktie party that day."</p> + +<p>Again silence fell, and remained unbroken until Graham suddenly sprang +to his feet, and with "That's him now!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> I could tell that old buckboard +if I was in my grave!" hurried on coat and hat and disappeared into the +night. A minute more and the door through which he had passed opened +slowly, and the figure of a small boy, wrapped like an Indian in a big +blanket, stepped timidly inside and stood blinking in the light.</p> + +<p>In anticipation of a very different arrival the housekeeper had risen to +her feet, and now in surprise, arms akimbo, she stood looking curiously +at the stranger. In this land at this time the young of every other +animal native thereto was common, but a child, a white child, was a +novelty indeed. Many a cow-puncher, bachelor among bachelors, could +testify that it had been years since he had seen the like. But Ma Graham +was not a bachelor, and in her the maternal instinct, though repressed, +was strong. It was barely an instant before she was at the little lad's +side, unwinding the blanket with deft hands.</p> + +<p>"Who be you, anyway, and where'd you come from?" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>The child observed her gravely.</p> + +<p>"Benjamin Blair's my name. I came with the man."</p> + +<p>The husk was off the lad ere this, and the woman was rubbing his small +hands vigorously.</p> + +<p>"Cold, ain't you? Come right over to the fire!" herself leading the way. +"And hungry—I'll bet you're hungrier than a wolf!"</p> + +<p>The lad nodded. "Yes, ma'am."</p> + +<p>The woman straightened up and looked down at her charge.</p> + +<p>"Of course you are. All little boys are hungry." She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> cast a challenging +glance around the group of interested spectators.</p> + +<p>"Fix the fire, one of you, while I get something hot for the kid," she +said, and ambled toward the lean-to.</p> + +<p>If the men thought to have their curiosity concerning the youngster +satisfied by word of mouth, however, they were doomed to be +disappointed; for when Rankin himself entered it was as though nothing +out of the ordinary had happened. He hung up his coat methodically, and, +with the boy by his side, partook of the hastily prepared meal +impassively, as was his wont. It could not have escaped him that the +small Benjamin ate and ate until it seemed marvellous that one stomach +could accommodate so much food; but he made no comment, and when at last +the boy succumbed to a final plateful, he tilted back against the wall +for his last smoke for the day. This was the usual signal of dismissal, +and the hands put on their hats and filed silently out.</p> + +<p>Without more words the foreman and his wife prepared for the night. The +dishes were cleared away and piled in the lean-to. From either end of +the room bunks, broad as beds, were let down from the wall, and the +blankets that formed their linings were carefully smoothed out. Along +the pole extending across the middle of the room, another set was drawn, +dividing the room in two. Then the two disappeared with a simple +"Good-night."</p> + +<p>Rankin and the boy sat alone looking at each other. From across the +blanket partition there came the muffled sound of movement, the impact +of Graham's heavy boots, as they dropped to the floor, and then +silence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Better go to bed, Ben," suggested Rankin, with a nod toward the bunk.</p> + +<p>The boy at once went through the process of disrobing, and, crawling in +between the blankets, pulled them up about his chin. But the blue eyes +did not close. Instead, they rested steadily upon the man's face. Rankin +returned the look, and then the stubby pipe left his mouth.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Ben?"</p> + +<p>The boy hesitated. "Am I to—to stay with you?" he asked at last.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>For an instant the questioner seemed satisfied; then the peculiar +inquiring look returned.</p> + +<p>"Anything else, son?"</p> + +<p>The lad hesitated longer than before. Beneath the coverings his body +moved restlessly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, I want to know why nobody would come to help my mamma if +she'd sent for them. She said they wouldn't."</p> + +<p>The pipe left Rankin's mouth, his great jaws closing with an audible +click.</p> + +<p>"You wish to know—what did you say, Ben?"</p> + +<p>The boy repeated the question.</p> + +<p>For a minute, and then another, Rankin said nothing; then he knocked the +ashes from the bowl of his brier and laid it upon the table.</p> + +<p>"Never mind now why they wouldn't, son." He arose heavily and drew off +his coat. "You'll find out for yourself quickly enough—too quickly, my +boy. Now go to sleep."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'>num'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> +<h3>THE EXOTICS</h3></div> + +<p>Some men acquire involuntary prominence by being democratic amid +aristocratic surroundings. Others, on the contrary, but with the same +result, continue to live the life to which they were born, even when +placed amid surroundings that make their actions all but grotesque. An +example of this latter class was Scotty Baker, whose ranch, as the wild +goose flies, was thirteen miles west of the Box R.</p> + +<p>Scotty was a very English Englishman, with an inborn love of fine +horse-flesh and a guileless nature. Some years before he had fallen into +the hands of a promoter, and had bartered a goodly proportion of his +worldly belongings for a horse-ranch in Dakota, to be taken possession +of immediately. Long indeed was the wail which went up from his home in +Sussex when the fact was made known. Neighbors were fluent in +denunciation, relatives insistent in expostulation; his wife, and in +sympathy their baby daughter, copious in the argument of tears; but the +die was irrevocably cast. Go he would,—not from voluntary stubbornness, +but because he must.</p> + +<p>The actual departure of the Bakers was much like the sailing of +Columbus. Probably not one of the friends<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> who saw them off for their +new home expected ever to see the family again. Indians they were +confident were rampant, and frantic for scalps. Should any by a miracle +escape the savages, the tremendous herds of buffalo, running amuck, here +and there, could not fail to trample the survivors into the dust of the +prairie. By comparison, war was a benignant prospect; and sighs mingled +until the sound was as the wailing of winds.</p> + +<p>Scotty was very cheerful through it all, very encouraging even in the +face of incontestibly unfavorable evidence, until, with the few remnants +of civilization they had brought with them, the family arrived at the +wind-beaten terminus, a hundred miles from his newly acquired property. +Then for the first time he wilted.</p> + +<p>"I've been an ass," he admitted bitterly, as he glanced in impotent +contempt at the handful of weather-stained buildings which on the map +bore the name of a town; "an ass, an egregious, abominable, blethering +ass!"</p> + +<p>But, notwithstanding his lack of the practical, Scotty was made of good +stuff. It was not an alternative but a necessity that faced him now, and +he arose right manfully to the occasion. Despite his wife's assertion +that she "never, never would go any farther into this God-forsaken +country," he succeeded in getting her into a lumber-wagon and headed for +what he genially termed "the interior." At last he even succeeded in +making her smile at his efforts to make the disreputable mule pack-team +he had secured move faster than a walk.</p> + +<p>Once in possession of his own, however, he returned to his customary +easy manner of life. It took him a very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> short time to discover that he +had purchased a gold brick. Horses, especially fine horses, were in no +demand there; but this fact did not alter his course in the least. A +horse-ranch he had bought, a horse-ranch he would run, though every man +west of the Mississippi should smile. He enlarged his tiny shack to a +cottage of three rooms; put in floor and ceiling, and papered the walls. +Out of poles and prairie sod he fashioned a serviceable barn, and built +an admirable horse paddock. Last of all he planted in his dooryard, in +artistic irregularity, a wagon-load of small imported trees. The fact +that within six months they all died caused him slight misgiving. He at +least had done what he could to beautify the earth; that he failed was +nature's fault, not his.</p> + +<p>Once settled, he began to make acquaintances. Methodically, to the +members of one ranch at a time, he sent invitations to dinner, and upon +the appointed date he confronted his guests with a spectacle which made +them all but doubt their identity, the like of which most of them had +never even seen before. Fancy a cowboy rancher, clad in flannel and +leather, welcomed by a host and hostess in complete evening dress, +ushered into a room which contained a carpet and a piano, and had lace +curtains at the windows; seated later at a table covered with pure linen +and set with real china and cut-glass. The experience was like a dream +to the visitor. Temporarily, as in a dream, the evening would pass +without conscious volition upon the latter's part; and not until later, +when he was at home, would the full significance of the experience +assert itself, and his wonder and admiration find vent in words. Then +indeed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> would the fame of Scotty Baker, his wife, and little daughter, +be heard in the land.</p> + +<p>Early in his career, Scotty began to cultivate the impassive Rankin. He +fairly bombarded the big rancher with courtesies and invitations. No +holiday (and Scotty was an assiduous observer of holidays) was complete +unless Rankin was present to help celebrate. No improvement about the +ranch was definitely undertaken until Rankin had expressed a favorable +opinion concerning the project. Gradually, so gradually that the big man +himself did not realize the change, he fell under Scotty's influence, +and more and more frequently he was to be found headed toward the cosey +Baker cottage. Now, for a year or more, scarcely a Sunday had passed +without one or the other of the men finding it possible to traverse the +thirty miles intervening between them, to spend a few hours in each +other's company.</p> + +<p>It was in pursuance of this laudable intention that on the second +morning following Ben Blair's adoption into the Box R Ranch—a +Sunday—the Englishman hitched a team of his best blooded trotters to +the antiquated phaeton, which was the only vehicle he possessed, and +started across country at a lively clip. Thus it came to pass that about +two hours later, having tied his team at the barn and started for the +ranch-house, the visitor saw squarely in his path upon the sunny south +doorstep an object that made him pause and blink his near-sighted eyes. +Under the concentration of his vision, the object resolved itself into a +small boy perched like a frog upon a rock, his fingers locked across his +shins, his chin upon his knees. For an instant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> the Englishman +hesitated. Courtesy was instinctive with him.</p> + +<p>"Can you tell me whether Mr. Rankin is at home?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The lad calmly disentangled himself and stood up.</p> + +<p>"You mean the big man, sir?"</p> + +<p>Again Scotty was guilty of a breach of etiquette. He stared.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," he replied at last.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair stepped out of the way.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, he is."</p> + +<p>Within the ranch-house Scotty dropped into the nearest chair.</p> + +<p>"Tell me, Rankin," he began, "who is the new-comer, and where did you +get him?" A long leg swung comfortably over its mate. "And, by the way, +while you're about it, is he six or sixty? By Jove, I couldn't tell!"</p> + +<p>The host looked at his visitor quizzically.</p> + +<p>"Ben, I suppose you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Ben, or <i>Tom</i>, I don't know. I mean the gentleman on the front steps, +the one who didn't know your name," and the Englishman related the +recent conversation.</p> + +<p>The corners of Rankin's eyes tightened into an unwonted smile as he +listened, and then contracted until the corner of the large mouth drew +upward in sympathy.</p> + +<p>"I'm not surprised, Baker," he admitted, "that you're in doubt about +Ben's age. He's eight; but I'd be uncertain myself if I didn't +absolutely know. As to his not knowing my name—it's just struck me that +I've never introduced myself to the little fellow."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But how did you come to get him? This isn't a country where one sees +many children roaming around."</p> + +<p>"No," the big mouth dropped back into its normal shape; "that's a fact. +He didn't just drop in. I got him by adoption, I suppose; least ways, I +asked him to come and live with me, and he accepted." The speaker turned +to his companion directly. "You knew Jennie Blair, did you?"</p> + +<p>Scotty looked interested.</p> + +<p>"Knew of her, but never had the pleasure of an acquaintance. I always—"</p> + +<p>"Well," interrupted Rankin impassively, "Ben's her son. She died awhile +ago, you remember, and somehow it seemed to break Blair all up. He +wouldn't stay here any longer, and didn't want to take the kid with him, +so I took the youngster in. As far as I know, the arrangement will +stick."</p> + +<p>For a minute there was silence. Scotty observed his host shrewdly, +almost sceptically.</p> + +<p>"That's all of the story, is it?" he asked at last.</p> + +<p>"All, as far as I know."</p> + +<p>Scotty continued his observation a moment longer.</p> + +<p>"But not all the kid knows, I judge."</p> + +<p>The host made no comment, and in a distinctively absent manner the +Englishman removed his glasses and cleaned the lenses upon the tail of +his Sunday frock-coat.</p> + +<p>"By the way,"—Scotty returned the glasses to his nose and sprung the +bows over his ears with a snap,—"what day was it that Blair left? Did +it happen to be Friday?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Friday."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And he doesn't intend ever to return?"</p> + +<p>"I believe not."</p> + +<p>The visitor's eyes flashed swiftly around the room. The two men were +alone.</p> + +<p>"I think, then, I see through it." The voice was lower than before. "One +of my best mares disappeared night before last, and I haven't been able +to get trace of a hoof or hair since."</p> + +<p>"What?" Rankin was interested at last.</p> + +<p>Scotty repeated the statement, and his host eyed him a full half minute +steadily.</p> + +<p>"And you just—tell of it?" he said at last.</p> + +<p>The Englishman shifted uneasily in his seat.</p> + +<p>"Yes." Forgetting that he had just polished his glasses, he took them +off and went through the process again.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I may as well be honest, I've seen a bit of these Westerners about +here, and I don't really agree with their scheme of justice. They're apt +to put two and two together and make eight where you know it's only +four." For the second time he sprung the bows back over his ears. "And +when they find out their beastly mistake—why—oh—it's too late then, +perhaps, for some poor devil!"</p> + +<p>For another half minute Rankin hesitated; then he reached over and +grasped the other man by the hand.</p> + +<p>"Baker," he said, "you ain't very practical, but you're dead square." +And he shook the hand again.</p> + +<p>Of a sudden a twinkle came into the Britisher's eyes and he tore himself +loose with an effort.</p> + +<p>"By the way," he said, "I'd like to ask a question for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> future guidance. +What would you have done if you'd been in my place?"</p> + +<p>Rankin stiffened in his seat, and a color almost red surged beneath the +tan of his cheeks; then, as suddenly as his companion had done, he +smiled outright.</p> + +<p>"I reckon I'd have done just what you did," he admitted; and the two men +laughed together.</p> + +<p>"Seriously, though," said Scotty, after a moment, "and as long as I've +told you anyway, what ought I to do under the circumstances? Should I +let Blair off, do you think?"</p> + +<p>For a moment Rankin did not answer; then he faced his questioner +directly, and Scotty knew why the big man's word was so nearly law in +the community.</p> + +<p>"Under the circumstances," he repeated, "I'd let him go; for several +reasons. First of all, he's got such a start of you now that you +couldn't catch him, anyway. Then he's a coward by nature, and it'll be a +mighty long time before he ever shows up here again. And last of all," +the speaker hesitated, "last of all," he repeated slowly, "though I +don't know, I believe you were right when you said the boy could tell +more about it than the rest of us; and if what we suspect is true, I +think by the time he comes back, if he ever does come, Ben will be old +enough to take care of him." Again the speaker paused, and his great +jowl settled down into his shirt-front. "If he doesn't, I can't read +signs when I see 'em."</p> + +<p>For a moment the room was silent; then Scotty sprang to his feet as if a +load had been taken off his mind.</p> + +<p>"All right," said he, "we'll forget it. And, speaking of forgetting, +I've nearly got myself into trouble already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>. I have an invitation from +Mrs. Baker for you to take dinner with us to-day. In fact, I was sent on +purpose to bring you. Not a word, not a word!" he continued, at sight of +objections gathering on the other's face; "a lady's invitations are +sacred, you know. Get your coat!"</p> + +<p>Rankin arose with an effort and stood facing his visitor.</p> + +<p>"You know I'm always glad to visit you, Baker," he said. "I wasn't +thinking of holding off on my own account, but I've got someone else to +consider now, you know. Ben—"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, certainly!" Scotty's voice was eloquent of comprehension. +"Throw the kiddie in too. He can play with Flossie; they're about of an +age, and she'll be tickled to death to have him."</p> + +<p>Rankin looked at his friend a moment peculiarly. "I know Ben's going +would be all right with you, Baker," he explained at last, "but how +about your wife? Considering—everything—she might object."</p> + +<p>The smile left the Englishman's face, and a look of perplexity took its +place.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he said, "you're right! I never thought of that." He shifted +from one foot to the other uneasily. "But, pshaw! What's the use of +saying anything whatever about the boy's connections? He's nothing but a +youngster,—and, besides, his mother's actions are no fault of his."</p> + +<p>Rankin took his top-coat off its peg deliberately.</p> + +<p>"All right," he said. "I'll call Ben." At the door he paused, looking +back, the peculiar expression again upon his face. "As you say, the +faults of Ben's mother are not his faults, anyway."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'>num'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<h3>THE SOIL AND THE SEED</h3></div> + +<p>Within the Baker home three persons, a woman and two men, were sitting +beside a well-discussed table in the perfect content that follows a good +meal. Strange to say, in this frontier land, the men had cigars, and +their smoke curled slowly toward the ceiling. Intermittently, with the +unconscious attitude of indifference we bestow upon happenings remote +from our lives, they were discussing the month-old news of the world, +which the messenger from town, who supplied at stated intervals the +family wants, had brought the day before.</p> + +<p>Out of doors, in the warm sunny plat south of the barn, a small boy and +a still smaller girl were engaged in the fascinating occupation of +becoming acquainted. The little girl was decidedly taking the +initiative.</p> + +<p>"How's it come your name is Blair?" she asked, opening fire as soon as +they were alone.</p> + +<p>The boy pondered the question. It had never occurred to him before. Why +should he be called Blair? No adequate reason suggested itself.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he admitted.</p> + +<p>The little girl wrinkled her forehead in thought.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's funny, isn't it?" she said. "Now, my papa's name is Baker, and my +name's Florence Baker. You ought to be Ben Rankin—but you aren't." She +stroked a diminutive nose with a fairy forefinger. "It's funny," she +repeated.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" commented Benjamin. He understood now, but explanations were not a +part of his philosophy. "Oh!" and the subject dropped.</p> + +<p>"Let's play duck on the rock," suggested Florence.</p> + +<p>The boy's hands were deep in the recesses of his pockets.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how."</p> + +<p>"That's nothing." The small brunette had the air of one to whom +difficulties were unknown. "I'll show you. Papa and I play, and it's +lots of fun—only he beats me." She looked about for available material.</p> + +<p>"You get that little box up by the house," she directed, "and we'll have +that for the rock."</p> + +<p>Ben did as ordered.</p> + +<p>"Now bring two tin cans. You'll find a pile back of the barn."</p> + +<p>Once more the boy departed, to return a moment later with a pair of +"selects," each bearing in gaudy illumination a composite picture of the +ingredients of succotash.</p> + +<p>"Now watch me," said Florence.</p> + +<p>She carried the box about a rod away and planted it firmly on the +ground. "This is the rock," she explained. On the top of the box she +perched one of the cans, open end up. "And this is the duck—my duck. Do +you see?"</p> + +<p>The boy had watched the proceedings carefully. "Yes, I see," he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + +<p>Florence came back to the barn. "Now the game is for you to take this +other can and knock my duck off. Then we both run, and if you get your +can on the box ahead of me, I'm <i>it</i>, and I'll have to knock off your +duck. Are you ready?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"All right." And the sport was on.</p> + +<p>Ben poised his missile and carefully let fly.</p> + +<p>"He, he!" tittered Florence. "You missed!"</p> + +<p>He retrieved his duck without comment.</p> + +<p>"Try again; you've got three chances."</p> + +<p>More carefully than before Ben took aim and tossed his can.</p> + +<p>"Missed again!" exulted the little brunette. "You've only one more try." +And the brown eyes flashed with mischief.</p> + +<p>For the last time Ben stood at position.</p> + +<p>"Be careful! you're out if you miss."</p> + +<p>Even more slowly than before the boy took aim, swung his arm overhead +clear from the shoulder, and threw with all his might. There was a flash +of gaudy paper through the air, a resounding impact of tin against wood, +and the make-believe duck skipped away as though fearful of danger.</p> + +<p>For a moment Florence stood aghast, but only for a moment; then she +stamped a tiny foot imperiously.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you naughty boy!" she exclaimed. "You naughty, naughty boy!"</p> + +<p>Once more Ben's hands were in his pockets. "Why?" he asked innocently.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Because you don't play right!"</p> + +<p>"You told me to knock the duck off, and I did!"</p> + +<p>"But not that way." Florence's small chin was high in the air. "I'm +going in the house."</p> + +<p>Ben made no motion to follow her, none to prevent her going.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," he said simply.</p> + +<p>The little girl took two steps decidedly, a third haltingly, a fourth, +then stopped and looked back out of the corner of her eye.</p> + +<p>"Are you very sorry?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Ben nodded his head gravely.</p> + +<p>There was a moment of indecision. "All right," she said, with apparent +reluctance; "but we won't play duck any more. We'll play drop the +handkerchief."</p> + +<p>The boy discreetly ignored the change of purpose.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how," he admitted once more.</p> + +<p>Such deplorable ignorance aroused her sympathy.</p> + +<p>"Don't Mr. Rankin, or—or anyone—play with you?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Ben shook his head.</p> + +<p>"All right, then," she said obligingly, "I'll show you."</p> + +<p>With her heel she drew upon the ground a rough circle about ten feet in +diameter.</p> + +<p>"You can't cross that place in there," she said.</p> + +<p>The boy looked at the bare ground critically. No visible barrier +presented itself to his vision.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Florence made a gesture of disapproval. "Because you can't," she +explained. Then, some further reason seeming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> necessary, she added, +"Perhaps there are red-hot irons or snakes, or something, in there. +Anyway, you can't cross!"</p> + +<p>Ben made no comment, and his instructor looked at him a moment +doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"Now," she went on, "I stand right here close to the line, and you take +the handkerchief." She produced a dainty little kerchief with a "B" +embroidered in the corner. "Drop it behind me, and get in my place if +you can before I touch you. If you get clear around and catch me before +I notice you—you can kiss me. Do you see?"</p> + +<p>Ben could see.</p> + +<p>"All right, then." And the little girl stood at attention, very prim, +apparently very watchful, toes touching the line.</p> + +<p>The nature of Benjamin Blair was very direct. The first time he passed, +he dropped the handkerchief and proceeded calmly on his journey. His +back toward her, the little girl turned and gave a surreptitious glance +behind; then quickly shifted to her original position, a look of +innocence upon her face. Straight ahead went Ben around the circle—that +contained hot irons, or snakes, or something—back to his +starting-point, touched the small fragment of femininity upon the +shoulder gingerly, as though afraid she would fracture.</p> + +<p>"Here's your handkerchief," he said, stooping to recover the bit of +linen. "You're it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear!" she said, in mock despair; "you dropped it the first time, +didn't you?"</p> + +<p>Ben agreed to the statement.</p> + +<p>An unaccountable lull followed. In it he caught a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> curious sidelong +glance from the brown eyes under the drooping lashes.</p> + +<p>"I didn't suppose you'd do that the first time," said the little girl. +"Papa never does."</p> + +<p>The observation seemed irrelevant to Ben Blair, at least inadequate to +halt the game; but he made no comment.</p> + +<p>Again there was a lull.</p> + +<p>"Well," suggested Florence, and a tinge of red surged beneath the soft +brown skin.</p> + +<p>Ben began to feel uncomfortable. He had a premonition that all was not +well.</p> + +<p>"You're <i>it</i>, ain't you?" he hesitated at last.</p> + +<p>This time, full and fair, the tiny woman looked at him. The color which +before had stood just beneath the skin rose burning to her ears, to the +roots of her hair. Her big brown eyes flashed fire.</p> + +<p>"Ben Blair," she flamed, "you're a 'fraid cat!" Tears welled up into her +voice, into her eyes, and she made a motion as if to leave; but the +sudden passion of a spoiled child was too strong upon her, the mystified +face of the other too near, too tempting. With a motion which was all +but involuntary, a tiny brown hand shot out and struck the boy fair on +the mouth. "A 'fraid cat, 'fraid cat, and I hate you!"</p> + +<p>Never before in his short life had Benjamin Blair met a girl. The ethics +of sex was a thing unknown to him, but nevertheless some instinct +prevented his returning the insult. Except for the red mark upon his +lips, his face grew very white.</p> + +<p>"What am I afraid of?" he asked steadily.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<p>Defiant still, the girl held her ground.</p> + +<p>"Afraid of what?" she jeered. "You're afraid of everything! 'Fraid cats +always are!"</p> + +<p>"But what?" pressed the boy. "Tell me something I'm afraid of."</p> + +<p>Florence glanced about her. The tall roof of the barn caught her vision.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't dare jump off the roof there, for one thing," she +ventured.</p> + +<p>Ben looked up. The point mentioned arose at least sixteen feet, and the +earth beneath was frozen like asphalt, but he did not hesitate. At the +north end, a stack of hay piled against the wall formed a sort of +inclined plane, and making a detour he began to climb. Half-way up he +lost his footing and came tumbling to the ground; but still he said +nothing. The next time he was more careful, and reached the ridge-pole +without accident. Below, the little girl, brilliant in her red jacket, +stood watching him; but he never even glanced at her. Instead, he raised +himself to his full height, looked once at the ground beneath, and +jumped.</p> + +<p>That instant a wave of contrition swept over Florence. In a sort of +vision she saw the boy lying injured, perhaps dead, upon the frozen +ground,—and all through her fault! She shut her eyes, and clasped her +hands over her face.</p> + +<p>A few seconds passed, bringing with them no further sound, and she +slowly opened her fingers. Through them, instead of a prostrate corpse, +she saw the boy standing erect before her. There was a smear of dust +upon his coat and face where he had fallen, and a scratch upon his +cheek,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> which bled a bit, but otherwise he was apparently unhurt. From +beneath his long lashes as she looked, the blue eyes met hers, +deliberate and unsmiling.</p> + +<p>As swiftly as it had come, the mood of contrition passed. In an +indefinite sort of way the girl experienced a sensation of +disappointment,—a feeling of being deprived of something which was her +due. She was only a child, a spoiled child, and her defiance arose anew. +A moment so the children faced each other.</p> + +<p>"Do you still think I'm afraid?" asked the boy at last.</p> + +<p>Again the hot color flamed beneath the brown skin.</p> + +<p>"Pooh!" said the girl, "<i>that</i> was nothing!" She tossed her head in +derision. "Anyone could do that!"</p> + +<p>Ben slowly took off his cap, slapped it against his knee to shake off +the dust, and put it back upon his head. The action took only a half +minute, but when the girl looked at him again it hardly seemed he was +the same boy with whom she had just played. His eyes were no longer +blue, but gray. The chin, too, with an odd trick,—one she was destined +to know better in future,—had protruded, had become the dominant +feature of his face, aggressive, almost menacing. Except for the size, +one looking could scarcely have believed Ben's visage was that of a +child.</p> + +<p>"What," the boy's hands went back into his pockets, "what wouldn't +anyone do, then?" he asked directly.</p> + +<p>At that moment Florence Baker would have been glad to occupy some other +person's shoes. Obviously, the proper thing for her to do was to admit +her fault and clear the atmosphere, but that did not accord with her +disposition, and she looked about for a suggestion. One<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> came promptly, +but at first she did not speak. Then the brown head tossed again.</p> + +<p>"Some folks would be afraid to ride one of those colts out there!" She +indicated the pasture near by. "Papa said the other day he'd rather not +be the first to try."</p> + +<p>The colts mentioned were a bunch of four-year-olds that Scotty had just +imported from an Eastern breeder. They were absolutely unbroken, but +every ounce thoroughbreds, and full to the ear-tips of what the +Englishman expressively termed "ginger."</p> + +<p>To her credit be it said, the small Florence had no idea that her +challenge would be accepted. Implicit trust in her father was one of her +virtues, and the mere suggestion that another would attempt to do what +he would not, was rankest heresy. But the boy Benjamin started for the +barn, and, securing a bridle and a pan of oats, moved toward the gate. +Instinctively Florence took a step after him.</p> + +<p>"Really, I didn't mean for you to try," she explained in swift +penitence. "I don't think you're afraid!"</p> + +<p>Ben opened and closed the gate silently.</p> + +<p>"Please don't do it," pleaded the girl. "You'll be hurt!"</p> + +<p>But for all the effect her petition had, she might as well have asked +the sun to cease shining. Nothing could stop that gray-eyed boy. Without +a show of haste he advanced toward the nearest colt, shook the oats in +the pan, and whistled enticingly. Full often in his short life he had +seen the trick done before, and he waited expectantly.</p> + +<p>Florence, forgetting her fears, watched with interest.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> At first the +colt was shy, but gradually, under stimulus of its appetite, it drew +nearer, then ran frisking away, again drew near. Ben held out the pan, +shook it at intervals, displaying its contents to the best advantage. +Colt nature could not resist the appeal. The sleek thoroughbred cast +aside all scruples, came close, and thrust a silken muzzle deep into the +grain.</p> + +<p>Still without haste, the boy put on the bridle, holding the pan near the +ground to reach the straps over the ears; then, pausing, looked at the +back far above his head. How he was to get up there would have perplexed +an observer. For a moment it puzzled the boy; then an idea occurred to +him. Once more holding the remnants of the oats near the ground, he +waited until the hungry nose was deep amongst them, the head well +lowered; then, improving his opportunity, he swung one leg over the +sleek neck and awaited developments.</p> + +<p>He was not long in suspense. The action was like touching flame to +powder; the resulting explosion was all but simultaneous. With a snort, +the head went high in air, tossing the grain about like seed, and down +the inclined plane of the neck thus formed the long-legged Benjamin slid +to the slippery back. Once there, an instinct told him to grip the +rounding flank with his ankles, and clutch the heavy mane.</p> + +<p>And he was none too quick. For a moment the colt paused in pure wonder +at the audacity of the thing; then, with a neigh, half of anger and half +of fear, it sprang away at top speed, circling and recircling, flashing +in and out among the other horses, the fragment of humanity on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> its back +meanwhile clinging to his place like a monkey. For a minute, then +another, the youngster kept his seat, pulling upon the reins at +intervals, gripping together his small knees until the muscles ached. +Then suddenly the colt, changing its tactics, planted its front feet +firmly into the ground, stopped short, and the small Benjamin shot +overhead, to strike the turf beyond with an impact which fairly drove +the breath from his body. But even then, half unconscious as he was, he +wouldn't let loose of the reins. Not until the now thoroughly aroused +colt had dragged him for rods, did the leather break, leaving the boy +and the bridle in a most disreputable-looking heap upon the earth.</p> + +<p>Florence had watched the scene with breathless interest. While Ben was +making his mount, she observed him doubtfully. While he retained his +seat, she clapped her hands in glee. Then, with his downfall, a great +lump came chokingly into her throat, and, without waiting to see the +outcome, she ran sobbing to the house. A moment later she rushed into +the little parlor where her father and Rankin, their cigars finished, +were sitting and chatting.</p> + +<p>"Papa," she pleaded, "papa, go quick! Ben's killed!"</p> + +<p>"Great Cæsar's ghost!" exclaimed Scotty, springing up nervously, and +holding the little girl at arm's length. "What's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Ben, Ben, I told you! He tried to ride one of the colts, and he's +killed—I know he is!"</p> + +<p>"Holy buckets!" Genuine apprehension was in the Englishman's voice. +Without waiting for further expla<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>nation he shot out of the door, and +ran full tilt to the paddock behind the barn. There he stopped, and +Rankin coming up a moment later, the two men stood side by side watching +the approach of a small figure still some rods away. The boy's face and +hands were marked with bloodstains from numerous scratches; one leg of +his trousers was torn disclosing the skin, and upon that side when he +walked he limped noticeably. All these things the two men observed at a +distance. When he came closer, they were forgotten in the look upon his +small face. The odd trick the boy had of throwing his lower jaw forward +was now emphasized until the lower teeth fairly overshot the upper. In +sympathy, the eyes had tightened, not morosely or cruelly, but with a +fixed determination which was all but uncanny. Scotty shifted a bit +uncomfortably.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he remarked, with his usual unconscious expletive, "I'd +rather have a tiger-cat on my trail than that youngster, if he was to +look that way. What do you suppose he's got in his cranium now?"</p> + +<p>Rankin shook his head. "I don't know. He's beyond me."</p> + +<p>Scarcely a minute passed before the boy returned. He had another bridle +in his hand and a fresh pan of oats. As before, he started to pass +without a word, but Rankin halted him. "What's the matter with your +clothes, Ben?" he queried.</p> + +<p>The lad looked at his questioner. "Horse threw me, sir."</p> + +<p>"And what are you going to do now?"</p> + +<p>"Going to try to ride him again, sir."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> + +<p>Rankin paused, his face growing momentarily more severe.</p> + +<p>"Ben," he said at last, "did Mr. Baker hire you to break his horses? If +I were you I'd put those things away and ask his pardon."</p> + +<p>The boy looked from one man to the other uncertainly. Obviously, this +phase of the matter had not occurred to him. Obviously, too, the point +of view must be correct, for both Rankin and Scotty were solemn as the +grave. The lad shot out toward the pasture a glance that spoke volumes; +then he turned to Baker.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, sir," he said.</p> + +<p>Scotty caught his cue. "Granted—this time," he answered.</p> + +<p>A half-hour later, Rankin and Ben, the latter carefully washed, the +rents in his trousers temporarily repaired, were ready to go home. Not +until the very last moment did Florence appear; then, her face a bit +flushed, she came out to the buckboard.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," she said simply. There was a moment's pause; then, with a +deepening color, she turned to Ben Blair. "Come again soon," she added +in a low tone.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<h3>THE SANITY OF THE WILD</h3></div> + +<p>Summer, tan-colored, musical with note of katydid and cicada, and the +constant purr of the south wind, was upon the prairie country. Under the +eternal law of necessity,—the necessity of sunburnt, stunted +grass,—the boundaries of the range extended far in every direction. The +herds bearing the Box R brand no longer fed in one body, but scattered +far and wide. Often for a week at a time the men did not sleep under +cover. Morning and night, when a semblance of dew was upon the blighted +grass, the cattle grazed. The life was primitive and natural almost +beyond belief in a world of artificial civilization; but it was +independent, care-free, and healthy.</p> + +<p>The land surrounding the ranch-house was now almost as bare as the palm +of a hand. Only one object relieved the impression of desolation, and +that was a tree. It stood carefully fenced about in the drain from the +big artesian well,—a vivid blot of green against the dun background. +The first year after he came, Rankin had imported it,—a goodly sized +soft maple; and in the pathway of constantly trickling water, it had +grown and prospered. It was the only tree for miles and miles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> about, +except the scrawny scrub-oaks, cotton-woods, and wild plums that flanked +the infrequent creeks,—creeks which in Summer, save in deepest holes, +reverted to mere dry runs. Beneath its shade Rankin had constructed a +rough bench, and therein Ma Graham, day after day when her housework was +finished, dozed and sewed and dozed again, apparently as forgetful as +the cowboys upon the prairies that beyond her vision were great cities +where countless thousands of human beings sweltered and struggled in +desperate competition for daily bread.</p> + +<p>So much for the day. With the coming of dusk, a coolness like a +benediction took the place of heat. The south wind gradually died down +with the descending sun, until immediately following the setting it was +absolutely still; now it sprang up anew, and wandered on until the break +of day.</p> + +<p>Such an evening in late July found Rankin and Baker stretched out like +boys upon a pile of hay in the latter's yard. The big man had just +arrived; the old buckboard, with its mouse-colored mustangs, stood just +as he had driven it up. Scotty knew him well enough to know that he had +come for a purpose, and he awaited its revelation. Rankin slowly filled +and lit his pipe, drew thereon until the glow from the bowl was +reflected upon his face, and blew a great cloud of smoke out into the +gathering dusk.</p> + +<p>"Baker," he asked at last, "what are we going to do for the education of +these youngsters of ours? We can't let them grow up here like savages."</p> + +<p>Scotty rolled over on his side, and leaned his head comfortably in his +hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I've thought of that," he answered, "and there seems to me only one of +two things to do—either move into civilization, or import a pedagogue." +A pause, and a whimsical inflection came into his voice. "Unfortunately, +however, neither plan seems exactly practical at this time."</p> + +<p>Rankin smoked a minute in silence. "How would it do to move into +civilization six months of the year—the Winter six?" he suggested.</p> + +<p>Scotty considered for a moment. "Do you mean that seriously?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>By the sense of feeling alone, the Englishman rolled a cigarette +skilfully. "How about the stock here while we're gone," he said +hesitatingly. "Do you suppose we'd find anything left when we came back +in the Spring?"</p> + +<p>Rankin crowded the half-burned tobacco down into the pipe-bowl with his +little finger. "I don't think you got the idea," he explained. "My plan +was for you to go East in the Fall and put the kids in school. I'd stay +here and see that everything ran smoothly while you were gone. Mrs. +Baker has said a dozen times that she wanted a change—for a time, +anyway."</p> + +<p>Scotty threw one long leg over the other. "As usual you're right, +Rankin," he said slowly. "The Lord knows Mollie gets restless enough at +times. People were like ants in a hill where she was raised, and that +life was a part of her." He took a last puff at the cigarette, and with +a toss sent the smoking stump spinning like a firefly into the darkness. +"And Flossie can't grow up wild—I know that. I'll talk your suggestion +over with Mollie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> first, but I think I'd be safe in saying right now +that we'll accept."</p> + +<p>For a moment Rankin did not speak; then he knocked the ashes out of his +pipe upon his heel.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me if I keep going back to something unpleasant, Baker," he said +slowly, "but in considering the matter there's one thing I don't want +you to forget." Then, after a meaning pause, he went on: "It's the same +reason I had for not introducing Ben in the first place."</p> + +<p>Scotty drew out his book of rice-paper again almost involuntarily.</p> + +<p>"I'd thought of that this time," he said; then paused to finger a gauzy +sheet absently. "I don't see why I should consider it now, +though—seeing I didn't before."</p> + +<p>Rankin said nothing, and conversation lapsed. Irresistibly, but so +gradually as to be all but unconscious, the spirit of the prairie +night—a sensation, a conception of infinite vastness, of unassailable +serenity—stole over and took possession of the men. The ambitious and +manifold artificial needs for which men barter their happiness, their +sense of humanity, even life itself, seemed beyond belief out there +alone with the stars, with the prairie night-wind singing in the ears; +seemed so puny that they elicited only a smile. The lust of show, of +extravagance, follies, wisdoms, man's loves and hates—how their true +proportions stand revealed against the eternal background of +immeasurable distance, in nature's vast scheme!</p> + +<p>Scotty cleared his throat. "I used to think, when I first came here, +that I'd been a fool; but now, somehow, at times like this, I wonder if +I didn't blunder into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> wisest act of my life." The prairie spirit +had taken hold of him. "And the longer I stay the more it grows upon me +that such a life as this, where one's success is not the measure of +another's failure, is the only one to live. It is the only life," he +added after a pause.</p> + +<p>Rankin said nothing.</p> + +<p>Scotty was silent for a moment, but the mood was too strong for him to +remain so, and he went on.</p> + +<p>"I know the ordinary person would laugh if I said it, but really, I +believe I'm developing a distaste for money. It's simply another term +for caste; and that word, with the unreasoning superiority it implies, +has somehow become hateful to me." He looked up into the night.</p> + +<p>"I used to think I was happy back in England. I had my home and my +associates; born so, because their fathers were friends of my father, +their grandfathers of my grandfather's class. As a small landlord I had +my gentlemanly leisure; but as well as I know my name, I realize now +that I could never return to that life again. Looking back, I see its +intolerable narrowness, its petty smugness. By comparison it's like the +relative clearness of the atmosphere there and here. There, perhaps I +could see a few miles: here, I look away over leagues and leagues of +distance. It's symbolic." The voice paused; the face, turned directly +toward his companion's, tried in the half-darkness to read its +expression. "I've been in this prairie country long enough now to +realize that financially I've made a mistake. I can earn a living, and +that's all; but nevertheless I'm happy—happier than I ever realized it +was possible for me to be. I've got enough—more would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> be a burden to +me. If I have a trouble in the world, it's because I see the inevitable +prospect of money in the future,—money I don't want, for I'm an only +son and my father is comparatively wealthy. Without turning his hand, +his rent-roll is five thousand pounds a year. He's getting along in +life. Some day—it may be five years, it may be fifteen—he will die and +leave it to me. I am to maintain and pass on the family name, the family +dignity. It was all cut and dried generations back, generations before I +was born."</p> + +<p>Still Rankin said nothing. For any indication he gave, the other's +revelation might have been only that he had a hundred dollars deposited +in the savings bank against a rainy day.</p> + +<p>But Scotty was now fairly under headway. He stripped his reserve and +confidence bare.</p> + +<p>"You see now why I'm glad to consider your proposition. Whatever I +believe myself must be of secondary importance. I've others to think +about—Florence and her mother. Flossie is only a child, but Mollie is a +woman, and has lived her life in sight of the brazen calf. She doesn't +realize, she never can realize, that it is of brass and not of gold. +Personally, I believe, as I believe in my own existence, that Flossie +would be immeasurably happier if she never saw the other side of +life,—the artificial side,—but lived right here, knowing what we +taught her and developing like a healthy animal; perhaps, when the time +came, marrying a rancher, having her own home, her own family interests, +and living close to nature. But it can't be. I've got to develop her, +cultivate her, fit her for any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> society." The voice paused, and the +speaker turned his face away.</p> + +<p>"God knows,—and He knows also that I love her dearly,—that looking +into the future I wish sometimes she were the daughter of another man."</p> + +<p>The minutes passed. The ponies shifted restlessly and then were still. +In the lull, the soft night-breeze crooned its minor song, while near or +far away—no human ear could measure the distance—a prairie owl gave +its weird cry. Then silence fell as before.</p> + +<p>Once more Scotty turned, facing his companion.</p> + +<p>"I've a question to ask you, Rankin; may I ask it without offence?"</p> + +<p>The big man nodded. By the starlight Baker caught the motion.</p> + +<p>"You told me once that you were a college man, and that you had a +Master's degree. From the very first you started cattle-raising on a big +scale. You must have had money. Still, such being the case, you left +culture and civilization far behind and came here to choose a life +absolutely different. I have told you why I wish to educate my daughter. +But why, feeling as you must have felt and must still feel, since you're +here, why do you wish to educate this waif boy you've picked up? By all +the standards of convention, he is at the very bottom of the social +scale. Why do you want to do this?"</p> + +<p>It was a psychological moment. Even in the semi-darkness, Rankin felt +the other's eyes fixed piercingly upon him. He passed his hand over his +face; he seemed about to speak. But the habit of reticence was too +strong<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> upon him. Even the inspiration of the Englishman's confidence +was not sufficient to break the seal of his own reserve. He arose slowly +and shook the clinging wisps of hay from his clothes.</p> + +<p>"For somewhat the same reason as your own," he answered at last. "Ben, +like Flossie, is a child, an odd old child to be sure, but nevertheless +a child. I have no reason to know that when he grows up his beliefs will +be my beliefs. He must see both sides of the coin, and judge for +himself."</p> + +<p>The speaker paused, then walked slowly over to the old buckboard. "It's +getting late, and I've got a long drive home." With an effort he mounted +into the seat and picked up the reins. "Good-night."</p> + +<p>Scotty hesitated a moment, and then said, "Good-night."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<h3>THE GLITTER OF THE UNKNOWN</h3></div> + +<p>Twelve years slipped by. Short as they seemed to those actually living +them, they had brought great material changes. No longer did the ranch +cattle graze at the will of their owners, but, under stress of +competition, they browsed within the confines of miles upon miles of +galvanized fencing. Neighbors, as Rankin said, were near now. There were +four within a radius of twenty miles. To be sure, there was still plenty +of land west of them, beyond the broad muddy Missouri,—open rough land, +gradually rising in elevation, where a traveller could journey for days +and days without seeing a human face. But this was not then a part of +the so-called "cattle ranges." In the parlance of the country, that was +"West,"—a place to hunt in, a refuge for criminals, but as yet giving +no indication of ever becoming of practical use.</p> + +<p>The Box R Ranch had evolved along with the others, and always well in +advance. The house now boasted six rooms; the barn and stock-sheds had +at a distance the appearance of a town in themselves; the collection of +haying implements—mowers, loaders, stackers—was almost complete enough +to stock a jobbing house. The herd itself had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> augmented, despite its +annual reduction, until one artesian well was inadequate to supply +water; and fifteen miles north, at the extreme limit of his home-ranch, +Rankin had sunk another well, making a sort of sub-station of that +point. From it an observer with good eyes could see the outlines of the +modern Big B Ranch property, built on the old site, and ostensibly +operated by a long-legged Yankee, Rob Hoyt by name, but in reality +owned, as had been the remnant of stock Tom Blair left behind him, by +saloon-keeper Mick Kennedy.</p> + +<p>The ranch force had changed very little. Rankin, stouter by a +quarter-hundred weight, shaggier of eyebrows and with an accentuated +droop in the upper eyelids, and if possible an increased taciturnity, +still lived his daytime life mainly on wheels. The old buckboard had +finally succumbed, but its counterpart, mud-spattered and +weather-bleached, had taken its place. In the kitchen, Ma Graham still +presided, her accumulated avoirdupois seeming to have been gathered at +the expense of her lord, who in equal ratio thinner and more weazened, +danced attendance as of old. Only one of the former cowboys now +remained. That one, strange to say, was Grannis, the "man from nowhere," +who had apparently taken root at last. Regularly on the last day of each +month he drew his pay, and without a word of explanation or comment +disappeared upon the back of a cow-pony, to reappear, perhaps in ten +hours, perhaps in sixty, dead broke, with a thirst seemingly +unappeasable, but quite non-committal concerning his experience, +apparently satisfied and ready to take up the dull routine of his life +again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + +<p>Last of all, Benjamin Blair. Precisely as the boy had given promise, the +youth had developed. He was now mature in size, in poise, in action. +Long of leg, long of arm, long of face, he stood a half head above +Rankin, who had been the tallest man upon the place. Yet he was not +awkward. Physically he was of the type, but magnified, to which all +cowboys belong; and no one would ever call him awkward or uncouth.</p> + +<p>There had been less change upon the Baker ranch. Scotty was not an +expansionist. Scarcely a score more horses grazed in his paddock than of +old. The barn, though often repaired, was still of sod and thatch. The +house contained the original number of rooms. The experiment with trees +had never been repeated. If possible, the man himself had altered even +less than his surroundings. Scrupulously fresh-shaven each day, +fortified beyond the compound lenses of his spectacles, a stranger would +have guessed him anywhere from thirty-five to fifty.</p> + +<p>Time had not dealt as kindly with Mrs. Baker. She seemed to have aged +enough for both herself and her husband. Notwithstanding the fact that +for the first eight years of the twelve, the family had spent half their +time in the East, she had grown careless of her appearance. True to his +instincts, Scotty still dressed for dinner in his antiquated evening +clothes; but pathetic as was the example, it had long ceased to +stimulate her. The last four years had been dead years with Mollie +Baker. The future held but one promise. She referred to it daily, almost +hourly; and at such times only would a trace of youth and beauty return +to the one-time winsome face. She looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> forward and dreamed of an +event after which she would do certain things upon which she had set her +heart; when, as she said, she would begin to live. It seemed to Scotty +ghastly to speak about that event, for it was the death of his father.</p> + +<p>The last member of the family had developed with the child's promise, +and at seventeen Florence was beautiful; not with a conventional +prettiness, but with a vital feminine attraction. All that the mother +had been, with her dark, oval face, her mass of walnut-brown hair, her +great dark eyes, her uptilted chin, the daughter was now; but with added +health and an augmented femininity that the mother had never known. +Moreover, she had an independence, a dominance, born perhaps of the wild +prairie influence, that at times made her parents almost gasp. Except in +the minute details of their daily existence, which habit had made +unchangeable, she ruled them absolutely. Even Rankin had become a +secondary factor. Scotty probably would have denied the assertion +emphatically, yet at the bottom of his consciousness he realized that +had she told him to sell everything he possessed for what he could get +and return to old Sussex he would have complied. Considering Mollie's +daily plaint, it was a constant source of wonder to him that the girl +did not do this; but she seemed wholly satisfied with things as they +were. For exercise and excitement she rode almost every horse upon the +place—rode astride like a man. For amusement she read everything she +could lay hands upon, both from the modest Baker library and from the +larger and more creditable collection which Rankin had imported<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> from +the East. This was the first real library that had ever entered the +State, and, subject for speculation, it had uniformly the front +fly-leaves remaining as mere stubs, as though the pages had been torn +out by a hurried hand. What name was it that had been in those hundreds +of volumes? For what reason had it been so carefully removed? The girl +had often speculated thereon, and fitted theory after theory; but never +yet, wilful as she was, had she had the temerity to ask the only person +who could have given explanation,—Rankin himself.</p> + +<p>In common with her sisters everywhere, Florence had an instinctive love +of a fad. Realizing this fact, Scotty was not in the least deceived +when, during a lull at the dinner-table one evening late in the Fall, +she broke in with an irrelevant though seemingly innocent remark.</p> + +<p>"I saw several big jack-rabbits when I was out riding this morning." The +dark eyes turned upon her father quizzically, humorously. "They seem to +be very plentiful."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Scotty; "they always are in the Fall."</p> + +<p>Florence ate for a moment in silence.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever think how much sport we could have if we owned a couple of +hounds?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Scotty was silent; but Mollie threw up her hands in horror. "You don't +really mean that you want any of those hungry-looking dogs around, do +you, Flossie?" she protested pettishly. "Seems as though you'd be +satisfied with riding the horses tomboy style without going to hunting +rabbits that way."</p> + +<p>The daughter's color heightened and the matter dropped; but Scotty knew +the main attack was yet to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> come. He had learned from experience the +methods of his daughter in attaining an object.</p> + +<p>Later in the evening father and daughter were alone beside a well-shaded +lamp in the cosey sitting-room. Mollie had retired early, complaining of +a headache, and carrying with her an air of martyrdom even more +pronounced than usual; so noticeable, in fact, that, absently watching +the door through which she had left, an expression of positive gloom +formed over Scotty's thin face. Two strong young arms fell suddenly +about his neck and abruptly changed his thoughts. A soft warm cheek was +laid against his own.</p> + +<p>"Poor old daddy!" whispered a caressing voice.</p> + +<p>For a moment Scotty did not move; then, turning, he looked into the +brown eyes. "Why?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Because,"—her voice was low, her answering look was steady,—"because +it won't be but a little while until he'll have to move away—move back +into civilization."</p> + +<p>For a moment neither spoke; then, with a last pressure of her cheek +against her father's, the girl crossed the room and took another chair. +Scotty followed her with his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Are you against me, too, little girl?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Florence reached over to the table, took up an ever-ready strip of +rice-paper, and, rolling a cigarette, tendered it with the air of a +peace-offering.</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not against you; but it's got to come. Mamma simply can't +change. She can't find anything here to interest her, and we've got to +take her away—for good."</p> + +<p>Scotty slowly struck a sulphur match, waited until the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> flame had burned +well along the wood, then deliberately lit his cigarette and burned it +to a stump.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you happy here, Flossie?" he asked gently.</p> + +<p>The girl's hands were folded in her lap, her eyes looked past him +absently.</p> + +<p>"Really, for once in my life," she answered seriously, "I spoke quite +unselfishly. I was thinking only of mamma." There was a pause, and a +deeper concentration in the brown eyes. "As for myself, I hardly know. +Yes, I do know. I'm happy now, but I wouldn't be long. The life here is +too narrow; I'd lose interest in it. At last I'd have a frantic desire, +one I couldn't resist, to peep just over the edge of the horizon and +take part in whatever is going on beyond." She smiled. "I might run +away, or marry an Indian, or do something shocking!"</p> + +<p>Scotty flicked off a bit of ashes with his little finger.</p> + +<p>"Can't you think of anything that would interest you and broaden your +life enough to make it pleasant?" he ventured.</p> + +<p>This time mirth shone upon the girl's face, and a laugh sounded in her +voice.</p> + +<p>"Papa, papa," she said, "I didn't think that of you! Are you so anxious +to get rid of your daughter?" As swiftly as it had come, the smile +vanished, leaving in its place a softer and warmer color.</p> + +<p>"I'm not enough of a hypocrite," she added slowly, "to pretend not to +understand what you mean. Yes, I believe if there is a man in the world +I could care enough for to marry, I could live here or anywhere with him +and be per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>fectly happy; but that isn't possible. I'm of the wrong +disposition." The soft color in the cheek grew warmer, the brown eyes +sparkled. "I know myself well enough to realize that any man I could +care for wouldn't live out here. He'd be one who did things, and did +them better than others; and to do things he'd have to be where others +are. No, I never could live here."</p> + +<p>Scotty dropped the dead cigarette stump into an ash-tray, and brushed a +stray speck of dust from his sleeve.</p> + +<p>"In other words, you could never care for such a man as your father," he +remarked quietly.</p> + +<p>The girl instantly realized what she had said, and springing up she +threw her arms impulsively about her father's neck.</p> + +<p>"Dear old daddy!" she said. "There isn't another man in the world like +you! I love you dearly, dearly!" The soft lips touched his cheek again +and again. But for the first time in her life that Florence could +remember, her father did not respond. Instead, he gently freed himself.</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless," he said, steadily, "the fact remains. You could never +marry a man like your father,—one who had no desire to be known of men, +but who simply loved you and would do anything in his power to make you +happy. You have said it." Scotty rose slowly, the youthfulness of his +movements gone, the expression of age unconsciously creeping into the +wrinkles at his temples and at the corners of his mouth. "You have hurt +me, Florence."</p> + +<p>The girl was at once repentant, but her repentance came too late. She +dropped her face into her hands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, daddy, daddy!" she pleaded, but could not say another word. Indeed, +there was nothing to be said.</p> + +<p>Scotty moved silently about the room, closed a book he had laid face +downward upon the table, picked up a paper which had fallen to the +floor, and wound the clock for the night. At the doorway to his +sleeping-room he paused.</p> + +<p>"You said something at dinner to-night about wanting some hounds, +Florence. I know where I can buy a pair, and I'll see that you have +them." He opened the door slowly, then quietly closed it. "And about our +leaving here. I have always expected to go sometime, but I hoped it +wouldn't be necessary for a while yet." He paused, fingering the knob +absently. "I'm ready, though, whenever you and your mother wish."</p> + +<p>This time the door closed behind him, and, alone within the room, the +girl sobbed as though her heart would break.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<h3>A RIFFLE OF PRAIRIE</h3></div> + +<p>Florence got her dogs promptly. They were two big mouse-colored +grayhounds, with tails like rats and protruding ribs. They were named +"Racer" and "Pacer," and were warranted by their late owner to +out-distance any rabbit that ever drew breath. The girl felt that an +event as important as a coursing should be the occasion of a gathering +of the neighboring ranchers; but at the mere suggestion her conventional +mother threw up her hands in horror. It was bad enough for her daughter +to go out alone, but as the one woman among all that lot of cowboys—it +was too much for her to endure. Finally, as a compromise, Florence +agreed to invite only the people of the Box R Ranch to the first event. +So the invitations for a certain day, composed with fitting formality, +were sent, and in due time were ceremoniously accepted.</p> + +<p>The chase was scheduled to begin soon after daybreak, and before that +time Rankin and Ben Blair were at the Baker house. They wore their +ordinary clothes of wool and leather, but Scotty appeared in a wonderful +red hunting-coat, which, though a bit moth-eaten in spots, nevertheless +showed glaringly against the brown earth of the ranch-house yard.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + +<p>With the exception of the dogs, which were kept properly hungry for the +hunt, and Mollie, who had washed her hands of the whole affair, the +party all had breakfast, Scotty himself serving the coffee with the +skill of a head-waiter. Then the old buckboard, carefully oiled and +tightened for the occasion, was gotten out, a team of the fastest, +wiriest mustangs the Box R possessed was attached, and Rankin and Baker +upon the seat, Florence and Ben, well-mounted, trailing behind, the +party sallied forth. In order to avoid fences they had agreed to go ten +miles to the south before beginning operations. There a great tract of +government land, well grazed but untouched by the hand of man, gave all +but unlimited room.</p> + +<p>The morning was beautiful and clear beyond the comprehension of city +dwellers, a typical day of prairie Dakota in late Fall. Far out over the +broad expanse, indefinite as to distance, the rising sun seemed resting +upon the very rim of the world. All about, near at hand, stretching into +the horizon, glistening, sparkling, innumerable frost crystals, product +of the past night, gleamed like scattered gems, showing in their +coloring every blended shade of the rainbow. The glory of it all +appealed to the girl, and throwing back her head she drew in deep +breaths of the tonic air.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to miss these mornings terribly when I'm gone," she said +soberly.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair scrutinized the backs of the two men in the buckboard with +apparent interest.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you intended leaving," he said. "Where are you going?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<p>Florence regarded her companion from the corner of her eye.</p> + +<p>"I'm going away for good," she said.</p> + +<p>Ben shifted half around in the saddle and folded back the rim of his big +sombrero.</p> + +<p>"For good, you say?"</p> + +<p>The girl's brown eyes were cast down demurely. "Yes, for good," she +repeated.</p> + +<p>They had been losing ground. Now in silence they galloped ahead, the +regular muffled patter of their horses' feet upon the frozen sod +sounding like the distant rattle of a snare-drum. Once again even with +the buckboard, they lapsed into a walk.</p> + +<p>"You haven't told me where you're going," repeated Blair.</p> + +<p>The question seemed to be of purest politeness, as a host inquires if +his visitor has rested well; yet for a dozen years they two had lived +nearest neighbors, and had grown to maturity side by side. She concluded +there were some phases of this silent youth which she had not yet +learned.</p> + +<p>"We haven't decided where we're going yet," she replied. "Mamma wants to +go to England, but papa and I refuse to leave this country. Then daddy +wants to live in a small town, and I vote for a big one. Just now we're +at deadlock."</p> + +<p>A smile started in Ben's blue eyes and spread over his thin face.</p> + +<p>"From the way you talk," he said, "I have a suspicion the deadlock won't +last long. If I stretch my imagination a little I can guess pretty close +to the decision."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> + +<p>Florence was sober a moment; then a smile flashed over her face and left +the daintiest of dimples in either cheek.</p> + +<p>"Maybe you can," she said.</p> + +<p>For the second time they galloped ahead and caught up with the slower +buckboard.</p> + +<p>"Florence," Ben threw one leg over the pommel of his saddle and faced +his companion squarely, "I've heard your mother talk, and of course I +understand why she wants to go back among her folks, but you were raised +here. Why do you want to leave?"</p> + +<p>The girl hesitated, and ran her fingers through her horse's mane.</p> + +<p>"Mamma's been here against her will for a good many years. We ought to +go for her sake."</p> + +<p>Ben made a motion of deprecation. "What I want to know is the real +reason,—your own reason," he said.</p> + +<p>The warm blood flushed Florence's face. "By what right do you ask that?" +she retorted. "You seem to forget that we've both grown up since we went +to school together."</p> + +<p>Ben looked calmly out over the prairie.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't forget; and I admit I have no right to ask. But I may ask +as a friend, I am sure. Why do you want to go?"</p> + +<p>Again the girl hesitated. Logically she should refuse to answer. To do +otherwise was to admit that her first answer was an evasion; but +something, an influence that always controlled her in Ben's presence, +prevented refusal. Slow of speech, deliberate of movement as he was, +there was about him a force that dominated her, even as she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> dominated +her parents, and, worst of all—to her inmost self she admitted the +fact—it fascinated her as well. With all her strength she rebelled +against the knowledge and combated the influence, but in vain. Instead +of replying, she chirruped to her horse. "It seems to me," she said, +"it's just as well to begin hunting here as to go further. I'm going on +ahead to ask papa and Mr. Rankin."</p> + +<p>With a grave smile, Blair reached over and caught her bridle-rein, +saying carelessly: "Pardon me, but you forget something you were going +to tell me."</p> + +<p>The girl's brown cheeks crimsoned anew, but this time there was no +hesitation in her reply.</p> + +<p>"Very well, since you insist, I'll answer your question; but don't be +surprised if I offend you." A dainty hand tugged at the loosened button +of her riding-glove. "I'm going away, for one reason, because I want to +be where things move, and where I don't always know what is going to +happen to-morrow." She turned to her companion directly. "But most of +all, I'm going because I want to be among people who have ambitions, who +do things, things worth while. I am tired of just existing, like the +animals, from day to day. I was only a young girl when we were going to +school, but now I know why I liked that life so well. It was because of +the intense activity, the constant movement, the competition, the +evolution. I like it! I want to be a part of it!"</p> + +<p>"Thank you for telling me," said Ben, quietly.</p> + +<p>But now the girl was in no hurry to hasten on. She forgot that her +explanation was given under protest. It had become a confession.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Up to the last few years I never thought much about the future—I took +it for granted; but since then it has been different. Unconsciously, +I've become a woman. All the little things that belong to women's lives, +too small to tell, begin to appeal to me. I want to live in a good house +and have good clothes and know people. I want to go to shops and +theatres and concerts; all these things belong to me and I intend to +have them."</p> + +<p>"I think I understand," said Ben, slowly. "Yes, I'm sure I understand," +he repeated.</p> + +<p>But the girl did not heed him. "Last of all, there's another reason," +she went on. "I don't know why I shouldn't speak it, as well as think +it, for it's the greatest of all. I'm a young woman. I won't remain such +long. I don't want to be a spinster. I know I'm not supposed to say +these things, but why not? I want to meet men, men of my own class, my +parents' class, men who know something besides the weight of a steer and +the value of a bronco,—some man I could respect and care for." Again +she turned directly to her companion. "Do you wonder I want to change, +that I want to leave these prairies, much as I like them?"</p> + +<p>It was long before Ben Blair spoke. He scarcely stirred in his seat; +then of a sudden, rousing, he threw his leg back over the saddle.</p> + +<p>"No," he said slowly, "I don't wonder—looking at things your way. It's +all in the point of view. But perhaps yours is wrong, maybe you don't +think of the other side of that life. There usually is another side to +everything, I've noticed." He glanced ahead. A half-mile on,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> the +blackboard had stopped, and Scotty was standing up on the seat and +motioning the laggards energetically.</p> + +<p>"I think we'd better dust up a little. Your father seems to have struck +something interesting."</p> + +<p>Florence seemed inclined to linger, but Scotty's waving cap was +insistent, and they galloped ahead.</p> + +<p>They found Rankin sitting upon the wagon seat, smoking impassively as +usual; but the Englishman was upon the ground holding the two hounds by +the collars. Behind the big compound lenses his eyes were twinkling +excitedly, and he was smiling like a boy.</p> + +<p>"Look out there!" he exclaimed with a jerk of his head, "over to the +west. We all but missed him! Are you ready?"</p> + +<p>They all looked and saw, perhaps thirty rods away, a grayish-white +jack-rabbit, distinct by contrast with the brown earth. The hounds had +also caught sight of the game and pulled lustily at their collars.</p> + +<p>Instantly Florence was all excitement. "Of course we're ready! No, wait +a second, until I see about my saddle." She dismounted precipitately. +"Tighten the cinch a bit, won't you, Ben? I don't mind a tumble, but it +might interfere at a critical moment." She put her foot in his extended +hand, and sprang back into her seat. "Now, I'm ready. Come on, Ben! Let +them go, papa! Be in at the finish if you can!" and, a second behind the +hounds, she was away. Simultaneously, the great jack-rabbit, scenting +danger, leaped forward, a ball of animate rubber, bounding farther and +farther as he got under full motion, speeding away toward the blue +distance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + +<p>The chase that followed was a thing to live in memory. From the nature +of the land, gently rolling to the horizon without an obstruction the +height of a man's hand, there was no possibility of escape for the +quarry. The outcome was as mathematically certain as a problem in +arithmetic; the only uncertain element was that of time. At first the +jack seemed to be gaining, but gradually the greater endurance of the +hounds began to count, and foot by foot the gap between pursuers and +pursued lessened. In the beginning the rabbit ran in great leaps, as +though glorying in the speed that it would seem no other animal could +equal, but very soon his movements changed; his ears were flattened +tight to his head, and, with every muscle strained to the utmost, he ran +wildly for his life.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the four hunters were following as best they might. In the +all but soundless atmosphere, the rattle of the old buckboard could be +heard a quarter of a mile. Alternately losing and gaining ground as they +cut off angles and followed the diameter instead of the circumference of +the great circles the rabbit described, the drivers were always within +sight. Closer behind the hounds and following the same course, Florence +rode her thoroughbred like mad, with Ben Blair at her side. The pace was +terrific. The rush of the crisp morning air sang in their ears and cut +keenly at their faces. The tattoo of the horses' feet upon the hard +earth was continuous. Beneath her riding-cap, the girl's hair was +loosened and swept free in the wind. Her color was high, her eyes +sparkled. Never before had the man at her side seen her so fair to gaze +upon; but despite the excitement, despite the rush of action, there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> was +a jarring note in her beauty. Deep in his nature, ingrained, elemental, +was the love of fair play. Though he was in the chase and a part of it, +his sympathies were far from being with the hounds. That the girl should +favor the strong over the weak was something he could not understand—a +blemish that even her beauty did not excuse.</p> + +<p>A quarter-hour passed. The sun rose from the lap of the prairie and +scattered the frost-crystals as though they had been mist. The chase was +near its end. All moved more slowly. A dozen times since they had +started, it seemed as if the hounds must soon catch their prey, that in +another second all would be over; but each time the rabbit had escaped, +had at the last instant shot into the air, while the hounds rushed +harmlessly beneath, and, ere they recovered, had gained a goodly lead +again in a new course. But now that time was past, and he was tired and +weak. It was a straight-away race, with the hounds scarcely twenty feet +behind. Back of the latter, perhaps ten rods, were the riders, still +side by side as at first. Their horses were covered with foam and +blowing steadily, but nevertheless they galloped on gallantly. Bringing +up the rear, just in sight but now out of sound, was the buckboard. Thus +they approached the finish.</p> + +<p>Inch by inch the dogs gained upon the rabbit. Standing in his stirrups, +Ben Blair, the seemingly stolid, watched the scene. The twenty feet +lessened to eighteen, to fifteen, and, turning his head, the man looked +at his companion. Beautiful as she was, there now appeared to his eye an +expression of anticipation,—anticipation of the end, anticipation of a +death,—the death of a weaker animal!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> + +<p>A determination which had been only latent became positive with Blair. +He urged on his horse to the uttermost and sprang past his companion. +His right hand went to his hip and lingered there. His voice rang out +above the sound of the horses' feet and of their breathing.</p> + +<p>"Hi, there, Racer, Pacer!" he shouted. "Come here!"</p> + +<p>There was no response from the hounds; no sign that they had heard him. +They were within ten feet of the rabbit now, and no voice on earth could +have stopped them.</p> + +<p>"Pacer! Racer!" shouted Ben. There was a pause, and then the quick bark +of a revolver. A puff of dust arose before the nose of the leading dog.</p> + +<p>Again no response, only the steadily lessening distance.</p> + +<p>For a second Ben Blair hesitated; but it was for a second only. Florence +watched him, too surprised to speak, and saw what for a moment made her +doubt her own eyes. The hand that held the big revolver was raised, +there was a report, then another, and the two dead hounds went tumbling +over and over with their own momentum upon the brown prairie. Beyond +them the rabbit bounded away into distance and safety.</p> + +<p>Without a word Ben Blair drew rein, returned the revolver to its +holster, and came back to where the girl had stopped.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," he said. "I'll pay you for the dogs, if you like." +A pause and a straight glance from out the blue eyes. "I couldn't help +doing what I did."</p> + +<p>Having in mind the look he had last seen upon the girl's face, he +expected an explosion of wrath; but he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> destined to surprise. There +was silence, instead, while two great tears gathered slowly in her soft +eyes, and brimmed over upon the brown cheeks.</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to pay for the dogs; I'm glad they're gone." She +brushed back a straggling lock of hair. "It's a horrid sport, and I'll +never have anything to do with it again." A look that set the youth's +heart bounding shot out sideways from beneath the long lashes. "I'm very +glad you did—what you did."</p> + +<p>Just then the noisy old buckboard, with Rankin and Scotty clinging to +the seat, drove up and stopped short, with a protest from every joint of +the ancient vehicle.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> +<h3>THE DOMINANT ANIMAL</h3></div> + +<p>The chance to sell his stock, ostensibly his reason for delaying +departure, came to Scotty Baker much more quickly than he had +anticipated. Within a week after the hunt—in the very first mail he +received, in fact—came an offer from a Minneapolis firm to take every +scrap of horse-flesh he could spare. With much compunction and a doleful +face he read the letter aloud in the family council.</p> + +<p>"That means 'go' for sure, I suppose," he commented at its conclusion.</p> + +<p>Involuntarily Florence laughed. "You look as though you'd just got word +that the whole herd had stampeded over a ravine, instead of having had a +wave of good fortune," she bantered. "I believe you'd still back out if +you could."</p> + +<p>Scotty's face did not lighten. "I know I would," he admitted.</p> + +<p>"We'll not give you the chance, though," broke in Mollie, with the first +indication of enthusiasm she had shown in many a day. "Florence and I +will begin packing right away, and you can carry the things along with +you when you drive the horses to town."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<p>Scotty looked at his wife steadily and caught the trace of excitement in +her manner.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is a good suggestion," he replied slowly. "It's liable to +turn cold any time now, and as long as we're going it may as well be +before Winter sets in." He filled a stubby meerschaum pipe with tobacco, +and put on cap and coat preparatory to going out of doors. "I spoke to +Rankin about the place the other day," he added, "and he says he'll take +it and pay cash whenever I'm ready. I'll drive over and see him this +morning."</p> + +<p>Rankin was not at home—so Ma Graham told Scotty when he arrived—and +probably he wouldn't return till afternoon; but Ben was around the barn +somewhere, more than likely out among the broncos. He usually was, when +he had nothing else in particular to do.</p> + +<p>Following her direction the Englishman loitered out toward the stock +quarters, looked with interest into the big sheds where the haying +machinery was kept, stopped to listen to the rush of water through the +four-inch pipe of the artesian well, lit his pipe afresh, and moved on +reflectively to the first of the great stock-yards that stretched +beyond. A tight board fence, ten feet high, built as a windbreak on two +sides, obstructed his way; and he started to walk around it. At the end +the windbreak merged into a well-built fence of six wires, and, a +wagon's breadth between, a long row of haystacks, built as a further +protection against the wind. These, together with the wires, formed the +third side of the yard. Leaning on the latter, Scotty looked into the +enclosure, at first carelessly, then with interest. A moment later, +without making his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> presence known, he stepped back to the hay, and, +selecting a pile of convenient height, sat down in the sunshine to +watch.</p> + +<p>What he saw was a tall slim young man, in chaparejos and sombrero, the +inevitable "repeater" at his hip, solitarily engaged in the process of +breaking a bronco. Ordinarily in this cattle-country the first time one +of these wiry little ponies is ridden is on a holiday or a Sunday, +whenever a company of spectators can be secured to assist or to applaud; +but this was not Ben Blair's way. By nature solitary, whenever possible +he did his work as he took his pleasure, unseen of men. At present, as +he went methodically about his business, he had no idea that a person +save Ma Graham was within miles, or that anyone anywhere had the +slightest interest in what he was doing.</p> + +<p>"Yard One," as the cowboys designated this corral, was the most used of +any on the ranch. Save for a single stout post set solidly in its +centre, it was entirely clear, and under the feet of hundreds of cattle +had been tramped firm as a pavement. At present it contained a +half-dozen horses, and one of these, a little mustang that was Ben's +particular pride, he was just saddling when Scotty appeared; the others, +a wild-eyed, evil-looking lot, scattering meantime as far as the +boundaries of the corral would permit.</p> + +<p>Very deliberately Ben mounted the pony, hitched up the legs of his +leather trousers, folded back the brim of the big sombrero, and +critically inspected the ponies before him. One of them, a demoniacal +looking buckskin, appeared more vixenish than the others, and very +promptly the youth made this selection; but to get in touch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> of the wily +little beast was another matter. Every time the rancher made a move +forward the herd found it convenient likewise to move, and to the limit +of the corral fence. Once clear around the yard the rider humored them; +and Scotty, the spectator, felt sure he must be observed. But Ben never +looked outside the fence.</p> + +<p>Starting to make the circle a second time, the rancher spoke a single +word to the little mustang and they moved ahead at a gallop. Instantly +responsive, the herd likewise broke into a lope, maintaining their lead. +Twice, three times, faster and faster, the rider and the riderless +completed the circle, the hard ground ringing with the din, the dust +rising in a filmy cloud; then of a sudden the figure on the mustang +passed from inaction into motion, the left hand on the reins tightened +and turned the pony's head to the side, straight across the diameter of +the circle. Simultaneously the right dropped to the lariat coiled on the +pummel of the saddle, loosed it, and swung the noose at the end freely +in air. On galloped the broncos, unmindful of the trick—on around the +limiting fence, until suddenly they found almost in their midst the +animal, man, whom they so feared, whom they were trying so to escape. +Then for a moment there was scattering, reversal, confusion, a denser +cloud of dust; but for one of their number, the buckskin, it was too +late. Ben Blair rose in his stirrups, the rawhide rope that had been +circling above his sombrero shot out, spread, dropped over the uplifted +yellow head. The little mustang the man rode recognized the song of the +lariat; well he knew what would follow. In anticipation he stopped dead; +his front legs stiffened.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> There was a shock, a protest of straining +leather which Scotty could hear clear beyond the corral, as, checked +under speed, the buckskin rose on his hind-feet and all but lost his +balance. That instant was Blair's opportunity. He turned his mustang +swiftly and headed straight for the centre-post, dragging the struggling +and half-strangled bronco; he rode around the post, sprang from the +saddle, took a skilful half-hitch in the lariat—and the buckskin was a +prisoner.</p> + +<p>Scotty polished his glasses excitedly. He was wondering how the sleek +young men with whom he would soon be mingling in the city would go at a +job like that; and he smiled absently.</p> + +<p>To "snub" the bronco up to the post so that he could scarcely turn his +head was an easy matter. To exchange the bridle to the new mount was +also comparatively simple. To adjust the great saddle, with the +unwilling victim struggling like mad, was a more difficult task; but +eventually all these came to pass, and Ben paused a moment to inspect +his handiwork. To a tenderfoot observer it might have seemed that the +battle was about over; but as a matter of fact it had scarcely begun. To +chronicle on paper that a certain person on a certain day rode a certain +bronco for the first time sounds commonplace; but to one who has seen +the deviltry lurking in those wild prairie ponies' eyes, who knows their +dogged fighting disposition, the reality is very different.</p> + +<p>Only a moment Ben Blair paused. Almost before Scotty had got his +spectacles back to his nose he saw the long figure spring into the +saddle, observed that the lariat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> which had held the bronco helpless to +the post had been removed, and knew that the fight was on in earnest.</p> + +<p>And emphatically it was on. With his first leap the pony went straight +into the air, to come down with a mighty jolt, stiff-legged; but Ben +Blair sat through it apparently undisturbed. If ever an animal showed +surprise it was the buckskin then. For an instant he paused, looked back +at the motionless rider with eyes that seemed almost green, then +suddenly started away at full speed around the corral as though Satan +himself were in pursuit.</p> + +<p>Instantly with the diminutive horse swift anger took the place of +surprise. Scotty, the spectator, could read it in the tightening of the +rippling muscles beneath the skin, in the toss of the sleek head. Fear +had passed long ago, if the little beast had ever really known the +sensation. It was now merely animal against animal, dogged obstinacy +against dogged tenacity, a fight until one or the other gave in, no +quarter asked or accepted.</p> + +<p>As before, the bronco was the aggressor. One by one, so swiftly that +they formed a continuous movement, he tried all the tricks which +instinct or ingenuity suggested. He bucked, his hind-quarters in the air +until it seemed he would reverse. He reared up until his front feet were +on the level of a man's head, until Scotty held his breath for fear the +animal would lose his balance backward; but when he resumed the normal +he found the man, ever relentless, firmly in place, impassively awaiting +the next move. He grew more furious with each failure. The sweat oozed +out in drops that became trickling streams beneath the short hair. His +breath came more quickly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> whistling through the wide nostrils. A new +light came into the gray-green eyes and flashed from them fiendishly. As +suddenly as he had made his previous attacks he played his last trump. +Like a ball of lead he dropped in his tracks and tried to roll; but the +great saddle prevented, and when he sprang up again, there, as firmly +seated as before, was the hated man upon his back.</p> + +<p>Then overpowering and unreasoning anger, the wrath of a frenzied lion in +a cage, of a baited bull in a ring, took possession of the buckskin. He +went through his tricks anew, not methodically as before, but furiously, +desperately. The sweat churned into foam beneath the saddle and between +his legs. He screamed like a demon, until the other broncos retreated in +terror, and Scotty's hair fairly lifted on his head. But one idea +possessed him—to kill this being on his back, this hated thing he could +not move or dislodge. A suggestion of means came to him, and straight as +a line he made for the high board fence. There was no misunderstanding +his purpose.</p> + +<p>Then for the first time Ben Blair roused himself. The hand on the rein +tightened, as the lariat had tightened, until the small head with the +dainty ears curled back in a half-circle. Simultaneously the long rowels +of a spur bit deep into the foaming flank, the swish of a quirt sounded +keenly, a voice broke out in one word of command, "Whoa!" and repeated, +"Whoa!"</p> + +<p>It was like thunder out of a clear sky, like an unseen blow in the dark. +Within three feet of the fence the bronco stopped and stood trembling in +every muscle, expecting he knew not what.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was the man's time now—the beginning of the end.</p> + +<p>"Get up!" repeated the same authoritative voice, and the hand on the bit +loosened. "Get up!" and rowel and quirt again did their work.</p> + +<p>In terror this time the bronco plunged ahead, felt the guiding rein, and +started afresh around the circle of the corral fence. "Get up!" repeated +Ben, and like a streak of yellowish light they spun about the trail. +Round and round they went, the body of the man and horse alike tilted in +at an angle, the other ponies plunging to clear the way. Scotty counted +ten revolutions; then he awaited the end. It was not long in coming. Of +a sudden, as before, directly in front of where he sat, the bridle-reins +tightened, and he heard the one word, "Whoa!" and pony and rider stopped +like figures in clay. For a moment they stood motionless, save for their +labored breathing; then very deliberately Ben Blair dismounted. Not a +movement did the buckskin make, either of offence or to escape; he +merely waited. Still deliberately, the man removed the saddle and +bridle, while not a muscle of the bronco's body stirred. Scotty watched +the scene in fascination. Every trace of anger was out of the pony's +gray-green eyes now, every indication of terror as well. Dozens of +horses the Englishman had seen broken; but one like this—never before. +It was as though in the last few minutes an understanding had come about +between this fierce wild thing and its conqueror; as though, like every +human being with whom he came in contact, the latter had dominated by +the sheer strength of his will. It was all but uncanny.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p> + +<p>Slowly Blair laid the bridle beside the saddle, and stepping over to his +late mount he patted the damp neck and gently stroked the silken muzzle.</p> + +<p>"I think, old boy, you'll remember me when we meet again," Scotty heard +him say. "Good luck to you meantime," and with a last pat he picked up +his riding paraphernalia and started for the sheds.</p> + +<p>Scotty stood up. "Hello," he called.</p> + +<p>Ben halted and turned about, looking his surprise.</p> + +<p>"Well, in the name of all that's proper!" he ejaculated slowly; "where'd +you drop down from?"</p> + +<p>Scotty smiled broadly; frank admiration for the dusty cowboy was in his +gaze.</p> + +<p>"I didn't drop down at all; I walked around here about half an hour ago. +You were rather preoccupied at the time and didn't notice me."</p> + +<p>Blair came back to the fence and swung over the saddle and bridle. "You +took in the whole show then?" he asked. A trace of color came into his +face, as he vaulted over the rails. "I hope you enjoyed it."</p> + +<p>Scotty observed the latest feat, unconscious as its predecessor, with +augmented admiration. "I certainly did," he said, and the subject was +dropped.</p> + +<p>The two men walked together toward the ranch-house.</p> + +<p>"I came over to see Rankin," remarked the Englishman, "but I'm afraid +I'll have to wait a bit."</p> + +<p>"I guess you will," replied Ben. "He went up to the north well this +morning. They're building some sheds up there, and he's superintending +the job. He's as liable to forget about dinner as not. Nothing I can do +for you, is there?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> + +<p>Scotty thrust his hands into his pockets.</p> + +<p>"No, I guess not. I came over to see about selling him my place. We're +going to leave in a few days."</p> + +<p>Ben Blair made no comment, and for a moment they walked on in silence; +then an idea suddenly occurred to the Englishman.</p> + +<p>"Come to think of it," he said, "there is something you can do for me. +Bill and I have got to drive all the stock over to the station. I'd be a +thousand times obliged if you would help us."</p> + +<p>For a half-dozen steps Blair did not answer; then he turned fairly to +his companion.</p> + +<p>"You won't be offended if I refuse?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No, certainly not."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I don't want to help you myself, but I'll get Grannis to go +with you. He'll be just as useful."</p> + +<p>Ordinarily, despite his assertion to the contrary, Scotty would have +been offended; but he knew this long youth quite too well to +misunderstand.</p> + +<p>"Would you mind telling me why you refuse?" he said at last.</p> + +<p>Ben shifted the heavy saddle to his other shoulder.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't mind," he said bluntly. "I won't help you because I don't +want you to go."</p> + +<p>Scotty pondered, and a light dawned on his slow-moving brain. He looked +at Ben sympathetically. "My boy," he said, "I'm sorry for you; by Jove! +I am."</p> + +<p>They were even with the horse-barn now, and without a word Ben went in +and hung up the saddle, each stirrup<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> upon a nail. Relieved of his load +he came back, slapping the dust from his clothes with his big gauntlets.</p> + +<p>"If it's a fair question," he asked, "why do I merit your sympathy?"</p> + +<p>The Englishman's hands went deeper into his pockets.</p> + +<p>"Why?" He all but stared. "Because you haven't a ghost of a chance with +Florence. She'd laugh at you!"</p> + +<p>Ben's blue eyes were raised to a level with the other's glasses. "She'd +laugh at me, you think?" he asked quietly.</p> + +<p>Scotty shifted uneasily. "Well, perhaps not that," he retracted, "but +anyway, you haven't a chance. I like you, Ben, and I'm dead sorry that +she is different. She comes, if I do say it, of a good family, and +you—" of a sudden the Englishman found himself floundering in deep +water.</p> + +<p>"And I am—an unknown," Ben finished for him.</p> + +<p>At that moment Scotty heartily wished himself elsewhere, but wishing did +not help him. "Yes, to put it baldly, that's the word. It's unfortunate, +damned unfortunate, but true, you know."</p> + +<p>Ben's eyes did not leave the other man's face. "You've talked with her, +have you?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Scotty fidgeted more than before, and swore silently that in future he +would keep his compassions to himself.</p> + +<p>"No, I've never thought it necessary so far; but of course—"</p> + +<p>Ben Blair lifted his head. "Don't worry, Mr. Baker, I'll tell her my +pedigree myself. I supposed she already knew—that everybody who had +ever heard of me knew."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<p>Scotty forgot his nervousness. "You'll—tell her yourself, you say?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>The Englishman said nothing. It seemed to him there was nothing to say.</p> + +<p>For a moment there was silence. "Mr. Baker," said Blair at last, "as +long as we've started on this subject I suppose we might as well finish +it up. I love your daughter; that you've guessed. If I can keep her +here, I'll do so. It's my right; and if there's a God who watches over +us, He knows I'll do my best to make her happy. As to my mother, I'll +tell her about that myself—and consider the matter closed."</p> + +<p>Again there was silence. As before, there seemed to the Englishman +nothing to say.</p> + +<p>Blair turned toward the ranch-house. "I saw Ma Graham motioning for +dinner quite a while ago," he said. "Let's go in and eat."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<h3>LOVE'S AVOWAL</h3></div> + +<p>A distinct path, in places almost a beaten road, connected the Box R and +the Baker ranches. Along it a tall slim youth was riding a buckskin +pony. He was clean-shaven and clean-shirted; but the shirt was of rough +brown flannel. His leather trousers were creased and baggy at the knees. +At his hip protruded the butt of a big revolver. Upon his head, +seemingly a load in itself, was a broad sombrero; and surrounding it, +beneath a band which at one time had been very gaudy but was now sobered +by sun and rain, were stuck a score or more of matches. Despite the +motion of the horse the youth was steadily smoking a stubby bull-dog +pipe.</p> + +<p>The time was morning, early morning; it was Winter, and the sun was +still but a little way up in the sky. The day, although the month was +December, was as warm as September. There had not even been a frost the +previous night. Mother Nature was indulging in one of her many whims, +and seemed smiling broadly at the incongruity.</p> + +<p>Though the rider was out thus early, his departure had been by no means +surreptitious. "I'm going over to Baker's, and may not be back before +night," he had said at the breakfast table; and, impassive as usual, the +older<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> man had made no comment, but simply nodded and went about his +work. Likewise there was no subterfuge when the youth arrived at his +destination. "I came to see Florence," he announced to Scotty in the +front yard; then, as he tied the pony, he added: "I spoke to Grannis, +and he said he'd come over and help you. Do you know exactly when you'll +want him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, day after to-morrow. This weather is too good to waste."</p> + +<p>Ben turned toward the house. "All right. I'll see that he's over here +bright and early."</p> + +<p>The visitor found the interior of the Baker home looking like a corner +in a storage warehouse. Florence, in a big checked apron reaching to her +chin, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, was busily engaged in still +further dismantling the once cosey parlor. Amidst the confusion, and +apparently a part of it, Mrs. Baker wandered aimlessly about. The front +door was wide open, letting in a stream of sunlight.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning," said Ben, appearing in the doorway.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Baker stopped long enough to nod, and Florence looked up from her +work.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning," she replied. A deliberate glance took in the new-comer's +dress from head to foot, and lingered on the exposed revolver hilt. "Are +you hunting Indians or bear?"</p> + +<p>Ben Blair returned the look, even more deliberately.</p> + +<p>"Bear, I judge from the question. I came in search of you."</p> + +<p>There was no answer, and the man came in and sat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> down on the corner of +a box. "You seem to be very busy," he said.</p> + +<p>The girl went on with her packing. "Yes, rather busy," she said +indifferently.</p> + +<p>Ben dangled one long leg over the side of the box.</p> + +<p>"Are you too busy to take a ride with me? I want to talk with you."</p> + +<p>"I'm pretty busy," non-committally.</p> + +<p>"Suppose I should ask it as a favor?"</p> + +<p>"Suppose I should decline?"</p> + +<p>The long leg stopped its swinging. "You wouldn't, though."</p> + +<p>The girl's brown eyes flashed. "How do you know I wouldn't?"</p> + +<p>Ben stood up and folded his arms. "Because it would be the first favor I +ever asked of you, and you wouldn't refuse that."</p> + +<p>They eyed each other a moment.</p> + +<p>"Where do you want to go?" temporized Florence.</p> + +<p>"Anywhere, so it's with you."</p> + +<p>"You don't want to stay long?"</p> + +<p>"I'll come back whenever you say."</p> + +<p>Florence rolled down her sleeves and sighed with assumed regret. "I +ought to stay here and work."</p> + +<p>"I'll help you when we come back, if you like."</p> + +<p>"Very well." She said it hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"All right. I'll get your horse ready for you."</p> + +<p>Scotty watched them peculiarly, Molly doubtfully, as they rode out of +the ranch yard; but neither made any comment, and they moved away in +silence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's an odd looking pony you've got there," remarked the girl +critically, when they had turned into the half-beaten trail which led +south. "How does it happen you're on him instead of the other?"</p> + +<p>Ben patted the smooth neck before him, and the pony twitched his ears +appreciatively.</p> + +<p>"Buckskin and I had the misfortune not to meet until lately. We just got +acquainted a few days ago."</p> + +<p>The girl glanced at her companion quickly and caught the look upon his +face.</p> + +<p>"I believe you're fonder of your horses and cattle and things than you +are of people," she flashed.</p> + +<p>The man's hand continued patting the pony's yellow neck.</p> + +<p>"More fond than I am of some people, maybe you meant to say."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps so," she conceded.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think I am," he admitted. "They're more worthy. They never abuse +a kindness, and never come down to the insult of class distinctions. +They're the same to-day, to-morrow, a year from now. They'll work +themselves to death for you, instead of sacrificing you to their +personal gain. Yes, they make better friends than some people."</p> + +<p>Florence smiled as she glanced at her companion.</p> + +<p>"Is that what you want to tell me? If it is, seeing I've just made my +choice and decided to return to civilization and mingle with human +beings of whom you have such a poor opinion, I think we may as well go +back. Mamma and I have been racking our brains for two days<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> to find a +place for the china, and I've just thought of one."</p> + +<p>Blair was silent a moment; then he said, "I promised to return whenever +you wished, but I've not said what I wanted to say yet."</p> + +<p>Florence looked at the speaker with feigned surprise. "Is that so? I'm +very curious to hear!"</p> + +<p>Ben returned the look deliberately. "You'd like to hear now what I have +to say?"</p> + +<p>The girl's breath came more quickly, but she persisted in her banter. "I +can scarcely wait!"</p> + +<p>The line of the youth's big jaw tightened, "I won't keep you in suspense +any longer then. First of all, I want to relate a little personal +history. I was eight years old, as you know, when I was taken into the +Box R ranch. In those eight years, as far as I can remember, not one +person except Mr. Rankin ever called at my mother's home."</p> + +<p>Again the girl felt a thrill of anticipation, but the brown eyes opened +archly. "You must have kept a big fierce dog, or—or something."</p> + +<p>"No, that was not the reason."</p> + +<p>"I can't imagine what it could be, then."</p> + +<p>"The explanation is simple. My mother and Tom Blair were never married."</p> + +<p>Swiftly the color mounted into Florence's cheeks, and she drew up her +horse with a jerk.</p> + +<p>"So that is what you brought me out here to tell me!" she blazed.</p> + +<p>Ben drew up likewise, and wheeled his pony facing hers.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, but I'm not to blame for the way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> I told you—of +myself. You forced it. For once in my life at least, Florence, I'm in +dead earnest to-day."</p> + +<p>The girl hesitated. Tears of anger, or of something else, came into her +eyes. "I'm going home," she announced briefly, and turned back the way +they had come.</p> + +<p>The man silently wheeled his buckskin and for five minutes, ten minutes, +they rode toward home together.</p> + +<p>"Florence," said the youth steadily, "I had something more I wished to +say to you; will you listen?"</p> + +<p>No answer—only the sound of the solid steps of the thoroughbred and the +daintier tread of the mustang.</p> + +<p>"Florence," he repeated, "I asked you a question."</p> + +<p>The girl's face was turned away. "Oh, you are cruel!" she said.</p> + +<p>Ben touched his pony, advanced, caught the bridle of the girl's horse, +and brought both to a standstill. The girl did not turn her head to look +at him, but she did not resist. Deliberately the man dismounted, loosed +the rolled blanket he carried back of his saddle, spread it upon the +ground, then looked fairly up into her brown eyes.</p> + +<p>"Florence," he said, as he held out his hand to assist her to dismount, +"I've something I wish very much to say to you. Won't you listen?"</p> + +<p>Florence Baker looked steadily down into the clear blue eyes. Why she +did not refuse she could not have told, could never tell. As well as she +knew her own name she realized what was coming—what it was the man +wished to say to her; but she did not refuse to listen.</p> + +<p>"Florence," he said gently, "I'm waiting," and as in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> dream she +stepped into the proffered hand, felt herself lowered to the ground, +followed the young man over to the blanket, and sat down. The sun, now +high above them, shone down warmly and approvingly. Scarcely a breath of +air was stirring. Not a sound came from over the prairies. As completely +as though they were the only two people on the earth, they were alone.</p> + +<p>The man stretched himself at his companion's feet, where he could look +into her face and catch its every expression.</p> + +<p>"Florence Baker," his voice came to her ears like the sound of one +speaking afar off, "Florence Baker, I love you. In all that I'm going to +say, bear this in mind; don't forget it for a moment. To me you will +always be the one woman on earth. Why I haven't told you this before, +why I waited until you were passing from my life before I said it, I +don't know; but now I'm as sure as that I'm looking at you that it is +so." The blue eyes never shifted. Presently one big strong hand reached +over and enfolded within its grasp another tiny resistless hand, which +lay there passive.</p> + +<p>"You're getting ready to go away, Florence," he went on, "leaving this +country where you've spent almost your life, changing it for an +uncertainty. Don't do it—not for my sake, but for your own. You know +nothing of the city, its pleasures, its rush, its excitement, its +ambitions. Granted that you've been there, that we've both been there; +but we were only children then and couldn't see beneath the thinnest +surface. Yet there must be something beneath the glitter, something +you've never thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> of and cannot realize; something which makes the +life hateful to those who have felt and known it. I don't know what it +is, you don't; but it must be there. If it weren't so, why would men +like your father, like Mr. Rankin, college men, men of wealth, men who +have seen the world, leave the city and come here to stay? They were +born in cities, raised in cities. The +<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'life'">city</ins> +was a part of their life; but +they left it, and are glad." The man clasped the little hand more +tightly, shook it gently. "Florence, are you listening?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm listening."</p> + +<p>"I repeat then, don't go. You belong here. This life is your life. +Everything that is best for your happiness you will find here. You spoke +the other day of your birthright—to love and to be loved—as though +this could only be realized in a city. Do you think I don't care for you +as much as though my home were in a town?"</p> + +<p>Passive, motionless, Florence listened, feeling the subtle sympathy +which ever existed between her and this boy-man drawing them closer +together. His strong magnetism, never before so potent, gripped her +almost like a physical force. His personality, original, masterful, +convincing, fascinated her. For the time the tacit consent of her +position never occurred to her. It seemed but natural and fitting that +he should hold her hand. She had no desire to speak or move, merely to +listen.</p> + +<p>"Florence," the voice was very near now, and very low. "Florence, I love +you. I can't have you go away, can't have you pass out of my life. I'll +do anything for you,—live for you, die for you, fight for you, slave +for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> you,—anything but give you up." Of a sudden his arms were about +her, his lips touched her cheek. "Can't you love me in return? Speak to +me, tell me—for I love you, Florence!"</p> + +<p>The girl started, and drew away involuntarily. "Oh, don't, don't! please +don't!" she pleaded. The dream faded, and she awoke to the reality of +her position. The brown head bowed, dropped into her hands. Her whole +body shook. "Oh, what have I done!" she sobbed. "Oh, what have I done! +Oh—oh—oh—"</p> + +<p>For a time, neither of them realized nor cared how long, they sat side +by side, though separate now. Warmly and brightly as before, the sun +shone down upon them. A breath of breeze, born of the heated earth, +wandered gently over the land. The big thoroughbred shifted on its feet +and whinnied suggestively.</p> + +<p>Gradually the girl's hysterical weeping grew quieter. The sobs came less +frequently, and at last ceased. Ben Blair slowly arose, folded his arms, +and waited. Another minute passed. Florence Baker, the storm over, +glanced up at her companion—at first hesitatingly, then openly and +soberly. She stood up, almost at his side; but he did not turn. Awe, +contrition, strange feelings and emotions flooded her anew. She reached +out her hand and touched him on the arm; at first hesitatingly, then +boldly, she leaned her head against his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Ben," she pleaded, "Ben, forgive me. I've hurt you terribly; but I +didn't mean to. I am as I am; I can't help it. I can't promise to do +what you ask—can't say I love you now, or promise to love you in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> +future." She looked up into his face. "Won't you forgive me?"</p> + +<p>Still the man did not turn. "There's nothing to forgive, Florence," he +said sadly. "I misunderstood it all."</p> + +<p>"But there is something for me to say," she went on swiftly. "I knew +from the first what you were going to tell me, and knew I couldn't give +you what you asked; yet I let you think differently. It's all my fault, +Ben, and I'm so sorry!" She gently and timidly stroked the shoulder of +the rough flannel shirt. "I should have stopped you, and told you my +reasons; but they seemed so weak, and somehow I couldn't help listening +to you." There was a hesitating pause. "Would you like to hear my +reasons now?"</p> + +<p>"Just as you please." There was no unkindness in the voice—only +resignation and acceptance of the hard fact she had already made known +to him.</p> + +<p>Florence hesitated. A catch came into her throat, and she dropped her +head to the broad shoulder as before.</p> + +<p>"Ben, Ben!" she almost sobbed, "I can't tell you, after all. It'll only +hurt you again."</p> + +<p>He was looking out over the prairies, watching the heat-waves that arose +in fantastic circles, as in Spring. "You can't hurt me again," he said +wearily.</p> + +<p>The vague feeling of irreparable loss gripped the girl anew; but this +time she rushed on desperately, in spite of it. "Oh, why couldn't I have +met you somewhere else, under different circumstances?" she wailed. "Why +couldn't your mother have been—different?" She paused, the brown head +raised, the loosened hair tossed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> back in abandon. "Maybe, as you say, +it's a rainbow I'm seeking. Maybe I'll be sorry; but I can't help it. I +want them all—the things of civilization. I want them all," she +finished abruptly.</p> + +<p>Gently the man disengaged himself. "Is that all you wished to say?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," hesitatingly, "I guess that's all."</p> + +<p>Ben picked up the blanket and returned it to his saddle; then he led the +horse to the girl's side. "Can I help you up?"</p> + +<p>His companion nodded. The youth held down his hand, and upon it Florence +mounted to the saddle as she had done many times before. The thought +came to her that it might be the last time.</p> + +<p>Not a word did Ben speak as they rode back to the ranch-house; not once +did he look at his companion. At the door he held out his hand.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," he said simply.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," she echoed feebly.</p> + +<p>Ben made his adieu to Mrs. Baker, and then rode out to the barn where +Scotty was working. "Good-bye," he repeated. "We'll probably not meet +again before you go." The expression upon the Englishman's face caught +his eye. "Don't," he said. "I'd rather not talk now."</p> + +<p>Scotty gripped the extended hand and shook it heartily.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," he said, with misty eyes.</p> + +<p>The youth wheeled the buckskin and headed for home. Florence and her +mother were still standing in the doorway watching him, and he lifted +his big sombrero; but he did not glance at them, nor turn his head in +passing.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<h3>A DEFERRED RECKONING</h3></div> + +<p>Time had dealt kindly with the saloon of Mick Kennedy. A hundred +electric storms had left it unscathed. Prairie fires had passed it by. +Only the relentless sun and rain had fastened the mark of their +handiwork upon it and stained it until it was the color of the earth +itself. Within, man had performed a similar office. The same old +cottonwood bar stretched across the side of the room, taking up a third +of the available space; but no stranger would have called it cottonwood +now. It had become brown like oak from continuous saturation with +various colored liquids; and upon its surface, indelible record of the +years, were innumerable bruises and dents where heavy bottles and +glasses had made their impress under impulse of heavier hands. The +continuous deposit of tobacco smoke had darkened the ceiling, modulating +to a lighter tone on the walls. The place was even gloomier than before, +and immeasurably filthier under the accumulated grime of a dozen years. +Once in their history the battered tables had been recovered, but no one +would have guessed it now. The gritty decks of cards had been often +replaced, but from their appearance they might have been those with +which Tom Blair long ago bartered away his honor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> + +<p>Time had left its impress also on bartender Mick. A generous sprinkling +of gray was in his hair; the single eye was redder and fiercer, seeming +by its blaze to have consumed the very lashes surrounding it; the cheeks +were sunken, the great jaw and chin prominent from the loss of teeth. +Otherwise Mick was not much changed. The hand which dealt out his wares, +which insisted on their payment to the last nickel, was as steady as of +yore. His words were as few, his control of the reckless and often +drunken frequenters was as perfect. He was the personified spirit of the +place—crafty, designing, relentless.</p> + +<p>Bob Hoyt, the foreman, shambled into Mick's lair at the time of day when +the lights were burning and smoking on the circling shelf. He peered +through the haze of tobacco smoke at the patrons already present, +received a word from one and a stare from another, but from none an +invitation to join the circle.</p> + +<p>Bob sidled up to the bar where Kennedy was impassively waiting. "Warmer +out," he advanced.</p> + +<p>Mick made no comment. "Something?" he suggested.</p> + +<p>Bob's colorless eyes blinked involuntarily. "Yes, a bit of rye."</p> + +<p>Mick poured a very small drink into a whiskey glass, set it with another +of water before the customer, on a big card tacked upon the wall added a +fresh line to those already succeeding the other's name, and leaned his +elbows once more upon the bar.</p> + +<p>Upon the floor of his mouth Bob Hoyt laid a foundation of water, over +this sent down the fiery liquor with a gulp,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> and followed the retreat +with the last of the water, unconsciously making a wry face.</p> + +<p>Kennedy whisked the empty glasses through the doubtful contents of a +convenient pail, and set them dripping upon a perforated shelf. "Found +the horses yet?" he queried, in an undertone.</p> + +<p>Bob shifted uncomfortably and searched for a place for his hands, but +finding none he let them hang awkwardly over the rail of the bar.</p> + +<p>"No, not even a trail."</p> + +<p>"Looked, have you?" The single searchlight turned unwinkingly upon the +other's face.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've been out all day. Made a circle of the places within forty +miles—Russel's of the Circle R, Stetson's of the 'XI,' Frazier's, +Rankin's—none of them have seen a sign of a stray."</p> + +<p>"That settles it, then. Those horses were stolen." The red face with its +bristle of buff and gray came closer. "I didn't think they'd strayed. +The two best horses on a ranch don't wander off by chance; if they'd +been broncos it might have been different. It's the same thing as three +years ago; pretty nearly the same date too—early in January it was, you +remember!"</p> + +<p>Bob's long head nodded confirmation. "Yes. We thought then they'd come +around all right in the next round up, but they didn't, and never have."</p> + +<p>Kennedy stepped back, spread his hands palm down upon the bar, leaned +his full weight upon them, and gazed meditatively at the other occupants +of the room. A question was in his mind. Should he take these men into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +his confidence and trust to their well-known method of dealing with +rustlers—a method very effective when successful in catching the +offender, but infinitely deficient in finesse—or depend wholly upon his +own ingenuity? He decided that in this instance the latter offered +little hope. His province was in dealing with people at close range.</p> + +<p>"Boys,"—his voice was normal, but not a man in the room failed to give +attention,—"boys, line up! It's on the house."</p> + +<p>Promptly the card games ceased. In one, the pot lay as it was, its +ownership undecided, in the centre of the table. The loungers' feet +dropped to the floor. An inebriate, half dozing in the corner, awoke. +Well they knew it was for no small reason that Mick interrupted their +diversions. Up they came—Grover of the far-away "XXX" ranch, who had +been here for two days now, and had lost the price of a small herd; +Gilbert of the "Lost Range," whose brand was a circle within a circle; +Stetson of the "XI," a short heavy-set man, with an immovable pugilist's +face, to-night, as usual, ahead of the game; Thompson, one-armed but +formidable, who drove the stage and kept the postoffice and inadequate +general store just across to the north of the saloon; McFadden, a wiry +little Scotchman with sandy whiskers, Rankin's nearest neighbor to the +south; a half-dozen lesser lights, in distinction from the big ranchers +called by their first names, "Buck" or "Pete" or "Bill" as the case +might be, mere cowmen employed at a salary. Elbow to elbow they leaned +upon the supporting bar, awaiting with interest the something they knew +Kennedy had to say.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<p>Kennedy did not ask a single man what he would have. It was needless. +Silently he placed a glass before each, and starting a bottle of red +liquor at one end of the line, he watched it, as, steadily emptying, it +passed on down to the end.</p> + +<p>"I never use it, you know," he explained, as, the preparation complete, +they looked at him expectantly.</p> + +<p>"Take something else, then," pressed McFadden.</p> + +<p>Mick poured out a glass of water and set it on the bar before him; but +not an observer smiled. They knew the man they were dealing with.</p> + +<p>"All right, boys,"—McFadden's glass went up on a level with his eye, +and one and all the others followed the motion,—"all right, boys! +Here's to you, Kennedy!"—mouthing the last word as though it were a hot +pebble, and in unison the dozen odd hands led the way to their +respective owners' mouths. There was a momentary pause; then a musical +clinking, as the empty glasses returned to the board. Silence, expectant +silence, returned.</p> + +<p>"Boys,"—Mick looked from face to face intimately,—"we've got work +ahead. Hoyt here reported this morning that two of the best horses on +the Big B were missing. He's made a forty-mile circuit to-day, and no +one has seen anything of them. You all know what that means."</p> + +<p>Stetson turned to the foreman. "What time did you see them last, Hoyt?"</p> + +<p>"About nine last evening."</p> + +<p>"Sure?"</p> + +<p>Bob's long head nodded emphatically. "Yes, one of the boys had the team +out mending fence in the afternoon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> and when he was through he turned +them into the corral with the broncos. I'm sure they were there."</p> + +<p>"I'm not surprised," commented Thompson, swinging on his single elbow to +face the others. "It's been some time now since we've had a necktie +party and it's bound to come. The wonder is it hasn't come before."</p> + +<p>Gilbert and Grover, comparatively elderly men, said nothing, looked +nothing; but upon the faces of the half-dozen cowboys there appeared +distinct anticipation. The hunt of a "rustler" appealed to them as a +circus does to a small boy, as the prospect of a football game does to a +college student.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, McFadden had been thinking. One could always tell when this +process was taking place with the Scotchman, from his habit of tapping +his chest with his middle finger as though beating time to the movement +of his mental machinery.</p> + +<p>"Got any plan, Kennedy?" he queried. "Whoever's done you has got a good +start by this time; but if we're going to do anything, there's no use in +giving him longer. How about it?"</p> + +<p>Mick's single eye shifted as before, and went from face to face. "No, I +haven't; but I've got an idea." A pause. "How many of you boys remembers +Tom Blair?" he digressed.</p> + +<p>"I do," said Grover.</p> + +<p>"Same here." It was Gilbert of the Lost Range who spoke.</p> + +<p>"I've heard of him," commented one of the cowboys.</p> + +<p>"I guess we all have," added another.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>Again Mick's eye, like a flashlight, passed from man to man.</p> + +<p>"Well," he announced, "I may be wrong, but I've got reason to believe it +was Tom Blair who did the job last night, and that he's somewhere this +side the river right now."</p> + +<p>For a moment there was silence, while the idea took root.</p> + +<p>"I supposed he was dead long ago," remarked Stetson at last.</p> + +<p>"So did I, until a month ago—until the last time I was in town stocking +up. I met a fellow there then from the country west of the river, and it +all came out. Blair's been stampin' that range for a year, and they're +suspicious of him. He disappears every now and then, and they think he +keeps in with a gang of rustlers who have their headquarters over in the +Johnson's Hole country in Wyoming. The fellow said he kept up +appearances by claiming he owned a ranch on this side—the Big B. That's +how we came to speak of him."</p> + +<p>"Queer," commented Stetson, "that if it's Blair, he hasn't been around +before. It's been ten years now since he disappeared, hasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"More than that," corrected Mick. "That's another reason I believe it's +him; that, and the fact that I didn't do nothin' the last time I was +held up. It must be one lone rustler who's operating or there'd be +more'n a couple of hosses missing. Then it must be some feller that +knows the Big B, and has a particular grudge against it, or why would +they have passed the Broken Kettle or the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> Lone Buffalo on the west? +Morris has a whole herd, and his main hoss sheds are in an old creek-bed +a mile away from the ranch-house. I tell you it's some feller who knows +this country and knows me."</p> + +<p>"I believe you're right about him being this side of the river," broke +in Thompson. "When I was over after the mail two days ago there was +water running on the ice; and it's been warmer since. It must be wide +open in spots now. A man who knows the crossings might make it afoot, +but he couldn't take a hoss over."</p> + +<p>Mick's lone eye burned more ominously than before. "Of course he can't. +He's run into a trap, and all we've got to do is to make a spread and +round him up. I'll bet a hundred to one we find him somewhere this side, +waiting for a freeze." Again the half-emptied bottle came from the shelf +and passed to the end of the line. "Have another whiskey on me, boys."</p> + +<p>They silently drank. Then grim Stetson suggested that they drink +again—"to our success"; and cowboy Buck, not to be outdone, proposed +another toast—"to the necktie party—after." The big bottle, empty now, +dinned on the surface of the bar.</p> + +<p>"By God! I hope we get him," flamed Grover. "He ought to be hung, +anyway. He killed his wife and burned up the body, they say, before he +left!"</p> + +<p>"Someone must call for Rankin and Ben," suggested another, "Ben +particularly. He ought to be there at the finish. Lord knows he's got +grudge enough."</p> + +<p>"We'll let him pull the trap," broke in Stetson grimly.</p> + +<p>Of a sudden above the confusion there sounded a snarl,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> almost like the +cry of an animal. Surprised, for the moment silenced, the men turned in +the direction whence it had come.</p> + +<p>"Rankin!" It was Mick Kennedy who spoke, but it was Mick transformed. +"Rankin!" The great veins of the bartender's neck swelled; the red face +congested until it became all but purple. "No! We won't go near him! +He'd put a stop to the whole thing. What we want is men, not cowards!"</p> + +<p>A moment only the silence lasted. "All right," agreed Stetson. "Have +another, boys! We'll drop Rankin!"</p> + +<p>Anew, louder than before, broke forth the confusion. The games of a +short time ago were forgotten. A heap of coin lay on the shelf behind +the bar where Mick, the banker, had placed it; but winner and loser +alike ignored its existence. The savage, ever so near the surface of +these rough frontiersmen, had taken complete possession of them. Drop +Rankin—forget civilization—ignore the slow practices of law and order!</p> + +<p>"Come on!" someone yelled. "We're enough to do the business. To the +river!"</p> + +<p>Instantly the crowd burst through the single front door. Momentarily +there followed a lull, while in the half darkness each rider found his +mount. Then sounded an "All ready!" from cowboy Buck, first in motion, a +straining of leather, a swish of quirts, a grunting of ponies as the +spurs dug into their flanks, a rush of leaping feet, a wild medley of +yells, and westward across the prairie, beneath the stars, there passed +a swiftly moving black shadow that grew momentarily lighter, and back +from which came a patter,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> patter, patter, that grew softer and softer; +until at last over the old saloon and its companion store fell silence +absolute.</p> + +<p>It was 10:28 when they left Kennedy's place. It was 12:36 when, without +having for a moment stopped their long swinging gallop, they pulled up +at the "Lone Buffalo" ranch, twenty-five miles away, and the last ranch +before they reached the river. The house was dark and silent as the +grave at their approach; but it did not remain so long. The display of +fireworks with which they illumined the night would have done credit to +an Independence Day celebration. The yells which accompanied it were +hair-raising as the shrieks from a band of maniacs. Instantly lights +began to burn, and the proprietor himself, Grey—a long Southerner with +an imperial—came rushing to the door, a revolver in either hand.</p> + +<p>But the visitors had not waited for him. With one impulse they had +ridden straight into the horse corral, had thrown off saddles and +bridles from their steaming mounts, and, every man for himself, had +chosen afresh from the ranch herd. Passing out in single-file through +the gate, they came upon Grey; but still they did not stop. The one word +"rustler" was sufficient password, and not five minutes from the time +they arrived they were again on the way, headed straight southwest for +their long ride to the river.</p> + +<p>Hour after hour they forged ahead. The mustangs had long since puffed +themselves into their second wind, and, falling instinctively into their +steady swinging lope, they moved ahead like machines. The country grew +more and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> more rolling, even hilly. From between the tufts of buffalo +grass now and then protruded the white face of a rock. Over one such, +all but concealed in the darkness, Grover's horse stumbled, and with a +groan, the rancher beneath, fell flat to earth. By a seeming miracle the +man arose, but the horse did not, and an examination showed the jagged +edge of a fractured bone protruding through the hide at the shoulder. +There was but one thing to do. A revolver spoke its message of relief, a +hastily-cast lot fell to McFadden, and without a word he faced his own +mount back the way they had come, assisted Grover to a place behind him, +turned to wish the others good luck, and found himself already too late. +Where a minute ago they had been standing there was now but vacancy. The +night and the rolling ground had swallowed the avengers up as completely +as though they had never existed; and the Scotchman rode slowly back.</p> + +<p>It was yet dark, but the eastern sky was reddening, when they reached +the chain of bluffs bordering the great river. They had made their plans +before, so that now without hesitating they split as though upon the +edge of a mighty wedge, half to the right, half to the left, each +division separating again into its individual members, until the whole, +like two giant hands whereof the cowboys, half a mile apart from each +other, were the fingers, moved forward until the end finger all but +touched the river itself.</p> + +<p>Still there was no pause. The details had been worked out to a nicety. +They had bent far to the south, miles farther than any man aiming at the +Wyoming border<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> would have gone, and now, having arrived at the barrier, +they wheeled north again. It was getting daylight, and cowboy Pete,—in +our simile the left little finger,—first to catch sight of the surface +of the stream, waved in triumph to the nearest rider on his right.</p> + +<p>"We've got him, sure!" he yelled. "She's open in spots"; and though the +others could not hear, they understood the meaning, and the message went +on down the line.</p> + +<p>On, on, more swiftly now, at a stiff gallop, for it was day, the riders +advanced. As they moved, first one rider and then another would +disappear, as a depression in the uneven country temporarily swallowed +them up—but only to reappear again over a prominent rise, still +galloping on. They watched each other closely now, searching the +surrounding country. They were nearing a region where they might expect +action at any moment,—the remains of a camp-fire, a clue to him they +sought,—for it was on a line directly west of the Big B ranch.</p> + +<p>And they were not to be disappointed. Observing closely, Stetson, who +was nearest to Pete, saw the latter suddenly draw up his horse and come +to a full stop. At last the end had arrived—at last; and the rancher +turned to motion to his right. Only a moment the action took, but when +he shifted back he saw a sight which, stolid gambler as he was, sent a +thrill through his nerves, a mumbling curse to his lips. Coming toward +him, crazy-scared, bounding like an antelope, mane flying, stirrups +flapping, was the pony Pete had ridden, but now riderless. Of the cowboy +himself there was not a sign. Stetson had not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> heard a sound or caught a +motion. Nevertheless, he understood. Somewhere near, just to the west, +lay death, death in ambush; but he did not hesitate. Whatever his +faults, the man was no coward. A revolver in either hand, the reins in +his teeth, he spurred straight for the river.</p> + +<p>It took him but a minute to cover the distance—a minute until, almost +by the rivers bank, he saw ahead on the brown earth the sprawling form +of a dead man. With a jerk he drew up alongside, and, the muzzles of big +revolvers following his eye, sent swiftly about him a sweeping glance. +Of a sudden, three hundred yards out, seemingly from the surface of the +river itself, he caught a tiny rising puff of smoke, heard +simultaneously a sound he knew so well,—the dull spattering impact of a +bullet,—realized that the pony beneath him was sinking, felt the shock +as his own body came to earth, and heard just over his head the singing +passage of a rifle-ball.</p> + +<p>Unconscious profanity flowed from the rancher's lips in a stream; but +meanwhile his brain worked swiftly, and, freeing himself, he crawled +back hand over hand until a wave in the ground covered the river from +view; then springing to his feet he ran toward the others, approaching +now as fast as spurs would bring them, waving, shouting a warning as he +went. Within a minute they were all together listening to his story. +Within another, the rifles from off their saddles in their hands, the +ponies left in charge of lank Bob Hoyt, the eight others now remaining +moved back as Stetson had come: at first upright, then, crawling, hand +over hand until, peeping over the intervening ridge, they saw lying +before them the mingled ice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> patches and open running water of the +low-lying Missouri. Beside them at their left, very near, was the body +of Pete; but after a first glance and an added invective no man for the +present gave attention. He was dead, dead in his tracks, and their +affair was not with such, but with the quick.</p> + +<p>At first they could see nothing which explained the mystery of death, +only the forbidding face of the great river; then gradually to one after +another there appeared tell-tale marks which linked together into clues.</p> + +<p>"Ain't that a hoss-carcass?" It was cowboy Buck who spoke. "Look, a +hundred yards out, down stream."</p> + +<p>Gilbert's swift glance caught the indicated object.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and another beyond—farther down—amongst that ice-pack! Do you +see?"</p> + +<p>"Where?" Mick Kennedy trained his one eye like a fieldpiece upon the +locality suggested. "Where? Yes! I see them now—both of them. Blair's +own horse, if he had one, is probably in there too, somewhere."</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Stetson had been scrutinizing the spot on the river's face +from which had come the puff of smoke.</p> + +<p>"Say, boys!" a ring as near excitement as was possible to one of his +temperament was in his voice. "Ain't that an island, that brown patch +out there, pretty well over to the other side? I believe it is."</p> + +<p>The others followed his glance. Near the farther bank was a long +low-lying object, like a jam of broken ice-cakes, between which and them +the open water was flowing. At first they thought it was ice; then under +longer observation they knew better. They had seen too many other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +formations of the kind in this shifting treacherous stream to be long +deceived. A flat sandy island it was, sure enough; and what they thought +was ice was driftwood.</p> + +<p>Almost simultaneously from the eight there burst forth an exclamation, a +rumbling curse of comprehension. They understood it all now as plainly +as though their own eyes had seen the tragedy. Blair had reached the +river and, despite its rotten ice, had tried to cross. One by one the +horses had broken through, had been abandoned to their fate. He alone, +somehow, had managed to reach this sandy island, and he was there now, +intrenched behind the driftwood, waiting and watching.</p> + +<p>In the brain of every cowboy there formed an unuttered curse. Their +impotence to go farther, to mete out retribution to this murderer of +their companion, came over them in a blind wave of fury. The sun, now +well above the horizon, shone warmly down upon them. They were in the +midst of an infrequent Winter thaw. The full current of the river was +between them and the desperado. It might be days, a week, before ice +would again form; yet, connecting the island with the western bank, it +was even now in place. Blair had but to wait until cover of night, and +depart in peace—on foot, to be sure, but in the course of days a man +could travel far afoot. Doubtless he realized all this. Doubtless he was +laughing at them now. The curses redoubled.</p> + +<p>Stetson had been taking off his coat. He now draped it about his +rifle-stock, and placed his sombrero on top. "All ready, boys," he +cautioned, and raised it slowly into view.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> + +<p>Instantly from the centre of the driftwood heap there arose a tracing of +blue smoke. Simultaneously, irregular in outline as though punched by a +dull instrument, a jagged hole appeared in the felt of the hat.</p> + +<p>As instantly, eight rifles on the bank began to play. The crackling of +their reports was like infantry, the sliding click of the ejecting +mechanism as continuous and regular as the stamp-stamp of many presses. +The smoke rose over their heads in a blue cloud. Far out on the river, +under impact of the bullets, splinters of the rotted driftwood leaped +high into the air. Now and then the open water in front splashed into +spray as a ball went amiss. Not until the rifle magazines were empty did +they cease, and then only to reload. Again and once again they repeated +the onslaught, until it would seem no object the size of a human being +upon the place where they aimed could by any possibility remain alive. +Then, and not until then, did silence return, did the dummy upon +Stetson's rifle again raise its head.</p> + +<p>But this time there was no response. They waited a minute, two +minutes—tried the ruse again, and it was as before. Had they really hit +the man out there, as they hoped, or was he, conscious of a trick, +merely lying low? Who could tell? The uncertainty, the inaction, goaded +all that was reckless in cowboy Buck's nature, and he sprang to his +feet.</p> + +<p>"I'm going out there if I have to walk on the bottom of the river!" he +blazed.</p> + +<p>Instantly Stetson's hands were on his legs, pulling him, prostrate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Down, you fool!" he growled. "At the bottom of the river is where you'd +be quick enough." The speaker turned to the others. "One of us is done +for already. There's no use for the rest to risk our lives without a +show. We've either potted Blair or we haven't. There's nothing more to +be done now, anyway. We may as well go back."</p> + +<p>For a moment there was a murmur of dissent, but it was short-lived. One +and all realized that what the rancher said was true. For the present at +least, nature was against them, on the side of the outlaw; and to combat +nature was useless. Another time—yes, there would surely be another +time; and grim faces grew grimmer at the thought. Another time it would +be different.</p> + +<p>"Yes, we may as well go." It was Mick Kennedy who spoke. "We can't stay +here long, that's sure." He tossed his rifle over to Stetson. "Carry +that, will you?" and rising, regardless of danger, he walked over to +cowboy Pete, took the dead body in his arms, without a glance behind +him, stalked back to where the horses were waiting, laid his burden +almost tenderly across the shoulder of his own mustang, and mounted +behind. Coming up, the others, likewise in silence, got into their +saddles, not as at starting, with one bound, but heavily, by aid of +stirrups. Still in silence, Mick leading, the legs of dead Pete dangling +at the pony's shoulder, they faced east, and started moving slowly along +the backward trail.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +<h3>A SHOT IN THE DARK</h3></div> + +<p>Winter, long delayed, came at last in earnest. On the morning of the +seventeenth of January—the ranchers did not soon forget the date—a +warm snow, soft with moisture, drove tumbling in from the east. All the +morning it came, thicker and thicker, until on the level, several inches +had fallen; then, so rapidly that one could almost discern the change, +the temperature began lowering, the wind shifting from the east to the +north, from north to west, and steadily rising. The surface of the snow +froze to ice, the snowflakes turned to sleet, and went bounding and +grinding, forming drifts but to disperse again, journeying aimlessly on, +cutting viciously at the chance animal who came in their path like a +myriad of tiny knives.</p> + +<p>All that day the force of the Box R ranch labored in the increasing +storm to get the home herds safely behind the shelter of the corral. It +was impossible for cattle long to face such a storm; but with this very +emergency in mind, Rankin had always in Winter kept the scattered +bunches to the north and west, and under these conditions the feat was +accomplished by dusk, and the half-frozen cowboys tumbled into their +bunks, to fall asleep almost before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> they assumed the horizontal. The +other ranchers wondered why it was that Rankin was so prosperous and why +his herd seldom diminished in Winter. Had they been observant, they +could have learned one reason that day.</p> + +<p>All the following night the storm moaned and raged, and the cold became +more and more intense. It came in through the walls of houses and +through bunk coverings, and bit at one like a living thing. Nothing +could stop it, nothing unprotected could withstand it. In the great +corral behind the windbreak, the cattle, all headed east, were jammed +together for warmth, a conglomerate mass of brown heads and bodies from +which projected a wilderness of horns.</p> + +<p>The next morning broke with a clear sky but with the thermometer marking +many degrees below zero. Out of doors, when the sun had arisen, the +light was dazzling. As far as eye could reach not a spot of brown +relieved the white. The layer of frozen snow lay like a vast carpet +stretched tight from horizon to horizon. Although it was only snow, yet +so far as the herds of the ranchers were concerned it might have been a +protecting armor of steel. Well did the tired cowboys, stiff from the +previous day's struggle, know what was before them, when at daylight +Graham routed them out. Food the helpless multitude must have. If they +could not find it for themselves it must be found for them; and in +stolid disapproval the men ate a hasty breakfast by the light of a +kerosene lamp and went forth to the inevitable.</p> + +<p>Rankin and Ben and Graham were already astir, and under their +supervision the campaign was rapidly begun.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> For a few days the stock +must be fed on hay, and seven of the available fifteen men of the ranch +force were detailed to keep full the great racks in the cattle +stockade—a task in itself, with the myriad hungry mouths swarming on +every hand, all but Herculean. The others, Rankin himself among the +number, undertook the greater feat of in a measure opening the range for +the future.</p> + +<p>The device which the big man had evolved for this purpose, and had used +on previous similar occasions, was a simple triangular snow-plough +several feet in width, with guiding handles behind. Comparatively narrow +as was the ribbon path cleared by this appliance, its length was only +limited by the endurance of the horses and the driver, and in the course +of the day many an acre could be uncovered. Half an hour after sunrise, +the eight outfits thus equipped were lined up side by side and headed +due northwest to a range which had been but little pastured.</p> + +<p>For five miles straight as a taut line they went, leaving behind them +eight brown stripes alternating with bands of white between. Then back +and forth, back and forth, for the distance of another mile they +vibrated until it was noon, when eight more connecting brown ribbons +were stretched beside their predecessors back to the ranch-house. In the +afternoon the labor was repeated, until by night the clearing, a +gigantic mottled fan with an abnormally long handle, lay in vivid +contrast against the surrounding white.</p> + +<p>The second day was the same, except that but seven bands stretched out +behind the moving squad. Rankin, game as he was, could scarcely put one +foot ahead of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> other, and in consequence, changing his tactics, he +mounted the old buckboard and departed on a tour of inspection toward +the north range. He was late in returning, and, as usual, very taciturn; +but after supper, as he and Ben were smoking in friendly silence by the +kitchen fire, he turned to the younger man.</p> + +<p>"Someone stayed at the north range last night," he announced abruptly. +"He slept there and had a fire."</p> + +<p>Ben showed no surprise. "I thought so, probably," he replied. "Late this +afternoon I ran across a trail leading in from the west along our +clearing, and headed that way. It was one lone chain of footprints."</p> + +<p>Rankin shivered, and replenished the fire. His long drive had chilled +him through and through.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you have an idea who made that trail?" he said.</p> + +<p>Though each knew that the other had heard the details of Pete's death, +neither had mentioned the incident. To do so had seemed superfluous. +Now, however, each realized the thought in the other's mind, and chose +not to avoid it.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Ben, simply. "I suppose it was made by Tom Blair."</p> + +<p>Never before had Rankin heard Benjamin Blair speak that name. He +stretched back heavily in his chair and lit his pipe afresh.</p> + +<p>"Ben," he said, "I'm getting old. I never began to realize the fact +until this Winter; but I sha'n't last many more years." Puff, puff went +two twin clouds of smoke toward the ceiling. "Civilization has some +advantages<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> over the frontier, and this is one of them: it's kinder to +the old."</p> + +<p>Never before had Rankin spoken in this way, and the other understood the +strength of his conviction.</p> + +<p>"You work too hard," he said soberly, though he felt the inadequacy of +the trite remark. "It's unnecessary. I wish you wouldn't do it."</p> + +<p>Rankin threw an outward motion with his powerful hand. "Yes, I know; but +when I quit moving I want to die. I know I could get a steam-heated back +room in a quiet street of a sleepy town somewhere and coddle myself into +a good many years yet; but it isn't worth the price. I love this big +free life too well ever to leave it. Most of the people one meets here +are rough, but in time that will all change. It's changing now; and +meantime nature compensates for everything."</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence, and then, as though there had been no +digression, Rankin went back to the former subject. "Yes," he said +slowly, "I think you're right about those being Tom Blair's tracks." He +turned and faced the younger man squarely. "If it is, Ben, it means he's +been frozen out from his hiding-place, wherever that is, and he's crazy +desperate. He'd do anything now. He wouldn't ever come back here +otherwise."</p> + +<p>Ben Blair's blue eyes tightened until the lashes were all but parallel.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Rankin repeated, "he's crazy desperate to come here at +all—especially so now." A pause, but the eyes did not shift. "God knows +I'm sorry he ever came back. I was glad we found that trail too late to +follow it to-day;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> but it's only postponing the end. I believe he'll be +here at the ranch to-night. He's got to get a horse—he's got to do +something right away; and I'm going to watch. If he don't come I'll take +up the old trail in the morning."</p> + +<p>Once more the pause, more intense than words. "He can't escape again, +unless—unless he gets me first—He must be desperate crazy."</p> + +<p>Rankin arose heavily and knocked the ashes out of his pipe preparatory +to bed.</p> + +<p>"There are a lot of things I might say now, Ben, but I won't say them. +We're not living in a land of law. We haven't someone always at hand to +shift our responsibility onto. In self-protection, we've got to take +justice more or less into our own hands. One thing I will say, though, +and I hope you'll never forget it. Think twice before you ever take the +life of another human being, Ben; think twice. Be sure your reasons are +mighty good—and then think again. Don't ever act in hot blood, or as +long as you live you'll know remorse." The speaker paused and his breath +came fast. Something more—who knew how much?—trembled on the end of +his tongue. He roused himself with an effort and turned toward his bunk. +"Good-night, Ben. I trust you as I'd trust my own son."</p> + +<p>The younger man watched the departing figure and felt the irony of the +separation that keeps us silent even when we wish to be nearest and most +helpful to our friends and makes our words a mockery.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir, I shall not forget. Good-night," he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + +<p>When a few minutes later the young man sauntered out to the barns, +everything was peaceful as usual. From the horse-stalls came the steady +monotonous grind of the animals at feed. In the cattle-yards was heard +the sleepy breathing of the multitude of cattle. Perfect contentment and +oblivion was the keynote of the place, and the watcher looked at the +lethargic mass thoughtfully. He had always responded instinctively to +the moods of dumb animals. He did so now. The passive trustfulness of +the great herd affected him deeply. Twice he made the circuit of the +buildings, but finding nothing amiss returned to his place. The sound of +the horses feeding had long since ceased. The sleepy murmur of the +cattle was lower and more regular. In the increasing coldness the vapor +of their breath, even though the night was dark and moonless, arose in +an indistinct cloud, like the smoke of smouldering camp-fires over the +tents of a sleeping army. For two days the man had been doing the +heaviest kind of work. Gradually, amid much opening and closing of +eyelids, consciousness lapsed into semi-consciousness, and he dozed.</p> + +<p>Suddenly—whether it was an hour or a minute afterwards, he did not +know—he awoke and sat up listening. Some sound had caught and held his +sub-conscious attention. He waited a moment, intent, scarcely breathing, +and then sprang swiftly to his feet. The sound now came definitely from +the sheds at the left. It was the deep chesty groan of a horse in pain.</p> + +<p>Once upon his feet, Ben Blair ran toward the barn, not cautiously but +precipitately. He had not grown to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> maturity amid animals without +learning something of their language; but even if such had been the +case, he could scarcely have mistaken that sound. Mortal pain and mortal +terror vibrated in those tones. No human being could have cried for help +more distinctly. The frozen snow squeaked under the rancher's feet as he +ran. "Stop there!" he shouted. "Stop there!" and throwing open the +nearest door, unmindful of danger, he dashed into the interior darkness.</p> + +<p>The barn was eighty odd feet in length, and as Ben swung open the door +at the east corner there was a flash of fire from the extreme west end, +and a bullet splintered the wood just back of his head. His precipitate +entry had been his salvation. He groped his way ahead, the groans of the +horses in his ears—for now he detected more than one voice. A growing +realization of what he would find was in his mind, and then a dark form +shot through the west door, and he was alone. Impulse told him to +follow, but the sound of pain and struggle kept him back. He struck a +match, held it like a torch above him, moved ahead, stopped. The flame +burned down the dry pine until it reached his fingers, blackened them, +went out; but he did not stir. He had expected the thing he saw, +expected it at the first cry he heard; yet infinitely more horrible than +a picture of imagination was the reality. He did not light another +match, he did not wish to see. To hear was bad enough—to hear and to +know. He started for the door; and behind him three great horses, +hopelessly maimed and crippled, struggled to rise, and failing, groaned +anew.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<p>It seemed Ben's fate this night to be just too late for service. Before +he reached the exit there sounded, spattering and intermittent, like the +first popping kernels of corn in a pan, a succession of pistol-shots +from the ranch-house. There was no answer, and as he stepped out into +the air the sound ceased. As he did so, the kitchen of the house sprang +alight from a lamp within. There was a moment of apparent inactivity, +and then, the door swinging open, fair against the lighted background, +shading his eyes to look into the outer darkness, stood Rankin. +Instantly a wave of premonition flooded the watching Benjamin.</p> + +<p>"Go back!" he shouted. "Go back! Back, quick!" and careless of personal +danger, he started running for the ranch-house as before he had raced +for the barn.</p> + +<p>The warning might as well have been ungiven. Almost before the last +words were spoken there came from the darkness at Ben's right the sound +he had been expecting—a single vicious rifle report; and as though a +mighty invisible weight were crushing him down, Rankin sank to the +floor.</p> + +<p>Then for the first time in his history Ben Blair lost self-control. +Quick as thought he changed his course from the house to the direction +from which the shot had come. The great veins of his throat swelled +until it seemed he could scarcely breathe. Curses, horrible, blighting +curses, combinations of malediction which had never even in thought +entered his mind before, rolled from his lips. His brain seemed afire. +But one idea possessed him—to lay hands upon this intruding being who +had in cold blood done that fiendish deed in the barn, and now had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> shot +his best friend on earth. The rage of primitive man who knew not steel +or gunpowder was his; the ferocity of the great monkey, the aborigine's +predecessor, whose means of offence were teeth and nails. Straight ahead +the man rushed, seeming not to run, but fairly to bound, turned suddenly +the angle at the corner of the machinery shed, stumbled over a +snow-plough drawn up carelessly by one of the men, fell, regained his +feet, and heard in his ears the thundering hoof-beats of a horse urged +away at full speed.</p> + +<p>For a moment Ben Blair stood as he had risen, gazing westward where the +other had departed, but seeing nothing, not even a shadow. Clouds had +formed over the sky, and the night was of intense darkness. To attempt +to follow a trail now was waste of time; and gradually, as he stood +there, the unevolved fury of the man transformed. His tongue became +silent; not a human being had heard the outburst. The physical paroxysm +relaxed. As he returned to the ranch-house no observer would have +detected in him other than the usual matter-of-fact rancher; yet beneath +that calm was a purpose infinitely more terrible than the animal blaze +of a few minutes before, a tenacity more relentless than a tiger on the +trail of its quarry, than an Indian stalking his enemy; a formulated +purpose which could patiently wait, but eventually and inevitably would +grind its object to powder.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, back at the scene of the tragedy, there had been feverish +action. Many of the cowboys were already about the barns, and lanterns +gleamed in the horse corral. Within the house, in the nearest bunk where +they had laid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> him, stretched the proprietor of the ranch. About him +were grouped Grannis, Graham, and Ma Graham. The latter was weeping +hysterically—her head buried in her big checked apron, the great mass +of her body vibrating with the effort. As Ben approached, her husband +glanced up. Upon his face was the dull unreasoning indecision of a steer +which had lost its leader; an animal passivity which awaited command.</p> + +<p>"Rankin's dead," he announced dully. "He's hit here." A withered hand +indicated a spot on the left breast. "He went quick."</p> + +<p>Grannis said nothing, and walking up Ben Blair stopped beside the bunk. +He took a long look at the kindly heavy face of the only man he had ever +called friend; but not a feature of his own face relaxed, not a muscle +quivered. Grannis watched him fixedly, almost with fascination. +Gray-haired gambler and man of fortune that he was, he realized as +Graham could never do the emotions which so often lie just back of the +locked countenance of a human being; realized it, and with the grim +carelessness of a frontiersman admired it.</p> + +<p>Of a sudden there was a grinding of frosty snow in the outer yard, a +confused medley of human voices, a snorting of horses; and, turning, Ben +went to the door. One glance told him the meaning of the cluster of +cowboys. He walked out toward them deliberately.</p> + +<p>"Boys," he said steadily, "put up your horses. You couldn't find a +mountain in the darkness to-night." A pause. "Besides," slowly, "this is +my affair. Put them up and go to bed."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<p>For a moment there was silence. The hearers could scarcely believe their +ears.</p> + +<p>"You mean we're to let him go?" queried a hesitating voice at last.</p> + +<p>Blair folded up the broad brim of his hat and looked from face to face +as it was revealed by the uncertain light from the window.</p> + +<p>"I mean what I said," he repeated evenly. "I'll attend to this matter +myself."</p> + +<p>For a moment again there was silence, but only for a moment.</p> + +<p>"No you won't!" blazed a voice suddenly. "Rankin was the whitest man +that ever owned a brand. Just because the kyote that shot him lived with +your mother won't save him. I'm going—and now."</p> + +<p>Quicker than a cat, so swiftly that the other cowboys scarcely realized +what was happening, the long gaunt Benjamin was at the speaker's side. +With a leap he had him by the throat, had dragged him from the back of +the horse, and held him at arm's length.</p> + +<p>"Freeman,"—the voice was neither raised nor lowered, but steady as the +drip of falling water,—"Freeman, you know better than that, and you +know you know better." The grip of the long left hand on the throat +tightened. The fingers of the right locked. "Say so—quick!"</p> + +<p>Face to face, looking fair into each other's eyes, stood the two men, +while the spectators watched breathlessly as they would have done at a +climax in a play. It was a case of will against will, elemental man +against his brother.</p> + +<p>"I'm waiting," suggested Blair, and even in the dim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> light Freeman saw +the blue eyes beneath the long lashes darken. Instinctively the victim's +hand went to his hip and lingered there; but he could no more have +withdrawn the weapon which he felt there than he could have struck his +own mother. He started to speak; but his lips were dry, and he moistened +them with his tongue.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know better," he admitted low.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair dropped his hand and turned to the spectators. "Men," he said +slowly and distinctly, "for the present at least I'm master of this +ranch, and when I give an order I expect to be obeyed." Again his eye +went from face to face fearlessly, dominantly. "Does any other man doubt +me?"</p> + +<p>Not a voice broke the stillness of the night. Only the restless movement +of the impatient mustangs answered.</p> + +<p>"Very well, then, you heard what I said. Go to bed, and to-morrow go on +with your work as usual. Grannis will be in charge while I'm gone," and +without a backward glance the long figure returned to the ranch-house.</p> + +<p>The weazened foreman and the tall adventurer had been watching him +impassively from the doorway. In silence they made room for him to pass.</p> + +<p>"Grannis," he asked directly, "have those horses been taken care of?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"See to it at once then."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>The blue eyes rested for a moment on the other's face.</p> + +<p>"You heard who I said would be in charge while I'm away?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," again.</p> + +<p>Ben moved over to the bunk opposite to that in which lay the dead man +and took off his hat and coat.</p> + +<p>"Graham!"</p> + +<p>The foreman came close, stood at attention.</p> + +<p>"Keep awake and call me before daylight, will you?"</p> + +<p>"I will."</p> + +<p>"And, Graham!"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I may be gone several days. You and Ma attend to the—burial. Dig the +grave out under the big maple." A pause. "I think," steadily, "he would +have liked it there."</p> + +<p>The foreman nodded silently.</p> + +<p>Benjamin Blair dropped into the bunk, drew the blankets over him and +closed his eyes. As he did so, from the direction of the barn there came +a succession of pistol shots—one, two, three. Then again silence fell.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +<h3>THE INEXORABLE TRAIL</h3></div> + +<p>Once more, westward across the prairie country, there moved a tall and +sinewy youth astride a vicious looking buckskin. This time, however, it +was very early in the morning. The rider moved slowly, his eyes on the +ground. His outfit was more elaborate than on the former journey. A +heavy blanket and a light camp kit were strapped behind his saddle, and +so attached that they could be quickly transferred to his back. A big +rifle was stretched across his right knee and the saddle-horn. At either +hip rode a great holster. The air, despite the cloudiness, was bitter +cold; and he wore a heavy sheepskin coat with the wool turned in, and +long gauntlets reaching half-way to his elbows. A broad leather belt +held the heavy coat in place, and attached to it was a thin sheath from +which protruded the stout handle of a hunting-knife. He also wore +another belt, fitted with many loops, each holding a gleaming little +brass cylinder. No one seeing the man this morning could have made the +mistake of considering him, as before, on a journey to see a lady.</p> + +<p>Slowly day advanced. The east resolved itself from flaming red into the +neutral tint of the remainder of the sky. The sun shone through the +clouds, dissipated them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> was obscured, and shone again. The something +which the man had been watching so intently gradually grew clearer. It +was the trail of another horse—a galloping horse. It was easy to +follow, and the rider looked about him. After a few miles, when the +mustang had warmed to his second wind, a gauntleted hand dropped to the +yellow neck and stroked it gently.</p> + +<p>"Let 'em out a bit, Buck," said a voice, "let 'em out!" and with a flick +of the dainty ears, almost as if he understood, the little beast fell +into the steady swinging lope which was his natural gait, and which he +could follow if need be without a break from sun to sun.</p> + +<p>On they went, the trail they were following unwinding like a great tape +steadily before them, the crunch of the frozen snow in their ears, tiny +particles of it flying to the side and behind like spray. But, bravely +as they were going, the horse ahead which had unwound that band of +tracks had moved more swiftly. Not within inches did the best efforts of +the buckskin approach those giant strides. It had been a desperate rider +who had urged such a pace; and the grim face of the tall youth grew +grimmer at the thought.</p> + +<p>Not another sound than of their own making did they hear. Not an object +uncovered of white did they see, until, thirteen miles out, they passed +near the deserted Baker ranch; but the trail did not stop, nor did they, +and ere long it faded again from view. The course was dipping well to +the north now, and Ben realized that not again on his journey would he +pass in sight of a human habitation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p> + +<p>All that mortal day the buckskin pounded monotonously ahead. The sun +rose to the meridian, gazed warmly down upon them, softened the surface +of the frozen snow until the crunch sounded mellower, and slowly +descended to their left. The dainty ears of the pony, as the day waned, +flattened close to his head. Foam gathered beneath the saddle and +between the animal's legs; but doggedly relentless as his rider, he +forged ahead. Much in common had these two beings; more closely than +ever was their comradery cemented that day. Many times, with the same +motion as at first, the man had leaned over and patted that muscular +neck, dark and soiled now with perspiration. "Good old Buck," he said as +to a fellow, "good old Buck!" and each time the set ears had flicked +intelligently in response.</p> + +<p>It was nearing sunset when they came in sight of the hills bordering the +river, and the last mile Ben drew the buckskin to a walk. The chain of +hoof-tracks had changed much since the morning. The buckskin could equal +the strides of the other now, and the follower was content. The evenings +were very short at this season of the year, and they would not attempt +to go farther to-night. At the margin of the stream Ben rode along until +he found a spot where the full strength of the current ate into the +bank. There on the thinner ice he hammered with the butt of his heavy +rifle until he broke a hole; then, the dumb one first, the two friends +drank their fill. After that, side by side, they walked back until in +the shelter of a high knoll the man found a space of perhaps half an +acre where the grass, thick and unpastured, was practically<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> bare of +snow. Here he removed saddle and bridle, and without lariat or +hobble—for they knew each other now, these two—he turned the pony +loose to graze. He himself, with the kit and blanket and a handful of +dead wood, went to the hill-top, where he could see for miles around, +built a tiny fire, an Indian's fire, made a can of strong black coffee, +and ate of the jerked beef he had brought. Later, he cleared a spot the +size of a man's grave, and with grass and the blanket built a shallow +nest, in which he stretched himself, his elbow on the earth, his face in +his hand, thinking, thinking.</p> + +<p>The night came on. As the eastern sky had done in the morning, so now +the west crimsoned gloriously, became the color of blood, then gradually +shaded back until it was neutral again, and the stars from a few +scattering dots increased in numbers and filled the dome as scattered +sand-grains cover a floor. Darkness came, and with it the slight wind of +the day died down until the air was perfectly still. The cold, which had +retreated for a time, returned, augmented. As though it were a live +thing moving about, its coming could be heard in the almost +indistinguishable crackling of the snow-crust. As beneath a crushing +weight, the ice of the great river boomed and crackled from its touch.</p> + +<p>Wide-eyed but impassive, the man watched and listened. Scarcely a muscle +of his body moved. Not once, as the hours slipped by, did he drowse; not +for an instant was he off his guard. With the first trace of morning in +the east, he was astir. As on the night before, he made his Indian's +fire, ate his handful of beef, and drank of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> strong black coffee. +The pony, sleepy as a child, was aroused and saddled. The ice which had +frozen during the night over their drinking-hole was broken. Then, both +man and horse stiff and sore from the exposure and the previous +exertion, the trail was taken up anew.</p> + +<p>For five miles, until both were warmed to their work, the man and beast +trotted along side by side. "Now, Buck, old boy!" said Ben, and +mounting, they were off in earnest. At first the trail they were +following was that of a horse that walked; but later it stretched out +into the old long-strided gallop, and the pursuer read the tale of quirt +and spur which had forced the change.</p> + +<p>Three hours out, thirty odd miles from the river as the rider calculated +the distance, he came to the first break in the seemingly endless trail +of hoofprints he was following. A heap of snow scraped aside and two +brown spots on the earth told the story of where the pursued man and +horse had paused to rest and sleep. No water was near. Neither the human +nor the beast had strayed from the direct line; they had merely halted +and dropped almost within their tracks. Just beyond was the spot where +the man had remounted, where the flight began anew; and again a tale lay +written on the surface of the snow. The prints of the horse's feet were +now unsteady and irregular. Within a few rods there was on the right a +red splash of blood; then others, a drop at a time. Very hard it had +been to put life into the beast at starting; deep the rowels of the +great spur had been dug. Ben Blair lightly touched the neck of his +buckskin and gave the word to go.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They were only thirty miles ahead last night, Buck, old chap," he said, +"and very tired. We'll gain on them fast to-day."</p> + +<p>But though they gained—the record of the tracks told that—they did not +gain fast. Notwithstanding he still galloped doggedly ahead, the gallant +little buckskin was plainly weakening. The eternal pounding through the +snow was eating up his strength, and though his spirit was indomitable +the end of his endurance was in sight. No longer would the dainty ears +respond to a touch on the neck. With head lowered he moved forward like +a machine. While the sun was yet above the horizon, the lope diminished +to a trot, the trot to a walk—a game walk, but only a walk.</p> + +<p>Then, for the second time that day, Ben dismounted. Silently he removed +saddle and bridle, transferred the blanket and kit to his own back, and +then, the rifle under his arm, stopped a moment by the pony's side and +laid the dainty muzzle against his face.</p> + +<p>"Buck, old boy," he said, "you've done mighty well—but I can beat you +now. Maybe some day we'll meet again. I hope we shall. Anyway, we're +better for having known each other. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>A moment longer his face lay so, as his hand would have lain in a +friend's hand at parting; then, with a last pat to the silken nose, he +started on ahead.</p> + +<p>At first the man walked steadily; then, warming to the work, he broke +into the swinging jog-trot of the frontiersman, the hunter who travels +afoot. Many Indians the youth had known in his day, and from them he had +learned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> much; one thing was that in walking or running to step +straight-footed instead of partially sideways, as the white man plants +his sole, was to gain inches at every motion, besides making it easier +to retrace his steps should he wish to do so. This habit had become a +part of him, and now the marks of his own trail were like the +alternately broken line which represents a railroad on a map.</p> + +<p>As long as he could see to read from the white page of the snow-blanket, +Ben Blair jogged ahead. Hot anger, that he could not repress, was with +him constantly now, for the trail before him was very fresh, and, +distinct beside it, more and more frequent were the red marks of an +animal's suffering. He knew what horse it was the other had stolen. It +was "Lady," one of Scotty's prize thoroughbred mares, the one Florence +had ridden so many times. Often during those last hours the man wondered +at the endurance of the mare. None but a thoroughbred would have stood +up this long; and even she, if she ever stopped,—but the man ahead +doubtless knew this also, for he would not let her stop, not so long as +life remained and spur and quirt had power to torture.</p> + +<p>Thus night came on, folding within its concealing arms alike the hunter +and the pursued. Ben did not build a fire this night. First of all, +though during the day at different times he had been able to see the +bordering trees of the White River at his left and the Bad River at his +right, the trail hung to the comparatively level land of the great +divide between, and not a scrap of wood was within miles. Again, +although he did not actually know, he could not believe he was far +behind, and he would run no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> risk of giving a warning sign to eyes which +must be watching the backward trail. The fierce hunger of a healthy +animal was his; but his supply of beef was limited, and he ate a meagre +allowance, washing it down with a draught of river water from his +canteen. Rolled up in the blanket, through which the stinging cold +pierced as though it were gossamer, shivering, beating his hands and +feet to prevent their stiffening, longing for protecting fur like a wolf +or a buffalo, keeping constant watch about him as does a great prairie +owl, the interminably long hours of his second night dragged by.</p> + +<p>"The beginning of the end," he soliloquized, when once more it was light +enough so that standing he could see the earth at his feet. Well he knew +that ere this the other horse was eliminated from the chase—that it was +now man against man. God! how his joints ached when he stretched +them!—how his muscles pained at the slightest motion! He ground his +teeth when he first began to walk, and hobbled like a rheumatic cripple; +but within a half-hour tenacity had won, and the relentless jog-trot of +the interrupted line was measuring off the miles anew.</p> + +<p>The chase was nearing an end. Long ere noon, in the distance toward +which he was heading, Blair detected a brown dot against the white. +Steadily, as he advanced, it resolved itself into the thing he had +expected, and stood revealed before him, the centre of a horribly +legible page, the last page in the biography of a noble horse. Let us +pass it by: Ben did, looking the other way. But a new and terrible +vitality possessed him. His weariness left him, as pain passes under an +opiate. He did not pause to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> eat, to drink. Tireless as a waterfall, +watchful as a hawk, he jogged on, on, a mile—two miles—five—came to a +rise in the great roll of the lands—stopped, his heart suddenly +pounding the walls of his chest. Before him, not half a mile away, +moving slowly westward, was the diminutive black shape of a man +travelling afoot!</p> + +<p>Instantly the primal hunting instinct of the Anglo-Saxon awoke in the +lank Benjamin. The incomparable fascination which makes man-hunting the +sport supreme of all ages gripped him tight. The stealthy cunning of a +savage became on the moment his. A plan of ambush, one which could +scarcely fail, flashed into his mind. The trail of the divide narrowing +now, stretched for miles and miles straight before them. That black +figure would scarcely leave it. The pursuer had but to make a great +detour, get far in advance, find a point of concealment, and wait.</p> + +<p>Swift as thought was action. Back on his trail until he was out of sight +went Ben Blair; then, turning to his right, he made straight for the +concealing bed of Bad River. Once there, he turned west again, following +the winding course of the stream toward its source. Faster than ever he +moved, the pat-pat of his feet on the deadening snow drowning the sound +of the great breaths he drew into his lungs and sent whistling out again +through his nostrils. As with the horse, the sweat oozed at every pore. +Collecting on his brow and face, it dripped slowly from his great chin. +Dampening, his clothes clung binding-tight to his body; but he never +noticed. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor behind +him;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> but, like a sprinter approaching the wire, only straight ahead.</p> + +<p>Under him the miles flowed past like water. Five, ten, a dozen he +covered; then of a sudden he turned again to the south, quitting his +shelter of the river-bed. For a time the country was very rough, but he +scarcely slackened his pace. Once he fell through the crust of a drift, +and went down nearly to his neck; but he crowded his way through by +sheer strength, emerging a powdered figure from the snow which clung to +his damp clothes. The sun was down now, and he knew darkness would come +very quickly and he must reach the divide, the probable trail, before it +fell, and there select his point of waiting.</p> + +<p>As he moved on, he saw some miles ahead that which decided him. A low +chain of hills, stretching to the north and south, crossed the great +divide as a fallen log spans a path. In these hills, appreciable even at +this distance, there was a dip, an almost level pass. A small diversity +it was on the face of nature, but to a weary man, fleeing afoot, seen in +the distance it would irresistibly appeal. Almost as certain as though +he saw the black figure already heading for it, the hunter felt it would +be utilized. Anyway, he would take the chance; and with a last spurt of +speed he put himself fairly in its way. To clear a narrow strip of +ground the length of his body, and build around it like a breastwork a +border of snow, was the work of but a few minutes; then, wrapped in his +blanket, too deadly tired to even attempt to eat, he dropped behind the +cover like a log. At first the rest was that of Paradise; but swiftly +came the reaction, the chill. To<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> lie there in his present condition +meant but one thing, that never would he arise again; and with an effort +the man got to his feet and started walking. It was dark again now, and +the sky was becoming rapidly overcast. Within an hour it began to snow, +a steady big-flaked snow that fairly filled the air and lay where it +fell. The night grew slightly warmer, and, rolling in the blanket once +more, Ben lay down; but the warning chill soon had him again upon his +feet, walking back and forth in the one beaten path.</p> + +<p>Very long the two previous nights had been. Interminable seemed this +third. As long as the sun or moon or stars were shining, the man never +felt completely alone; but in this utter darkness the hours seemed like +days. The steadily falling snowflakes added to the impression of +loneliness and isolation. They were like the falling clods of earth in a +grave: something crowding between him and life, burying and suffocating +him where he stood. Try as he might, the man could not shake off the +weird impression, and at last he ceased the effort. Grimly stolid, he +lit his pipe, and, his damp clothing having dried at last, cleared a +fresh spot and lay down, the horrible loneliness still tugging at his +heart.</p> + +<p>Finally, after an eternity of waiting, the morning came. With it the +storm ceased and the sun shone brightly. Behind the barricade, Ben Blair +ate the last of his beef and drank the few remaining swallows of water +from his canteen. His muscles were stiff from the inaction, and, not +wishing to show himself, he kicked vigorously into space as he lay. At +intervals he made inspection of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> east, looking out over the glitter +of white; but not a living thing was in sight. An hour he watched, two +hours, while the sun, beating down obliquely, warmed him back into +activity; then of a sudden his eyes became fixed, the grip upon his +rifle tightened. Far to the southeast, something dark against the snow +was moving,—was coming toward him.</p> + +<p>Rapidly the figure approached, while lower behind the barricade dropped +the body of Benjamin Blair. The sun was in his eyes, so that as yet he +could not make out whether it was man or beast. Not until the object was +within three hundred yards, until it passed by to the north, did Ben +make out that it was a great gray wolf headed straight for the bed of +Bad River.</p> + +<p>Again two hours of unbroken monotony passed. The sun had almost reached +the meridian, and the man behind the barricade had all but decided he +must have miscalculated somehow, when in the dim distance as before +there appeared a tiny dark object, but this time directly from the east. +For five minutes Ben watched it fixedly, his hand shading his eyes; +then, slowly as moves the second-hand of a great clock, a change +indescribable came over his face. No need was there now to ask whether +it was a human being that was approaching. There was no mistaking that +slow, swinging man-motion. At last the moment was approaching for which +the youth had been striving so madly for the last few days, the moment +he had for years been conscious would some day come. It would soon be +his; and with the thought his teeth set firmer, and a fierce joy tugged +at his heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + + +<p>Five minutes, ten minutes dragged by; yet no observer, however close, +could have seen a muscle stir in the long body of the waiting man. Like +a great panther cat he lay there, the blue eyes peering just over the +surface of the ambush. Not ten paces away could an observer have told +the tip of that motionless sombrero from the protruding top of a +boulder. Gradually the approaching figure grew more distinct. A red +handkerchief showed clearly about the man's neck. Then a slight limp in +the left leg intruded itself, and a droop of the shoulders that spoke +weariness. He was very near by this time, so near that the black beard +which covered his face became discernible, likewise the bizarre breadth +of the Mexican belt above the baggy chaperejos. The crunch of the +snow-crust marked his every foot-fall.</p> + +<p>And still Ben Blair had not stirred. Slowly, as the other had +approached, the big blue eyes had darkened until they seemed almost +brown. Involuntarily the massive chin had moved forward; but that was +all. On the surface he was as calm as a lake on a windless night; but +beneath,—God! what a tempest was raging! Each one of those minutes he +waited so impassively marked the rush of a year's memories. Human hate, +primal instinct all but uncontrollable, throbbed in his accelerated +pulse-beats. Like the continuous shifting scenes in a panorama, the +incidents of his life in which this man had played a part appeared +mockingly before his mind's eye. Plainly, as though in his physical ear, +he heard the shuffle of an uncertain hand upon a latch; he saw a figure +with bloodshot eyes lurch into a rude floorless room, saw it approach<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> a +bunk whereon lay a sick woman, his mother; heard the swift passage of +angry words, words which had branded themselves into his memory forever. +Once more he was on all fours, scurrying for his life toward the dark +opening of a protecting kennel. As plainly as though the memory were of +yesterday, he gazed into the blazing mouth of a furnace, felt its +scorching breath on his cheek. Swiftly the changing scenes danced before +his eyes. A rifle-shot, real almost as though he could smell the burning +powder, sounded in his brain. Within the circle of light from a kerosene +lamp a great figure sank in a heap to a ranch house floor. Against a +background of unbroken white a trail of red blotches ended in the mutely +pathetic figure of a prostrate dying horse—a noble thoroughbred. What +varied horrors seethed in the watcher's brain, crowded each other, +recurred and again recurred! How the long sinewy fingers itched to +clutch that throat above the red neckerchief! He could see the man's +face now, as, ignorant of danger so close, he was passing by fifty feet +to the left, looking to neither side, doggedly heading toward the pass. +With the first motion since the figure had appeared, the hand of the +watcher tightened on the rifle, raised it until its black muzzle peeped +over the elevation of snow. A pair of steady blue eyes gazed down the +long barrel, brought the sights in line with a spot between the +shoulders and the waist of the unsuspecting man, the trigger-finger +tightened, almost—</p> + +<p>A preventing something, something not primal in the youth, gripped him, +held him for a second motionless. To kill a man from an ambush, even +such a one as this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> without giving him a chance—no, he could not quite +do that. But to take him by the throat with his bare hands, and then +slowly, slowly—</p> + +<p>As noiselessly as the rifle had raised, it dropped again. The muscles of +the long legs tightened as do those of a sprinter awaiting the starting +pistol. Then over the barricade, straight as a tiger leaps, shot a tall +youth with steel-blue eyes, hatless, free of hand, straight for that +listless, moving figure; the scattered snow flying to either side, the +impact of the bounding feet breaking the previous stillness. Tom Blair, +the outlaw, could not but hear the rush. Instinctively he turned, and in +the fleeting second of that first glance Ben could see the face above +the beard-line blanch. As one might feel should the Angel of Death +appear suddenly before him, Tom Blair must have felt then. As though +fallen from the sky, this avenging demon was upon him. He had not time +to draw a revolver, a knife; barely to swing the rifle in his hand +upward to strike, to brace himself a little for the oncoming rush.</p> + +<p>With a crash the two bodies came together. Simultaneously the rifle +descended, but for all its effectiveness it might have been a dead +weed-stalk in the hands of a child. It was not a time for artificial +weapons, but only for nature's own; a war of gripping, strangling hands, +of tooth and nail. Nearly of a size were the two men. Both alike were +hardened of muscle; both realized the battle was for life or death. For +a moment they remained upright, clutching, parrying for an advantage; +then, locked each with each, they went to the ground. Beneath and about +them the fresh snow flew, filling their eyes, their mouths.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> Squirming, +straining, over and over they rolled; first the beardless man on top, +then the bearded. The sound of their straining breath was continuous, +the ripping of coarse cloth an occasional interruption; but from the +first, a spectator could not but have foreseen the end. The elder man +was fighting in self-defence: the younger, he of the massive protruding +jaw—a jaw now so prominent as to be a positive disfigurement—in +unappeasable ferocity. Against him in that hour a very giant could not +have held his own. Merely a glimpse of his face inspired terror. Again +and again as they struggled his hand had clutched at the other's throat, +but only to have his hold broken. At last, however, his adversary was +weakening under the strain. Blind terror began to grip Tom Blair. At +first a mere suggestion, then a horrible certainty, possessed him as to +the identity of the relentless being who opposed him. Again the other's +hand, like the creeping tentacle of an octopus, sought his throat, would +not be stayed. He struggled with all his might against it, until it +seemed the blood-vessels of his neck would burst, but still the hold +tightened. He clutched at the long fingers desperately, bit at them, +felt his breath coming hard. Freeing his own hand, he smashed with his +fist again and again into that long thin face so near his own, knew that +another tentacle had joined with the first, felt the impossibility of +drawing air into his lungs, realized that consciousness was deserting +him, saw the sun over him like a mocking face—then knew no more.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> +<h3>IN THE GRIP OF THE LAW</h3></div> + +<p>How long Tom Blair was unconscious he did not know. When he awoke he +could scarcely believe his own senses; and he looked about him dazedly. +The sun was shining down as brightly as before. The snow was as white. +He had for some reason been spared, after all, and hope arose in his +breast. He began to look around him. Not two rods away, his face clearly +in sight, his eyes closed, dead asleep, lay the figure of the man who +had waylaid him. For a moment he looked at the figure steadily; then, in +distinct animal cunning, the lids of the close-set eyes tightened. +Stealthily, almost holding his breath, he started to rise, then fell +back with a jerk. For the first time he realized that he was bound hand +and foot, so he could scarcely stir. He struggled, at first cautiously, +then desperately, to be free; but the straps which bound him, those +which had held his own blanket, only cut the deeper; and he gave it up. +Flat on his back he lay watching the sleeper, his anger increasing. +Again his eyes tightened.</p> + +<p>"Wake up, curse you!" he yelled suddenly.</p> + +<p>No answer, only the steady rise and fall of the sleeper's chest.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Wake up, I say!" repeated the voice, in a tone to raise the dead.</p> + +<p>This time there was response—of action. Slowly Ben Blair roused, and +got up. A moment he looked about him; then, tearing a strip off his +blanket, he walked over, and, against the other's protests and promises +of silence, forced open the bearded lips, as though giving a horse the +bit, and tied a gag full in the cursing mouth. Without a word or a +superfluous look he returned and lay down. Another minute, and the +regular breathing showed he was again asleep.</p> + +<p>During all the warmth of that day Ben Blair slept on, as a child sleeps, +as sleep the very aged; and although the bearded man had freed himself +from the gag at last, he did not again make a sound. Too miserable +himself to sleep, he lay staring at the other. Gradually through the +haze of impotent anger a realization of his position came to him. He +could not avoid the issue. To be sure, he was still alive; but what of +the future? A host of possibilities flashed into his mind, but in every +one there faced him a single termination. By no process of reasoning +could he escape the inevitable end; and despite the chilliness of the +air a sweat broke out over him. Contrition for what he had done he could +not feel—long ago he had passed even the possibility of that; but fear, +deadly and absorbing fear, had him in its clutch. The passing of the +years, years full of lawlessness and violence, had left him the same man +whom bartender "Mick" had terrorized in the long ago; and for the first +time in his wretched life, personal death—not of another but of +himself—looked at him with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> steady eyes, and he could not return the +gaze. All he could do was to wait, and think—and thoughts were madness. +Again and again, knowing what the result would be, but seeking merely a +diversion, he struggled at the straps until he was breathless; but +relentless as time one picture kept recurring to his brain. In it was a +rope, a stout rope, dangling from something he could not distinctly +recognize; but what he could see, and see plainly, was a figure of a +man, a bearded man—<i>himself</i>—at its end. The body swayed back and +forth as he had once seen that of a "rustler" whom a group of cowboys +had left hanging to the scraggly branch of a scrub-oak; as a pendulum +marks time, measuring the velocity of the prairie wind.</p> + +<p>With each recurrence of the vision the perspiration broke out over the +man anew, the sunburned forehead paled. This was what it was coming to; +he could not escape it. If ever purpose was unmistakably written on a +human face, it had been on the face of the man who lay sleeping so near, +the man who had trailed him like a tiger and caught him when he thought +he was safe. From another, there might still be hope; but from this one, +Jennie Blair's son—The vision of a woman lying white and motionless on +the coarse blankets of a bunk, of a small boy with wonderfully clear +blue eyes pounding harmlessly at the legs of the man looking down; the +sound of a childish voice, accusing, menacing, ringing out over all, +"You've killed her! You've killed her!"—this like a chasm stood between +them, and could never be crossed. Clasped together, the long nervous +fingers, a gentleman's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> fingers still, twined and gripped each other. +No, there was no hope. Better that the hands he had felt about his +throat in the morning had done their work. He shut his eyes. A hot wave +of anger, anger against himself, swept all other thoughts before it. +Why, having gotten safely away, having successfully hidden himself, had +he ever returned? Why, having in the depths of his nest in the middle of +the island escaped once, had a paltry desire for revenge against the man +he fancied had led the attack sent him back? What satisfaction was it, +if in taking the life of the other man it cost him his own? Fool that he +had been to imagine he could escape where no one had ever escaped +before! Fool! Fool! Thus dragged by the long hours of the afternoon.</p> + +<p>With the coming of the chill of evening, Ben Blair awoke and rubbed his +eyes. A moment later he arose, and, walking over to his captive, looked +down at him, steadily, peculiarly. So long as he could, Tom Blair +returned the gaze; but at last his eyes fell. A voice sounded in his +ears, a voice speaking low and clearly.</p> + +<p>"You're a human being," it said. "Physically, I'm of your species, +modelled from the same clay." A long pause. "I wonder if anywhere in my +make-up there's a streak of such as you!" Again a moment of silence, in +which the elder man felt the blue eyes of the younger piercing him +through and through. "If I thought there was a trace, or the suggestion +of a trace, before God, I'd kill you and myself, and I'd do it now!" The +speaker scanned the prostrate figure from head to foot, and back again. +"And do it now," he repeated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + +<p>Silence fell; and in it, though he dared not look, coward Tom Blair +fancied he heard a movement, imagined the other man about to put the +threat into execution.</p> + +<p>"No, no!" he pleaded. "People are different—different as day and night. +You belong to your mother's kind, and she was good and pure." Every +trace of the man's nerve was gone. But one instinct was active—to +placate this relentless being, his captor. He fairly grovelled. "I swear +she was pure. I swear it!"</p> + +<p>Without speaking a word, Ben turned. Going back to his snow-blind, he +packed his blanket and camp kit swiftly and strapped them to his +shoulders. Returning, he gathered the things he had found upon the +other's person—the rifle, the revolvers, the sheath-knife—into a pile; +then deliberately, one against the other, he broke them until they were +useless. Only the blanket he preserved, tossing it down by the side of +the prostrate figure.</p> + +<p>"Tom Blair," he said, no indication now that he had ever been nearer to +the other than a stranger, "Tom Blair, I've got a few things to say to +you, and if you're wise you'll listen carefully, for I sha'n't repeat +them. You're going with me, and you're going free; but if you try to +escape, or cause me trouble, as sure as I'm alive this minute I'll strip +off every stitch of clothing you wear and leave you where I catch you +though the snow be up to your waist."</p> + +<p>Slowly he reached over and untied first the feet then the hands. "Get +up," he ordered.</p> + +<p>Tom Blair arose, stretched himself stiffly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Take that," Ben indicated the blanket, "and go ahead straight for the +river."</p> + +<p>The bearded man obeyed. To have secured his freedom he could not have +done otherwise.</p> + +<p>For ten minutes they moved ahead, only the crunching snow breaking the +stillness.</p> + +<p>"Trot!" said Ben.</p> + +<p>"I can't."</p> + +<p>"Trot!" There was no misunderstanding the tone.</p> + +<p>In single file they jogged ahead, reached the river, and descended to +the level surface of its bed.</p> + +<p>"Keep to the middle, and go straight ahead."</p> + +<p>On they went—jog, jog, jog.</p> + +<p>Of a sudden from under cover of the bank a frightened cottontail sprang +forth and started running. Instantly there was the report of a big +revolver, and Tom jumped as though he felt the bullet in his back. Again +the report sounded, and this time the rabbit rolled over and over in the +snow.</p> + +<p>Without stopping, Ben picked up the still struggling game and slipped a +couple of fresh cartridges into the empty revolver chambers. The banks +were lined with burrows and tracks, and within five minutes a second +cottontail met the fate of the first.</p> + +<p>"Come back!" called Ben to the man ahead.</p> + +<p>Again Tom obeyed. He would have gone barefoot in the snow without a +question now.</p> + +<p>"Can you make a fire?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Do it, then. I left the matches in your pocket."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + +<p>On opposite sides of the fire, from long forked sticks of green ash, +they broiled strips of the meat which Ben dressed and cut. Likewise +fronting each other, they ate in silence. Darkness was falling, and the +glow from the embers lit their faces like those of two friends camping +after a day's hunt. Had it not all been such deadly earnest, the scene +would have been farce-comedy. Suddenly Tom Blair raised his eyes.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do with me?" he asked directly.</p> + +<p>Ben said nothing.</p> + +<p>The question was not repeated, but another trembled on the speaker's +lips. At last it found words.</p> + +<p>"When you had me down I—I thought you had done for me. Why did you—let +me up?"</p> + +<p>A pause followed. Then Ben's blue eyes raised and met the other's.</p> + +<p>"You'd really like to know?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Another moment of hesitation, but the youth's eyes did not move. "Very +well, I'll tell you." More to himself than to the other he was speaking. +His voice softened unconsciously. "A girl saved you that time, Tom +Blair, a girl you never saw. You haven't any idea what it means, but I +love that girl, and I could never look her in the face again with blood +on my hands, even such blood as yours. That's the reason."</p> + +<p>For a moment Tom Blair was silent; then into his brain there flashed a +suggestion, and he grasped at it as a drowning man at a straw.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Wouldn't it be blood on your hands just the same if you take me back +where we're headed, back to Mick Kennedy and—"</p> + +<p>With a single motion, swift as though raised by a spring, Ben was upon +his feet.</p> + +<p>"Pick up your blanket!"</p> + +<p>"But—"</p> + +<p>"Silence!" The big square jaw shot forward like the piston of an engine. +"Not another word of that, now or ever. Not another word!"</p> + +<p>For a second the other paused doggedly, then taking up his load he moved +ahead into the shadow.</p> + +<p>Hour after hour they advanced, alternately walking and trotting, +following the winding bed of the stream. Darkness fell, until they could +not see each other's faces, until they were merely two black passing +shadows; but the figure behind was relentless. Stimulating, compelling, +he forced himself close. Ever and anon they could hear the frightened +dash of a rabbit away from their path. More than once a snow-owl +fluttered over their heads; but they took no notice. Twice the man in +advance stumbled and fell; but though Ben paused he spoke no word. Like +a soldier of the ranks on secret forced march, ignorant of his +destination, given only conjecture as to what the morrow would bring +forth, Tom Blair panted ahead.</p> + +<p>With the coming of daylight Ben slowed to a walk, and looked about in +quest of breakfast. Game was plentiful along the shelter of the stream, +and before they had advanced a half-mile farther he saw ahead a flock of +grouse roosting in the diverging branches of a cottonwood tree.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> At two +hundred yards, selecting those on the lowest branches, he dropped half a +dozen, one after the other, with the rifle; and still the remainder of +the flock did not fly. Very different were they from the open-land +prairie chicken, whom a mere sound will send a-wing.</p> + +<p>As on the night before, they broiled each what he wished, and, carefully +cleaning the others, Ben packed them with his kit. Then, stolid as an +Indian, he cleared a spot of earth, and wrapping himself in his blanket +lay down full in the sunshine, smoking his pipe impassively. Taking the +cue, Tom Blair likewise curled up like a dog near at hand.</p> + +<p>Slowly and more slowly came the puffs of smoke from the captor's pipe; +at last they ceased entirely. The lids of the youth's eyes closed, his +breath came deep and regular. Beneath the blanket a muscle here and +there twitched involuntarily, as in one who is very weary and asleep.</p> + +<p>An hour passed, an hour without a sound; then, looking closely, a +spectator could have seen one of Tom Blair's eyes open and close +furtively. Again it opened, and its mate as well—to remain so. For a +minute, two minutes, they studied the companion face uncertainly, +suspiciously, then savagely. Another minute, and the body had risen to +hands and knees. Still Ben did not stir, still the great expanse of his +chest rose and fell. Tom Blair was satisfied. Hand over hand, feeling +his way like a cat, he advanced toward the prostrate figure. Despite his +caution, the crust of the snow crackled once beneath his touch, and he +paused, a soundless curse forming upon his lips; but the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> warning passed +unheeded, and, bolder than before, he padded on.</p> + +<p>Eight feet he gained, then ten. His color heightened, the repressed +arteries throbbed above the gaudy neckerchief, the skulking animal +intensified in the tightened muscles of the temples. As many feet again; +but a few more minutes—then liberty and life. The better to guard his +movements, his gaze fell. Out and down went his right hand, then his +left, as his lithe body slid forward. Again he glanced up, paused—and +on the instant every muscle of his tense body went suddenly lax. Instead +of the closed eyes and sleeping face he had expected, two steady eyes +were giving him back look for look. There had not been a motion; the +face was yet that of a sleeper; the chest still rose and fell steadily; +but the eyes!</p> + +<p>Tom Blair's teeth ground each other like those of a dog with rabies. The +suggestion of froth came to his lips.</p> + +<p>"Curse you!" he cried. "Curse you forever!"</p> + +<p>A moment they lay so, a moment wherein the last vestige of hope left the +mind of the captive; but in it Ben Blair spoke no word. Maddening, +immeasurably worse than denunciation, was that relentless silence. It +was uncanny; and the bearded man felt the hairs of his head rising as +the mane of a dog or a wolf lifts at a sound it does not understand.</p> + +<p>"Say something," he pleaded desperately. "Shoot me, kill me, do +anything—but don't look at me like that!" and, fairly writhing, he +crawled back to his blanket and buried his head in its depths.</p> + +<p>With the coming of evening coolness, Ben again made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> preparation for the +journey. Neither of the men made reference to the incidents of the day, +but on Tom Blair's face there was a new expression, like that of a +criminal on his passage from the cell to the hangman's trap. If the +younger man saw it, he gave no sign; and as on the night before, they +jogged ahead. Before daylight broke, the comparatively smooth bed of Bad +River merged into the irregular surface of the Missouri. Then they +halted. Why they stopped there, Tom Blair could not at the time tell; +but with the coming of daylight he understood. Where he had crossed and +Ben had followed there was not now a single track, but many—a score at +least. At the margin of the stream, where the cavalcade had stopped, the +snow was tramped hard as a stockade; and in the centre of the beaten +place, distinct against the white, was a dark spot where a great +camp-fire had been built. At the river the party had stopped. Obviously, +there the last snow had obliterated the trail, and, seeing that they had +turned back, Tom Blair gave a sigh of relief. Whatever the future had in +store for him, it could reveal nothing so fearful as a meeting with +those whom intuition told him had made up that party.</p> + +<p>But his relief was short-lived. Again, after they had breakfasted from +the grouse in the pack, Ben ordered the onward march, along the bank of +the great river. As they moved ahead, a realization of their destination +at last came to the captive, and for the first time he balked.</p> + +<p>"Do what you wish with me," he cried. "I'll not go a step farther."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p> + +<p>They were perhaps a mile down the river. The bordering hills enclosed +them like an arena.</p> + +<p>"Very well." Ben Blair spoke as though the occurrence were one of +every-day repetition. "Give me your clothes!"</p> + +<p>Tom's face settled stubbornly.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to take them."</p> + +<p>The youth's hand sought his hip, and a bullet spat at the snow within +three inches of the other's feet. There was a meaning pause. Slowly the +bravado left the other's face.</p> + +<p>"Don't keep me waiting!" urged Ben.</p> + +<p>Slowly, very slowly, off came the captive's coat and vest. Despite his +efforts, the hands which loosened the buttons trembled uncontrollably. +Following the vest came the shirt, then a shoe, and the sock beneath. +His foot touched the snow. For the first time a faint realization of the +thing he was choosing came to him. The vicious bite of the frost upon +the bare skin was not a possibility of the future, but a condition of +the immediate now; and he weakened. But in the moment of his indecision, +the wave of stubbornness and of blinding hate again flooded him, and a +rush of hot curses left his lips.</p> + +<p>For a moment, the last time in their lives, the two men eyed each other +fairly. Indescribable hate was written upon one face; the other was as +blank as the surrounding snow. Its very immobility chilled Tom Blair and +cowed him into silence. Without a word he replaced shoe and coat and +took up his blanket. An advancing step sounded behind him, and, +understanding, he moved ahead. After<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> a while the foot-fall again gained +upon him, and once more the walk merged into the interminable jog-jog of +the back-trail.</p> + +<p>It was morning when the two began that last relay. It was four o'clock +in the afternoon when they arrived amid the outskirts of the scattered +prairie terminus which was their destination. Within ten minutes +thereafter the two had separated. The older man, in charge of a lank, +unshaven frontiersman, chiefly noticeable from a quid of tobacco which +swelled one cheek like an abscess, and a nickle-plated star which he +wore on the lapel of his coat, was headed for the pretentious white +painted building known as the court-house. The younger, catching sight +of a wind-twisted sign lettered "Hotel," made for it as though sighting +the promised land. In the office, as he passed through, was a crowd of +men entirely too large to have gathered by chance in a frontier +hostelry, who eyed him peculiarly; but he took no notice, and five +minutes later, upon the bedraggled bed of the unplastered upper room +that the landlord gave him, without even his boots removed, he was deep +in the realm of oblivion.</p> + +<p>Some time later—he had no idea of the hour save that all was dark—he +was awakened by a confusion of voices in the room below, a slamming of +doors, a thumping of great boots upon the bare floor. Scarcely +remembering his whereabouts, he rolled from his bed and thrust his head +out of the narrow window. Here and there about the town were scattered +lights—some stationary, others, which he took to be lanterns, moving. +On the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> street beneath his window two men went by on a run. Half way up +the block, before the well-lighted front of a saloon, a motley crowd was +shifting back and forth, restless as ants in a hill, the murmur of their +voices sounding menacing as the distant hum of swarming bees. All at +once from out the door there burst fair into the crowd a heavy man with +great shoulders and a bull neck. About him, even in the uncertain light, +there seemed to the watcher something very familiar. What he said, Ben +could not understand; but he turned his head this way and that, and his +motions were unmistakable. The crowd made way before him as sheep before +a dog, and closing behind followed steadily in his wake. Gradually as +the leader advanced the mass gained momentum. At first the pace had been +a slow walk. In the space of seconds it became a swift one, then a run, +with a wild scramble by those in the rear to gain front place. The +frozen ground rumbled under their rushing feet. The direction of their +movement, at first uncertain, became definite. It was a direct line for +the centrally located court-house; and, no longer doubtful of their +purpose, Ben left the window, fairly tumbled downstairs, and rushed +through the now deserted office into the equally deserted street.</p> + +<p>The court-house square was but two blocks away; but the mob had a good +lead, and when the youth arrived he found the space within the +surrounding chain fence fairly covered. Where the people could all have +come from struck him even at that moment as a mystery. Certainly all +told the town could not in itself have mustered half the number. +Elbowing his way among them, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> he began soon to understand. Here +and there among the mass he caught sight of familiar faces,—Russell of +the Circle R Ranch, Stetson of the "XI," each taking no part, but with +hats slouched low over their eyes watching every movement of the drama. +Passing around a jam he could not press through, Ben felt a detaining +hand upon his arm, and turning, he was face to face with Grannis. The +grip of the overseer tightened.</p> + +<p>"I've been looking for you, Blair," he said, "I know what you've been +trying to do, but most of the crowd don't and won't. They're ugly. You'd +better keep back."</p> + +<p>For answer Ben eyed the cowboy squarely.</p> + +<p>"I thought I left you in charge of the ranch," he said evenly.</p> + +<p>The weather-stained face of the foreman reddened in the shifting lantern +light, but the eyes did not drop.</p> + +<p>"I have been. I just got here." A dignity which well became him spoke in +the steady voice. "I had a reason for coming."</p> + +<p>Ben released his gaze.</p> + +<p>"The others are here too?"</p> + +<p>"No, they're all at the ranch. Graham and I attended to that."</p> + +<p>"I just saw Russell and Stetson. They couldn't possibly have got here +to-day from home. Has—has this been planned?"</p> + +<p>Grannis nodded. "Yes. Kennedy and his gang have been watching here and +at the ranch for days. They thought you'd show up at one place or the +other. The whole country is out. There are lots of strangers here,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> from +ranches I never heard of before. Seems as though everybody knew Rankin +and heard of his being shot. You'd better let them have it their way. +It'll amount to the same in the end, and death itself couldn't stop them +now."</p> + +<p>He took a step forward; for Ben, understanding all, had at last moved +on.</p> + +<p>"Blair!" he called after him, again extending a detaining hand. His +voice took on a new note—intimate, personal, a tone of which no one +would have thought it capable. "Blair, listen to me! Stop!"</p> + +<p>But he might as well have spoken to the swiftly flowing water beneath +the ice of the great river. Of a sudden, from out a passage leading into +the cell-room of the court-house basement, a black swarm of men had +emerged, bearing by sheer animal force a struggling object in their +midst. The silence of those who waited, the lull before the storm, on +the instant ended. A very Babel of voices took its place. By common +consent, as though drawn by centripetal force, actors and spectators +crowded together until they were a solid block of humanity. Caught in +the midst, Grannis and Ben alike could for a moment but move with the +mass. So fierce was the crush that their very breath seemed imprisoned +in their lungs.</p> + +<p>Like molten metal the crowd began to flow—to the right, in the +direction of the railroad track. With each passing moment the confusion +was, if possible, greater than before. Here and there a cowboy, unable +to control his excess of feeling, emptied his revolver into the air. +Once Ben heard the wailing yelp of a dog caught under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> foot of the mass. +To his left, a little man with a white collar, obviously a mere +spectator, pleaded loudly to be released from the pressure. Adding to +the confusion, the bell on the town-hall began ringing furiously.</p> + +<p>On they went, a hundred yards, two hundred, reached the railroad track, +stopped. In the midst of the leaders, looming over their heads, was a +whitened telegraph pole. Of a sudden a lariat shot up over the painted +cross-arm, and dropped, the two ends dangling free; and, understanding +it all, the spectators again became silent. Everything moved like +clockwork. From somewhere in the darkness a bare-backed pony was +produced and brought directly under the dangling rope. Astride him a +dark-bearded figure with hands tied behind his back was placed and +firmly held. Swiftly a running noose, fashioned from the ends of the +lariat, was slipped over the captive's neck. A man grasped the bit of +the mustang. Before him, the crowd began to give way. The great +bull-necked leader—Mick Kennedy, every one now saw it was—held up his +hand for silence, and turned to the helpless figure astride the pony.</p> + +<p>"Tom Blair!" he said,—and such was now the silence that a whisper would +have been audible,—"Tom Blair, have you anything you wish to say?"</p> + +<p>The dark shape took no notice. Apparently it did not hear.</p> + +<p>Mick Kennedy hesitated. Upon his lips a repetition of the question was +forming—but it got no farther. In the midst of the mass of spectators +there was a sudden tumult, a scattering from one spot as from a lighted +bomb.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Make way!" demanded an insistent voice. "Let me through!" And +for a moment, forgetting the other interest, the spectators turned to +this newer one.</p> + +<p>At first they could distinguish nothing perfectly; then amidst the +confusion they made out the form of a long-armed, long-faced youth, his +head lowered, his shoulder before him like a wedge, crowding his way to +the fore.</p> + +<p>"Make room there!" he repeated. "Make room!" and again into the crowd, +like a snow-plough into a drift, he penetrated until his momentum was +exhausted, then paused for a fresh plunge.</p> + +<p>But before him a pathway was forming. Seemingly the thing was +impossible, but the trick of a spoken name was sufficient.</p> + +<p>"It's Ben Blair!" someone had announced, and others had loudly taken up +the cry. "It's Ben Blair! Let him through!"</p> + +<p>Along the pathway thus cleared the youth made his way and approached the +centre of activity. Previously the drama had moved swiftly,—so swiftly +that the spectators could merely watch developments, but under the +interruption it halted. The man at the pony's bridle—cowboy Buck it +was—paused, uncertain what to do, doubtful of the intent of the +long-faced man who so suddenly had come beside him. Not so Mick Kennedy. +Well he knew what was in store, and reaching over he gave the pony a +resounding slap on the flank.</p> + +<p>"Let him go, Buck!" he commanded of the cowboy. "Hurry!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> + +<p>But already he was too late. With a grip like a trap, Ben's hand was +likewise on the rein, holding the little beast, despite his struggles, +fairly in his tracks. Ben's head turned, met the bartender's Cyclopean +eye squarely, and held it with a look this bulldozer of men had never +before received in all his checkered career.</p> + +<p>"Mick Kennedy," he said quietly, "another move like that, and in five +minutes you'll be hanging from the other side."</p> + +<p>For the fraction of a second there was a pause; but, short as it was, +the Irishman felt the sweat start. "The day of such as you has passed, +Mick Kennedy."</p> + +<p>There was no time for more. As bystanders gather around a street fight, +the grim cowmen had closed in from all sides. On the outskirts men +mounted each other's shoulders the better to see. Of a sudden, from +behind, Ben felt himself grasped by a multitude of hands. Angry voices +sounded in his ears.</p> + +<p>"String him up too if he interferes!" suggested one.</p> + +<p>"That's the talk!" echoed a third. "Swing him, too!"</p> + +<p>The lust of blood was upon the crowd, crying to be satisfied. But they +had reckoned wrongly, and were soon to learn their error. Every atom of +the long youth's fighting blood was raised to boiling pitch. On the +instant, the all but superhuman strength at which we marvel in the +insane was his. Like flails, his doubled fists shot out in every +direction, meeting resistance at each blow. By the dim light he caught +the answering glint on sheath knives, but he took no notice. His hat had +come off, and his abundant brown hair shook about his shoulders. His +blue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> eyes blazed. A figure of war incarnate he stood, and a vacant +circle which no one cared to cross formed about him. One long hand, with +fingers outstretched, was raised above his head. The brilliant eyes +searched the surrounding sea of faces for those he knew; as one by one +he found them, lingered, conquered. Silence fell intense.</p> + +<p>"Men! Gentlemen!" The words went out like pistol-shots reaching every +acute ear. "Listen to me. I've a right to speak. Stop a moment, all of +you, and think. This is the twentieth century, not the first. We're in +America, free America. Think, I say, think! Don't act blindly! Think! +This man is guilty. We all know it. He's caught red-handed. But he can't +escape. Remember this, men, and think! As you value your own +self-respect, as you honor the country you live in, don't be savages, +don't do this deed you contemplate, this thing you've started doing. Let +the law take its course!"</p> + +<p>The speaker paused for breath, and, as though fascinated by his audacity +or something else, friend and enemy remained motionless and waiting. +Well fitting the drama was its setting: the darkness of night broken by +the flickering lanterns; on the pony the huddled helpless figure with a +running noose about its neck; the row upon row of rugged faces, of +gleaming eyes!</p> + +<p>"Ranchers, stockmen!" rushed on the insistent voice, "you know +responsibility; it's to you I'm talking. A principle is at stake +here,—the principle of law or of lawlessness. One of these—you know +which—has run this range too long; it's gripping us at this moment. +Before we can be free we must call it halt. Let's do it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> now; don't wait +for the next time or the next, but now, now!" Once more he paused, his +eyes for the last time making the circle swiftly, his hand in the air, +palm forward. "For law, the law of J. L. Rankin, instead of Judge +Lynch!" he challenged. "For civilization instead of savagery—not +to-morrow but now, now! Help me to uphold the law!"</p> + +<p>So swiftly that the spectators scarcely realized what he was doing, he +stepped over to the limp figure upon the pony, loosed the noose from +around the neck, and lifted him to the ground.</p> + +<p>"Sheriff Ralston!" he called; "come and take your prisoner! Russell! +Stetson! Grannis!" designating each by name, "every man who values life, +help me now!"</p> + +<p>The cry was the trumpet for action. Instantly every one was in motion. +Again arose the Babel of voices,—voices cursing, arguing, encouraging. +The circle of malevolent faces which had surrounded the youth would not +longer be stayed, closed hotly in. He felt the press of their bodies +against his, their breath in his face. With an effort, marking his +place, the extended right hand went up once more into the air. The +slogan again sprang to his tongue.</p> + +<p>"For the law of J. L. Rankin, men! The law of—"</p> + +<p>The sentence died on his lips. Suddenly, something lightning-like, +scorching hot, caught him beneath his right shoulder-blade. Before his +eyes the faces, the lighted lanterns, faded into darkness. A sound like +falling waters roared in his ears.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> +<h3>THE QUICK AND THE DEAD</h3></div> + +<p>When Ben Blair again woke to consciousness the sunlight was pouring upon +him steadily. He was in a strange bed in a strange room; and he looked +about him perplexedly. Amid the unfamiliarity his eye caught an object +he recognized,—the broad angular back of a man. Memory slowly adjusted +itself.</p> + +<p>"Grannis—"</p> + +<p>The back reversed, showing a rather surprised face.</p> + +<p>"Where am I, Grannis?"</p> + +<p>The foreman came over to the bed. "In the hotel. In the bridal chamber, +they informed me, to be exact."</p> + +<p>Ben did not smile. Memory was clear now. "What happened after they—got +me last night?"</p> + +<p>Grannis's face showed distinct animation. "A lot of things—and mighty +fast. You missed the best part." Of a sudden he paused and looked at his +charge doubtfully. "But I forgot. You're not to talk: the doctor said +so."</p> + +<p>Ben made a grimace. "But I can listen, can't I?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," still doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"Well—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<p>Grannis hearkened equivocally. No one was about, likely to overhear him +disobeying instructions, and the temptation was strong.</p> + +<p>"You know McFadden?" he queried suddenly.</p> + +<p>Blair nodded.</p> + +<p>"Well, say, that Scotchman is a tiger. He got to the front somehow when +you called for reinforcements, and when you went down he was +Johnny-on-the-spot taking your place. Some of the rest of us got in +there pretty soon, and for a bit things was lively. It was rather close +range for gun-work, but knives were as thick as frogs after a shower." +With a sudden movement Grannis slipped up the sleeve of his left arm, +showing a bandage through which the blood had soaked and dried. "All of +us got scratched some. One fellow of the opposition—Mick Kennedy—met +with an accident."</p> + +<p>"Serious?"</p> + +<p>"Rather. We planted him after things had quieted down."</p> + +<p>For a moment the two men looked at each other steadily, and the subject +was dropped.</p> + +<p>"Well," suggested Blair once more.</p> + +<p>"That's all, I guess—except that Ralston has the prisoner." A grim +reminiscent smile came to the speaker's lips. "That is, he's got him if +the floors of the cells here are paved good and thick. Last time I saw +T. Blair he was fairly shaking post-holes into the ground with his +feet."</p> + +<p>Ben tried to shift in bed, but with the movement a sudden pain made him +grit his teeth to keep from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> uttering a groan. For the first time he +thought of himself.</p> + +<p>"How much am I hurt, Grannis?" he queried directly.</p> + +<p>The foreman busied himself doing nothing about the room. "You?" +cheerfully. "Oh, you're all right."</p> + +<p>Ben looked at the other narrowly. "Nothing to bother about, I judge?"</p> + +<p>"No, certainly not."</p> + +<p>Beneath the bedclothes the long body lifted, but despite anything it +could do the face went pale.</p> + +<p>"Very well, I guess I'll get up then."</p> + +<p>Instantly Grannis was beside him, motioning him back, genuine concern +upon his face.</p> + +<p>"No, please don't. Not yet."</p> + +<p>"But if I'm not hurt much—"</p> + +<p>Grannis fingered his forelock in obvious discomfort.</p> + +<p>"Well, between you and me, it's this way. They ripped a seam for you—so +far," he indicated, "and it's open yet."</p> + +<p>Turning his free left arm, Ben touched the bandage at his side, and the +hand came back moist and red. Now that it occurred to him, he was +ridiculously weak.</p> + +<p>"I see. I'm liable to rip it more," he commented slowly.</p> + +<p>The other nodded. "Yes; don't talk. I ought to have stopped you before +this."</p> + +<p>"Grannis!" There was no escaping the blue eyes this time. "Honestly, +now, am I liable to be—done for, or not?"</p> + +<p>The foreman became instantly serious. "Honest, if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> you keep quiet you're +all right. Doc said so not an hour ago. At first he thought different, +that you'd never wake up; you bled like a pig with its throat cut; but +this is what he told me when he left. 'Keep him quiet. It may take a +month for that gap to heal, but if you're careful he'll pull through.'" +Again the look of concern, and this time of contrition as well. "I ought +to be ashamed of myself for letting you talk at all; but this is +straight. Now don't say any more."</p> + +<p>This time Ben obeyed. He couldn't well do otherwise. He had suddenly +grown weak and drowsy, and almost before Grannis was through speaking he +was again asleep.</p> + +<p>The doctor was right about the time of healing. During the remainder of +that month and well into the next, despite his restless protests, Ben +Blair was a prisoner in that dull little room; and through it all +Grannis remained with him.</p> + +<p>"You don't have to stay with me unless you like," Ben had said more than +once; but each time Grannis had displayed his own wound, at first +openly, at last, carefully concealed by bandages, whimsically.</p> + +<p>"Got to take good care of this arm of mine," he explained. "Blood +poisoning's liable to set in at any minute, and that's something awful, +they tell me."</p> + +<p>The invalid made no comment.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was the evening following the afternoon of Blair's return to the Box +R ranch. In the cosey kitchen, around the new range which Rankin had +imported the previous Fall, sat three people,—Grannis, Graham, and Ma +Graham.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> The two men were smoking steadily and silently. The woman, her +hands folded in her lap, her eyes glued to the floor, was breathing +loudly with the difficulty of the very corpulent. Of a sudden, +interrupting, the door connecting with the room adjoining opened and Ben +Blair appeared.</p> + +<p>"Grannis," he requested, "come here a moment, please."</p> + +<p>In silence Blair closed the door behind them, motioned his companion to +a seat, and took another opposite him. He was very quiet, even for his +taciturn self; and, glancing at a heap of papers on a nearby table, +Grannis understood. For a long minute the two men eyed each other +silently. Not without result had they lived the events of the last +months together. It was the younger man who first spoke.</p> + +<p>"Grannis," he said impassively, "I'm going to ask you a question, and I +want an honest answer. Whatever you may think it leads to must cut no +figure. Will you give it?"</p> + +<p>Equally impassively the elder man nodded, "Yes."</p> + +<p>Blair selected a paper from the litter, and looked at it steadily. "What +I want to know is this: have I, has anyone, no matter what the incentive +may be, the right to make known after another's death things which +during that person's life were carefully concealed?"</p> + +<p>The steady gaze shifted to his companion, held there compellingly. "In +other words, is a tragedy any less a tragedy, any more public property, +because the actors are dead? Answer me honest, Grannis."</p> + +<p>Impassively as before the overseer shook his head.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> "No, I think not," +he said. "Let the dead past bury its dead."</p> + +<p>A moment longer the other remained motionless, then, before his +companion realized what he was doing, Ben had opened the door of the +sheet-iron heater and tossed the paper in his fingers fair among the +glowing coals.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Grannis," he said, "I agree with you." He stood a second +looking into the suddenly kindled blaze. "As you say, to the living, +life. Let the dead past bury its dead."</p> + +<p>The flame died down until upon the coals lay a thin, curling film of +carbon. Grannis shifted in his seat.</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless," he commented indifferently, "you've done a foolish act." +A pause; then he went on deliberately as before. "You've destroyed the +only evidence that proves you Rankin's son."</p> + +<p>Involuntarily Blair stiffened, seeming about to speak. But he did not. +Instead, he closed the stove and resumed his former seat.</p> + +<p>"By the way," he digressed, "I just received a letter from Scotty Baker. +I wrote him some time ago about—Mr. Rankin. He answered from England."</p> + +<p>Grannis made no comment, and, the conversation being obviously at an +end, after a bit he rose, and with a taciturn "Good-night," left the +room.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Days and weeks passed. The dead rigor of Winter gave way to traces of +Spring. On the high places the earth began to turn brown, the buffalo +grass to peep into view. By day the water slushed under the feet of the +cattle, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> ran merrily in the draws of the rolling country. By night +it froze into marvellous frost-work; daintier and more intricate of +pattern than any made by man. Overhead, flocks of wild ducks in +irregular geometric patterns sailed north at double the speed of express +trains. With their mellow "Honk—honk," sweetest sound of all to a +frontiersman's ears, harbingers of Spring indeed, far above the level of +the ducks, amid the very clouds themselves, the geese, in regular +triangles, winged their way toward the snow-lands. At first they seemed +to pass only by day; then, as the season advanced, the nights were +melodious with the sound of their voices. Themselves invisible, far +below on the surface of earth the swish of their migratory wings sounded +so distinctly that to a listening human ear it almost seemed it were a +troop of angels passing overhead.</p> + +<p>After them came the myriad small birds of the prairie,—the countless +flocks of blackbirds, whose "fl-ee-ce," in continuous chorus filled all +the daylight hours; the meadow-larks, singly or in pairs, announcing +their arrival with a guttural "tuerk" and a saucy flit of the tail, or +admonishing "fill your tea-kettle, fill your tea-kettle" with a +persistence worthy a better cause.</p> + +<p>Ere this the earth was bare and brown. The chatter of the snow streams +had ceased. In the high places, on southern slopes, there was even a +suggestion of green. At last, on the sunny side of a knoll, there peeped +forth the blue face of an anemone. The following day it had several +companions. Within a week a very army of blue had arrived, stood erect +at attention so far as the eye could reach and beyond. No longer was +there a doubt of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> season. Not precursors of Spring, but Spring +itself had come.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, on the Box R ranch everything moved on as of yore. Save on +that first night, Ben Blair made no man his confidant, accepted without +question his place as Rankin's successor. Most silent of these silent +people, he did his work and did it well, burying deep beneath an +impenetrable mask his thoughts and feelings. Not until an early Summer +was almost come did he make a move. Then at last a note of three +sentences went eastward:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Miss Baker</span>: I'll be in New York in a few days, and if +convenient to you will call. The prairies send greetings in +advance. I saw the first wild rose of the season to-day.</p> + +<p style="text-align:right"> +"<span class="smcap">Ben Blair.</span>"<br /> +</p></div> + +<p>A week later, after giving directions for the day's work to Grannis one +morning, Ben added some suggestions for the days to follow. As to time, +they were rather indefinite, and the overseer looked a question.</p> + +<p>"I'm going away for a bit," explained Ben, simply, in answer. Then he +turned to Graham. "Hitch up the buckboard right away, please. I want you +to take me to town in time to catch the afternoon train East."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> +<h3>GLITTER AND TINSEL</h3></div> + +<p>Clarence Sidwell—Chad, his friends called him—leaned farther back in +the big wicker chair, with an involuntary motion adjusted his +well-creased trousers so there might be no tension at the knees, and +looked across the tiny separating table at his <i>vis-a-vis</i>, while his +eyelids whimsically tightened.</p> + +<p>"Well," he queried, "what do you think of it?"</p> + +<p>The little brunette, his companion, roused herself almost with a start, +while a suggestion of conscious red tinged her face. "I beg your +pardon?" she said, inquiringly.</p> + +<p>The man smiled. "Forgotten already, wasn't I?" he bantered.</p> + +<p>"No, certainly not. I—"</p> + +<p>A hand, delicate and carefully manicured as a woman's, was raised in +protest. "Don't prevaricate, please. The occasion isn't worth it." The +hand returned to the chair-arm with a play of light upon the solitaire +it bore. The smile broadened. "You were caught. Confess, and the +sentence will be lighter."</p> + +<p>As a wave recedes, the red flood began to ebb from the girl's face. "I +confess, then. I was—thinking."</p> + +<p>"And I was—forgotten. My statement was correct."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p> + +<p>She looked up, and the two smiled companionably.</p> + +<p>"Admitted. I await the penalty."</p> + +<p>The man's expression changed into mock sternness. "Very well, Miss +Baker; having heard your confession and remembering a promise to +exercise clemency, this court is about to impose sentence. Are you +prepared to listen?"</p> + +<p>"I'm growing stronger every minute."</p> + +<p>The court frowned, the heavy black eyebrows making the face really +formidable.</p> + +<p>"I fear the defendant doesn't realize the enormity of the offence. +However, we'll pass that by. The sentence, Miss Baker, brings me back to +the starting-point. You are directed to answer the question just +propounded, the question which for some inexplicable reason you didn't +hear. What do you think of it—this roof-garden, and things in general?" +The stern voice paused; the brows relaxed, and he smiled again. "But +first, you're sure you won't have something more—an ice, a wee +bottle—anything?"</p> + +<p>The girl shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Then let's make room here at this table for a better man; to hint at +vacating for a better woman would be heresy! It's pleasanter over there +in the corner out of the light, where one can see the street."</p> + +<p>They found a vacant bench behind a skilfully arranged screen of palms, +and Sidwell produced a cigar.</p> + +<p>"In listening to a tale or a confession," he explained, "one should +always call in the aid of nicotine. I fancy Munchausen's listeners must +have been smokers."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> + +<p>The girl steadily inspected the dark mobile face, half concealed in the +shadow. "You're making sport of me," she announced presently.</p> + +<p>Instantly her companion's smile vanished. "I beg your pardon, Miss +Baker, but you misunderstood. I thought by this time you knew me better +than that."</p> + +<p>"You really are interested, then? Would you truly like to know—what you +asked?"</p> + +<p>"I truly would."</p> + +<p>Florence hesitated. Her breath came a trifle more quickly. She had not +yet learned the trick of repression of the city folk.</p> + +<p>"I think it's wonderful," she said. "Everything is wonderful. I feel +like a child in fairyland; only the fairies must be giants. This great +building, for instance,—I can't make it seem a product of mere six-foot +man! In spite of myself, I keep expecting a great genie to emerge +somewhere. I suppose this seems silly to you, but it's the feeling I +have, and it makes me realize my own insignificance."</p> + +<p>Sidwell smoked in silence.</p> + +<p>"That's the first impression—the most vivid one, I think. The next is +about the people themselves. I've been here nearly a half-year now, but +even yet I stare at them—as you caught me staring to-night—almost with +open mouth. To see these men in the daylight hours down town one would +think they cared more for a minute than for their eternal happiness. I'm +almost afraid to speak to them, my little affairs seem so tiny in +comparison with the big ones it must take to make men work as they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> do. +And then, a little later,—apparently for no other reason than that the +sun has ceased to shine,—I see them, as here, for instance, unconscious +that not minutes but hours are going by. They all seem to have double +lives. I get to thinking of them as Jekylls and Hydes. It makes me a bit +afraid."</p> + +<p>Still Sidwell smoked in silence, and Florence observed him doubtfully. +"You really wish me to chatter on in this way?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I was never more interested in my life."</p> + +<p>The girl felt her face grow warm. She was glad they were in the shadow, +so the man could not see it too clearly. For a moment she looked about +her, at the host of skilful waiters, at the crowd of brightly dressed +pleasure-seekers, at the kaleidoscopic changes, at the lights and +shadows. From somewhere invisible the string orchestra, which for a time +had been silent, started up anew, while her answering pulses beat to +swifter measure. The air was a familiar one, heard everywhere about +town; and she was conscious of a childish desire to join in singing it. +The novelty of the scene, the sparkle, the animation, the motion +intoxicated her. She leaned back in her seat luxuriously.</p> + +<p>"This is life," she murmured. "I never grasped the meaning of the word +until within the last few months, but now I begin to understand. To work +mightily when one works, to abandon one's self completely when one +rests—that is the secret of life."</p> + +<p>The man in the shadow shifted his position, and, looking up, Florence +found his eyes upon her. "Do you really believe that?" he asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I do, most certainly."</p> + +<p>Sidwell lit a fresh cigar, and for a moment the light of the burning +match showed his face clearly. He seemed about to say more; but he did +not, and Florence too was silent. In the pause that followed, the great +express elevator stopped softly at the roof floor. The gate opened with +a musical click, and a woman and a man stepped out. Both were +immaculately dressed, both had the unmistakable air of belonging to the +leisure class. They spied the place Florence and Sidwell had left +vacant, and leisurely made their way to it. A waiter appeared, a coin +changed hands, an order was given. The man drew out a cigarette case +that flashed in colors from the nearby arc-light. Smilingly the woman +held a match, and a moment later wreath after wreath of curling blue +smoke floated above them into the night.</p> + +<p>Florence Baker watched the scene with a strange fascination. She was +conscious of having at some time visited a play wherein a similar action +had taken place. She had thought it merely a creation of the writer's +imagination at the time, but in her present broadened experience she +knew better. It was real,—real as the air she breathed. She simply had +not known the meaning of life then; she was merely existing. Now she +knew!</p> + +<p>The waiter returned, bearing something in a cooler. There were a few +swift motions, a pop distinctly heard above the drone of the orchestra. +The man tossed aside his cigarette and leaned forward. Two glasses with +slender stems, each containing a liquid that effervesced and sparkled, +one in the man's hand, one in the woman's, met<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> midway of the board. The +empty glasses returned to the table.</p> + +<p>Many other seekers of pleasure were about, but Florence had no eyes for +them. This pair alone, so indifferent to their surroundings, so +thoroughly a part of them, perfectly fulfilled her newly formed +conception. They had solved this puzzle of existence, solved it so +completely that she wondered it could ever have appealed to her as a +puzzle at all. Again the formula, distinct as the handwriting upon the +wall, stood revealed before her. One had but to <i>live</i> life, not reason +it, and all would be well.</p> + +<p>Again and again, the delicate glasses sparkled to waiting lips, and +returned empty to the table. The man lit another cigarette, and its +smoke mingled with the darkness above. In the hands of the waiter the +cooler disappeared, and was returned; a second cork popped as had the +first. The woman's eyes sparkled as brilliantly as the gems upon her +fingers. The languor of the man had passed. With the old action +repeated, the brimming glasses touched across the board, were exchanged +after the foreign fashion, and again were dry. The figure of the man +leaned far over the table. He spoke earnestly, rapidly. Unconscious +motions of his hands added emphasis to his words. Neither he nor she who +listened was smiling now. Instead, there was a look, identical upon +either face, a look somehow strangely familiar to the watcher, one she +had met with before, somewhere—somewhere. Memory flew back on lightning +wings, searched all the paths of her experience, the dim +all-but-forgotten crannies, stopped with pointing finger; and with a tug +at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> her very being, she looked, and unbelieving looked again. Ah, could +it be possible—could it? Yes, there it was, unmistakable; the same +expression as this before her—there, blazing from the eyes of a group +of strange street-loafers, as she herself, she, Florence Baker, passed +by!</p> + +<p>In the shadow the face of the spectator crimsoned, the hot flood burned +at her ears, a tightness like a physical hand gripped at her throat; but +it seemed that her eyes could not leave the figures before her. Not the +alien interest of a watcher at the play, but a more intense, a more +personal meaning, was in her gaze now. Something of vital moment to her +own life was taking place out there so near, and she must see. A +fleeting wonder as to whether her own companion was likewise watching +came to her, but she did not turn to discover. The denouement, +inevitable as death, was approaching, might come if she for an instant +looked away.</p> + +<p>The man out there under the electric globe was still talking; the woman, +his companion, still listened. Florence caught herself straining her +ears to hear what he was saying; but to no purpose. She heard only the +repressed murmur of his well-modulated, resonant voice; yet that in +itself was enough. The old song of the sirens was flowing from his lips, +and passion flamed in his eyes. Farther and farther across the tiny +intervening table, nearer the woman's face, his own approached. The last +empty bottle, the thin-stemmed glasses, stood in his way, and he moved +them aside with his elbow. So near now was he that their breaths +mingled, and as the drone of his voice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> ceased, the music of the +orchestra, a waltz, flowed into the rift with its steady one-two-three. +He was motionless; but his eyes, intense blue eyes under long lashes, +were fixed absorbingly on hers.</p> + +<p>It was the woman's turn to move. Gradually, gracefully, unconsciously, +her own face came forward toward his. Sparkling in the light, a jewelled +hand rested on the surface of the table. A tinge of crimson mounted the +long white neck, and colored it to the roots of her hair. The arteries +at the throat throbbed under the thin skin. Simultaneously, the opening +gate of the elevator clicked, and a man—another with that unmistakable +air of leisure—approached; but still she did not notice, did not hear. +Instead, with a sudden motion, heedless of surroundings, reckless of +spectators, her face crossed the gap intervening between her and her +companion; her lips touched his lips, caught fire with the contact, met +them again and again.</p> + +<p>Watching, scarcely breathing, Florence saw the figure of the man come +closer. His eyes also were upon the pair. He caught their every motion; +but he did not hurry. On he came, leisurely, impassively, as though out +for a stroll. He stopped by their side, a darkening shadow with a +mask-like face. Instinctively the two glanced up. There was a crash of +glassware, as the tiny table lurched in the woman's hand—and they were +on their feet. A moment the three looked into each others' eyes, looked +deep and long; then together, without a word, they turned toward the +elevator. Again, droning monotonously, the car appeared and disappeared. +After<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> them, vibrant, mocking, there beat the unvarying rhythm of the +waltz, one-two-three, one-two-three.</p> + +<p>In the shadow, Florence Baker's face dropped into her hands. When at +last she glanced up another couple, likewise immaculate of attire, +likewise debonair and smiling, were seated at the little table. She +turned to her companion. His cigar was still glowing brightly. He had +not moved.</p> + +<p>"I think I'll go home now, if you please," she said, and every trace of +animation had left her voice. "I'm rather tired."</p> + +<p>The man roused himself. "It's early yet. There'll be vaudeville here in +a little while, after the theatre."</p> + +<p>The girl observed him curiously. "It's early, did you say?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell smiled indulgently. "Beg your pardon. I had forgotten our +standards were not yet in conformity. It is so considered—here."</p> + +<p>Florence was very quiet until they reached the steps of her own home. A +light was in the open vestibule, another in the library, where Scotty, +his feet comfortably enclosed in carpet-slippers and elevated above his +head, was reading. Then she turned to her escort.</p> + +<p>"You won't be offended, Mr. Sidwell, if I ask you a question?"</p> + +<p>The electric light on the nearby corner shone full upon her soft brown +face, a very serious face now, and the man's glance lingered there. +"Certainly not," he answered.</p> + +<p>Florence hesitated. Somehow, now that the moment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> for speaking had +arrived, the thing she had in mind to say did not seem so easy after +all. At last she spoke, hesitatingly: "You seem to be interested in me, +seem to take pleasure in being in my company. For the last few months we +have been together almost daily, but up to that time we had lived lives +as unlike as—as the city is from the prairie. I know you have many +other friends, friends you've known all your life, whose ideals and +points of view came from the same experience as your own." She +straightened with dignity. "Why is it that you leave those friends to +come here? Why do you find pleasure in taking me about as you do? Why is +it?"</p> + +<p>Not once while she was speaking had the man's eyes left her face; not +once had he stirred. Even after she was silent he remained so; and +despite the compelling influence which had prompted the question, +Florence could not but realize what she had done, what she had all but +suggested. The warm color flooded her face, though she held her eyes up +bravely. "Tell me why," she repeated firmly.</p> + +<p>Sidwell still hesitated. Complex product of the higher civilization, +mixture of good and bad, who knows what thoughts were running riot in +his brain? At last he aroused and came closer. "You ask me a very hard +question," he said steadily; "the most difficult, I think, you could +have chosen; one, also, which perhaps I have already asked myself." +Again he took a step nearer. "It is a question, Florence, that admits of +but one answer; one both adequate and inadequate. It is because you are +you and woman, and I am I and man." Of a sudden his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> dark face grew +swarthier still, his voice lapsed from its customary impersonal. "It +means, Florence Baker—"</p> + +<p>But the sentence was not completed. As suddenly as the change had come +to the man's face, the girl had understood. With an impulse she could +not have explained to herself, she had drawn away and swiftly mounted +the steps of the house. Not until she reached the porch did she turn.</p> + +<p>"Don't, don't, please!" she urged. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have +asked what I did. Forget that I spoke at all." She was struggling for +words, for breath. Her color came and went. "Good-night." And not +trusting herself to look back, oblivious of courtesy, she almost ran +into the house.</p> + +<p>Standing as she had left him, his hat in his hand, Clarence Sidwell +watched her pass through the lighted vestibule into the darkness +beyond.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> +<h3>PAINTER AND PICTUREL</h3></div> + +<p>Scotty Baker dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee and stirred the +mixture carefully, glancing the while smilingly at his wife and +daughter.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he exclaimed; "it seems good to be back here again."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Baker was deep in a letter she had just opened, but Florence +returned the smile companionably.</p> + +<p>"And it seems mighty good to have you back, daddy," she replied. "Just +think of our being alone, a pair of poor defenceless women, three whole +months without a man about the house! If you ever dare do it again +you're liable to find one in your place when you return. Isn't he, +mamma?"</p> + +<p>Her mother looked up reproachfully. "For shame, Florence!" she cried.</p> + +<p>But Scotty only observed his daughter quizzically. "I did—almost, this +time, didn't I?" he bantered. "By the way, who is this wonderful being, +this Sidwell, I've heard so much about the last few hours?" He was as +obtuse as a post to his wife's meaning look. "Tell me about him, won't +you?"</p> + +<p>Florence laughed a bit unnaturally. It seemed her words had a way of +returning like a boomerang.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He's a writer," she explained laconically.</p> + +<p>"A writer?" Scotty paused, a teaspoonful of coffee between the cup and +his mouth. "A real one?"</p> + +<p>The smile left the girl's face. "His family is one of the oldest in the +city," she explained coldly. "His work sells by the thousand. You can +judge for yourself."</p> + +<p>Scotty sipped his coffee impassively, but behind the big glasses the +twinkle left his eyes.</p> + +<p>"The inference you suggest would have been more obvious if you hadn't +made the first remark," he said a little sharply. "I've noticed the +matter of good family has quite an influence in this world."</p> + +<p>The subject was dropped, but nevertheless it left its aftermath. +Easy-going Scotty did not often say an unpleasant thing, and for that +very reason Florence knew that when he did it had an especial +significance.</p> + +<p>"By the way," he observed after a moment, "we ought to celebrate to-day +in some manner. I rather expected to find a band at the station to +welcome me yesterday upon my return, but I didn't, and I fear there's +been no public demonstration arranged. What do you say to our packing up +our dinner, taking the elevated, and spending the day in the country? +What say you, Mollie?"</p> + +<p>His wife looked at her daughter helplessly. "Just as Florence says. I'm +willing," she replied.</p> + +<p>"What speaks the oracle?" smiled Scotty. "Shall we or shall we not? +Personally, I feel a desire for cooling springs, to step on a good-sized +plat of green without having a watchful bluecoat loom in the distance."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p> + +<p>Florence fingered the linen of the tablecloth with genuine discomfort. +"You two can go. I'll help you get ready," she ventured at last. "I'm +sorry, but I promised Mr. Sidwell last night I'd visit the art gallery +with him this afternoon. He says they've some new canvases hung lately, +one of them by a particular friend of his. He's such a student of art, +and I know so little about it that I hate to miss going."</p> + +<p>Again the smile left Scotty's eyes. "Can't you write a note explaining, +and postpone the visit until some other time?" It took quite an effort +for this undemonstrative Englishman to make the request.</p> + +<p>The girl glanced out the window with a look her father understood very +well. "I hardly think so," she said. "He's going away for the Summer +soon, and his time is limited."</p> + +<p>Scotty said no more, and soon after he left the table and went into the +library. Florence sat for a moment abstractedly; then with her old +impulsive manner she followed him.</p> + +<p>"Daddy," the girl's arms clasped around his neck, her cheek pressed +against his, "I'm awful sorry I can't go with you to-day. I'd like to, +really."</p> + +<p>But for one of the very few times that Florence could remember her +father did not respond. Instead, he removed her arms rather coldly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all right," he said; "I hope you'll have a good time." And +picking up the morning paper he lit a cigar and moved toward the shady +veranda.</p> + +<p>Watching him, the girl had a desire to follow, to pre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>vent his leaving +her in that way. But she hesitated and the moment passed.</p> + +<p>Yet, although a cloud shadowed Florence Baker's morning, by afternoon it +had departed. Sidwell's carriage came promptly, creating something of a +stir behind the drawn shades of the adjoining residences—for the Bakers +were not located in a fashionable quarter. Sidwell himself, immaculate, +smiling, greeted her with the deference which became him well, and in +itself conveyed a delicate compliment. Neither made any reference to the +incident of the night before. His manner gave no hint of the constraint +which under the circumstances might have been expected. A few months +before, the girl would have thought he had taken her request literally, +and had forgotten; but now she knew better. In this fascinating new life +one could pass pleasantries with one's dearest enemy and still smile. In +the old life, under similar circumstances, there would have been +gun-play, and probably later a funeral; but here—they knew better how +to live. Already, in the few social events she had attended, she had +seen them juggle with emotions as a conjurer with knives—to emerge +unhurt, unruffled. To be sure, she could not herself do it—yet; but she +understood, and admired.</p> + +<p>Out of doors the sun was uncomfortably hot, but within the high walled +gallery it was cool and pleasant. Florence had been there before, but +earlier in the season, and many other visitors were present. To-day she +and Sidwell were practically alone, and she faced him with a little +receptive gesture.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You're always getting me to talk," she said. "To-day I'm going to +exchange places. Don't expect me to do anything but listen."</p> + +<p>Sidwell smiled. "Won't you even condescend to suggest channels in which +my discourse may flow?" he bantered.</p> + +<p>The girl hesitated. "Perhaps," she ventured, "if I find it necessary."</p> + +<p>For an hour they wandered about, moving slowly, and pausing often to +rest. Sidwell talked well, but somewhat impersonally. At last, in an +out-of-the-way corner, they came to the modest canvas of his friend, and +they sat down before it. The picture was unnamed and unsigned. Without +being extraordinary as a work of art, its subject lent its chief claim +to distinction. Interested because her companion seemed interested, +Florence looked at it steadily. At first there appeared to her nothing +but a mountain, steep and rugged, and a weary man who, climbing it, had +lain down to rest. Far down at the mountain's base she saw where the +figure had begun its ascent. The way was easy there, and the trail, +through the abundant grasses crushed underfoot, was of one who had moved +rapidly. Gradually, with the upward incline, obstacles had increased, +and the footprints drew nearer together. Still higher, from a straight +line the trail had become tortuous and irregular. Here the climber had +passed around a thicket of trees; there a great boulder had stood in the +path; but, ever indomitable, the way had been steadily upward toward +some point the climber had in view. Steeper and steeper the way had +grown. The prints on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> the rocky mountain-side, from being those of feet +only, merged into those made by hands. The man had begun to crawl, +making his way inch by inch. Fragments of his torn clothing hung on the +points of rocks. Dim brown lines showed the path his body had taken, as +he sometimes slipped back. Breaks in the scant vegetation told where his +fingers had clutched desperately to halt his descent. Yet each time the +reverse had been but temporary; he had returned, and mounted higher and +higher. But at last there had come the end. He had reached his present +place in the picture. By gripping tightly he could hold his own, but to +advance was impossible. Straight above him, a sheer wall, many times his +own height, was the blank, unbroken face of the rock. That he had tried +to scale even this was evident, for finger-marks from bleeding hands +were thick thereon; but he had finally abandoned the effort. Physically, +he was conquered. It seemed that one could almost hear the quick coming +and going of his breath. Yet, prostrate as he lay, his eyes were turned +toward the barrier his body could not scale, to a something which +crowned its utmost height,—something indefinite and unattainable,—the +supreme desire and purpose of his life.</p> + +<p>The two spectators sat silent. Other visitors came near, glanced at the +canvas and at the pair of observers, and passed on with muffled +footsteps.</p> + +<p>The girl turned, and, as on the night at the roof-garden, found the +man's eyes upon her.</p> + +<p>"What name does your friend give to his work?" she asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He calls it 'The Unattainable.'"</p> + +<p>"And what is its meaning?"</p> + +<p>"Ambition, perfection, complete happiness—anything striven for with +one's whole soul."</p> + +<p>Florence was studying her companion now as steadily as he had been +studying her a moment before. "To your—friend it meant—"</p> + +<p>"Happiness."</p> + +<p>The girl's hands were +<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'clapsed'">clasped</ins> +in her lap in a way she had when her +thoughts were concentrated. "And he never found it?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Unconsciously one of Sidwell's hands made a downward motion of +deprecation. "He did not. We made the circuit of the earth together in +pursuit of it—but all was useless. It seemed as though the more he +searched the more he was baffled in his quest."</p> + +<p>For a moment the girl made no reply, but in her lap her hands clasped +tighter and tighter. A thought that made her finger-tips tingle was +taking form in her mind. A dim comprehension of the nature of this man +had first suggested it; the fact that the canvas was unsigned had helped +give it form. The speaker's last words, his even tone of voice, had not +passed unnoticed. She turned to the canvas, searched the skilfully +concealed outlines of the tattered figure with the upturned eyes. The +clasped hands grew white with the tension.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know before you were an artist as well as a writer," she said +evenly.</p> + +<p>Sidwell turned quickly. The girl could feel his look. "I fear," he said, +"I fail to grasp your meaning. You think—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<p>Florence met the speaker's look steadily. "I don't think," she said, "I +know. You painted the picture, Mr. Sidwell. That man there on the +mountain-side is you!"</p> + +<p>Her companion hesitated. His face darkened; his lips opened to speak and +closed again.</p> + +<p>The girl continued watching him with steady look. "I can hardly believe +it," she said absently. "It seems impossible."</p> + +<p>Sidwell forced a smile. "Impossible? What? That I should paint a daub +like that?"</p> + +<p>The girl's tense hands relaxed wearily.</p> + +<p>"No, not that you paint, but that the man there—the one finding +happiness unattainable—should be you."</p> + +<p>The lids dropped just a shade over Sidwell's black eyes. "And why, if +you please, should it be more remarkable that I am unhappy than +another?"</p> + +<p>This time Florence took him up quickly. "Because," she answered, "you +seem to have everything one can think of that is needed to make a human +being happy—wealth, position, health, ability—all the prizes other +people work their lives out for or die for." Again the voice dropped. "I +can't understand it." She was silent a moment. "I can't understand it," +she repeated.</p> + +<p>From the girl's face the man's eyes passed to the canvas, and rested +there. "Yes," he said slowly, "I suppose it is difficult, almost +impossible, for you to realize why I am—as I am. You have never had the +personal experience—and we only understand what we have felt. The +trouble with me is that I have experienced too much, felt too much. I've +ceased to take things on trust. Like the youth and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> the key flower I've +forgotten the best." The voice paused, but the eyes still kept to the +canvas.</p> + +<p>"That picture," he went on, "typifies it all. I painted it, not because +I'm an artist, but because in a fashion it expresses something I +couldn't put into words, or express in any other way. When I began to +climb, the object above me was not happiness but ambition. Wealth and +social place, as you say, I already had. They meant nothing to me. What +I wanted was to make a name in another way—as a literary man." The dark +eyes shifted back to the listener's face, the voice spoke more rapidly.</p> + +<p>"I went after the thing that I wanted with all the power and tenacity +that was in me. I worked with the one object in view; worked without +resting, feverishly. I had successes and failures, failures and +successes—a long line of both. At last, as the world puts it, I +<i>arrived</i>. I got to a position where everything I wrote sold, and sold +well; but in the meantime the thing above me, which had been ambition, +gradually took on another shape. Perfection it was I longed for now, +perfection in my art. It was not enough that the public had accepted me +as I was; I was not satisfied with my work. Try as I might, nothing that +I wrote ever reached my own standard in its execution. I worked harder +than ever; but it was useless. I was confronting the blank wall—the +wall of my natural limitations."</p> + +<p>The voice paused, and for a moment lowered. "I won't say what I did +then; I was—mad almost—the finger-marks of it are on the rock."</p> + +<p>The girl could not look longer into the speaker's eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> She felt as if +she were gazing upon a naked human soul, and turned away.</p> + +<p>"At last," he went on in his confession, "I came to myself, and was +forced to see things as they were. I saw that as well as I thought I had +understood life I had not even grasped its meaning. I had fancied the +attainment of my object the supreme end, and by every human standard I +had succeeded in my purpose; but the thing I had gained was trash. +Wealth, power, notoriety—what were they? Bubbles, nothing more; bubbles +that broke in the hand of him who clasped them. The real meaning and +object of existence lay deeper, and had nothing whatever to do with the +estimate of a person by his fellows. It was a frame of mind of the +individual himself."</p> + +<p>Florence's face turned farther away, but Sidwell did not notice. "Then, +for the last time," he hurried on, "the unattainable changed form for +me, and became what it seems now—happiness. For a little time I think I +was happy—happy in merely having made the discovery. Then came the +reaction. I was as I was, as I am now—a product of my past life, of a +civilization essentially artificial. In striving for a false ideal I had +unfitted myself for the real when at last I discovered it."</p> + +<p>Unconsciously the man had come closer, and his eyes glowed. At last his +apathy was shaken off, and his words came in a torrent. "What I was then +I am to-day. Mentally, I am like an inebriate, who no longer finds +satisfaction in plain food and drink, but craves stimulants. I demand +activity, excitement, change. In every hour of my life I realize the +narrowness and artificiality of it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> all; but without it I am unhappy. I +sometimes think Mother Nature herself has disowned me; when I try to get +near her she draws away—I fancy with a shudder. Solitude of desert, of +forest, or of prairie is no longer solitude to me. It is filled with +voices—accusing voices; and I rush back to the crowd and the unrest of +the city. Even my former pleasures seem to have deserted me. You have +spoke often of accomplishing big things, doing something better than +anyone else can do it, as an example of pleasure supreme. If you +realized what you were saying you would know its irony. You cannot do a +thing better than anyone else. People, like water, strike a dead level. +No matter how you strive, dozens of others can do the thing you are +doing. Were you to die, your place would be filled to-morrow, and the +world would wag on just the same. There is always someone just beneath +you watchfully waiting, ready to seize your place if you relax your +effort for a moment. The term 'big things' is relative. To speak it is +merely to refer to something you do not personally understand. Nothing +seems really big to the one who does it. Nothing is difficult when you +understand it. The growing of potatoes in a backyard is just as +wonderful a performance as the painting of one of these pictures; it +would be more so were it not so common and so necessary. The +construction of a steam-engine or an electric dynamo is incomparably +more remarkable than the merging of separate thousands of capital into +millions of combination, yet multitudes of men everywhere can do either +of the former things and are unnoticed. We worship what we do not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +understand, and call it big; but the man in the secret realizes the +mockery and smiles."</p> + +<p>Closer came the dark face. The black eyes, intense and flashing, held +the listener in their gaze.</p> + +<p>"I said that even my pleasures seem to have deserted me. It is true. I +used to like to wander about the city, to see it at its busiest, to +loiter amid the hum and the roar and the ceaseless activity. I saw in it +then only friendly rivalry, like a hurdle race or a football +game—something pleasing and stimulating. Now it all affects me in just +the reverse way. I look beneath the surface, and my heart sinks to find +not friendly competition, but a battle, where men and women fight for +daily bread, where the weak are crowded and trampled upon by the strong. +In ordinary battle the maimed and the crippled are spared, but here they +still fight on. Mercy or quarter is unknown. Oh, it is ghastly! I used +to take pleasure in books, in the work of others; but even this +satisfaction has been taken from me—except such grim satisfaction as a +physician may feel at a <i>post mortem</i>. The very labor that made me a +success in literature caused me to be a dissector of things around me. +To learn how others attained their ends I must needs tear their work +apart and study the fragments. This habit has become a part of me. I +overlook the beauty of the product in the working of the machinery that +produced it. I watch the mixing of literary confections, served to the +reader so that upon laying down the book he may have a good taste in his +mouth. People themselves, those I meet from day to day, inevitably go +through the same metamorphosis. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> see them as characters in a book. +Their foibles and peculiarities are grist for my mill. Everything, +everyone, when I appear, slips into the narrow confines of a printed +page. I can't even spare myself. Fragments of me can be had for a price +at any of the book-stalls. I've become public property—and with no one +to blame but myself."</p> + +<p>The flow of speech halted. The speaker's face was so near now that the +girl could not avoid looking at it.</p> + +<p>"Do you wonder," he concluded, "that I am not happy?"</p> + +<p>The girl looked up. The two pairs of brown eyes met. Outwardly, she who +answered was calm; but in her lap the small hands were clasping each +other tightly, so that the blood had left the fingers.</p> + +<p>"No, I do not wonder now," she answered simply.</p> + +<p>"And you understand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I—no, there's so much—Oh, take me home, please!" The sentence +ended abruptly in a plea. The slender body was trembling as with cold. +"Take me home, please. I want to—to think."</p> + +<p>"Florence!" The word was a caress. "Florence!"</p> + +<p>But the girl was already on her feet. "Don't say any more to-day! I +can't stand it. Take me home!"</p> + +<p>Sidwell looked at her closely for a moment; then the mask of +conventionality, which for a time had lifted from his face, dropped once +more, and he also arose. In silence, side by side, the two made their +way down the long hall to the exit. Out of doors, the afternoon sun, +serene and smiling, gave them a friendly greeting.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> +<h3>A VISITOR FROM THE PLAINS</h3></div> + +<p>"Papa," said Florence, next morning, as they two sat alone at breakfast, +her mother having reported a headache and failed to appear, "let's go +somewhere, away from folks, for a week or so."</p> + +<p>"Why this sudden change of front?" her father queried. "Not being of the +enemy I'm entitled to the plan of campaign, you know."</p> + +<p>Florence observed him steadily, and the father could not but notice how +much more mature she seemed than the prairie girl of a few months ago.</p> + +<p>"There is no change of front or plan of campaign as far as I know," she +replied. "I simply want to get away a bit, that's all." She returned to +her neglected breakfast. "There's such a thing as mental dyspepsia, you +know, and I feel a twinge of it now and then. I think this new life is +being fed to me in doses too large for my digestion."</p> + +<p>Mr. Baker eventually acquiesced, as anyone who knew him could have +foretold he would do. His wife, also, when the plan was broached to her, +hesitatingly agreed, but at the last moment balked and declined to go; +so they left without her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p> + +<p>The small town to which they went had ample grass and trees, and a small +lake convenient. A farmer's family reluctantly consented to board and +lodge them; also to give them the use of a bony horse and a disreputable +one-seated wagon. After their arrival they promptly proceeded to +segregate themselves from their fellow-boarders. The first day they +fished a little, talked, read, slept, meditated, and smoked—that is, +Mr. Baker did, enough for two; and Florence assisted by rolling +cigarettes when the bowl of the meerschaum grew uncomfortably hot. The +next day they repeated the programme, and also the next, and the next.</p> + +<p>"I think I could stay here always," said Mr. Baker.</p> + +<p>"I rather like it myself," Florence admitted.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, they returned promptly on schedule-time. Mrs. Baker was +awaiting them, her stiff manner indicating that she had not been doing +much else while they were away. Without finesse, one member of the two +delinquents was informed that a certain man of considerable social +prominence, Clarence Sidwell by name, had called daily, and, Mrs. Baker +fancied, with increasing dissatisfaction at their absence. Florence +found in her mail a short note, which after some consideration she +handed without comment to her father.</p> + +<p>He read—and read again. "When was this mailed?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Over a week ago," answered Florence. "It has been here for several +days."</p> + +<p>It was therefore no surprise to the Englishman when that very evening, +as he sat on the front veranda, his heels<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> on the railing, watching the +passage of equipages swift and slow, he saw a tall young man, at whom +passers-by stared more than was polite, coming leisurely up the +sidewalk, inspecting the numbers on the houses. As he came closer, Mr. +Baker took in the details of the long free stride, of the broad chest, +the square uplifted chin, with something akin to admiration. Vitality +and power were in every motion of the supple body; health—a life free +as the air and sunshine—was written in the brown of the hands, the tan +of the face. Even his clothes, though not the conventional costume of +city streets, seemed a part of their wearer, and had a freedom all their +own. The broad-brimmed felt hat was obviously for comfort and +protection, not for show. The light-brown flannel shirt was the color of +the sinewy throat. The trousers, of darker wool, rolled up at the +bottom, exposed the high-heeled riding-boots. About the whole man—for +he was very near now—there was that immaculate cleanliness which the +world prizes more than godliness.</p> + +<p>Scotty dropped his feet from the railing and advanced to the steps. +"Hello, Ben Blair!" he said.</p> + +<p>The visitor paused and smiled. "How do you do, Mr. Baker?" he answered. +"I thought I'd find you along here somewhere." He swung up the short +walk, and, mounting the steps, grasped the Englishman's extended hand. +For a moment the two said nothing. Then Scotty motioned to a chair. "Sit +down, won't you?" he invited.</p> + +<p>Ben stood as he was. The smile left his face. "Would you really—like me +to?" he asked directly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I really would, or I wouldn't have asked you," Scotty returned, with +equal directness.</p> + +<p>Ben took the proffered chair, and crossed his legs comfortably. The two +sat for a moment in silent companionship.</p> + +<p>"Tell me about Rankin," suggested Scotty at last.</p> + +<p>Ben did so. It did not take long, for he scarcely mentioned himself, and +quite omitted that last incident of which Grannis had been witness.</p> + +<p>"And—the man who shot him?" Scotty found it a bit difficult to put the +query into words.</p> + +<p>"They swung him a few days later. Things move rather fast out there when +they move at all."</p> + +<p>"Were 'they' the cowboys?"</p> + +<p>"No, the sheriff and the rest. It was all regular—scarcely any +spectators, even, I heard."</p> + +<p>"And now about yourself. Shall you be in the city long?"</p> + +<p>"I hardly know. I came partly on business—but that won't take me long." +He looked at his host significantly. "I also had another purpose in +coming."</p> + +<p>Scotty moved uncomfortably in his seat. "Ben," he said at last, "I'd +like to ask you to stay with us if I could, but—" he paused, looking +cautiously in at the open door—"but Mollie, you know—It would mean the +dickens' own time with her."</p> + +<p>Ben showed neither surprise nor resentment. "Thank you," he replied. "I +understand. I couldn't have accepted had you invited me. Let's not +consider it."</p> + +<p>Again the seat which usually fitted the Englishman so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> well grew +uncomfortable. He was conscious that through the curtains of the library +window some one was watching him and the new-comer. He had a mortal +dread of a scene, and one seemed inevitable.</p> + +<p>"How's the old ranch?" he asked evasively.</p> + +<p>"It's just as you left it. I haven't got the heart somehow to change +anything. We use up a good many horses one way and another during a +year, and when I get squared around I'm going to start a herd there with +one of the boys to look after it. It was Rankin's idea too."</p> + +<p>"You expect to keep on ranching, then?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"I thought, perhaps, now that you had plenty to do with—You're young, +you know."</p> + +<p>Ben looked out across the narrow plat of turf deliberately.</p> + +<p>"Am I—young? Really, I'd never thought of it in that way."</p> + +<p>The Englishman's feet again mounted the railing in an attempt at +nonchalance.</p> + +<p>"Well, usually a man at your age—" He laughed. "If it were an old +fellow like me—"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baker, I thought you said you really wished me to sit down and chat +awhile?"</p> + +<p>Scotty colored. "Why, certainly. What makes you think—"</p> + +<p>"Let's be natural then."</p> + +<p>Scotty stiffened. His feet returned to the floor.</p> + +<p>"Blair, you forget—" But somehow the sentence, bravely begun, halted. +Few people in real life acted a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> part with Benjamin Blair's blue eyes +upon them. "Ben," he said instead, "I'm an ass, and I beg your pardon. +I'll call Florence."</p> + +<p>But the visitor's hand restrained him.</p> + +<p>"Don't, please. She knows I am here. I saw her a bit ago. Let her do as +she wishes." He drew himself up in the cane rocker. "You asked me a +question. As far as I know I shall ranch it always. It suits me, and +it's the thing I can do best. Besides, I like being with live things. +The only trouble I have," he smiled frankly, "is in selling stock after +I raise them. I want to keep them as long as they live, and put them in +greener pastures when they get old. It's the off season, but I brought a +couple of car-loads along with me to Chicago, to the stock-yards. I'll +never do it again. It has to be done, I know; people have to be fed; but +I've watched those steers grow from calves."</p> + +<p>Scotty searched his brain for something relevant and impersonal, but +nothing suggested itself. "Ben Blair," he ventured, "I like you."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Ben.</p> + +<p>They were silent for a long time. Pedestrians, singly and in pairs, +sauntered past on the walk. Vehicle after vehicle scurried by in the +street. At last a team of brown thoroughbreds, with one man driving, +drew up in front of the house. The man alighted, tied the horses to the +stone hitching-post, and came up the walk. Simultaneously Ben saw the +curtains at the library window sway as though in a sudden breeze.</p> + +<p>"Splendid horses, those," he commented.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Scotty, wishing he were somewhere else just then. "Yes," +he repeated, absently.</p> + +<p>"Good-evening, Mr. Baker!" said the smiling driver of the thoroughbreds.</p> + +<p>"Good-evening," echoed Scotty. Then, with a gesture, he indicated the +passive Benjamin. "My friend Mr. Blair, Mr. Sidwell."</p> + +<p>Sidwell mounted the steps. Ben arose. The library curtains trembled +again. The two men looked each other fairly in the eyes and then shook +hands.</p> + +<p>"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Blair," said Sidwell.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," responded Ben, evenly.</p> + +<p>Down in the depths of his consciousness, Scotty was glad this frontier +youth had seen fit to come to town. Taking off his big glasses he +polished them industriously.</p> + +<p>"Won't you sit down?" he invited the new-comer.</p> + +<p>Sidwell moved toward the door. "No, thank you. With your permission I'll +go inside. I presume Miss Baker—"</p> + +<p>But the Englishman was ahead of him. "Yes," he said, "she's at home. +I'll call her," and he disappeared.</p> + +<p>Watching the retreating figure, Sidwell's black eyes tightened, but he +returned and took the place Scotty had vacated. He gave his companion a +glance which, swift as a flash of light upon a sensitized plate, took in +every detail of the figure, the bizarre dress, the striking face.</p> + +<p>"You are from the West, I judge, Mr. Blair?" he interrogated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Dakota," said Ben, laconically.</p> + +<p>Sidwell's gaze centred on the sombrero. "Cattle raising, perhaps?" he +ventured.</p> + +<p>Ben nodded. "Yes, I have a few head east of the river." He returned the +other's look, and Sidwell had the impression that a searchlight was +suddenly shifted upon him. "Ever been out there?"</p> + +<p>The city man indicated an affirmative. "Yes, twice: the last time about +four years ago. I went out on purpose to see a steer-roping contest, on +the ranch of a man by the name of Gilbert, I remember. A cowboy they +called Pete carried off the honors; had his 'critter' down and tied in +forty-two seconds. They told me that was slow time, but I thought it +lightning itself."</p> + +<p>"The trick can be done in thirty-five with the wildest," commented Ben.</p> + +<p>Sidwell looked out on the narrow street meditatively. "I think that +cowboy exhibition," he went on slowly, "was the most typically American +scene I have ever witnessed. The recklessness, the dash, the splendid +animal activity—there's never been anything like it in the world." His +eyes returned to Ben's face. "Ever hear of Gilbert, did you?"</p> + +<p>"I live within twenty-three miles of him."</p> + +<p>Sidwell looked interested. "What ranch, if I may ask?"</p> + +<p>"The Right Angle Triangle we call it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," Sidwell nodded in recollection. "Rankin is the proprietor—a +big man with a grandfather's-shay buckboard. I saw him while I was +there."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p> + +<p>Involuntarily one of Ben's long legs swung over the other. "That's the +place! You have a good memory."</p> + +<p>Sidwell smiled. "I couldn't help having in this case. He reminded me of +the satraps of ancient Persia. He was monarch of all he surveyed."</p> + +<p>Ben said nothing.</p> + +<p>"He's still the big man of the country, I presume?"</p> + +<p>"He is dead."</p> + +<p>"Dead?"</p> + +<p>"I said so."</p> + +<p>The light of understanding came to the city man. "I see," he observed. +"He is gone, and you—"</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Mr. Sidwell," interrupted the other, "but suppose we +change the subject?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell colored, then he laughed. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Blair. No +offence was intended, I assure you. Mr. Rankin interested me, that was +all."</p> + +<p>Again Ben said nothing, and the conversation lapsed.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile within doors another drama had been taking place. A very +discomposed young lady had met Scotty just out of hearing.</p> + +<p>"What made you stop Mr. Sidwell, papa?" she asked indignantly. "Why +didn't you let him come in?"</p> + +<p>"Because I didn't choose to," explained Scotty, bluntly.</p> + +<p>"But I wanted him to," she said imperiously. "I don't care to see Ben +to-night."</p> + +<p>Her father looked at her steadily. "And I wish you to see him," he +insisted. "You must be hypnotized to behave the way you're doing! You +forget yourself completely!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> + +<p>The brown eyes of the girl flashed. "And you forget yourself! I'm no +longer a child! I won't see him to-night unless I wish to!"</p> + +<p>Easy-going Scotty was aroused. His weak chin set stubbornly.</p> + +<p>"Very well. You will see neither of them, then. I won't have a man +insulted without cause in my own house. I'll tell them both you're +sick."</p> + +<p>"If you do," flamed Florence, "I'll never forgive you! You're—horrid, +if you are my father. I—" She took refuge in tears. "Oh, you ought to +be ashamed to treat your daughter so!"</p> + +<p>The Englishman flicked a speck of ash off his lounging coat. "I <i>am</i> +ashamed," he admitted; "but not of what you suggest." He turned toward +the door.</p> + +<p>"Daddy," said a pleading voice, "don't you—care for me any more?"</p> + +<p>An expression the daughter had never seen before, but one that ever +after haunted her, flashed over the father's face.</p> + +<p>"Care for you?" he exclaimed. "Care for you? That is just the trouble! I +care for you—have always cared for you—too much. I have sacrificed my +self-respect to humor you, and it's all been a mistake. I see it now too +late."</p> + +<p>For a moment the two looked at each other; then the girl brushed past +him. "Very well," she said calmly, "if I must see them both, at least +permit me to see them by myself."</p> + +<p>The men on the porch arose as Florence appeared.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> Their manner of doing +so was characteristic of each. Sidwell got to his feet languidly, a bit +stiffly. He had not forgotten the past week. Ben Blair arose +respectfully, almost reverently, unconscious that he was following a +mere social form. Six months had passed since he had seen this little +woman, and his soul was in his eyes as he looked at her.</p> + +<p>Just without the door the girl halted, her color like the sunset. It was +the city man she greeted first.</p> + +<p>"I'm very glad to see you again," she said, and a dainty hand went out +to meet his own.</p> + +<p>Sidwell was human. He smiled, and his hand detained hers longer than was +really necessary.</p> + +<p>"And I'm happy indeed to have you back," he responded. "I missed you."</p> + +<p>The girl turned to the impassive but observing Benjamin.</p> + +<p>"I am glad to see you, too, Mr. Blair," she said, but the voice was as +formal as the handshake. "Papa introduced you to Mr. Sidwell, I +suppose?"</p> + +<p>Her reserve was quite unnecessary. Outwardly, Ben was as coldly polite +as she. He placed a chair for her deferentially and took another +himself, while Sidwell watched the scene with interest. Somewhere, some +time, if he lived, that moment would be reproduced on a printed page.</p> + +<p>"Yes," responded Ben, "Mr. Sidwell and I have met." He turned his chair +so that he and the girl faced each other. "You like the city, your new +life, as well as you expected, I trust?"</p> + +<p>They chatted a few minutes as impersonally as two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> chance acquaintances +meeting by accident; then again Ben arose. "I judge you were going +driving," he said simply. "I'll not detain you longer."</p> + +<p>Florence melted. Such delicate consideration was unexpected.</p> + +<p>"You must call again while you are in town," she said.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, I shall," Ben responded.</p> + +<p>Sidwell felt that he too could afford to be generous.</p> + +<p>"If there's anything in the way of amusement or otherwise that I can do +for you, Mr. Blair, let me know," he said, proffering his address. "I am +at your service at any time."</p> + +<p>Ben had reached the walk, but he turned. For a moment wherein Florence +held her breath he looked steadily at the city man.</p> + +<p>"We Western men, Mr. Sidwell," he said at last slowly, "are more or less +solitaries. We take our recreation as we do our work, alone. In all +probability I shall not have occasion to accept your kindness. But I may +call on you before I leave." He bowed to both, and replaced his hat. A +"good-night" and he was gone.</p> + +<p>Watching the tall figure as it disappeared down the street, Sidwell +smiled peculiarly. "Rather a positive person, your friend," he remarked.</p> + +<p>Like an echo, Florence took up the word. "Positive!" The small hands +pressed tightly together in the speaker's lap. "Positive! You didn't get +even a suggestion of him by that. I saw a big prairie fire once. It +swept over the country for miles and miles, taking everything clean; and +the men fighting it might have been so many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> children in arms. I always +think of it when I think of Ben Blair. They are very much alike."</p> + +<p>The smile left Sidwell's face. "One can start a back-fire on the +prairie," he said reflectively. "I fancy the same process might work +successfully with Blair also."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," admitted Florence. The time came when both she and Sidwell +remembered that suggestion.</p> + +<p>But the subject was too large to be dropped immediately.</p> + +<p>"Something tells me," Sidwell added, after a moment, "that you are a bit +fearful of this Blair. Did the gentleman ever attempt to kidnap you—or +anything?"</p> + +<p>Florence did not smile. "No," she answered.</p> + +<p>"What was it, then? Were you in love, and he cold—or the reverse?"</p> + +<p>Florence dropped her chin into her hands. "To be frank with you, it +was—the reverse; but I would rather not speak of it." She was silent +for a moment. "You are right, though," she continued, rather recklessly, +"when you say I'm afraid of him. I don't dare think of him, even. I want +to forget he was ever a part of my life. He overwhelms me like sleep +when I'm tired. I am helpless."</p> + +<p>Unconsciously Sidwell had stumbled upon the closet which held the +skeleton. "And I—" he queried, "are you afraid of me?"</p> + +<p>The girl's great brown eyes peered out above her hands steadily.</p> + +<p>"No; with us it is not of you I'm afraid—it's of myself." She arose +slowly. "I'm ready to go driving if you wish," she said.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> +<h3>CLUB CONFIDENCES</h3></div> + +<p>Late the same evening, in the billiard-room of the "Loungers Club" +Clarence Sidwell met one Winston Hough, seemingly by chance, though in +fact very much the reverse. Big and blonde, addicted to laughter, Hough +was one of the few men with whom Sidwell fraternized,—why, only the +Providence which makes like and unlike attract each other could have +explained. However, it was with deliberate intent that Sidwell entered +the most brilliantly lighted room in the place and sought out the group +of which Hough was the centre.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Chad!" the latter greeted the new-comer. "I've just trimmed up +Watson here, and I'm looking for new worlds to conquer. I'll roll you +fifty points to see who pays for a lunch afterward."</p> + +<p>Sidwell smiled tolerantly. "I think it would be better for my reputation +to settle without playing. Put up your stick and I'm with you."</p> + +<p>Hough shook his head. "No," he objected, "I'm not a Weary Willie. I +prefer to earn my dole first. Come on."</p> + +<p>But Sidwell only looked at him. "Don't be stubborn," he said. "I want to +talk with you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> + +<p>Hough returned his cue to the rack lingeringly. "Of course, if you put +it that way there's nothing more to be said. As to the stubbornness, +however—" He paused suggestively.</p> + +<p>Sidwell made no comment, but led the way directly toward the street.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" queried Hough, when he saw the direction they were +taking. "Isn't the club grill-room good enough for you?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell pursued his way unmoved. "I said I wished to talk with you."</p> + +<p>"I guess I must be dense," Hough answered gayly. "I certainly never saw +any house rules that forbid a man to speak."</p> + +<p>Sidwell looked at his companion with a whimsical expression. "The +trouble isn't with the house rules but with you. A fellow might as well +try to monopolize the wheat-pit on the board of trade as to keep you +alone here. You're too confoundedly popular, Hough! You draw people as +the proverbial molasses-barrel attracts flies."</p> + +<p>The big man laughed. "Your compliment, if that's what it was, is a bit +involved, but I suppose it'll have to do. Lead on!"</p> + +<p>Sidwell sought out a modest little <i>café</i> in a side street and selected +a secluded booth.</p> + +<p>"What'll you have?" he asked, as the waiter appeared.</p> + +<p>Hough's blue eyes twinkled. "Are you with me, whatever I order?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell nodded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Club sandwiches and a couple of bottles of beer," Hough concluded.</p> + +<p>His companion made no comment.</p> + +<p>"Been some time, hasn't it, since you surprised your stomach with +anything like this?" bantered the big man, when the order had arrived +and the waiter departed.</p> + +<p>Sidwell smiled. "I shall have to confess it," he admitted.</p> + +<p>"I thought so," remarked Hough dryly. "Next time you depict a plebeian +scene you can remember this and thank me."</p> + +<p>This time Sidwell did not smile. "You're hitting me rather hard, old +man," he said.</p> + +<p>"You deserve it," laconically answered Hough.</p> + +<p>"But not from you!"</p> + +<p>Hough meditatively watched the beads bursting on the surface of the +liquor.</p> + +<p>"Admitted," he said; "but the people who ought to touch you up are +afraid to do so, and someone ought to." He smiled across the table. +"Pardon the brutal frankness, but it's true."</p> + +<p>Sidwell returned the glance. "You think it's the duty of some intimate +to perform the kindness of this—touching up process occasionally, do +you?"</p> + +<p>Hough drank deep and sighed with satisfaction. "Jove! that tastes good! +I limbered up my joints with a two-mile walk before I went to the club +this evening, and I've been as dry as a harvest-hand ever since. All the +wine in France or elsewhere won't touch the spot like a little good old +brew when a man is really healthy." He recalled himself. "Your pardon, +Sidwell. Seriously, I do think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> it's the duty of our best friends to +bring us back to earth now and then when we've strayed too far away. No +one who doesn't care for us will take the trouble."</p> + +<p>"Our <i>very</i> best friends, I judge," suggested Sidwell.</p> + +<p>"Certainly." The big man wondered what was coming next.</p> + +<p>"A—wife, for instance."</p> + +<p>Hough straightened in his chair. His jolly face grew serious.</p> + +<p>"Are you in earnest, Chad," he queried, "or are you just drawing me +out?"</p> + +<p>"I never was more in earnest in my life."</p> + +<p>Hough lost sight of the original question in the revelation it +suggested.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean you're really going to get married at last?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell forced a smile. "If the matter were already settled, it would be +too late to consider the advisability of the move, wouldn't it?" he +returned. "It would be an established fact, and as such useless to +discuss. I haven't asked the lady, if that answers your question."</p> + +<p>Hough made a gesture of impatience. "Theoretically, yes, but +practically, no. In your individual case, desire and gratification +amount to the same. You're mighty fascinating with the ladies, Chad. Few +women would refuse you, if you made an effort to have them do the +reverse."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Sidwell, equivocally.</p> + +<p>His companion scowled. "Appreciation is unnecessary. I'm not even sure +the remark was complimentary."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p> + +<p>They sat a moment in silence, while the beer in their glasses grew +stale.</p> + +<p>"Suppose I were to consider marriage, as you suggest," said Sidwell at +last. "What do you think would be the result? Judging from your +expression, some opinion thereon is weighing heavily upon your mind."</p> + +<p>The blonde man looked up keenly. One would hardly have recognized him as +the easy-going person of a few moments before.</p> + +<p>"It will, of course, depend entirely upon whom you choose. That's +hackneyed. From the motions of straws, though, this Summer, I presume +it's admissible that I jump at conclusions concerning the lady."</p> + +<p>The other nodded.</p> + +<p>"In that case, Chad, as surely as night follows day it'll be a failure." +The blue eyes all but flashed. "Moreover, it's a hideous injustice to +the girl."</p> + +<p>Sidwell stiffened involuntarily.</p> + +<p>"Your prediction sounds a bit strong from one who is himself a +benedict," he returned coldly. "Upon what, if you please, do you base +your opinion?"</p> + +<p>Hough fidgeted in his chair.</p> + +<p>"You want me to be frank, brutally frank, once more?"</p> + +<p>"Anything you wish. I'd like to know why you spoke as you did."</p> + +<p>"The reason, then, is this. You two would no more mix than oil and +water."</p> + +<p>Sidwell's face did not change. "You and Elise seem to jog along fairly +well together," he observed.</p> + +<p>Hough scowled as before. "Yes, but there's no pos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>sible similarity +between the cases. You and I are no more alike than a dog and a rabbit. +To come down to the direct issue, you're city bred, and Miss Baker has +been reared in the country. She—"</p> + +<p>Sidwell held up his hand deprecatingly. "To return to the illustration, +Elise was originally from the country."</p> + +<p>"And to repeat once more," exclaimed Hough, "there's again no +similarity. Elise and I have been married eight years. We met at +college, and grew together normally. We were both young and adaptable. +Besides, at the risk of being tedious, I reiterate that you and I are +totally unlike. I'm only partially urban; you are completely so—to your +very finger-tips. I'm half savage, more than half. I like to be out in +the country, among the mountains, upon the lakes. I like to hunt and +fish, and dawdle away time; you care for none of these things. I can +make money because I inherited capital, and it almost makes itself; but +it's not with me a definite ambition. I have no positive object in life, +unless it is to make the little woman happy. You have. Your work absorbs +the best of you. You haven't much left for friendships, even mild ones +like ours. I've been with you for a good many years, old man, and I know +what I'm talking about. You are old, older than your years, and you're +not young even in them. You're selfish—pardon me, but it's +true—abominably selfish. Your character, your point of view, your +habits—are all formed. You'll never change; you wouldn't if you could. +Miss Baker is hardly more than a child. I know her—I've made it a +point<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> to know her since I saw you were interested in her. Everything in +the world rings genuine to her as yet. She hasn't learned to detect the +counterfeit, and when the knowledge does come it will hurt her cruelly. +She'll want to get back to nature as surely as a child with a bruised +finger wants its mother; and you can't go with her. Most of all, Chad, +she's a woman. You don't know what that means—no unmarried man does +know. Even we married ones never grasp the subtleties of woman-nature +completely. I've been studying one for eight years, and at times she +escapes me. But one thing I have learned; they demand that they shall be +first in the life of the man they love. Florence Baker will demand this, +and after the first novelty has worn off you won't satisfy her. I repeat +once more, you're too selfish for that. As sure as anything can be, Chad +Sidwell, if you marry that girl it will end in disaster—in divorce, or +something worse."</p> + +<p>The voice ceased, and the place was of a sudden very quiet. Sidwell +tapped on his thin drinking-glass with his finger-nail. His companion +had never seen him nervous before. At last he looked up unshiftingly. +"You've given me a pretty vivid portrait of myself, of what I'm good +for, and what not," he said. "Would you like me to return the +compliment?"</p> + +<p>Again Hough wondered what was coming. "Yes, I suppose so," he answered +hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"You've often remarked," said Sidwell, slowly, "that you knew of no work +for which you were especially adapted. I think I could fit you out +exactly to your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> liking. Just get a position as guard to a lake of +brimstone in the infernal regions."</p> + +<p>Hough laughed, but Sidwell did not. "I fancy," he continued +monotonously, "I see you now, a long needle-pointed spear in your hands, +jabbing back the poor sinners who tried to crawl out."</p> + +<p>"Chad!" interrupted the other reproachfully. "Chad!" But Sidwell did not +stop.</p> + +<p>"You'd stand well back, so that the sulphur fumes wouldn't irritate your +own nostrils, and so that when the bubbles from the boiling broke they +wouldn't spatter you, and with the finest kind of intuition and the most +delicate aim you'd select the tenderest place in your intended victim's +anatomy for your spear-point." He smiled ironically at the picture. +"Gad! you'd be a howling success there, old man!"</p> + +<p>An expression of genuine contrition formed on Hough's jolly face. "I'm +dead sorry I hurt you, Chad," he said, "but you asked me to be frank."</p> + +<p>"You certainly were frank," rejoined the other bluntly.</p> + +<p>"What I said, though, was true," reiterated Hough.</p> + +<p>Sidwell leaned a bit forward, his face, handsome in spite of its +shadings of discontent, clear in the light.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," he went on. "The trouble with you is that you don't give me +credit for a single redeeming virtue. No one in this world is wholly +good or wholly bad. You forget that I'm a human being, with natural +feelings and desires. You make me out a sort of machine, cunningly +constructed for a certain work. You limit my life to that work alone. A +human being, even one born<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> of the artificial state called civilization, +isn't a contrivance like a typewriter which you can make work and then +shut up in a box until it is wanted again. There are certain emotions, +certain wants, you can't suppress by logic. Even a dog, if you imprison +him alone, will go mad in time. I'm a living man, with red blood instead +of ink in my veins, not an abstract mathematical problem. I've had my +full share of work and unhappiness. You'll have to give me a better +reason for remaining without the gate of the promised land than you've +yet done."</p> + +<p>Hough looked at the speaker impotently. "You misunderstood me, Chad, if +you thought I was trying to keep you from your due, or from anything +which would really make for your happiness. I was simply trying to +prevent something I feel morally certain you'll regret. Because one +isn't entirely happy is no adequate reason why he should make himself +more unhappy. I can't say any more than I've already said; there's +nothing more to say. My best reason for disapproving your contemplated +action I gave you first, and you've not considered it at all. It's the +injustice you do to a girl who doesn't realize what she is doing. With +your disposition, Chad, you'd take away from her something which neither +God nor man can ever give her back—her trust in life."</p> + +<p>Sidwell's long fingers restlessly twirled the glass before him. The +remainder of the untouched beer was now as so much stagnant water.</p> + +<p>"If I don't undeceive her someone else will," he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> +"It's inevitable. She'll have to adjust herself to things as they are, +as we all have to do."</p> + +<p>Hough made a motion of deprecation.</p> + +<p>"Miss Baker is no longer a child," continued Sidwell. "If you've studied +her as you say you've done, you've discovered that she has very definite +ideas of her own. It's true that I haven't known her long, but she has +had an opportunity to know me well such as no one else has ever had, not +even you. No one can say that she is leaping in the dark. Time and time +again, at every opportunity, I have stripped my very soul bare for her +observation. The thing has not been easy for me; indeed, I know of +nothing I could have done that would have been more difficult. Though +the present instance seems to give the statement the lie, I am not +easily confidential, my friend. I have had a definite object in doing as +I have done with Miss Baker. I am trying, as I never tried before in my +life, to get in touch with her—as I'll never try again, no matter how +the effort results, to get in touch with a person. She knows the good +and bad of me from A to Z. She knows the life I lead, the kind of people +who make up that life, their aims, their amusements, their standards, +social and moral, as thoroughly as I can make her know them. I have +taken her everywhere, shown her every phase of my surroundings. For once +in my life at least, Hough, I have been absolutely what I +am,—absolutely frank. Farther than that I cannot go. I am not my +brothers keeper. She is an individual in a world of individuals; a free +agent, mental, moral, and physical. The decision of her future actions, +the choice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> she makes of her future life, must of necessity rest with +her. For some reason I cannot point to a definite explanation and say +this or that is why she is attractive to me. She seems to offer the +solution of a want I feel. No system of logic can convince me that, +after having been honest as I have been with her, if she of her own free +will consents to be my wife, I have not a moral right to make her so."</p> + +<p>Again Hough made a deprecatory motion. "It is useless to argue with +you," he said helplessly, "and I won't attempt it. If I were to try, I +couldn't make you realize that the very methods of frankness you have +used to make Miss Baker know you intimately have defeated their own +purpose, and have unconsciously made you an integral part of her life. I +said before that when you wish you're irresistibly fascinating with +women. All that you have said only exemplifies my statement. It does +not, however, in the least change the homely fact that oil and water +won't permanently mix. You can shake them together, and for a time it +may seem that they are one; but eventually they'll separate, and stay +separate. As I said before, though, I do not expect you to realize this, +or to apply it. I can't make what I know by intuition sufficiently +convincing. I wish I could. I feel that somehow this has been my +opportunity and I have failed."</p> + +<p>For the instant Sidwell was roused out of himself. He looked at his +companion with appreciation. "At least you can have the consolation of +knowing you have honestly tried," he said earnestly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> + +<p>Hough returned the look with equal steadiness. "But nevertheless I have +failed."</p> + +<p>Sidwell put on his hat, its broad brim shading his eyes and concealing +their expression.</p> + +<p>"Providence willing," he said finally, "I shall ask Miss Baker to be my +wife."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> +<h3>LOVE IN CONFLICT</h3></div> + +<p>The habits of a lifetime are not changed in a day. Ben Blair was +accustomed to rising early, and he was astir next morning long before +the city proper was thoroughly awake. In the hotel where he was +stopping, the night clerk looked his surprise as he nodded a stereotyped +"Good-morning." The lobby was in confusion, undergoing its early morning +scrubbing, and the guest sought the street. The sun was just risen, but +the air was already sultry, casting oppression and languor over every +detail of the scene. The bare brick and stone fronts of the buildings, +the brown cobblestones of the pavements, the dull gray of the sidewalks, +all looked inhospitable and forbidding. Few vehicles were yet in +motion—distributors of necessities, of ice, of milk, of vegetables—and +they partook of the general indolence. The horses' ears swayed +listlessly, or were set back in dogged endurance. The drivers lounged +stolidly in their seats. Even the few passengers on the monotonously +droning cars but added to the impression of tacit conformity to the +inevitable. Poorly dressed as a rule, tired looking, they gazed at their +feet or glanced out upon the street with absent indifference. It was all +depressing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> + +<p>Ben, normal, vigorous, country bred, shook himself and walked on. He was +as susceptible as a child to surrounding influences, and to those now +about him he was distinctly antagonistic. Life, as a whole, particularly +work, the thing that does most to fill life, he had found good. That +others should so obviously find it different grated upon him. He wanted +to get away from their presence; and making inquiry of the first +policeman he met, he sought the nearest park.</p> + +<p>All his life he had heard of the beauty of the New York parks. The few +people he knew who had visited them emphasized this beauty above all +other features. Perhaps in consequence he was expecting the impossible. +At least, he was disappointed. Here was nature, to be sure, but nature +imprisoned under the thumb of man. The visitor had a healthy desire to +roll on the grass, to turn himself loose, to stretch every joint and +muscle; yet signs on each side gave warning to "keep off." The trees, it +must be admitted, were beautiful and natural,—they could not live and +be otherwise; but somehow they had the air of not being there of their +own free-will.</p> + +<p>Ben chose a bench and sat down. A listlessness was upon him that the +ozone of the prairies had never let him feel. He felt cramped for room, +as though, should he draw as full a breath as he wished, it would +exhaust the supply. A big freshly-shaven policeman strolled by, eying +him suspiciously. It gave the young man the impression of being a +prisoner out on good behavior; and in an indefinite way it almost +insulted his self-respect. For the lack of something better to do he +watched the minion of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> law as he pursued his beat. Not Ben Blair +alone, but every person the officer passed, went through this +challenging inspection. The countryman had been too much preoccupied to +notice that he had companions; but now that his interest was aroused, he +began inspecting the occupants of the other benches. The person nearest +him was a little old man in a crumpled linen suit. Most of the time his +nose was close to his morning paper; but now and then he raised his face +and looked away with an absent expression in his faded near-sighted +eyes. Was he enjoying his present life? Ben would have taken his oath to +the contrary. Again there flashed over him the impression of a prison +with this fellow-being in confinement. There was indescribable pathos in +that dull retrospective gaze, and Ben looked away. In the land from +which he came there could not be found such an example of hopeless and +useless age. There the aged had occupation,—the care of their +children's children, a garden, an interest in crops and growing things, +a fame as prophets of weather,—but such apathy as this, never.</p> + +<p>A bit farther away was another type, also a man, badly dressed and +unshaven. His battered felt hat was drawn low over the upper half of his +face, and he was stretched flat upon the narrow bench. He was far too +long for his bed, and to accommodate his superfluous length his knees +were bent up like a jack-knife. Carrying with them the baggy +trousers,—he wore no underclothes,—they left a hairy expanse between +their ends and the yellow, rusty shoes. His chest rose and fell in the +motion of sleep.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair had seen many a human derelict on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> frontier; the country +was full of them,—adventurers, searchers after lost health—popularly +denominated "one-lungers"—soldiers of fortune; but he had never known +such a class as this man represented,—useless cumberers of the earth, +wanderers by day, sleepers on the benches of public parks by night. Had +he been a student of sociology he might have found a certain morbid +interest in the spectacle; but it was merely depressing to him; it +destroyed what pleasure he might otherwise have taken in the place. This +man was but a step beneath those dull toilers he had seen on the cars. +They had not yet given up the struggle against the inevitable, or were +too stolid to rebel; while he—</p> + +<p>Ben sprang to his feet and began retracing his steps. People bred in the +city might be callous to the miseries of their fellows; those provided +with plenty might be content to live their lives side by side with such +hopeless poverty, might even apply to their own profit the necessities +of others; but his was the hospitality and consideration of the +frontier, the democracy that shares its last loaf with its fellow no +matter who he may be, and shares it without question. The heartless +selfishness of the conditions he was observing almost made his blood +boil. He felt that he was amid an alien people: their standards were not +as his standards, their lives were not of his life, and he wanted to +hurry through with his affairs and get away. He returned to the hotel.</p> + +<p>Breakfast was ready by this time, and after some exploration he +succeeded in finding the dining-room. The head-waiter showed him to a +seat and held his chair obse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>quiously. Another, a negro of uncertain +age, fairly exuding dignity and impassive as a sphinx, poured water over +the ice in his glass with a practised hand, produced the menu, and +waited for his order. Without intending it, the countryman had selected +a rather fashionable place, and the bill of fare was unintelligible as +Sanskrit to him. He looked at it helplessly. A man across the table, +observing his predicament, smiled involuntarily. Ben caught the +expression, looked at its bearer meaningly, looked until it vanished, +and until a faint red, obviously a stranger to that face, took its +place. By a sudden inspiration Blair's hand went to his pocket and +returned with a silver coin.</p> + +<p>"Bring me what a healthy man usually eats at this time of day, and +plenty of it," he said. He glanced absently, blandly past his companion.</p> + +<p>The gentleman of color looked at the speaker as though he were a strange +animal in a "zoo."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sah," he said.</p> + +<p>While he was waiting, Ben looked around him with interest. The room was +big, high, massive of pillars and of beams. Every detail had been +carefully arranged. The heavy oak tables, the spotless linen, the +sparkling silver and glassware appealed to the sense of luxury. The +coolness of the place, due to unseen ventilating fans which he heard +faintly droning somewhere in the ceiling, and increased by the tile +floor and the skilfully adjusted shades, was delightful. The few other +people present were as immaculate as bath, laundry, tailor, and modiste +could make them. From one group at which Ben looked came the suppressed +sound of a woman's laugh; from another,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> a man's voice, well modulated, +illustrated a point with a story. At a small table in an alcove sat four +young men, and notwithstanding the fact that for them it was yet very +early in the day, the pop of a champagne cork was heard, and soon +repeated. Blair, fresh from a glimpse of the outer and under world, +observed it all, and drew comparisons. Again he saw the huddled figure +of the tramp on the bench; and again he heard the careless music of the +woman's laugh. He saw the dull animal stare of workers on their way to +uncongenial toil; the hands still unsteady from yesterday's excesses +lifting to dry lips the wine that would make them still more unsteady on +the morrow. Could these contrasts be forever continued? he wondered. +Would they be permitted to exist indefinitely side by side? Again, +problem more difficult, could it be possible that the condition in which +they existed was life? He could not believe it. His nature rebelled at +the thought. No; life was not an artificial formula like this. It was +broad and free and natural, as the prairies, his prairies, were natural +and free. This other condition was a delirium, a momentary oblivion, of +which the four young men in the alcove were a symbol. Transient +pleasure, the life might mean; but the reverse, the inevitable reaction +as from all intoxication, that—</p> + +<p>Finishing his breakfast, Ben lit a cigar and sauntered out to the +street. He had intended spending the morning seeing the town; but for +the present he felt he had had enough—all he could mentally digest. +Without at first any definite destination, in mere excess of healthy +animal activity, he began to walk; but his principal object in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> coming +to the city, the object he made no effort to conceal, acted upon him +like a lodestone, and almost ere he was aware he was well out in the +residence portion of the city and headed directly for the Baker home. He +was unaware that morning was not the fashionable time to call upon a +lady. To him the fact of inclination and of presence in the vicinity was +sufficient justification; and mounting the well-remembered steps he rang +the doorbell stoutly. A prim maid in cap and diminutive apron, a recent +addition to the household, answered his ring.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to see Miss Baker, if you please," said Ben.</p> + +<p>The girl inspected the visitor critically. Beneath her surface decorum +he had a suspicion that she was inclined to smile.</p> + +<p>"I hardly think Miss Baker is up yet," she announced at last. "Will you +leave your card?"</p> + +<p>Ben looked at the sun, now well elevated in the sky, with an eye trained +in the estimate of time. He drew mental conclusions silently.</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "I will call later."</p> + +<p>He did call later,—two hours later,—to receive from Scotty himself the +intelligence that Florence was out but would soon return. Evidently the +Englishman had been instructed; for, though he added an invitation to +wait, it was only half-hearted, and being declined the matter was not +pressed.</p> + +<p>Ben returned to the hotel, ate his lunch, and considered the situation. +A lesser man would have given up the fight and hidden his bruise; but +Benjamin Blair was in no sense of the word a little man. He had come to +town<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> with definite intent of seeing a certain girl alone, and see her +alone he would. At four o'clock in the afternoon he again pressed the +button on the Baker door-post, and again waited.</p> + +<p>Again it was the maid who answered, and at the expected query she smiled +outright. It seemed to her a capital joke that she was assisting in +playing upon this man of unusual attire.</p> + +<p>"Miss Baker is engaged," she announced, with the glibness of previous +preparation.</p> + +<p>To her surprise the visitor did not depart. Instead, he gave her a look +which sent her mirth glimmering.</p> + +<p>"Very well," he said. The door leading into the vestibule and from +thence into the library was open, and without form of invitation he +entered. "Tell her, please, that I will wait until she is not engaged."</p> + +<p>The girl hesitated. This particular exigency had not been anticipated.</p> + +<p>"Shall I give her a name?" she suggested, with an attempt at formality.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair did not turn. "Tell her what I said."</p> + +<p>He chose a chair facing the entrance and sat down. Departing on her +mission, he heard the maid open another door on the same floor. There +was for a moment a murmur of feminine voices, one of which he +recognized; then silence again, as the door closed.</p> + +<p>A half-hour passed, lengthened into an hour, all but repeated itself, +and still apparently Florence was engaged; and still the visitor sat on. +No power short of fire or an earthquake could have moved him now. Every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> +fragment of the indomitable perseverance of his nature was aroused, and +instead of discouraging him each minute as it passed only made his +determination the stronger. He shifted his chair so that it faced the +window and the street, crossed his legs comfortably, half closed his +eyes, resting yet watchful, and meditatively observed the growing +procession of homeward bound wage-earners in car and on foot.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there was the rustle of a woman's skirts, and he was conscious +that he was no longer alone. He turned as he saw who it was, sprang to +his feet, and despite the intentional slight of the long wait, a smile +flashed to his face. He started to advance, but stopped.</p> + +<p>"You wished to see me, I understand," a voice said coldly, as the +speaker halted just within the doorway.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair straightened. The hot blood mounted to his brain, throbbing at +his throat and temples. It was not easy for him to receive insult; but +outwardly he gave no sign.</p> + +<p>"I think I have demonstrated the fact you mention," he replied calmly.</p> + +<p>Florence Baker clasped her hands together. "Yes, your persistency is +admirable," she said.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair caught the word. "Persistency," he remarked, "seems the only +recourse when past friendship and common courtesy are ignored."</p> + +<p>Florence made no reply, and going forward Ben placed a chair +deferentially. "It seems necessary for me to reverse the position of +host and guest," he said. "Won't you be seated?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> + +<p>The girl did not stir.</p> + +<p>"I hardly think it necessary," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Florence," Ben Blair's great chin lifted meaningly, "I will not be +offended whatever you may do. I have something I wish to say to you. +Please sit down."</p> + +<p>The girl hesitated, and almost against her will looked the man fairly in +the eyes, while her own blazed. Once more she felt his dominance +controlling her, felt as she did when, in what seemed the very long ago, +he had spread his blanket for her upon the prairie earth.</p> + +<p>She sat down.</p> + +<p>Ben drew up another chair and sat facing her. "Why," he was leaning a +bit forward, his elbow on his knee, "why, Florence Baker, have you done +everything in your power to prevent my seeing you? What have I done of +late, what have I ever done, to deserve this treatment from you?"</p> + +<p>The girl evaded his eyes. "It is not usually considered necessary for a +lady to give her reasons for not wishing to see a gentleman," she +parried. The handkerchief in her lap was being rolled unconsciously into +a tight little ball. "The fact itself is sufficient."</p> + +<p>Ben's free hand closed on the chair-arm with a mighty grip. "I beg your +pardon," he said, "but I cannot agree with you. There's a certain amount +of courtesy due between a woman and a man, as there is between man and +man. It is my right to repeat the question."</p> + +<p>The girl felt the cord drawing tighter, felt that in the end she would +bend to his will.</p> + +<p>"And should I refuse?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"You won't refuse."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p> + +<p>The girl's eyes returned to his. Even now she wondered that they did so, +that try as she might she could not deny him. His dominance over her was +well-nigh absolute. Yet she was not angry. An instinct that she had felt +before possessed her; the longing of the weaker for the stronger—the +impulse to give him what he wished. Her whole womanhood went out to him, +with an entire confidence that she would never give to another human +being. Naturally, he was her mate; naturally,—but she was not natural. +She hesitated as she had done once before, a multitude of conflicting +desires and ambitions seething in her brain. If she could but eliminate +the artificial in her nature, the desire for the empty things of the +world, then—But she could not yet give them up, and he could never be +made to care for them with her. She was nearer now to giving them up, to +giving up everything for his sake, than when she had sat alone with him +out on the prairie. She realized this with an added complexity of +emotion; but even yet, even yet—</p> + +<p>A minute passed in silence, a minute of which the girl was unconscious. +It was Ben Blair's voice repeating his first question that recalled her. +This time she did not hesitate.</p> + +<p>"I think you know the reason as well as I do. If we were mere friends or +acquaintances I would be only too glad to see you; but we are not, and +never can be merely friends. We have got to be either more or less." The +voice, brave so far, dropped. A mist came over the brown eyes. "And we +can't be more," she added.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> + +<p>The man's grip on the chair-arm loosened. He bent his face farther +forward. "Miss Baker," he exclaimed. "Florence!"</p> + +<p>Interrupting, almost imploring, the girl drew back. "Don't! Please +don't!" she pleaded; then, as she saw the futility of words, with the +old girlish motion her face dropped into her hands. "Oh, I knew it would +mean this if I saw you!" she wailed. "You see for yourself we cannot be +mere friends!"</p> + +<p>The man did not stir, but his eyes changed color and seemed to grow +darker. "No," he said, "we cannot be mere friends; I care for you too +much for that. And I cannot be silent when I came away off here to see +you. I would never respect myself again if I were. You can do what you +please, say what you please, and I'll not resent it—because it is you. +I will love you as long as I live. I am not ashamed of this, because it +is you I love, Florence Baker." He paused, looking tenderly at the +girl's bowed head.</p> + +<p>"Florence," he went on gently, "you don't know what you are to me, or +what your having left me means. I often go over to your old ranch of a +night and sit there alone, thinking of you, dreaming of you. Sometimes +it is all so vivid that I almost feel that you are near, and before I +know it I speak your name. Then I realize you are not there, and I feel +so lonely that I wish I were dead. I think of to-morrow, and the next +day, and the next—the thousands of days that I'll have to live through +without you—and I wonder how I am going to do it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p> + +<p>The girl's face sank deeper into her hands. A muffled sob escaped her. +"Please don't say any more!" she pleaded. "Please don't! I can't stand +it!"</p> + +<p>But the man only looked at her steadily.</p> + +<p>"I must finish," he said. "I may never have a chance to say this to you +again, and something compels me to tell you of myself, for you are my +good angel. In many ways it is of necessity a rough life I lead, but you +are always with me, and I am the better for it. I haven't drank a drop +since I came to know that I loved you, and we ranchers are not +accustomed to that, Florence. But I never will drink as long as I live; +for I'll think of you, and I couldn't then if I would. Once you saved me +from something worse than drink. There was a man who shot Mr. Rankin and +before this, from almost the first thought I can remember, I had sworn +that if I ever met him I would kill him. We did meet. I followed him day +after day until at last I caught up with him, until he was down and my +hands were upon his throat. But I didn't hurt him, Florence, after all; +I thought of you just in time."</p> + +<p>He was silent, and suddenly the place seemed as still as an empty +church. The girl's sobs were almost hysterical. The man's mood changed; +he reached over and touched her gently on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me for hurting you, Florence," he said. "I—I couldn't help +telling you."</p> + +<p>Involuntarily the girlish figure straightened.</p> + +<p>"Forgive you!" A tear-stained face was looking into his. "Forgive you! +I'll never be able to forgive myself!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> You are a million times too good +for me, Ben Blair. Forgive you! I ought never to cease asking you to +forgive me!"</p> + +<p>"Florence!" pleaded the man. "Florence!"</p> + +<p>But the girl, in her turn, went on. "I have felt all the while that +certain things I saw here were unreal, that they were not what they +seemed. I have prevaricated to you deliberately. I haven't really been +here long, but it seems to me now that it's been years. As you said I +would, I've looked beneath the surface and seen the sham. At first I +wouldn't believe what I saw; but at last I couldn't help believing it, +and, oh, it hurt! I never expect to be so hurt again. I couldn't be. One +can only feel that way once in one's life." The small form trembled with +the memory, and the listener made a motion as if to stop her; but she +held him away.</p> + +<p>"It isn't that I'm any longer blind; I am acting now with my eyes wide +open. It is something else that keeps me from you now, something that +crept in while I was learning my lesson, something I can't tell you." +Once more the girl could not control herself, and sobbing, trembling, +she covered her face. "Ben, Ben," she wailed, "why did you ever let me +come here? You could have kept me if you would—you can do—anything. I +would have loved you—I did love you all the time; only, only—" She +could say no more.</p> + +<p>For a second the man did not understand; then like a flash came +realization, and he was upon his feet pacing up and down the narrow +room. To lose an object one cares for most is one thing; to have it +filched by another is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> something very different. He was elemental, this +man from the plains, and in some phases very illogical. The ways of the +higher civilization, where man loves many times, where he dines and +wines in good fellowship with him who is the husband of a former +love—these were not his ways. White anger was in his heart, not against +the woman, but against that other man. His fingers itched to be at his +throat, regardless of custom or law. Temporarily, the rights and wishes +of the woman, the prize of contention, were forgotten. Two young bucks +in the forest do not consider the feelings of the doe that is the reward +of the victor in the contest when they meet; and Ben Blair was very like +these wild things. Only by an effort of the will could he keep from +going immediately to find that other man,—intuition made it unnecessary +to ask his name. As it was, he wanted now to be away. The tiny room +seemed all at once stifling. He wanted to be out of doors where the sun +shone, out where he could think. He seized his hat, then suddenly +remembered, paused to glance—and that instant was his undoing, and +another man's—Clarence Sidwell's—salvation.</p> + +<p>And Florence Baker, at whom he had glanced? She was not tearful or +hysterical now. Instead, she was looking at him out of wide-open eyes. +Well she knew this man, and knew the volcano she had aroused.</p> + +<p>"You won't hurt him, Ben!" she said. "You won't hurt him! For my sake, +say you won't!"</p> + +<p>The devil lurking in the cowboy's blue eyes vanished, but the great jaw +was still set. He reached out and caught the girl by the shoulder. +"Florence Baker," he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> said, "on your honor, is he worth it—is he worth +the sacrifice you ask of me? Answer!"</p> + +<p>But the girl did not answer, did not stir. "You won't hurt him!" she +repeated. "Say you won't!"</p> + +<p>A moment longer Ben Blair held her; then his hands dropped and he turned +toward the vestibule.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he said. "I don't know."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> +<h3>TWO FRIENDS HAVE IT OUT</h3></div> + +<p>Clarence Sidwell was alone in his down-town bachelor quarters; that is, +alone save for an individual the club-man's friends termed his "Man +Friday," an undersized and very black negro named Alexander Hamilton +Brown, but answering to the contraction "Alec." Valet, man of all work, +steward, Alec was as much a fixture about the place as the floor or the +ceiling; and, like them, his presence, save as a convenience, was +ignored.</p> + +<p>The rooms themselves were on the eleventh floor of a down-town +office-building, as near the roof as it had been possible for him to +secure suitable quarters. For eight years Sidwell had made them his home +when he was in town. The circle of his friends had commented, his mother +and sisters (his father had been long dead) had protested, when, a much +younger man, he first severed himself from the semi-colonial mansion +which for three generations had borne the name of Sidwell; but as usual, +he had had his own way.</p> + +<p>"I want to work when I feel so inclined, when the mood is on me, whether +it's two o'clock of the afternoon or of the morning,'" he had explained; +"and I can't do it without interruption here with you and your +friends."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p> + +<p>For the same reason he had chosen to live near the sky. There, high +above the noise and confusion, he could observe and catch the influence +of the activity which is in itself a powerful stimulant, without +experiencing its unpleasantness. Essentially, the man was an æsthete. If +he went to a race or a football game he wished to view it at a distance. +To be close by, to mingle in the dust of action, to smell the sweat of +conflict, to listen to the low-voiced imprecations of the defeated, +detracted from his pleasure. He could not prevent these +features—therefore he avoided them.</p> + +<p>This particular evening he was doing nothing, which was very unusual for +him. The necessity for society, or for activity, physical or mental, had +long ago become as much a part of his nature as the desire for food. +Dilettante musician as well as artist, when alone at this time of the +evening he was generally at the upright piano in the corner. Even Alec +noticed the unusual lack of occupation on this occasion, and exposed the +key-board suggestively; but, observing the action, Sidwell only smiled.</p> + +<p>"Think I ought to, Alec?" he queried.</p> + +<p>The negro rolled his eyes. Despite his long service, he had never quite +lost his awe of the man he attended.</p> + +<p>"Sho, yo always do that, or something, sah," he said.</p> + +<p>Sidwell smiled again; but it was not a pleasant smile. So this was the +way of it! Even his servant had observed his habitual restlessness, and +had doubtless commented upon it to his companions in the way servants +have of passing judgment upon their employers. And if Alec had noticed +this, then how much more probable it was that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> others of Sidwell's +numerous acquaintances had noticed it also! He winced at the thought. +That this was his skeleton, and that he had endeavored to keep it +hidden, Sidwell did not attempt to deny to himself. One of the reasons +he had <i>not</i> given to his family for establishing these down-town +quarters was this very one. Time and again, when he had felt the mood of +protest strong upon him, he had come here and locked the doors to fight +it out alone. But after all, it had been useless. The fact had been +obvious, despite the trick; mayhap even more so on account of it. Like +the Wandering Jew he was doomed, followed by a relentless curse.</p> + +<p>He shook himself, and walking over to the sideboard poured out a glass +of Cognac and drank it as though it were wine. Sidwell did not often +drink spirits. Experience had taught him that to begin usually meant to +end with regret the following day; but to-night, with his present mood +upon him, the action was as instinctive as breathing. He moved back to +his chair by the window.</p> + +<p>The evening was hot, on the street depressingly so, but up here after +the sun was set there was always a breeze, and it was cool and +comfortable. The man looked out over the sooty, gravelled roofs of the +surrounding lower buildings, and down on the street, congested with its +flowing stream of cars, equipages, and pedestrians. Times without number +he had viewed the currents and counter-currents of that scene, but never +before had he so caught its vital spirit and meaning. Born of the +elect,—reared and educated among them,—the supercilious superiority of +his class was as much a part of him as his name. While<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> he realized that +physically the high and the low were constructed on practically the same +plan, he had been wont to consider them as on totally separate mental +planes. That the clerk and the roustabout on ten dollars a week, +breathing the same atmosphere,—seeing daily, hourly, minute by minute, +from separate viewpoints, the same life,—that they should have in +common the constant need of diversion had never before occurred to him. +Multitudes of times, as a sociologist, or as a literary man in search of +realism, he had visited the haunts of the under-man. Languidly, +critically, as he would have observed at the "zoo" an animal with whose +habits he was unacquainted, he had watched this rather curious under-man +in his foolish, or worse than foolish, endeavor to find amusement or +oblivion. He had often been interested, as by a clown at a circus; but +more frequently the sight had merely inspired disgust, and he had +returned to his own diversions, his own efforts to secure the same end, +with an all but unconscious thankfulness that he was not such as that +other. To-night, for the first time, and with a wonder we all feel when +the obvious but long unseen suddenly becomes apparent, the primary fact +of human brotherhood, irrespective of caste, came home to him. To-night +and now he realized, diminutive in the distance as they were, that the +swarm of figures that he had hitherto considered mere animals vain of +display were impelled upon the street, compelled to keep moving, moving, +without a pre-arranged destination, by the same spirit of unrest that +had sent him to the buffet. At that moment he was probably nearer to his +fellow-man than ever before in his life; but the truth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> revealed made +him the more unhappy. He had grown to consider his own unhappiness +totally different and infinitely more acute than that of others; he had +even taken a sort of morbid, paradoxical pleasure in considering it so; +and now even this was taken from him. Not only had his own secret +skeleton been visible when he believed it concealed, but all around him +there suddenly sprang up a very cemetery of other skeletons, grinning at +his blindness and discomfiture. His was not a nature to extract content +from common discomfort, and but one palliative suggested itself,—the +dull red decanter on the sideboard. Rising again and filling a glass, he +returned and stood for a moment full before the open casement of the +window gazing down steadily.</p> + +<p>How long he stood there he hardly knew. Once Alec's dark face peered +into the room, and disappeared as suddenly. At last there was a knock at +the door.</p> + +<p>"Come in," invited Sidwell, without moving. The door opened and closed, +and Winston Hough stood inside. The big man gave one glance at the +surroundings, saw the empty glass, and backed away. "Pardon my +intrusion," he said with his hand on the knob.</p> + +<p>Sidwell turned. "Intrusion—nothing!" He placed the decanter with +glasses and a box of cigars on a convenient table. "Come and have a +drink with me," and the liquor flowed until both glasses were nearly +full.</p> + +<p>Hough hesitated in a reluctance that was not feigned. He felt that +discretion was the better part of valor, and that it would be well to +escape while he could, even at the price of discourtesy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Really," he said, "I only dropped in to say hello. I—"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" interrupted Sidwell. "You must think I'm as innocent as a +new-born lamb. Come over here and sit down."</p> + +<p>Hough hesitated, but yielded.</p> + +<p>Sidwell lifted his glass. "Here's to—whatever the trouble may be that +brought you here. People don't visit me for pleasure, or unless they +have nowhere else to go. Drink deep!"</p> + +<p>They drank; and then Sidwell looking at Hough said, "Well, what is it +this time? Going to reform again, or something of that kind, are you?"</p> + +<p>Hough did not attempt evasion. He knew it would be useless. "No," he +said; "to tell you the truth, I'm lonesome—beastly lonesome."</p> + +<p>Sidwell smiled. "Ah, I thought so. But why, pray? Aren't you a married +man with an ark of refuge always waiting?"</p> + +<p>Hough made a grimace. "Yes, that's just the trouble. I'm too much +married, too thoroughly domesticated."</p> + +<p>The other looked blank. "I fail to understand. Certainly you and Elise +haven't at last—"</p> + +<p>"No, no; not that." Hough repelled the suggestion with a gesture as +though it were a tangible object. "Elise left to-day to spend a month +with her uncle up in northern Wisconsin, and I can't get out of town for +a week. I feel as I fancy a small bird feels when it has fallen out of +the nest while its mother is away. The bottom seems to have dropped out +of town and left me stranded."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> + +<p>The host observed his guest humorously—a bit maliciously. "It is good +for you, you complacent benedict," he remarked unsympathetically. "You +can understand now the normal state of mind of bachelors. Perhaps after +a few more days you'll have been tortured enough to retract the argument +you made to me about matrimony. I repeat, it's poetic justice, and good +for a man now and then to have a dose of his own medicine."</p> + +<p>Hough smiled as at an oft-heard joke. "All right, old man, have it as +you please; only let's steer clear of a useless discussion of the +subject to-night."</p> + +<p>"With all my heart," said Sidwell. The decanter was once more in his +hand. "Let's drink to the very good health of Elise on her journey."</p> + +<p>Hough hesitated. He had a feeling that there was an obscure desecration +in the toast, but it was not tangible enough to resent. "To her very +good health," he repeated in turn.</p> + +<p>For a moment he looked steadily into the face of his companion, now a +trifle flushed. Again an inward monitor warned him it were better to go; +but the first flood of the liquor had reached his brain, and the +temptation to remain was strong.</p> + +<p>"By the way, how are you coming on with your own affair of the heart? +Have you propounded the momentous question to the lady?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell pulled forward the box of cigars and helped himself to one. +"No," he returned with deliberation. "I haven't had a good opportunity. +A gentleman from the West, where they wear their hair long and their +coat-tails<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> short, has suddenly appeared like an obscuring cloud on the +Baker sky. I have a suspicion that he has aspirations for the hand of +the lady in question. Anyhow, he's haunted the house like a ghost +to-day. Mother Baker has for some reason taken a fancy to your humble +servant, and over the 'phone she has kept me informed of the stranger's +tribulations. He seems to be meeting with sufficient difficulties +without my interposition, so out of the goodness of my heart I've given +him an open field. I hope you appreciate my consideration. I fear he's +not of a stripe to do so himself."</p> + +<p>Hough lit his cigar. "Yes, it certainly was kind of you," he said. "Very +kind."</p> + +<p>With a sweep of his hand Sidwell brought the two glasses together with a +click. "I think so. Kind enough to deserve commemoration by a taste of +the elixir of life, don't you agree?" and the liquor flowed beneath a +hand steady in the first stages of intoxication.</p> + +<p>Hough pushed back his chair. "No," he protested. "I've had enough."</p> + +<p>"Enough!" The other laughed unmusically. "Enough! You haven't begun yet. +Drink, and forget your loneliness, you benedict disconsolate!"</p> + +<p>But again the big man shook his head. "No," he repeated. "I've had +enough, and so have you. We'll be drunk, both of us, if we keep up this +clip much longer."</p> + +<p>The smile left the host's face. "Drunk!" he echoed. "Since when, pray, +has that exalted state of the consciousness begun to inspire terror in +you? Drunk! Winston Hough, you're the last man I ever thought would fail +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> prove game on an occasion like this! We're no nearer being babes +than we were the last time we got together, unless the termination of +life approximates the beginning. Drink!"</p> + +<p>But still, this time in silence, Hough shook his head. From a partially +open door leading into the adjoining room the negro's eyes peered out.</p> + +<p>Sidwell shifted in his seat with exaggerated deliberation and leaned +forward. His dark mobile face worked passionately, compellingly. +"Winston Hough," he challenged, "do you wish to remain my friend?"</p> + +<p>"I certainly do."</p> + +<p>"Then you know what to do."</p> + +<p>Deep silence fell upon the room. Not only the eyes but the whole of +Alec's face appeared through the doorway. Hough could no more have +resisted longer than he could have leaped from the open window. They +drank together.</p> + +<p>"Now," said Sidwell, "just to show that you mean it, we'll have +another."</p> + +<p>And soon the enemy that puerile man puts into his mouth to steal his +brains was enthroned.</p> + +<p>Sidwell sank into his chair, and lighting his cigar sent a great cloud +of smoke curling up over his head. Hand and tongue were steady, +unnaturally so, but the mood of irresponsible confidence was upon him.</p> + +<p>"Since you've decided to remain my friend," he said, "I'm going to tell +you something confidential, very confidential. You won't give it away?"</p> + +<p>"Never!" Hough shook his head.</p> + +<p>"On your honor?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p> + +<p>The big man crossed his hands over his heart in the manner of small +boys.</p> + +<p>Sidwell was satisfied. "All right, then. This is the last time you and I +will ever get—this way together."</p> + +<p>Hough looked as solemn as though at a funeral. "Why so?" he protested. +"Are you angry with me yet?"</p> + +<p>"No, it's not that. I've forgiven you."</p> + +<p>"What is it, then?" Hough felt that he must know the reason of his lost +position, and if in his power remove it.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to quit drinking after to-night, for one thing," explained +Sidwell. "It isn't adequate. But even if I didn't, I don't expect we'll +ever be together again after a few days, after you go away."</p> + +<p>The listener looked blank. Even with his muddled brains he had an +intimation that there was more in the statement than there seemed.</p> + +<p>"I don't see why," he said bewilderedly.</p> + +<p>Again Sidwell leaned forward. Again his face grew passionate and +magnetic.</p> + +<p>"The reason why is this. I have had enough, and more than enough, of +this life I've been living. Unless I can find an interest, an +extenuation, I would rather be dead, a hundred times over. I've become a +nightmare to myself, and I won't stand it. In a few days you'll have +departed, and before you return I'll probably have gone too. Nothing but +an intervention of Providence can prevent my marrying Florence Baker +now. Life isn't a story-book or we who live it undiscerning clods. She +knows I am going to ask her to marry me, and I know what her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> answer +will be. We'll be away on our wedding-trip long before you and Elise +return in the Fall." The speaker's voice was sober. Only the heightened +color of his face betrayed him.</p> + +<p>"I say I'm through with this sort of thing," he repeated, "and I mean +it. I've tried everything on the face of the earth to find an +interest—but one—and Florence Baker represents that one. I hope +against hope that I'll find what I'm searching for there, but I am +skeptical. I have been disappointed too many times to expect happiness +now. This is my last trump, old man, and I'm playing it deliberately and +carefully. If it fails, Florence will probably return; but before God, I +never will! I have thought it all out. I will leave her more money than +she can ever spend—enough if she wishes to buy the elect of the elect. +She is young, and she will soon forget—if it's necessary. With me, my +actions have largely ceased to be a matter of ethics. I am desperate, +Hough, and a desperate man takes what presents itself."</p> + +<p>But Hough was in no condition to appreciate the meaning of the selfish +revelation of his friend's true character. Since he married his lapses +had been infrequent, and already his surroundings were becoming a bit +vague. His one ambition was to appear what he was not—sober; and he +straightened himself stiffly.</p> + +<p>"I see," he said, "sorry to lose you, old pal, very sorry; but what must +be must be, I s'pose," and he drew himself together with a jerk.</p> + +<p>Sidwell glanced at the speaker sarcastically, almost with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> a shade of +contempt. "I know you're sorry, deucedly sorry," he mocked. "So sorry +that you'd probably like to drown your excess of emotion in the flowing +bowl." Again the ironic glance swept the other's face. "Another smile +would be good for you, anyway. You're entirely too serious. Here you +are!" and the decanter once more did service.</p> + +<p>Hough picked up his glass and nodded with gravity "Yes, I always was a +sad devil." By successive movements the liquor approached his lips. +"Lots of troubles and tribulations all my—"</p> + +<p>The sentence was not completed; the Cognac remained untasted. At that +moment there was a knock upon the door.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> +<h3>THE BACK-FIRE</h3></div> + +<p>When Ben Blair left the Baker home he went back to his room at the +hotel, closed and locked the door, and, throwing off coat and hat, +stretched himself full-length upon the floor, gazing up at the ceiling +but seeing nothing. It had been a hard fight for self-control there on +the prairie the day Florence rejected him, but it was as nothing to the +tumult that now raged in his brain. Then, despite his pain, hope had +remained. Now hope was lost, and in its place stood a maddening +might-have-been. Under the compulsion of his will, the white flood of +anger had passed, but it only made more difficult the solution of the +problem confronting him. Under the influence of passion the situation +would have been a mere physical proposition; but with opportunity to +think, another's wishes and another's rights—those of the woman he +loved—challenged him at every turn.</p> + +<p>At first it seemed that a removal of his physical presence, a going away +never to return, was adequate solution of the difficulty; but he soon +realized that it was not. Deeper than his own love was his desire for +the happiness of the girl he had known from childhood. Had he been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> +certain that she would be happy with the man who had fascinated her, he +could have conquered self, could have returned to his prairies, his +cattle, his work, and have concealed his hurt. But it was impossible for +him to believe she would be happy. Without volition on his part he had +become an actor in this drama, this comedy, this tragedy,—whatever it +might prove to be; and he felt that it would be an act of cowardice upon +his part to leave before the play was ended. He was not in the least +religious in the sense of creed and dogma. In all his life he had +scarcely given a thought to religion. His knowledge of the Almighty by +name had been largely confined to that of a word to conjure with in +mastering an obstreperous bronco; but, in the broad sense of personal +cleanliness and individual duty, he was religious to the core. He would +not shirk a responsibility, and a responsibility faced him now.</p> + +<p>Hour after hour he lay prone while his active brain suggested one course +after another, all, upon consideration, proving inadequate. Gradually +out of the chaos one fundamental fact became distinct in his mind. He +must know more of this man Clarence Sidwell before he could leave the +city, and this decision brought him to his feet. Under the +circumstances, a strategist might have employed others to gather +surreptitiously the information desired; but such was not the nature of +Benjamin Blair. One thing he had learned in dealing with his fellows, +which was that the most effective way to secure the thing one wished was +to go direct to the man who had it to give. In this case Sidwell was the +man. With a grim smile<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> Ben remembered the invitation and the address he +had received the first night he was in town. He would avail himself of +both.</p> + +<p>Night had fallen long ere this; when Ben arose the room was in darkness, +save for the reflected light which came through the heavily curtained +windows from the street lamps. He turned on an electric bulb and made a +hasty toilet. In doing so his eye fell upon the two big revolvers within +the drawer of the dresser; and the same impulse that had caused him to +bring them into this land of civilization made him thrust them into his +hip pockets. It was more habit than anything else, just as a man with a +dog friend feels vaguely uncomfortable unless his pet is with him. Blair +had the vigorously recurring appetite of a healthy animal, and it +suddenly occurred to him that he had not yet dined. Descending to the +street, he sought a <i>café</i> and ate a hearty meal.</p> + +<p>A half-hour later, the elevator boy of the Metropolitan Block, where +Sidwell had his quarters, was surprised, on answering the indicator, to +find a young man in an abnormally broad hat and flannel shirt awaiting +him. The youth was of vivid imagination, and knowing that a Wild West +troupe was performing in town, one glance at Ben's hat, his suspicions +became certainty.</p> + +<p>"Eleventh floor," he announced, when the passenger had told his +destination; then as the car moved upward he gathered courage and looked +the rancher fair in the eye.</p> + +<p>"Say, Mister," he ventured, "give me a pass to the show, will you?"</p> + +<p>For an instant Ben looked blank; then he understood,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> and his hand +sought his trousers' pocket. "Sorry," he explained, "but I don't happen +to have any with me. Will this do instead?" and he produced a +half-dollar.</p> + +<p>The boy brought the car deftly to a stop within a half-inch of the level +of the desired floor. "Thank you. Mr. Sidwell—straight ahead, and turn +to the left down the short hall," he said obligingly.</p> + +<p>Blair stepped out, saying, "Don't fail to be around to-morrow when I do +my stunt."</p> + +<p>With open-mouthed admiration the boy watched the frontiersman's long +free stride—a movement that struck the floor with the springiness of a +cat, very different from the flat-footed jar of pedestrians on paved +streets.</p> + +<p>"I won't!" he called after him. "I'd rather see't than a dozen +ball-games! I'll look for you, Mister!"</p> + +<p>At the interrupting tap upon the door, Sidwell voiced a languid "Come +in," and merely shifted in his seat; but his big companion, with the +hospitality of inebriation, had returned his glass unsteadily to the +table and arisen. He had taken a couple of uncertain steps, as if to +open the door, when, in answer to the summons, Ben Blair stepped inside. +Hough halted with a suddenness which all but cost him his equilibrium. +The expansive smile upon his face vanished, and he stared as though the +bottomless pit had opened at his feet. For a fraction of a minute not +one of the three men spoke or stirred, but in that time the steady blue +eyes of the countryman took in the details of the scene—the luxurious +furnishings, the condition of the two men—with the rapidity and +minuteness of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> sensitized plate. Ironic chance had chosen an +unpropitious night for his call. Intoxication surrounding a bar, under +the stimulus of numbers, and preceding or following some exciting event, +he could understand, could, perhaps, condone; but this solitary +dissipation, drunkenness for its own sake, was something new to him. The +observing eyes fastened themselves upon the host's face.</p> + +<p>"In response to your invitation," he said evenly, "I've called."</p> + +<p>Sidwell roused himself. His face flushed. Despite the liquor in his +brain, he felt the inauspicious chance of the meeting.</p> + +<p>"Glad you did," he said, with an attempt at ease. "Deucedly glad. I +don't know of anyone in the world I'd rather see. Just speaking of you, +weren't we?" he said, appealing to Hough. "By the way, Mr.—er—Blair, +shake hands with Mr. Hough, Mr. Winston Hough. Mighty good fellow, +Hough, but a bit melancholy. Needs cheering up a bit now and then. +Needed it badly to-night—almost cried for it, in fact"; and the speaker +smiled convivially.</p> + +<p>Hough extended his hand with elaborate formality. "Delighted to meet +you," he managed to articulate.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," returned the other shortly.</p> + +<p>Sidwell meanwhile was bringing a third chair and glass. "Come over, +gentlemen," he invited, "and we'll celebrate this, the proudest moment +of my life. You drink, of course, Mr. Blair?"</p> + +<p>Ben did not stir. "Thank you, but I never drink," he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What!" Sidwell smiled sceptically. "A cattle-man, and not refresh +yourself with good liquor? You refute all the precedents! Come over and +take something!"</p> + +<p>Ben only looked at him steadily. "I repeat, I never drink," he said +conclusively.</p> + +<p>Sidwell sat down, and Hough followed his lead.</p> + +<p>"All right, all right! Have a cigar, then. At least you smoke?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," assented Blair, "I smoke—sometimes."</p> + +<p>The host extended the box hospitably. "Help yourself. They're good ones, +I'll answer for that. I import them myself."</p> + +<p>Ben took a step forward, but his hands were still in his pockets. "Mr. +Sidwell," he said, "we may as well save time and try to understand each +other. In some ways I am a bit like an Indian. I never smoke except with +a friend, and I am not sure you are a friend of mine. To be candid with +you, I believe you are not."</p> + +<p>Hough stirred in his chair, but Sidwell remained impassive save that the +convivial smile vanished.</p> + +<p>A quarter of a minute passed. Once the host took up his glass as if to +drink, but put it down untasted. At last he indicated the vacant chair.</p> + +<p>"Won't you be seated?" he invited.</p> + +<p>Ben sat down.</p> + +<p>"You say," continued Sidwell, "that I am not your friend. The statement +and your actions carry the implication that of necessity, then, we must +be enemies."</p> + +<p>The speaker was sparring for time. His brain was not yet normal, but it +was clearing rapidly. He saw this was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> no ordinary man he had to deal +with, no ordinary circumstance; and his plan of campaign was unevolved.</p> + +<p>"I fail to see why," he continued.</p> + +<p>"Do you?" said Ben, quietly.</p> + +<p>Sidwell lit a cigar nonchalantly and smoked for a moment in silence.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he reiterated. "I fail to see why. To have made you an enemy +implies that I have done you an injury, and I recall no way in which I +could have offended you."</p> + +<p>Ben indicated Hough with a nod of his head. "Do you wish a third party +to hear what we have to say?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>Sidwell looked at the questioner narrowly. Deep in his heart he was +thankful that they two were not alone. He did not like the look in the +countryman's blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Hough," he said with dignity, "is a friend of mine. If either of +you must leave the room, most assuredly it will not be he." His eyes +returned to those of the visitor, held there with an effort. "By the +bye," he challenged, "what is it we have to say, anyway? So far as I can +see, there's no point where we touch."</p> + +<p>Ben returned the gaze steadily. "Absolutely none?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Absolutely none." Sidwell spoke with an air of finality.</p> + +<p>The countryman leaned a bit forward and rested his elbow upon his knee, +his chin upon his hand.</p> + +<p>"Suppose I suggest a point then: Miss Florence Baker."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + +<p>Sidwell stiffened with exaggerated dignity. "I never discuss my +relations with a lady, even with a friend. I should be less apt to do so +in speaking with a stranger."</p> + +<p>The lids of Ben's eyes tightened just a shade. "Then I'll have to ask +you to make an exception to the rule," he said slowly.</p> + +<p>"In that case," Sidwell responded quickly, "I'll refuse."</p> + +<p>For a moment silence fell. Through the open window came the ceaseless +drone of the shifting multitude on the street below.</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless, I insist," said Ben, calmly.</p> + +<p>Sidwell's face flushed, although he was quite sober now. "And I must +still refuse," he said, rising. "Moreover, I must request that you leave +the room. You forget that you are in my home!"</p> + +<p>Ben arose calmly and walked to the door through which he had entered. +The key was in the lock, and turning it he put it in his pocket. Still +without haste he returned to his seat.</p> + +<p>"That this is your home, and that you were its dictator before I came +and will be after I leave, I do not contest," he said; "but temporarily +the place has changed hands. I do not think you were quite in earnest +when you refused to talk with me."</p> + +<p>For answer, Sidwell jerked a cord beside the table. A bell rang +vigorously in the rear of the apartments, and the big negro hurried into +the room.</p> + +<p>"Alec," directed the master, "call a policeman at once! At once—do you +hear?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, sah," and the servant started to obey; but the visitor's eye +caught his.</p> + +<p>"Alec," said Ben, steadily, "don't do that! I'll be the first person to +leave this room!"</p> + +<p>Instantly Sidwell was on his feet, his face convulsed with passion. +"Curse you!" he cried. "You'll pay for this! I'll teach you what it +means to hold up a man in his own house!" He turned to his servant with +a look that made the latter recoil. "I want you to understand that when +I give an order I mean it. Go!"</p> + +<p>Blair was likewise on his feet, his long body stretched to its full +height, his blue eyes fastened upon the face of the panic-stricken +darky.</p> + +<p>"Alec," he repeated evenly, "you heard what I said." Without a motion +save of his head he indicated a seat in the corner of the room. "Sit +down!"</p> + +<p>Sidwell took a step forward, his clenched fists raised menacingly.</p> + +<p>"Blair! you—you—"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You—"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, I—"</p> + +<p>That was all. It was not a lengthy conversation, or a brilliant one, but +it was adequate. Face to face, the two men stood looking in each other's +eyes, each taking his opponent's measure. Hough had also risen; he +expected bloodshed; but not once did Blair stir as much as an eyelid, +and after that first step Sidwell also halted. Beneath his supercilious +caste dominance he was a physical coward, and at the supreme test he +weakened. The flood of anger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> passed as swiftly as it had come, leaving +him impotent. He stood for a moment, and then the clenched fist dropped +to his side.</p> + +<p>For the first time, Ben Blair moved. Unemotionally as before, his nod +indicated the chair in the corner.</p> + +<p>"Sit over there as long as I stay, Alec," he directed; and the negro +responded with the alacrity of a well-trained dog.</p> + +<p>Ben turned to the big man. "And you, too, Hough. My business has nothing +to do with you, but it may be well to have a witness. Be seated, +please."</p> + +<p>Hough obeyed in silence. Sober as Sidwell now, his mind grasped the +situation, and in spite of himself he felt his sympathy going out to +this masterful plainsman.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair now turned to the host, and as he did so his wiry figure +underwent a transformation that lived long in the spectators' minds. +With his old characteristic motion, his hands went into his trousers' +pockets, his chest expanded, his great chin lifted until, looking down, +his eyes were half closed.</p> + +<p>"You, Mr. Sidwell," he said, "can stand or sit, as you please; but one +thing I warn you not to do—don't lie to me. We're in the home of lies +just now, but it can't help you. Your face says you are used to having +your own way, right or wrong. Now you'll know the reverse. So long as +you speak the truth, I won't hurt you, no matter what you say. If you +don't, and believe in God, you'd best make your peace with Him. Do you +doubt that?"</p> + +<p>One glance only Sidwell raised to the towering face,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> and his eyes fell. +Every trace of fight, of effrontery, had left him, and he dropped weakly +into his chair.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't doubt you," he said.</p> + +<p>Ben likewise sat down, but his eyes were inexorable.</p> + +<p>"First of all, then," he went on, "you will admit you were mistaken when +you said there was no point where we touched?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was mistaken."</p> + +<p>"And you were not serious when you refused to talk with me?"</p> + +<p>A spasm of repugnance shot over the host's dark face. He heard the +labored breathing of the negro in the corner, and felt the eyes of his +big friend upon him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was not serious," he admitted slowly.</p> + +<p>Ben's long legs crossed, his hands closed on the chair-arms.</p> + +<p>"Very well, then," he said. "Tell me what there is between you and Miss +Baker."</p> + +<p>Sidwell lit a cigar, though the hand that held the match trembled.</p> + +<p>"Everything, I hope," he said. "I intend marrying her."</p> + +<p>The ranchman's face gave no sign at the confession.</p> + +<p>"You have asked her, have you?"</p> + +<p>"No. Your coming prevented. I should otherwise have done so to-day."</p> + +<p>The long fingers on the chair-arms tightened until they grew white.</p> + +<p>"You knew why I came to town, did you not?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell hesitated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I had an intuition," he admitted reluctantly.</p> + +<p>Again silence fell, and the subdued roar of the city came to their ears.</p> + +<p>"You have not called at the Baker home to-day," continued Blair. "Was it +consideration for me that kept you away?" The thin, weather-browned face +grew, if possible, more clean-cut. "Remember to talk straight."</p> + +<p>Sidwell took the cigar from his lips. An exultation he could not quite +repress flooded him. His eyes met the other's fair.</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "it was anything but consideration for you. I knew she +was going to refuse you."</p> + +<p>In the corner the negro's eyes widened. Even Hough held his breath; but +not a muscle of Ben Blair's body stirred.</p> + +<p>"You say you knew," he said evenly. "How did you know?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell flicked the ash from his cigar steadily. He was regaining, if +not his courage, at least some of his presence of mind. This seeming +desperado from the West was a being upon whom reason was not altogether +wasted.</p> + +<p>"I knew because her mother told me—about all there was to tell, I +guess—of your relations before Florence came here. I knew if she +refused you then she would be more apt to do so now."</p> + +<p>Still the figure in brown was that of a statue.</p> + +<p>"She told you—what—you say?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell shifted uncomfortably. He saw breakers ahead.</p> + +<p>"The—main reason at least," he modified.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Which was—" insistently.</p> + +<p>Sidwell hesitated, his new-found confidence vanishing like the smoke +from his cigar. But there was no escape.</p> + +<p>"The reason, she said, was because you were—minus a pedigree."</p> + +<p>The last words dropped like a bomb in the midst of the room. Ben Blair +swiftly rose from his seat. The negro's eyes rolled around in search of +some place of concealment. With a protesting movement Hough was on his +feet.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen!" he implored. "Gentlemen!"</p> + +<p>But the intervention was unnecessary. Ben Blair had settled back in his +seat. Once more his hands were on the chair-arms.</p> + +<p>"Do you," he insinuated gently, "consider the reason she gave an +adequate one? Do you consider that it had any rightful place in the +discussion?"</p> + +<p>The question, seemingly simple, was hard to answer. An affirmative +trembled on the city man's tongue. He realized it was his opportunity +for a crushing rejoinder. But cold blue eyes were upon him and the +meaning of their light was only too clear.</p> + +<p>"I can understand the lady's point of view," he said evasively.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair leaned forward, the great muscles of his jaw and temples +tightening beneath the skin.</p> + +<p>"I did not ask for the lady's point of view," he admonished, "I asked +for your own."</p> + +<p>Again Sidwell felt his opportunity, but physical cowardice intervened. +No power on earth could have made him say "yes" when the other looked at +him like that.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No," he lied, "I do not see that it should make the slightest +difference."</p> + +<p>"On your honor, you swear you do not?"</p> + +<p>Sidwell repeated the statement, and sealed it with his honor.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair relaxed, and Hough mopped his brow with a sigh of relief. Even +Sidwell felt the respite, but it was short-lived.</p> + +<p>"I think," Ben resumed, "that what you've just said and sworn to gives +the lie to your original statement that you have given me no cause for +enmity. According to your own showing you are the one existing obstacle +between Florence Baker and myself. Is it not so?"</p> + +<p>Like a condemned criminal, Sidwell felt the noose tightening.</p> + +<p>"I can't deny it," he admitted.</p> + +<p>For some seconds Ben Blair looked at him with an expression almost +menacing. When he again spoke the first trace of passion was in his +voice.</p> + +<p>"Such being the case, Clarence Sidwell," he went on, "caring for +Florence Baker as I do, and knowing you as I do, why in God's name +should I leave you, coward, in possession of the dearest thing to me in +the world?" For an instant the voice paused, the protruding lower jaw +advanced until it became a positive disfigurement. "Tell me why I should +sacrifice my own happiness for yours. I have had enough of this +word-play. Speak!"</p> + +<p>In every human life there is at some time a supreme moment, a tragic +climax of events; and Sidwell realized that for him this moment had +arrived. Moreover, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> had found him helpless and unprepared. Artificial +to the bone, he was fundamentally disqualified to meet such an +emergency; for artifice or subterfuge would not serve him now. One hasty +glance into that relentless face caused him to turn his own away. Long +ago, in the West, he had once seen a rustler hung by a posse of +ranchers. The inexorable expression he remembered on the surrounding +faces was mirrored in Ben Blair's. His brain whirled; he could not +think. His hand passed aimlessly over his face; he started to speak, but +his voice failed him.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair shifted forward in his seat. The long sinewy fingers gripped +the chair like a panther ready to spring.</p> + +<p>"I am listening," he admonished.</p> + +<p>Sidwell felt the air of the room grow stifling. A big clock was ticking +on the wall, and it seemed to him the second-beats were minutes apart. +His downcast eyes just caught the shape of the hands opposite him, and +in fancy he felt them already tightening upon his throat. Like a +drowning man, scenes in his past life swarmed through his brain. He saw +his mother, his sisters, at home in the old family mansion; his friends +at the club, chatting, laughing, drinking, smoking. In an impersonal +sort of way he wondered how they would feel, what they would say, when +they heard. On the vision swept. It was Florence Baker he saw +now—Florence, all in fleecy white; the girl and himself were on the +broad veranda of the Baker home. They were not alone. Another +figure—yes, this same menacing figure now so near—was on the walk +below them, his broad-brimmed hat in his hand, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> leaving. Florence +was speaking; a smile was upon her lips.</p> + +<p>Like a flash of lightning the images of fancy passed, the present +returned. At last came the solution once before suggested,—the +back-fire! Sidwell straightened, every nerve in his body tense. He +spoke—and scarcely recognized his own voice.</p> + +<p>"There is a reason," he said, "a very adequate reason, one which +concerns another more than it does us." With a supreme effort of will +the man met the blue eyes of his opponent squarely. "It is because +Florence Baker loves me and doesn't love you. Because she would never +forgive you, never, if you did—what you think of doing now."</p> + +<p>For an instant the listening figure remained tense, and it seemed to +Sidwell that his own pulse ceased beating; then the long sinewy body +collapsed as under a physical blow.</p> + +<p>"God!" said a low voice. "I forgot!"</p> + +<p>Not one of the three spectators stirred or spoke. Like sheep, they +awaited the lead of their master.</p> + +<p>And it came full soon. Stiffly, clumsily, still in silence, Ben Blair +arose. His face was drawn and old, his step was slow and halting. Like +one walking in his sleep, he made his way to the door, took the key from +his pocket, and turned the lock. Not once did he speak or glance back. +The door closed softly, and he was gone.</p> + +<p>Behind him for a second there was silence, inactive incredulity as at a +miracle performed; then, in a blaze of long repressed fury, Sidwell +stood beside the table. Not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> pausing for a glass, he raised the red +decanter to his lips and drank, drank, as though the liquor were water.</p> + +<p>"Curse him! I'll marry that girl now if for no other reason than to get +even with him. If it's the last act of my life, I swear I'll marry +her!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> +<h3>THE UPPER AND THE NETHER MILLSTONES</h3></div> + +<p>Out on the street once more, Ben Blair looked about him as one awakening +from a dream. From the darkened arch of a convenient doorway he watched +the endless passing throng with a dull sort of wonder. He was surprised +that the city should be awake at that late hour; and stepping out into +the light he held up his watch. The hands indicated a few minutes past +ten, and in surprise he carried the timepiece to his ear. Yes, it was +running, and must be correct. He had seemed to be up there on the +eleventh floor for hours; but as a matter of fact it had been only +minutes. Practically, the whole night was yet before him.</p> + +<p>Slowly, in a listless way, he started to walk back to his hotel. Instead +of the night becoming cooler it had grown sultrier, and in places the +walk was fairly packed with human beings. More than once he had to turn +out of his way to pass the chattering groups. In so doing he was often +conscious that the flow of small talk suddenly ceased, and that, nudging +each other, the chatterers pointed his way. At first he looked about to +see what had attracted them, but he very soon realized that he himself +was the object of attention. Even here, cosmopolitan as were the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> +surroundings, he was a marked man, was recognized as a person from a +wholly different life; and his feeling of isolation deepened. He moved +on more swiftly.</p> + +<p>The sidewalk in front of his hotel was fringed with a row of chairs, in +which sat guests in various stages of negligee costume. Nearly every man +was smoking, and the effect in the semi-darkness was like that of +footlights turned low. Steps and lobby were likewise crowded; but Ben +made his way straight to his room. One idea now possessed him. His +business was finished, and he wanted to be away. Turning on a light, he +found a railroad guide and ran down the columns of figures. There was no +late night train going West; he must wait until morning. Extinguishing +the light, he drew a chair to the open window and lit a cigar.</p> + +<p>With physical inactivity, consciousness of his surroundings forced +themselves on his attention. Subdued, pulsating, penetrating, the murmur +of the great hotel came to his ears; the drone of indistinguishable +voices, the pattering footsteps of bell-boys and <i>habitués</i>, the purr of +the elevator as it moved from floor to floor, the click of the gate as +it stopped at his own level, the renewed monotone as it passed by.</p> + +<p>Continuous, untiring, the sounds suggested the unthinking vitality of a +steam-engine or of a dynamo in a powerhouse. A mechanic by nature, as a +school-boy Ben had often induced Scotty to take him to the electric +light station, where he had watched the great machines with a +fascination bordering on awe, until fairly dragged away by the prosaic +Englishman. This feeling of his childhood recurred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> to him now with +irresistible force. The throb of the motor of human life was pulsating +in his ears; but added to it was something more, something elusive, +intangible, but all-powerful. The moment he had arrived within the city +limits he had felt the first trace of its presence. As he approached the +centre of congestion it had deepened, had become more and more a guiding +influence. Since then, by day or by night, wherever he went, augmenting +or diminishing, it was constantly with him. And it was not with him +alone. Every human being with whom he came in contact was likewise +consciously or unconsciously under the spell. The crowds he had passed +on the streets were unthinkingly answering its guidance. The trolley +cars echoed its voice. It was the spirit of unrest—a thing ubiquitous +and all-penetrating as the air that filled their lungs—a subtle +stimulant that they took in with every breath.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair arose and put on his hat. He had been sitting only a few +minutes, but he felt that he could not longer bear the inactivity. To do +so meant to think; and thought was the thing that to-night he was +attempting to avoid. Moreover, for one of the few times in his life he +could remember he was desperately lonely. It seemed to him that nowhere +within a thousand miles was another of his own kind. Instinctively he +craved relief, and that alleviation could come in but one way,—through +physical activity. Again he sought the street.</p> + +<p>To some persons a great relief from loneliness is found in mingling with +a crowd, even though it be of strangers; but Ben was not like these. His +desire was to be away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> as far as possible from the maddening drone. +Boarding a street car, he rode out into the residence section, clear to +the end of the loop; then, alighting, he started to walk back. A full +moon had arisen, and outside the shadow-blots of trees and buildings the +earth was all alight. The asphalt of the pavements and the cement of the +walks glistened white under its rays. Loth to sacrifice the comparative +out-of-door coolness for the heat within, practically every house had +its group on the doorsteps, or scattered upon the narrow lawns. +Accustomed to magnificent distances, to boundless miles of surrounding +country, to privacy absolute, Ben watched this scene with a return of +the old wonder,—the old feeling of isolation, of separateness. Side by +side, young men and women, obviously lovers, kept their places, +indifferent to his observation. Other couples, still more careless, sat +with circling arms and faces close together, returning his gaze +impassively. Nothing, apparently, in the complex gamut of human nature +was sacred to these folk. To the solitary spectator, the revelation was +more depressing than even the down-town unrest; and he hurried on.</p> + +<p>Further ahead he came to the homes of the wealthy,—great piles of stone +and brick, that seemed more like hotels than residences. The forbidding +darkness of many of the houses testified that their owners were out of +town, at the seaside or among the mountains; but others were brilliantly +lighted from basement to roof. Before one a long line of carriages was +drawn up. Stiffly liveried footmen, impassive as automatons, waited the +erratic pleasure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> of their masters. A little group of spectators was +already gathered, and Ben likewise paused, observing the spectacle +curiously.</p> + +<p>A social event of some sort was in progress. From some concealed place +came the music of a string orchestra. Every window of the great pile was +open for ventilation, and Ben could hear and see almost as plainly as +the guests themselves. For a time, deep, insistent, throbbing in +measured beat, came the drone of the 'cello, the wail of the clarionet, +and, faintly audible beneath, the rustle of moving feet. Then the music +ceased; and a few seconds later a throng of heated dancers swarmed +through the open doorway to the surrounding veranda, and simultaneously +a chatter broke forth. Fans, like gigantic butterfly wings, vibrated to +and fro. Skilful waiters, in black and white, glanced in and out. +Laughter, thoughtless and care-free, mingled in the general scene.</p> + +<p>The music still, Ben Blair was about to move on, when suddenly a man and +a girl in the shadow of a window on the second floor caught and held his +attention. As far as he could see, they were alone. Evidently one or the +other of them knew the house intimately, and had deliberately sought the +place. From the veranda beneath, the flow of talk continued +uninterruptedly; but they gave it no attention. The spectator could +distinctly see the man as he leaned back in the light and spoke +earnestly. At times he gesticulated with rapid passionate motions, such +as one unconsciously uses when deeply absorbed. Now and again, with the +bodily motions that we have learned to connect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> with the French, his +shoulders were shrugged expressively. He was obviously talking against +time; for his every motion showed intense concentration. No spectator +could have mistaken the nature of his speech. Passion supreme, abandon +absolute, were here personified. As he spoke, he gradually leaned +farther forward toward the woman who listened. His face was no longer in +the light. Suddenly, at first low, as though coming from a distance, +increasing gradually until it throbbed into the steady beat of a waltz, +the music recommenced. It was the signal for action and for throwing off +restraint. The man leaned forward; his arm stretched out and closed +about the figure of the woman. His face pressed forward to meet hers, +again and again.</p> + +<p>Not Ben alone, but a half-dozen other spectators had watched the scene. +An overdressed girl among the number tittered at the sight.</p> + +<p>But Ben scarcely noticed. With the strength of insulted womanhood, the +girl had broken free, and now stood up full in the light. One look she +gave to the man, a look which should have withered him with its scorn; +then, gathering her skirts, she almost ran from the room.</p> + +<p>Only a few seconds had the girl's face been clear of the shadow; yet it +had been long enough to permit recognition, and instantly liquid fire +flowed in the veins of Benjamin Blair. His breath came quick and short +as that of a runner passing under the wire, and his great jaw set. The +woman he had seen was Florence Baker.</p> + +<p>With one motion he was upon the terrace leading<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> toward the house. +Another second, and he would have been well upon his way, when a hand +grasped him from behind and drew him back. With a half-articulated +imprecation Ben turned—and stood fronting Scotty Baker. The +Englishman's face was very white. Behind the compound lenses his eyes +glowed in a way Ben had not thought possible; but his voice was steady +when he spoke.</p> + +<p>"I saw too, Ben," he said, "and I understand. I know what you want to +do, and God knows I want to do the same thing myself; but it would do no +good; it would only make the matter worse." He looked at the younger man +fixedly, almost imploringly. His voice sank. "As you care for Florence, +Ben, go away. Don't make a scene that will do only harm. Leave her with +me. I came to take her home, and I'll do so at once." The speaker +paused, and his hand reached out and grasped the other's with a grip +unmistakable. "I appreciate your motive, my boy, and I honor it. I know +how you feel; and whatever I may have been in the past, from this time +on I am your friend. I am your friend now, when I ask you to go," and he +fairly forced his companion away.</p> + +<p>Once outside the crowd, Ben halted. He gave the Englishman one long +look; his lips opened as if to speak; then, without a word, he moved +away.</p> + +<p>There was no listlessness about him now. He was throbbing with repressed +energy, like a great engine with steam up. His feet tapped with the +regularity of clock-ticks over mile after mile of the city walks. He +longed for physical weariness, for sleep; but the day, with its manifold +mental exaltations and depressions, prevented.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> It seemed to him that he +could never sleep again, could never again be weary. He could only walk +on and on.</p> + +<p>Down town again, he found the crowds smaller and the border of chairs in +front of his hotel largely empty. A few cigars still burned in the +half-light, but they were the last flicker of a conflagration now all +but extinguished. The restless throb of the human dynamo was lower and +more subdued. The street cars were practically empty. Instead of a +constant stream of vehicles, an occasional cab clattered past. The city +was preparing for its brief hours of fitful rest.</p> + +<p>Straight on Ben walked, between the towering office buildings, beside +the now darkened department-store hives, past the giant wholesale +establishments and warehouses; until, quite unintentionally on his part, +and almost before he realized it, he found himself in another world, +another city, as distinct as though it were no part of the cosmopolitan +whole. Again he came upon throbbing life; but of quite another type. +Once more he met people in abundance, noisy, chattering human beings; +but more frequently than his own he now heard foreign tongues that he +did not understand, and did not even recognize. No longer were the +pedestrians well dressed or apparently prosperous. Instead, poverty and +squalor and filth were rampant. More loth even than the well-to-do of +the suburbs to go within doors, the swarming mass of humanity covered +the steps of the houses, and overflowed upon the sidewalk, even upon the +street itself. There were men, women, children; the lame, the halt, the +blind. The elders stared at the visitor,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> while the youngsters, secure +in numbers, guyed him to their hearts' content.</p> + +<p>It was all as foreign to any previous experience of this countryman as +though he had come from a different planet. He had read of the city +slums as of Stanley's Central African negro tribes with unpronounceable +names; and he had thought of them in much the same way. To him they had +been something known to exist, but with which it was but remotely +probable he would ever come in contact. Now, without preparation or +premeditation, thrown face to face with the reality, it brought upon him +a sickening feeling, a sort of mental nausea. Ben was not a +philanthropist or a social reformer; the inspiring thought of the +inexhaustible field for usefulness therein presented had never occurred +to him. He wished chiefly to get away from the stench and ugliness; and, +turning down a cross street, he started to return.</p> + +<p>The locality he now entered was more modern and better lighted than the +one he left behind. The decorated building fronts, with their dazzling +electric signs, partook of the characteristics of the inhabitants, who +seemed overdressed and vulgarly ostentatious. The gaudily trapped +saloons, <i>cafés</i>, and music halls, spoke a similar message. This was the +recreation spot of the people of the quarter; their land of lethe. So +near were the saloons and drinking gardens that from their open doorways +there came a pungent odor of beer. Every place had instrumental music of +some kind. Mandolins and guitars, in the hands of gentlemen of color, +were the favorites. Pianos of execrable tone, played by youths with +defective com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>plexions, or by machinery, were a close second. Before one +place, a crowd blocked the sidewalk; and there Ben stopped. A vaudeville +performance was going on within—an invisible dialect comedian doing a +German stunt to the accompaniment of wooden clogs and disarranged verbs. +A barker in front, coatless, his collar loosened, a black string tie +dangling over an unclean shirt front, was temporarily taking a +much-needed rest. An electric sign overhead dyed his cheeks with +shifting colors—first red, then green, then white. Despite its veneer +of brazen effrontery, the face, with its great mouth and two days' +growth of beard, was haggard and weary looking. Ben mentally pictured, +with a feeling of compassion, other human beings doing their idiotic +"stunts" inside, sweltering in the foul air; and he wondered how, if an +atom of self-respect remained in their make-up, they could fail to +despise themselves.</p> + +<p>But the comedian had subsided in a roar of applause, and again the +barker's hands were gesticulating wildly.</p> + +<p>"Now's your time, ladies and gentlemen," he harangued. "It's continuous, +you know, and Madame—"</p> + +<p>But Ben did not wait for more. Elbow first, he pushed into the crowd, +and as it instantly closed about him the odor of unclean bodies made him +fairly hold his breath.</p> + +<p>Straight ahead, looking neither to right nor to left, went the +countryman; he turned the corner of the block, a corner without a light. +Suddenly, with an instinctive tightening of his breath, he drew back. He +had nearly stepped upon a man, dead drunk, stretched half in a darkened +doorway, half on the walk. The wretch's head<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> was bent back over one of +the iron steps until it seemed as if he must choke, and he was snoring +heavily.</p> + +<p>Not a policeman was in sight, and Ben, in great physical disgust, +carried the helpless hulk to one side, out of the way of pedestrians, +took off the tattered coat and rolled it into a pillow for the head, and +then moved on with the sound of the stertorous drunken breathing still +in his ears.</p> + +<p>Still other experiences were in store for him. He made a half block +without further interruption; then he suddenly heard at his back a +frightened scream, and a young woman came running toward him, followed +at a distance by a roughly dressed man, the latter apparently the worse +for liquor. Blair stopped, and the girl coming up, caught him by the arm +imploringly.</p> + +<p>"Help me, Mister, please!" she pleaded breathlessly. "He—Tom, back +there—insulted me. I—" A burst of hysterical tears interrupted the +confession.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, seeing the turn events had taken, the pursuer had likewise +stopped, and now he hesitated.</p> + +<p>"All right," replied Ben. "Go ahead! I'll see that the fellow doesn't +trouble you again." And he started back.</p> + +<p>But the girl's hand was again upon his arm. "No," she protested, "not +that way, please. He's my steady, Tom is, only to-night he's drank too +much, and—and—he doesn't realize what he's doing." The grip on his arm +tightened as she looked imploringly into his face. "Take me home, +please!" A catch was in her voice. "I'm afraid."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p> + +<p>Ben hesitated. Even in the half-light the petitioner's face hinted +brazenly of cosmetics.</p> + +<p>"Where do you live?" he asked shortly.</p> + +<p>"Only a little way, less than a block, and it's the direction you're +going. Please take me!"</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Blair, and they moved on, the girl still clinging to +him and sobbing at intervals. Before a dark three-story and basement +building, with a decidedly sinister aspect, she stopped and indicated a +stairway.</p> + +<p>"This is the place."</p> + +<p>"All right," responded Ben. "I guess you're safe now. Good-night!"</p> + +<p>But she clung to him the tighter. "Come up with me," she insisted. +"We're only on the second floor, and I haven't thanked you yet. Really, +I'm so grateful! You don't know what it means to be a girl, and—and—" +Her feelings got the better of her again, and she paused to wipe her +eyes on her sleeve. "My mother will be so thankful too. She'd never +forgive me if I didn't bring you up. Please come!" and she led the way +up the darkened stair.</p> + +<p>Again Ben hesitated. He did not in the least like the situation in which +circumstances had placed him. The prospect of the girl's mother, like +herself, scattering grateful tears upon him was not alluring; but it +seemed the part of a cad to refuse, and at last he followed.</p> + +<p>His guide led him up a short flight of stairs and turned to the right, +down a dimly lighted hall. The ground-floor of the building was used for +store purposes. This second floor was evidently a series of apartments. +Lights<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> from within the rooms crept over the curtained transoms. Voices +sounded; glasses clinked. A piano banged out ragtime like mad.</p> + +<p>At the fourth door the girl stopped. "Thank you so much for coming," she +said. "Walk right in," and throwing open the door she fairly shoved the +visitor inside.</p> + +<p>From out the semi-darkness, Ben now found himself in a well-lighted +room, and the change made him blink about him. Instead of the motherly +old lady in a frilled cap, whom he had expected to see, he found himself +in the company of a half-dozen coatless young men and under-dressed +women, lounging in questionable attitudes on chairs and sofas. At his +advent they all looked up. A sallow youth who had been operating the +piano turned in his seat and the music stopped. Not yet realizing the +trick that had been played upon him, Ben turned to look for his guide; +but she was nowhere in sight, and the door was closed. His eyes shifted +back and met a circle of amused faces, while a burst of mocking laughter +broke upon his ears.</p> + +<p>Then for the first time he understood, and his face went white with +anger. Without a word he started to leave the room. But one of the women +was already at his side, her detaining hand upon his sleeve. "No, no, +honey!" she said, insinuatingly. "We're all good fellows! Stay awhile!"</p> + +<p>Ben shook her off roughly. Her very touch was contaminating. But one of +the men had had time to get between him and the door; a sarcastic smile +was upon his face as he blocked the way.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I guess it's on you, old man!" he bantered. "About a half-dozen quarts +will do for a starter!" He nodded to a pudgy old woman who was watching +interestedly from the background. "You heard the gent's order, mother! +Beer, and in a hurry! He looks dry and hot."</p> + +<p>Again a gale of laughter broke forth; but Ben took no notice. He made +one step forward, until he was within arm's reach of the humorist.</p> + +<p>"Step out of my way, please," he said evenly.</p> + +<p>Had the man been alone he would have complied, and quickly. No human +being with eyes and intelligence could have misread the warning on Ben +Blair's countenance. He started to move, when the girl who had first +come forward turned the tide.</p> + +<p>"Aw, Charley!" she goaded. "Is that all the nerve you've got!" and she +laughed ironically.</p> + +<p>Instantly the man's face reddened, and he fell back into his first +position.</p> + +<p>"Sorry I can't oblige you, pal," he said, "but you see it's agin de +house. Us blokes has got—"</p> + +<p>The sentence was never completed. Ben's fist shot out and caught the +speaker fair on the point of his jaw, and he collapsed in his tracks. +For a second no one in the room stirred; then before Ben could open the +door, the other men were upon him. The women fled screaming to the +farthest corner of the room, where they huddled together like sheep. +Returning with the tray, the old woman realized an only too familiar +condition.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen!" she pleaded. "Gentlemen!"</p> + +<p>But no one paid the slightest attention to her. Forced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> by sheer odds of +mass toward a corner, Ben's long arms were working like flails. Another +man fell, and was up again. The first one also was upon his feet now, +his face white, and a tiny stream of blood trickling from his bruised +jaw. A heavy beer-bottle flung by one of the women crashed on the wall +over the countryman's head, the contents spattering over him like rain. +One of the men had seized a chair and swung it high, to strike, with +murder in his eye. Attracted by the confusion, the other occupants of +the floor had rushed into the hall. The door was flung open and +instantly blocked with a mass of sinister menacing faces.</p> + +<p>Until then, Ben had been silent as death, silent as one who realizes +that he is fighting for life against overwhelming odds. Now of a sudden +he leaped backward like a great cat, clear of all the others. From his +throat there issued a sound, the like of which not one of those who +listened had ever heard before, and which fairly lifted their hair—the +Indian war-whoop that the man had learned as a boy. With the old +instinctive motion, comparable in swiftness to nothing save the passage +of light, the cowboy's hands went to his hips, and as swiftly returned +with the muzzles of two great revolvers protruding like elongated index +fingers. With equal swiftness, his face had undergone a transformation. +His jaw was set and his blue eyes flashed like live coals.</p> + +<p>"Stand back, little folks!" he ordered, while the twin weapons revolved +in circles of reflected flame about his trigger fingers. "You seem to +want a show, and you shall have it!" The whirling circles vanished. A +deep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> report fell upon the silence, and a gaudy vase on the mantle flew +into a thousand pieces. "Stand back, people, or you might get hurt!"</p> + +<p>Awed into dumb helplessness, the spectators stared with widening eyes; +but the spectacle had only begun. Like the reports of giant +fire-crackers, only seconds apart, the great revolvers spoke. A nudely +suggestive cast in the corner followed the vase. A quaintly carved clock +paused in its measure of time, its hands chronicling the minute of +interruption. A decanter of whiskey burst spattering over a table. Two +bacchanalian pictures on the wall suddenly had yawning wounds in their +centre. The portrait of a queen of the footlights leaped into the air. +One of the beer-bottles, which the madame had placed on a convenient +table, popped as though it were champagne. Fragments of glass and +porcelain fell about like hail. The place was lighted by a tuft of three +big incandescent globes; and, last of all, one by one, they crashed into +atoms, and the room was in total darkness. Then silence fell, startling +in contrast to the late confusion, while the pungent odor of burnt +gunpowder intruded upon the nostrils.</p> + +<p>For a moment there was inaction; then the assembly broke into motion. No +thought was there now of retaliation or revenge; only, as at a sudden +conflagration or a wreck, of individual safety and escape. The hallway +was cleared as if by magic. Within the room the men and women jostled +each other in the darkness, or jammed imprecating in the narrow doorway. +In a few seconds Ben was alone. Calmly he thrust the empty revolvers +back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> into his pockets and followed leisurely into the hall. There the +dim light revealed an empty space; but here and there a lock turned +gratingly, and from more than one room as he passed came the sound of +furniture being hastily drawn forward as a barricade.</p> + +<p>No human being ever knew what occurred behind the locked door of Ben +Blair's room at the hotel that night. Those hours were buried as deep as +what took place in his mind during the months intervening between the +coming of Florence Baker to the city and his own decision to follow her. +By nature a solitary, he fought his battles alone and in silence. That +he never once touched his bed, the hotel maids could have testified the +next morning. As to the decision that followed those sleepless hours, +his own action gave a clue. He had left a call for an early train West, +and at daylight a tap sounded on his door, while a voice announced the +time.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered the guest; but he did not stir.</p> + +<p>In a few minutes the tap was repeated more insistently. "You've only +time to make your train if you hurry," warned the voice.</p> + +<p>For a moment Blair did not answer. Then he said: "I have decided not to +go."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> +<h3>OF WHAT AVAIL?</h3></div> + +<p>It was late next morning, almost noon in fact, when Florence Baker +awoke; and even then she did not at once rise. A physical listlessness, +very unusual to her, lay upon her like a weight. A year ago, by this +time of day, she would have been ravenously hungry; but now she had a +feeling that she could not have taken a mouthful of food had her life +depended on it. The room, although it faced the west and was well +ventilated, seemed hot and depressing. A breeze stirred the lace +curtains at the window, but it was heated by the blocks of city +pavements over which it had come. The girl involuntarily compared this +awakening with that of a former life in what now seemed to her the very +long ago. She remembered the light morning wind of the prairies, which, +always fresh with the coolness of dew and of growing things, had drifted +in at the tiny windows of the Baker ranch-house. She recalled the sweet +scent of the buffalo grass with a vague sense of depression and +irrevocable loss.</p> + +<p>She turned restlessly beneath the covers, and in doing so her face came +in contact with the moistened surface of her pillow. Propping herself up +on her elbow, she looked curiously at the tell-tale bit of linen. +Obviously, she had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> been crying in her sleep; and for this there must +have been a reason. Until that moment she had not thought of the +previous night; but now the sudden recollection overwhelmed her. She was +only a girl-woman—a child of nature, incapable of repression. Two great +tears gathered in her soft brown eyes; with instinctive desire of +concealment the fluffy head dropped to the pillow, and the sobs broke +out afresh.</p> + +<p>Minutes passed; then her mother's hesitating steps approached the door.</p> + +<p>"Florence," called a voice. "Florence, are you well?"</p> + +<p>The dishevelled brown head lifted, but the girl made no motion to let +her mother in.</p> + +<p>"Yes—I am well," she echoed.</p> + +<p>For a moment Mrs. Baker hesitated, but she was too much in awe of her +daughter to enter uninvited.</p> + +<p>"I have a note for you," she announced. "Mr. Sidwell's man Alec just +brought it. He says there's to be an answer."</p> + +<p>But still the girl did not move. It was an unpropitious time to mention +the club-man's name. The fascination of such as he fades at early +morning; it demands semi-darkness or artificial light. Just now the +thought of him was distinctly depressing, like the sultry breeze that +wandered in at the window.</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Florence, at last. "Leave it, please, and tell Alec to +wait. I'll be down directly."</p> + +<p>In response, an envelope with a monogram in the corner was slipped in +under the door, and the bearer's footsteps tapped back into silence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p> + +<p>Slowly the girl crawled from her bed, but she did not at once take up +the note. Instead, she walked over to the dresser, and, leaning on its +polished top, gazed into the mirror at the reflection of her +tear-stained face, with its mass of disarranged hair. It was not a happy +face that she saw; and just at this moment it looked much older than it +really was. The great brown eyes inspected it critically and +relentlessly.</p> + +<p>"Florence Baker," she said to the face in the mirror, "you are getting +to be old and haggard." A prophetic glimpse of the future came to her +suddenly. "A few years more, and you will not be even—good-looking."</p> + +<p>She stood a moment longer, then, walking over to the door, she picked up +the envelope and tore it open.</p> + +<p>"Miss Baker," ran the note, "there is to be an informal little +gathering—music, dancing, and a few things cool—at the Country Club +this evening. You already know most of the people who will be there. May +I call for you?—<span class="smcap">Sidwell</span>."</p> + +<p>Florence read the missive slowly; then slowly returned it to its cover. +There was no need to tell her the meaning of the unwritten message she +read between the lines of those few brief sentences. It is only in +story-books that human beings do not even suspect the inevitable until +it arrives. As well as she knew her own name, she realized that in her +answer to that evening's invitation lay the choice of her future life. +She was at the turning of the ways—a turning that admitted of no +reconsideration. Dividing at her feet, each equally free, were the +trails of the natural and the artificial. For a time they kept side<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> by +side; but in the distance they were as separate as the two ends of the +earth. By no possibility could both be followed. She must choose between +them, and abide by her decision for good or for ill.</p> + +<p>As slowly as she had read the note, Florence dressed; and even then she +did not leave the room. Bathing her reddened eyes, she drew a chair in +front of the window and gazed wistfully down at the handful of green +grass, with the unhealthy-looking elm in its centre, which made the +Baker lawn. Against her will there came to her a vision of the natural, +impersonated in the form of Ben Blair as she had seen him yesterday. +Masterful, optimistic, compellingly honest, splendidly vital, with loves +and hates like elemental forces of nature, he intruded upon her horizon +at every crisis. Try as she would to eliminate him from her life, she +could not do it. With a little catch of the breath she remembered that +last night, when that man had done—what he did—it was not of what her +father or Clarence Sidwell would think, if either of them knew, but of +what Ben Blair would think, what he would do, that she most cared. +Reluctant as she might be to admit it even to herself, yet in her inner +consciousness she knew that this prairie man had a power over her that +no other human being would ever have. Still, knowing this, she was +deliberately turning away from him. If she accepted that invitation for +to-night, with all that it might mean, the separation from Ben would be +irrevocable. Once more the brown head dropped into the waiting hands, +and the shoulders rocked to and fro in indecision and perplexity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p> + +<p>"God help me!" she pleaded, in the first prayer she had voiced in +months. "God help me!"</p> + +<p>Again footsteps approached her door, and a hand tapped insistently +thereon.</p> + +<p>"Florence," said her father's voice. "Are you up?"</p> + +<p>The girl lifted her head. "Yes," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Let me in, then." The insistence that had been in the knock spoke in +the voice. "I wish to speak with you."</p> + +<p>Instantly an expression almost of repulsion flashed over the girl's +brown face. Never in his life had the Englishman understood his +daughter. He was a glaring example of those who cannot catch the +psychological secret of human nature in a given situation. From the +girl's childhood he had been complaisant when he should have been +severe, had stepped in with the parental authority recognized by his +race when he should have held aloof.</p> + +<p>"Some other time, please," replied Florence. "I don't feel like talking +to-day."</p> + +<p>Scotty's knuckles met the door-panel with a bang. "But I do feel like +it," he responded; "and the inclination is increasing every moment. You +would try the patience of Job himself. Come, I'm waiting!" and he +shifted from one foot to the other restlessly.</p> + +<p>Within the room there was a pause, so long that the Englishman thought +he was going to be refused point-blank; then an even voice said, "Come +in," and he entered.</p> + +<p>He had expected to find Florence defiant and aggressive at the +intrusion. If he did not understand this daughter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> of his, he at least +knew, or thought he knew, a few of her phases. But she had not even +risen from her seat, and when he entered she merely turned her head +until her eyes met his. Scotty felt his parental dignity vanishing like +smoke,—his feelings very like those of a burglar who, invading a +similar boudoir, should find the rightful owner at prayer. His first +instinct was to beat a retreat, and he stopped uncertainly just within +the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Well?" questioned Florence, and the pupils of her brown eyes widened.</p> + +<p>Scotty flushed, but memory of the impassive Alec waiting below returned, +and his anger arose.</p> + +<p>"How much longer are you going to keep that negro waiting?" he demanded. +"He has been here an hour already by the clock."</p> + +<p>A look of almost childlike surprise came over the face of the girl, an +expression implying that the other was making a mountain out of a +mole-hill. "I really don't know," she said.</p> + +<p>Scotty took a chair, and ran his long fingers through his hair +perplexedly. "Florence," he said, "at times you are simply maddening; +and I do not want to be angry with you. Alec says he is waiting for an +answer. What is it an answer to, please? It is my right to know."</p> + +<p>Again there was a pause, so long that Scotty expected unqualified +refusal: and again he was disappointed. Without a word, the girl removed +the note from the envelope and passed it over to him.</p> + +<p>Scotty read it and returned the sheet.</p> + +<p>"You haven't written an answer yet, I judge?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>The Englishman's fingers were tapping nervously on the edge of the +chair-seat.</p> + +<p>"I wish you to decline, then."</p> + +<p>The childish expression left the girl's eyes, the listlessness left her +attitude.</p> + +<p>"Why, if I may ask?" A challenge was in the query.</p> + +<p>Scotty arose, and for a half-minute walked back and forth across the +disordered room. At last he stopped, facing his daughter.</p> + +<p>"The reason, first of all, is that I do not like this man Sidwell in any +particular. If you respect my wishes you will have nothing to do with +him or with any of his class in future. The second reason is that it is +high time some one was watching the kind of affairs you attend." The +speaker looked down on the girl sternly. "I think it unnecessary to +suggest that neither of us desires a repetition of last night's +experience."</p> + +<p>Of a sudden, her face very red, Florence was likewise upon her feet. In +the irony of circumstances, Sidwell could not have had a more powerful +ally. Her decision was instantly formed.</p> + +<p>"I quite agree with you about the incident of last evening," she flamed. +"As to who shall be my associates, and where I shall go, however, I am +of age—" and she started to leave the room.</p> + +<p>But preventing, Scotty was between her and the door. "Florence,"—his +face was very white and his voice trembled,—"we may as well have an +understanding now as to defer it. Maybe, as you say, I have no authority +over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> you longer; but at least I can make a request. You know that I +love you, that I would not ask anything which was not for your good. +Knowing this, won't you at my request cease going with this man? Won't +you refuse his invitation for to-night?"</p> + +<p>Nearer than ever before in his life was the Englishman at that moment to +grasping the secret of control of this child of many moods. Had he but +learned it a few years, even a few months, sooner—But again was the +satire of fate manifest, the same irony which, jealously withholding the +rewards of labor, keeps the student at his desk, the laborer at his +bench, until the worse than useless prizes flutter about like Autumn +leaves.</p> + +<p>For a moment following Scotty's request there was absolute silence and +inaction; then, with a little appealing movement, the girl came close to +him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, daddy!" she cried. "Dear old daddy! You make it so hard for me! I +know you love me, and I do want to do as you wish; I want to be good; +but—but"—the brown head was upon Scotty's shoulder, and two soft arms +gripped him tight,—"but," the voice was all but choking, "I can't let +him go now. It's too late!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The driving of his own conveyance was to Sidwell a source of pride. It +was therefore no surprise to Florence that at dusk he and his pair of +thoroughbreds should appear alone. The girl, very grave, very quiet, had +been waiting for him, and was ready almost before he stopped. With a +smile of parental pride upon her face, Mollie was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> on the porch to say +good-bye. At the last moment she approached and kissed her daughter on +the cheek. Not in months before had the mother done such a thing as +that; and despite herself, as she walked toward the waiting carriage, +there came to the girl the thought of another historic kiss, and of a +Judas, the betrayer. Once within the narrow single-seated buggy she +looked back, hoping against hope; but her father was nowhere in sight.</p> + +<p>After the first greeting, neither she nor Sidwell spoke for some +minutes. For a time Florence did not even look at her companion. She had +a suspicion that he already knew most if not all that had taken place in +the Baker home the last day; and the thought tinged her face scarlet. At +last she gave a furtive glance at him. He was not looking, and her eyes +lingered on his face. It was paler than she had ever seen it before; +there were deep circles under the eyes, and he looked nervous and tired; +but over it all there was an expression of exaltation that could have +but one meaning to her.</p> + +<p>"You must let me read it when you get it in shape," she began suddenly.</p> + +<p>Sidwell turned blankly. "Read what, please?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The girl smiled triumphantly. "The story you have just written. I know +by your face it must be good."</p> + +<p>The flame of exaltation vanished. The man understood now.</p> + +<p>"What if I should refute your theory?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I hardly believe that is possible. I know of nothing else which could +make you look like that."</p> + +<p>Sidwell hesitated. "There are but few things," he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> admitted, "but +nevertheless I spoke the truth. It was one of them this time."</p> + +<p>Florence smiled interestedly. "I am very curious," she suggested.</p> + +<p>The brown eyes and the black met steadily. "Very well, then," said the +man, "I'll tell you. The reason was, because I have with me the +handsomest girl in the whole city."</p> + +<p>Instantly the brown eyes dropped; the face reddened, but not with the +flush of pleasure. Florence was not yet sufficiently artificial for such +empty compliment.</p> + +<p>"I'd rather you wouldn't say such things," she said simply. "They hurt +me."</p> + +<p>"But not when they're true," he persisted.</p> + +<p>There was no answer, and they drove on again in silence; the tap of the +thoroughbreds' feet on the asphalt sounding regular as the rattle of a +snare-drum, the rows of houses at either side running past like the +shifting scenes of a panorama. They passed numbers of other carriages, +and to the occupants of several Sidwell lifted his hat. Each as he did +so glanced at his companion curiously. The man was far too well known to +have his actions pass without gossip. At last they reached a semblance +of the open country, and a few minutes later Sidwell pointed out the row +of lights on the broad veranda of the big one-story club-house. The +affair had begun in the afternoon with a golf tournament, and when the +two drove up and Sidwell turned over his trotters to a man in waiting, +the entertainment was in full blast, although the hour was still early.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p> + +<p>The building itself, ordinarily ample for the organization's rather +exclusive membership, was fairly crowded on this occasion. The +club-house had been given up to the orchestra and dancers, and +refreshments were being served on the lawn and under the adjoining +trees. Even the veranda had been cleared of chairs.</p> + +<p>As Sidwell and his companion approached the place, he said in an +undertone, "Let's not get in the crush yet; if we do, we won't escape +all the evening." His dark eyes looked into his companion's face +meaningly. "I have something I wish especially to say to you."</p> + +<p>Florence did not meet his eyes, but she well knew the message therein. +She nodded assent to the request.</p> + +<p>Making a detour, they emerged into the park, and strolled back to a +place where, seeing, they themselves could not be seen. Sidwell found a +bench, and they sat down side by side. The girl offered no suggestion, +no protest. Since that row of lights had appeared in the distance she +had become passive. She knew beforehand all that was to take place; +something that she had decided to accede to, the details of which were +unimportant. An apathy which she did not attempt to explain held her. +The music heard so near, the glimpses of shifting, faultlessly dressed +figures, the loveliness of a perfect night—things that ordinarily would +have been intensely exhilarating—now passed by her unnoticed. Her +senses were temporarily in lethargy. If she had a conscious wish, it was +that the inevitable would come, and be over with.</p> + +<p>From without this land of unreality she was suddenly conscious of a +voice speaking to her. "Florence," it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> said, "Florence Baker, you know +before I say a word the thing I wish to tell you, the question I wish to +ask. You know, because more than once I've tried to speak, and at the +last moment you have prevented. But you can't stop me to-night. We have +run on understanding each other long enough; too long. I have never lied +to you yet, Florence, and I am not going to begin now. I will not even +analyze the feeling I have for you, or call it by name. I know this is +an unheard-of-way to talk to a girl, especially one so impressionable as +you; but I cannot help it. There is something about you, Florence, that +keeps me from untruth, when probably under the same circumstances I +would lie to any other woman in the world. I simply know that you +impersonate a desire of my nature ungratified; that without you I have +no wish to live."</p> + +<p>Strange and cold-blooded as this proposal would have seemed to a +listener, Florence heard it without a sign. It did not even affect her +with the shock of the unexpected. It was merely a part of that +inevitable something she had anticipated, and had for months watched +slowly taking form.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it seems unaccountable to you," the voice went on, "that I +should have been attracted to you in the first place. It has often been +so to me, and I've tried to explain it. Beautiful, you undeniably are, +Florence; but I do not believe it was that. It was, I think, because, +despite your ideals of something which—pardon me—doesn't exist, you +were absolutely natural; and the women I'd met before were the reverse +of that. Like myself, they had tasted of life and found it flat. I +danced with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> them, drank with them, went the round of so-called gayety +with them; but they repelled me. But you, Florence, are very different. +You make me think of a prairie anemone with the dew on its petals. I +haven't much to offer you save money, which you already have in plenty, +and an empty fame; but I'll play the game fair. I'll take you anywhere +in the world, do anything you wish." Out of the shadow an arm crept +around the girl's waist, closed there, and she did not stir. "I am +writing an English story now, and the principal character, a soldier, +has been ordered to India. To catch the atmosphere, I've got to be on +the spot. The boat I wish to take will leave in ten days. Will you go +with me as my wife?"</p> + +<p>The voice paused, and the face so near her own remained motionless, +waiting. Into the pause crept the music of the orchestra—beat, beat, +beat, like the throbbing of a mighty heart. Above it, distinct for an +instant, sounded the tinkle of a woman's laugh; then again silence. It +was now the girl's turn to speak, to answer; but not a sound left her +lips. She had an odd feeling that she was playing a game of checkers, +and that it was her turn to play. "Move!" said an inward monitor. "Move! +move!" But she knew not where or how.</p> + +<p>The man's arm tightened around her; his lips touched hers again and +again; and although she was conscious of the fact, it carried no +particular significance. It all seemed a part of the scene that was +going on in which she was a silent actor—of the game in which she was a +player.</p> + +<p>"Florence," said an insistent voice, "Florence, Florence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> Baker! Don't +sit like that! For God's sake, speak to me, answer me!"</p> + +<p>This time the figure stirred, the head drooped in assent.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said.</p> + +<p>Again the circling arm tightened, and the man's lips touched her own, +again and again. The very repetition aroused her.</p> + +<p>"And you will sail with me in ten days?"</p> + +<p>Fully awake was Florence Baker now, fully conscious of all that had +happened and was happening.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said. "The sooner the better. I want to have it over with." A +moment longer she sat still as death; then suddenly the mood of apathy +departed, and in infinite weakness, infinite pathos, the dark head +buried itself on the man's shoulder. "Promise me," she pleaded brokenly, +"that you will be kind to me! Promise me that you always will be kind!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> +<h3>LOVE'S SURRENDER</h3></div> + +<p>Scotty Baker was not an adept at concealing his emotions, and he stared +in unqualified surprise at the long figure in brown which of a sudden +intruded into his range of vision. The morning paper upon his knees +fluttered unnoticed to the floor of the porch.</p> + +<p>"Ben Blair, by all that's good and proper!" he exclaimed to the man who, +without a look to either side, turned up the short walk. "Where in +heaven's name did you come from? I supposed you'd gone home a week ago."</p> + +<p>Blair stopped at the steps, and deliberately wiped the perspiration from +his face.</p> + +<p>"You were misinformed about my going," he explained. "I changed hotels, +that was all."</p> + +<p>Scotty stared harder than before.</p> + +<p>"But why?" he groped. "I inquired of the clerk, and he said you had gone +by an afternoon train. I don't see—"</p> + +<p>Ben mounted the steps and took a chair opposite the Englishman.</p> + +<p>"If you will excuse me," he said, "I would rather not go into details. +The fact's enough—I am still here.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> Besides—pardon me—I did not call +to be questioned, but to question. You remember the last time I saw +you?"</p> + +<p>Scotty nodded an affirmative. He had a premonition that the unexpected +was about to happen.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said.</p> + +<p>Ben lit a cigar. "You remember, then, that you made me a certain +promise?"</p> + +<p>Scotty threw one leg over the other restlessly. "Yes, I remember," he +repeated.</p> + +<p>The visitor eyed him keenly. "I would like to know if you kept it," he +said.</p> + +<p>Scotty felt the seat of his chair growing even more uncomfortable than +before, and he cast about for an avenue of escape. One presented itself.</p> + +<p>"Is that what you stayed to find out?" he questioned in his turn.</p> + +<p>Ben blew out a cloud of smoke, and then another.</p> + +<p>"No, not the main reason. But that has nothing to do with the subject. I +have a right to ask the question. Did you or did you not keep your +promise?"</p> + +<p>The Englishman's first impulse was to refuse point-blank to answer; +then, on second thought, he decided that such a course would be unwise. +The other really did have a right to ask.</p> + +<p>"I—" he hesitated, "decided—"</p> + +<p>But interrupting, Ben raised his hand, palm outward.</p> + +<p>"Don't dodge the question. Yes or no?"</p> + +<p>Scotty hesitated again, and his face grew red.</p> + +<p>"No," he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p> + +<p>The visitor's hand, fingers outspread, returned to his knee.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I have one more question to ask. Do you intend, without +trying to prevent it, to let your daughter throw away her every chance +of future happiness? Are you, Florence's father, going to let her marry +Sidwell?"</p> + +<p>With one motion Scotty was on his feet. The eyes behind the thick lenses +fairly flashed.</p> + +<p>"You are insulting, sir," he blazed. "I can stand much from you, Ben +Blair, but this interference in my family affairs I cannot overlook. I +request you to leave my premises!"</p> + +<p>Blair did not stir. His face remained as impassive as before.</p> + +<p>"Your pardon again," he said steadily, "but I refuse. I did not come to +quarrel with you, and I won't; but we will have an understanding—now. +Sit down, please."</p> + +<p>The Englishman stared, almost with open mouth. Had any one told him he +would be coerced in this way within his own home he would have called +that person mad; nevertheless, the first flash of anger over, he said no +more.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, please," repeated Ben; and this time, without a word or a +protest, he was obeyed.</p> + +<p>Ben straightened in his seat, then leaned forward. "Mr. Baker," he said, +"you do not doubt that I love Florence—that I wish nothing but her +good?"</p> + +<p>Scotty nodded a reluctant assent.</p> + +<p>"No; I don't doubt you, Ben," he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p> + +<p>The thin face of the younger man leaned forward and grew more intense.</p> + +<p>"You know what Sidwell is—what the result will be if Florence marries +him?"</p> + +<p>Scotty's head dropped into his hands. He knew what was coming.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," he admitted.</p> + +<p>Ben paused, and had the other been looking he would have seen that his +ordinarily passive face was working in a way which no one would have +thought possible.</p> + +<p>"In heaven's name, then," he said, slowly, "why do you allow it? Have +you forgotten that it is only three days until the date set? God! man, +you must be sleeping! It is ghastly—even the thought of it!"</p> + +<p>Surprised out of himself, Scotty looked up. The intensity of the appeal +was a thing to put life into a figure of clay. For an instant he felt +the stimulant, felt his blood quicken at the suggestion of action; then +his impotence returned.</p> + +<p>"I have tried, Ben," he explained weakly, "but I can do nothing. If I +attempted to interfere it would only make matters worse. Florence is as +completely out of my control as—" he paused for a simile—"as the +sunshine. I missed my opportunity with her when she was young. She has +always had her own way, and she will have it now. It is the same as when +she decided to come to town. She controls me, not I her."</p> + +<p>Blair settled back in his chair. The mask of impassivity dropped back +over his face, not again to lift. He was again in command of himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You expect to do nothing more, then?" he asked finally.</p> + +<p>Scotty did not look up. "No," he responded. "I can do nothing more. She +will have to find out her mistake for herself."</p> + +<p>Ben regarded the older man steadily. It would have been difficult to +express that look in words.</p> + +<p>"You'd be willing to help, would you," he suggested, "if you saw a way?"</p> + +<p>The Englishman's eyes lifted. Even the incredible took on an air of +possibility in the hands of this strong-willed ranchman.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he repeated. "I will gladly do anything I can."</p> + +<p>For half a minute Ben Blair did not speak. Not a nerve twitched or a +muscle stirred in his long body; then he stood up, the broad sinewy +shoulders squared, the masterful chin lifted.</p> + +<p>"Very well," he said. "Call a carriage, and be ready to leave town in +half an hour."</p> + +<p>Scotty blinked helplessly. The necessity of sudden action always threw +him into confusion. His mind needed not minutes but days to adjust +itself to the unpremeditated.</p> + +<p>"Why?" he queried. "What do you intend doing?"</p> + +<p>But Ben did not stop to explain. Already he was at the door of the +vestibule. "Don't ask me now. Do as I say, and you'll see!" And he +stepped inside.</p> + +<p>Within the entrance, he paused for a moment. He had never been in any +room of the house except the library<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> adjoining; and after a few +seconds, walking over, he tapped twice on the door.</p> + +<p>There was no answer, and he stepped inside. The place was empty, but, +listening from the dining-room on the left he heard the low intermittent +murmur of voices in conversation and the occasional click of china. +Sliding doors connected the rooms, and again for an instant he +hesitated. Then, pulling them apart, he stood fairly in the aperture.</p> + +<p>As he had expected, Florence and her mother were at breakfast. The doors +had slid noiselessly, and for an instant neither observed him. Florence +was nearest, half-facing him, and she was the first to glance up. As she +did so, the coffee-cup in her hand shook spasmodically and a great brown +blotch spread over the white tablecloth. Simultaneously her eyes +widened, her cheeks blanched, and she stared as at a ghost. Her mother, +too, turned at the spectacle, and her color shifted to an ashen gray.</p> + +<p>For some seconds not one of the three spoke or stirred. It was Mrs. +Baker who first arose and advanced toward the intruder, as threateningly +as it was possible for her to do.</p> + +<p>"Who, if I might ask, invited you to come this way?" she challenged.</p> + +<p>Ben took one step inside the room and folded his arms.</p> + +<p>"I came without being asked," he explained evenly.</p> + +<p>Mollie's weak oval face stiffened. She felt instinctively that her +chiefest desires were in supreme menace. But one defense suggested +itself—to be rid of the intruder at once.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I trust, then, you are enough of a gentleman to return the way you +came," she said icily.</p> + +<p>Ben did not even glance at her. He was looking at the dainty little +figure still motionless at the table.</p> + +<p>"If that is the mark of a gentleman, I am not one," he answered.</p> + +<p>The mother's face flamed. Like Scotty, her brain moved slowly, and on +the spur of the moment inadequate insult alone answered her call.</p> + +<p>"I might have expected such a remark from a cowman!" she burst forth.</p> + +<p>Instantly Florence was upon her feet; but Ben Blair gave no indication +that he had heard. His arms still folded, he took two steps nearer the +girl, then stopped.</p> + +<p>"Florence," he said steadily, "I have just seen your father. We +three—he, you, and I—are going back home, back to the prairies. Our +train leaves at eleven o'clock. The carriage will be here in half an +hour. You have plenty of time if you hurry."</p> + +<p>Again there was silence. Once more it was the mother who spoke first.</p> + +<p>"You must be mad, both of you!" she cried. "Florence is to be married in +three days, and it would take two to go each way. You must be mad!"</p> + +<p>It was the girl's turn to grow pale. She began to understand.</p> + +<p>"You say you and papa evolved this programme?" she said sarcastically. +"What part, pray, did he take?"</p> + +<p>Blair was as impassive as before.</p> + +<p>"I suggested it, and your father acquiesced."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And the third party, myself—" The girl's eyes were very bright.</p> + +<p>"I undertook the task of having you ready when the carriage comes."</p> + +<p>One of Florence's brown hands grasped the back of the chair before her.</p> + +<p>"I trust you did not underestimate the difficulty," she commented +ironically. "Otherwise you might be disappointed."</p> + +<p>Ben said nothing. He did not even stir.</p> + +<p>Another group of seconds were gathered into the past. The inactivity +tugged at the girl's nerves.</p> + +<p>"By the way," she asked, "where are we going to stay when we arrive, and +for how long?"</p> + +<p>"You are to be my guests," answered Blair. "As to the length of time, +nothing has been arranged."</p> + +<p>Florence made one more effort to consider the affair lightly.</p> + +<p>"You speak with a good deal of assurance," she commented. "Did it never +occur to you that at this particular time I might decide not to go?"</p> + +<p>Ben returned her look.</p> + +<p>"No," he said.</p> + +<p>Beneath the trim brown figure one foot was nervously tapping the floor.</p> + +<p>"In other words, you expect to take me against my will,—by physical +force?"</p> + +<p>"No." Ben again spoke deliberately. "You will come of your own choice."</p> + +<p>"And leave Mr. Sidwell?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Without an explanation?"</p> + +<p>"None will be necessary, I think. The fact itself will be enough."</p> + +<p>"And never—marry him?"</p> + +<p>"And never marry him."</p> + +<p>"You think he would not follow?"</p> + +<p>"I know he would not!"</p> + +<p>There was a pause in the swift passage of words. The girl's breath was +coming with difficulty. The spell of this indomitable rancher was +settling upon her.</p> + +<p>"You really imagine I will do such an unheard-of thing?" she asked +slowly.</p> + +<p>"I imagine nothing," he answered quickly. "I know."</p> + +<p>It was the crisis, and into it Mollie intruded with clumsy tread. +"Florence," she urged, "Florence, don't listen to him any longer. He +must be intoxicated. Come with me!" and she started to drag the girl +away.</p> + +<p>Without a word, Ben Blair walked across to the door leading into the +room beyond, and stood with his hand on the knob.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Baker," he said slowly, "I thought I would not speak an unkind +word to-day, no matter what was said to me; but you have offended too +often." His glance took in the indolently shapeless figure from head to +toe, and back again until he met her eye to eye. "You are the +personification of cowardice, of selfishness and snobbery, that makes +one despise his kind. For mere personal vanity you would sacrifice your +own daughter—your own flesh and blood. Probably we shall never meet +again; but if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> we should, do not dare to speak to me. Do not speak to me +now!" He swung open the door, and indicated the passage with a nod of +his head. "Go," he said, "and if you are a Christian, pray for a better +heart—for forgiveness!"</p> + +<p>The woman hesitated; her lips moved, but she was dumb. She wanted to +refuse, but the irresistible power in those relentless blue eyes +compelled her to obey. Without a word she left the room and closed the +door behind her.</p> + +<p>Ben Blair came back. The girl had not moved.</p> + +<p>"Florence," he said, "there are but twenty minutes left. I ask you again +to get ready."</p> + +<p>The girl's color rose anew; her blood flowed tumultuously, until she +could feel the beating of the pulses at her wrists.</p> + +<p>"Ben Blair," she challenged, "you are trying to prevent my marrying +another man! Is it not so?"</p> + +<p>The rancher folded his arms again.</p> + +<p>"I am preventing it," he said.</p> + +<p>Florence's brown eyes blazed. She clasped her hands together until the +fingers were white.</p> + +<p>"You admit it, then!" she cried, looking at her companion steadily, a +world of scorn in her face. "I never thought such a thing possible—that +you would let your jealousy get the better of you like this!" She +paused, and hurled the taunt she knew would hurt him most. "You are the +last person on earth I would have selected to become a dog in the +manger!"</p> + +<p>Ben did not stir, although the brown of his sun-tanned face went white.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I looked for that," he said simply.</p> + +<p>Florence's brown eyes widened in wonder—and in something +more—something she did not understand. Her heart was beating more +wildly than before. She felt her self-control slipping from her grasp, +like a rope through her hands.</p> + +<p>"There seems nothing more to be said, then," she said, "except that I +will not go."</p> + +<p>Even yet Blair did not move.</p> + +<p>"You will go. The carriage comes in ten minutes," he reiterated calmly.</p> + +<p>The small figure stiffened, the dainty chin tilted in the air.</p> + +<p>"I defy you to tell me how you can force me to go!"</p> + +<p>It was the supreme moment, but Benjamin Blair showed no trace of +excitement or of passion. His folded arms remained passive across his +chest.</p> + +<p>"Florence Baker, did I ever lie to you?"</p> + +<p>The girl's lip trembled. She knew now what to expect.</p> + +<p>"No," she said.</p> + +<p>"You are quite sure?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am quite sure."</p> + +<p>"Did I ever say I would do anything that I did not do?"</p> + +<p>The girl had an all but irrepressible desire to cry out, to cover her +face like a child. A flash of anger at her inability to maintain her +self-control swept over her.</p> + +<p>"No," she admitted. "I never knew you to break your word."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then," still no haste, no anger,—only the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> relentless calm +which was infinitely more terrible than either. "I will tell you why of +your own choice you will go with me. It is because you value the life of +Clarence Sidwell; because, as surely as I have not lied to you or to any +human being in the past, there is no power on earth that can otherwise +keep me away from him an hour longer."</p> + +<p>Realization came instantaneously to Florence Baker and blotted out +self-consciousness. The nervous tension vanished as fog before the sun.</p> + +<p>"You would not do it," she said, very steadily. "You could not do it!"</p> + +<p>Ben Blair said not a word.</p> + +<p>"You could not," repeated the girl swiftly; "could not, because +you—love me!"</p> + +<p>One of the man's hands loosened in an unconscious gesture.</p> + +<p>"Don't repeat that, please, or trust in it," he answered. "You misled me +once, but you can't mislead me again. It is because I love you that I +will do what I said."</p> + +<p>There was but one weapon in the arsenal adequate to meet the emergency. +With a sudden motion, the girl came close to him.</p> + +<p>"Ben, Ben Blair," her arms flashed around the man's neck, the brown +eyes—moist, sparkling—were turned to his face, "promise me you will +not do it." The dainty throat swelled and receded with her short quick +breaths. "Promise me! Please promise me!"</p> + +<p>For a second the rancher did not stir; then, very gently, he freed +himself and moved a step backward.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Florence," he said slowly, "you do not know me even yet." He drew out +his big old-fashioned silver watch, once Rankin's. "You still have four +minutes to get ready—no more, no less."</p> + +<p>Silence like that of a death-chamber fell over the bright little +dining-room. From the outside came the sound of Mollie's step as she +moved back and forth, back and forth, but dared not enter. A boy was +clipping the lawn, and the muffled purr of the mower, accompanied by the +bit of popular ragtime he was whistling, stole into the room.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a carriage drove up in front of the house, and leaping from his +seat the driver stood waiting. The door of the vestibule opened, and +Scotty himself stepped uncertainly within. At the library entrance he +halted, but the odor of the black cigar he was smoking was wafted in.</p> + +<p>Through it all, neither of the two in that room had stirred. It would +have been impossible to tell what Ben Blair was thinking. His eyes never +left the watch in his hand. During the first minute the girl had not +looked at her companion. Unappeasable anger seemed personified in her. +For half of the next minute she still stood impassive; then she glanced +up almost surreptitiously. For the long third minute the eyes held where +they had lifted, and slowly over the soft brown face, taking the place +of the former expression, came a look that was not of anger or of +hatred, not even of dislike, but of something the reverse, something all +but unbelievable. Her dark eyes softened. A choking lump came into her +throat; and still, in seeming paradox, she was of a sudden happier than +at any time she could remember.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p> + +<p>Before the last minute was up, before Ben Blair had replaced the watch, +she was in the adjoining room saying good-bye to Mollie hurriedly; +saying something more,—a thing that fairly took the mother's breath.</p> + +<p>"Florence Baker!" she gasped, "you shall not do it! If you do, I will +disown you! I will never forgive you—never! never!"</p> + +<p>But, unheeding, the girl was already back, and looking into Ben's face. +Her eyes were very bright, and there was about her a suppressed +excitement that the other did not clearly understand.</p> + +<p>"I am ready," she said, "on one condition."</p> + +<p>Blair's blue eyes looked a question. In any other mood he would have +recognized Florence, but this strange person he hardly seemed to know.</p> + +<p>"I am listening," he said.</p> + +<p>The girl hesitated, the rosy color mounting to her cheeks. Decision of +action was far easier than expression.</p> + +<p>"I will go with you," she faltered, "but alone."</p> + +<p>A suggestion of the flame on the other's face sprang to the man's also.</p> + +<p>"I think, under the circumstances," he stammered, "it would be better to +have your father go too."</p> + +<p>The dainty brown figure stiffened.</p> + +<p>"Very well, then—I will not go!"</p> + +<p>The man stood for a moment immovable, with unshifting eyes, like a +figure in clay; then, turning, without a word, he started to leave the +room. He had almost reached the door, when he heard a voice behind him.</p> + +<p>"Ben Blair," it said insistently, "Ben Blair!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span></p> + +<p>He paused, glanced back, and could scarcely believe his eyes. The girl +was coming toward him; but it was a Florence he had not previously +known. Her face was rosier than before, red to her very ears and to the +waves of her hair. Her chin was held high, and beneath the thin brown +skin of the throat the veins were athrob.</p> + +<p>"Ben Blair," she repeated intensely, "Ben Blair, can't you understand +what I meant? Must I put it into words?" The soft brown eyes were +looking at him frankly. "Oh, you are blind, blind!"</p> + +<p>For a second, like the lull before the thunderclap, the man did not +move; then of a sudden he grasped the girl by the shoulders, and held +her at arm's length.</p> + +<p>"Florence," he cried, "are you playing with me?"</p> + +<p>She spoke no word, but her gaze held his unfalteringly.</p> + +<p>Minutes passed, but still the man could not believe the testimony of his +eyes. The confession was too unexpected, too incredible. Unconsciously +the grip of his hands tightened.</p> + +<p>"Am I—mad?" he gasped. "You care for me—you are willing to go—because +you love me?"</p> + +<p>Even yet the girl did not answer; but no human being could longer +question the expression on her face. Ben Blair could not doubt it, and +the reflection of love glowing in the tear-wet eyes flashed into his +own. The past, with all that it had held, vanished like the memory of an +unpleasant dream. The present, the vital throbbing present, alone +remained. Suddenly the tense arms relaxed. Another second, and the brown +head was upon his shoulder.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Florence," he cried passionately, "Florence, Florence!"</p> + +<p>He could say no more, only repeat over and over her dear name.</p> + +<p>"Ben," sobbed the girl, "Ben! Ben!" An interrupting memory drew her to +him closer and closer. "I loved you all the time!—loved you!—and yet I +so nearly—can you ever forgive me?"</p> + +<p>Wondering at the prolonged silence, Scotty came hesitatingly into the +library, peered in at the open doorway, and stood transfixed.</p> + + +<p class='center'>THE END</p> +<hr class="full" /> + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em;"> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 334]</span> +<p style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;"> +POPULAR COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br /> +AT MODERATE PRICES</p> +</div> + +<p style="text-indent: 0">Any of the following titles can be bought of your +Bookseller at the price you paid for this volume.</p> +<hr class="minor" /> +<p class="booklist"> +<span class="bold">Adventures of Captain Kettle.</span> Cutcliffe Hyne.<br /> +<span class="bold">Adventures of Gerard</span>. A. Conan Doyle.<br /> +<span class="bold">Adventures of Sherlock Holmes</span>. A. Conan Doyle.<br /> +<span class="bold">Alton of Somasco</span>. Harold Bindloss.<br /> +<span class="bold">Arms and the Woman</span>. Harold MacGrath.<br /> +<span class="bold">Artemus Ward's Works</span> (extra illustrated).<br /> +<span class="bold">At the Mercy of Tiberius</span>. Augusta Evans Wilson.<br /> +<span class="bold">Battle Ground, The.</span> Ellen Glasgow.<br /> +<span class="bold">Belle of Bowling Green, The.</span> Amelia E. Barr.<br /> +<span class="bold">Ben Blair.</span> Will Lillibridge.<br /> +<span class="bold">Bob, Son of Battle.</span> Alfred Ollivant.<br /> +<span class="bold">Boss, The.</span> Alfred Henry Lewis.<br /> +<span class="bold">Brass Bowl, The.</span> Louis Joseph Vance.<br /> +<span class="bold">Brethren, The.</span> H. Rider Haggard.<br /> +<span class="bold">By Snare of Love.</span> Arthur W. Marchmont.<br /> +<span class="bold">By Wit of Woman.</span> Arthur W. Marchmont.<br /> +<span class="bold">Cap'n Erie.</span> Joseph C. 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Weyman.<br /> +<span class="bold">Maid at Arms, The.</span> Robert W. Chambers.<br /> +<span class="bold">Man from Red Keg, The.</span> Eugene Thwing.</p> + +<hr class="short"/> + +<p class="center">A. L. BURT CO., Publishers, 52–58 Duane St., New York City</p> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em;"> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 335]</span> +<p style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;"> +POPULAR COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br /> +AT MODERATE PRICES</p> +</div> + +<p style="text-indent: 0">Any of the following titles can be bought of your +Bookseller at the price you paid for this volume.</p> +<hr class="short"/> + +<p class="booklist"> +<span class="bold">Marathon Mystery, The.</span> Burton Egbert Stevenson.<br /> +<span class="bold">Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.</span> A. Conan Doyle.<br /> +<span class="bold">Millionaire Baby, The.</span> Anna Katharine Green.<br /> +<span class="bold">Missourian, The.</span> Eugene P. Lyle, Jr.<br /> +<span class="bold">My Friend the Chauffeur.</span> C. N. and A. M. Williamson.<br /> +<span class="bold">My Lady of the North.</span> Randall Parrish.<br /> +<span class="bold">Mystery of June 13th.</span> Melvin L. Severy.<br /> +<span class="bold">Mystery Tales.</span> Edgar Allen Poe.<br /> +<span class="bold">Nancy Stair.</span> Elinor Macartney Lane.<br /> +<span class="bold">None But the Brave.</span> Hamblen Sears.<br /> +<span class="bold">Order No. 11.</span> Caroline Abbot Stanley.<br /> +<span class="bold">Pam.</span> Bettina von Hutten.<br /> +<span class="bold">Pam Decides.</span> Bettina von Hutten.<br /> +<span class="bold">Partners of the Tide.</span> Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /> +<span class="bold">Phra the Phoenician.</span> Edwin Lester Arnold.<br /> +<span class="bold">President, The.</span> Alfred Henry Lewis.<br /> +<span class="bold">Princess Passes, The.</span> C. N. and A. M. Williamson.<br /> +<span class="bold">Private War, The.</span> Louis Joseph Vance.<br /> +<span class="bold">Prodigal Son, The.</span> Hall Caine.<br /> +<span class="bold">Queen's Advocate, The.</span> Arthur W. Marchmont.<br /> +<span class="bold">Quickening, The.</span> Francis Lynde.<br /> +<span class="bold">Richard the Brazen.</span> Cyrus Townsend Brady and Edward Peple.<br /> +<span class="bold">Rose of the World.</span> Agnes and Egerton Castle.<br /> +<span class="bold">Sarita the Carlist.</span> Arthur W. Marchmont.<br /> +<span class="bold">Seats of the Mighty, The.</span> Gilbert Parker.<br /> +<span class="bold">Sir Nigel.</span> A. Conan Doyle.<br /> +<span class="bold">Sir Richard Calmady.</span> Lucas Malet.<br /> +<span class="bold">Speckled Bird.</span> Augusta Evans Wilson.<br /> +<span class="bold">Spoilers, The.</span> Rex Beach.<br /> +<span class="bold">Sunset Trail, The.</span> Alfred Henry Lewis.<br /> +<span class="bold">Sword of the Old Frontier, A.</span> Randall Parrish.<br /> +<span class="bold">Tales of Sherlock Holmes.</span> A. Conan Doyle.<br /> +<span class="bold">That Printer of Udell's.</span> Harold Bell Wright.<br /> +<span class="bold">Throwback, The.</span> Alfred Henry Lewis.<br /> +<span class="bold">Trail of the Sword, The.</span> Gilbert Parker.<br /> +<span class="bold">Two Vanrevels, The.</span> Booth Tarkington.<br /> +<span class="bold">Up From Slavery.</span> Booker T. Washington.<br /> +<span class="bold">Vashti.</span> Augusta Evans Wilson.<br /> +<span class="bold">Viper of Milan, The</span> (original edition). Marjorie Bowen.<br /> +<span class="bold">Voice of the People, The.</span> Ellen Glasgow.<br /> +<span class="bold">Wheel of Life, The.</span> Ellen Glasgow.<br /> +<span class="bold">When I Was Czar.</span> Arthur W. Marchmont.<br /> +<span class="bold">When Wilderness Was King.</span> Randall Parrish.<br /> +<span class="bold">Woman in Grey, A.</span> Mrs. C. N. Williamson.<br /> +<span class="bold">Woman in the Alcove, The.</span> Anna Katharine Green.</p> + +<hr class="short"/> + +<p class="center">A. L. BURT CO., Publishers, 52–58 Duane St., New York City</p> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em;"> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 336]</span> +<span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;"> +BURT'S SERIES of STANDARD FICTION.</span> +</div> + +<div style="text-indent: 0"> +<p><span class="bold">RICHELIEU.</span> A tale of France in the reign of King Louis XIII. By G. P. R. +James. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +In 1829 Mr. James published his first romance, "Richelieu," and was +recognized at once as one of the masters of the craft.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +In this book he laid the story during those later days of the great cardinal's +life, when his power was beginning to wane, but while it was +yet sufficiently strong to permit now and then of volcanic outbursts which +overwhelmed foes and carried friends to the topmost wave of prosperity. +One of the most striking portions of the story is that of Cinq Mar's conspiracy; +the method of conducting criminal cases, and the political trickery +resorted to by royal favorites, affording a better insight into the state-craft +of that day than can be had even by an exhaustive study of history. +It is a powerful romance of love and diplomacy, and in point of thrilling +and absorbing interest has never been excelled. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">A COLONIAL FREE-LANCE.</span> A story of American Colonial Times. By +Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +A book that appeals to Americans as a vivid picture of Revolutionary +scenes. The story is a strong one, a thrilling one. It causes the true +American to flush with excitement, to devour chapter after chapter, until +the eyes smart, and it fairly smokes with patriotism. The love story is a +singularly charming idyl. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">THE TOWER OF LONDON.</span> A Historical Romance of the Times of Lady +Jane Grey and Mary Tudor. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth. Cloth, 12mo. with +four illustrations by George Cruikshank. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +This romance of the "Tower of London" depicts the Tower as palace, +prison and fortress, with many historical associations. The era is the +middle of the sixteenth century.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The story is divided into two parts, one dealing with Lady Jane Grey, +and the other with Mary Tudor as Queen, introducing other notable characters +of the era. Throughout the story holds the interest of the reader +in the midst of intrigue and conspiracy, extending considerably over a +half a century. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING.</span> A Romance of the American Revolution. +By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +Mr. Hotchkiss has etched in burning words a story of Yankee bravery, +and true love that thrills from beginning to end, with the spirit of the +Revolution. The heart beats quickly, and we feel ourselves taking a +part in the exciting scenes described. His whole story is so absorbing +that you will sit up far into the night to finish it. As a love romance +it is charming. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">GARTHOWEN.</span> A story of a Welsh Homestead. By Allen Raine. Cloth, +12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +"This is a little idyl of humble life and enduring love, laid bare before +us, very real and pure, which in its telling shows us some strong points of +Welsh character—the pride, the hasty temper, the quick dying out of wrath.... +We call this a well-written story, interesting alike through its +romance and its glimpses into another life than ours. A delightful and +clever picture of Welsh village life. The result is excellent."—Detroit Free +Press. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">MIFANWY.</span> The story of a Welsh Singer. By Allan Raine. Cloth, +12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +"This is a love story, simple, tender and pretty as one would care to +read. The action throughout is brisk and pleasing; the characters, it is apparent +at once, are as true to life as though the author had known them +all personally. Simple in all its situations, the story is worked up in that +touching and quaint strain which never grows wearisome, no matter how +often the lights and shadows of love are introduced. It rings true, and +does not tax the imagination."—Boston Herald.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em;"> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 337]</span> +<span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;"> +BURT'S SERIES of STANDARD FICTION.</span> +</div> + +<div style="text-indent: 0"> +<p><span class="bold">DARNLEY.</span> A Romance of the times of Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey. +By G.P.R. James. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. +Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +As a historical romance "Darnley" is a book that can be taken up +pleasurably again and again, for there is about it that subtle charm which +those who are strangers to the works of G.P.R. James have claimed was +only to be imparted by Dumas.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +If there was nothing more about the work to attract especial attention, +the account of the meeting of the kings on the historic "field of the cloth of +gold" would entitle the story to the most favorable consideration of every +reader.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +There is really but little pure romance in this story, for the author has +taken care to imagine love passages only between those whom history has +credited with having entertained the tender passion one for another, and +he succeeds in making such lovers as all the world must love. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">WINDSOR CASTLE.</span> A Historical Romance of the Reign of Henry VIII. +Catharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth. Cloth. +12mo. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +"Windsor Castle" is the story of Henry VIII., Catharine, and Anne +Boleyn. "Bluff King Hal," although a well-loved monarch, was none too +good a one in many ways. Of all his selfishness and unwarrantable acts, +none was more discreditable than his divorce from Catharine, and his marriage +to the beautiful Anne Boleyn. The King's love was as brief as it +was vehement. Jane Seymour, waiting maid on the Queen, attracted him, +and Anne Boleyn was forced to the block to make room for her successor. +This romance is one of extreme interest to all readers. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">HORSESHOE ROBINSON.</span> A tale of the Tory Ascendency in South Carolina +in 1780. By John P. Kennedy. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. +Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +Among the old favorites in the field of what is known as historical fiction, +there are none which appeal to a larger number of Americans than +Horseshoe Robinson, and this because it is the only story which depicts +with fidelity to the facts the heroic efforts of the colonists in South Carolina +to defend their homes against the brutal oppression of the British +under such leaders as Cornwallis and Tarleton.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The reader is charmed with the story of love which forms the thread +of the tale, and then impressed with the wealth of detail concerning those +times. The picture of the manifold sufferings of the people, is never over-drawn, +but painted faithfully and honestly by one who spared neither +time nor labor in his efforts to present in this charming love story all that +price in blood and tears which the Carolinians paid as their share in the +winning of the republic.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +Take it all in all, "Horseshoe Robinson" is a work which should be +found on every book-shelf, not only because it is a most entertaining +story, but because of the wealth of valuable information concerning the +colonists which it contains. That it has been brought out once more, well +illustrated, is something which will give pleasure to thousands who have +long desired an opportunity to read the story again, and to the many who +have tried vainly in these latter days to procure a copy that they might +read it for the first time. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.</span> A story of the Coast of Maine. By +Harriet Beecher Stowe. Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +Written prior to 1862, the "Pearl of Orr's Island" is ever new; a book +filled with delicate fancies, such as seemingly array themselves anew each +time one reads them. One sees the "sea like an unbroken mirror all +around the pine-girt, lonely shores of Orr's Island," and straightway +comes "the heavy, hollow moan of the surf on the beach, like the wild +angry howl of some savage animal."</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +Who can read of the beginning of that sweet life, named Mara, which +came into this world under the very shadow of the Death angel's wings, +without having an intense desire to know how the premature bud blossomed? +Again and again one lingers over the descriptions of the character +of that baby boy Moses, who came through the tempest, amid the +angry billows, pillowed on his dead mother's breast.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +There is no more faithful portrayal of New England life than that +which Mrs. Stowe gives in "The Pearl of Orr's Island." +</p> +</div> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em;"> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 338]</span> +<span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;"> +BURT'S SERIES of STANDARD FICTION.</span> +</div> + +<div style="text-indent: 0"> +<p><span class="bold">THE SPIRIT OF THE BORDER.</span> A Romance of the Early Settlers in the +Ohio Valley. By Zane Grey. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +A book rather out of the ordinary is this "Spirit of the Border." The +main thread of the story has to do with the work of the Moravian missionaries +in the Ohio Valley. Incidentally the reader is given details of the +frontier life of those hardy pioneers who broke the wilderness for the planting +of this great nation. Chief among these, as a matter of course, is +Lewis Wetzel, one of the most peculiar, and at the same time the most +admirable of all the brave men who spent their lives battling with the +savage foe, that others might dwell in comparative security.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +Details of the establishment and destruction of the Moravian "Village +of Peace" are given at some length, and with minute description. The +efforts to Christianize the Indians are described as they never have been +before, and the author has depicted the characters of the leaders of the +several Indian tribes with great care, which of itself will be of interest to +the student.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +By no means least among the charms of the story are the vivid word-pictures +of the thrilling adventures, and the intense paintings of the beauties +of nature, as seen in the almost unbroken forests.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +It is the spirit of the frontier which is described, and one can by it, +perhaps, the better understand why men, and women, too, willingly braved +every privation and danger that the westward progress of the star of empire +might be the more certain and rapid. A love story, simple and tender, +runs through the book. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">CAPTAIN BRAND, OF THE SCHOONER CENTIPEDE.</span> By Lieut. +Henry A. Wise, U.S.N. (Harry Gringo). Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations +by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The re-publication of this story will please those lovers of sea yarns +who delight in so much of the salty flavor of the ocean as can come through +the medium of a printed page, for never has a story of the sea and those +"who go down in ships" been written by one more familiar with the scenes +depicted.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The one book of this gifted author which is best remembered, and which +will be read with pleasure for many years to come, is "Captain Brand," +who, as the author states on his title page, was a "pirate of eminence in +the West Indies." As a sea story pure and simple, "Captain Brand" has +never been excelled, and as a story of piratical life, told without the usual +embellishments of blood and thunder, it has no equal. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">NICK OF THE WOODS.</span> A story of the Early Settlers of Kentucky. By +Robert Montgomery Bird. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +This most popular novel and thrilling story of early frontier life in +Kentucky was originally published in the year 1837. The novel, long out of +print, had in its day a phenomenal sale, for its realistic presentation of +Indian and frontier life in the early days of settlement in the South, narrated +in the tale with all the art of a practiced writer. A very charming +love romance runs through the story. This new and tasteful edition of +"Nick of the Woods" will be certain to make many new admirers for +this enchanting story from Dr. Bird's clever and versatile pen. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">GUY FAWKES.</span> A Romance of the Gunpowder Treason. By Wm. Harrison +Ainsworth. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank. +Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The "Gunpowder Plot" was a modest attempt to blow up Parliament, +the King and his Counsellors. James of Scotland, then King of England, +was weak-minded and extravagant. He hit upon the efficient scheme of +extorting money from the people by imposing taxes on the Catholics. In +their natural resentment to this extortion, a handful of bold spirits concluded +to overthrow the government. Finally the plotters were arrested, +and the King put to torture Guy Fawkes and the other prisoners with +royal vigor. A very intense love story runs through the entire romance.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em;"> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 339]</span> +<span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;"> +BURT'S SERIES of STANDARD FICTION.</span> +</div> + +<div style="text-indent: 0"> +<p><span class="bold">TICONDEROGA:</span> A Story of Early Frontier Life in the Mohawk Valley. +By G.P.R. James. Cloth, 12mo. with four page illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The setting of the story is decidedly more picturesque than any ever +evolved by Cooper: The frontier of New York State, where dwelt an English +gentleman, driven from his native home by grief over the loss of his wife, +with a son and daughter. Thither, brought by the exigencies of war, comes +an English officer, who is readily recognized as that Lord Howe who met his +death at Ticonderoga. As a most natural sequence, even amid the hostile +demonstrations of both French and Indians, Lord Howe and the young girl +find time to make most deliciously sweet love, and the son of the recluse has +already lost his heart to the daughter of a great sachem, a dusky maiden +whose warrior-father has surrounded her with all the comforts of a civilized +life.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The character of Captain Brooks, who voluntarily decides to sacrifice his +own life in order to save the son of the Englishman, is not among the least +of the attractions of this story, which holds the attention of the reader even +to the last page. The tribal laws and folk lore of the different tribes of +Indians known as the "Five Nations," with which the story is interspersed, +shows that the author gave no small amount of study to the work in question, +and nowhere else is it shown more plainly than by the skilful manner in +which he has interwoven with his plot the "blood" law, which demands a +life for a life, whether it be that of the murderer or one of his race.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +A more charming story of mingled love and adventure has never been +written than "Ticonderoga." +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">ROB OF THE BOWL:</span> A Story of the Early Days of Maryland. By John +P. Kennedy. Cloth, 12mo. with four page illustrations by J. Watson Davis. +Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +It was while he was a member of Congress from Maryland that the +noted statesman wrote this story regarding the early history of his native +State, and while some critics are inclined to consider "Horse Shoe Robinson" +as the best of his works, it is certain that "Rob of the Bowl" stands at the +head of the list as a literary production and an authentic exposition of the +manners and customs during Lord Baltimore's rule. The greater portion of +the action takes place in St. Mary's—the original capital of the State.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +As a series of pictures of early colonial life in Maryland, "Rob of the +Bowl" has no equal, and the book, having been written by one who had +exceptional facilities for gathering material concerning the individual members +of the settlements in and about St. Mary's, is a most valuable addition +to the history of the State.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The story is full of splendid action, with a charming love story, and a +plot that never loosens the grip of its interest to its last page. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">BY BERWEN BANKS.</span> By Allen Raine.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +It is a tender and beautiful romance of the idyllic. A charming picture +of life in a Welsh seaside village. It is something of a prose-poem, true, +tender and graceful. +</p> + +<p><span class="bold">IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING.</span> A romance of the American Revolution. +By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson +Davis. Price, $1.00.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 80%"> +The story opens in the month of April, 1775, with the provincial troops +hurrying to the defense of Lexington and Concord. Mr. Hotchkiss has etched +in burning words a story of Yankee bravery and true love that thrills from +beginning to end with the spirit of the Revolution. The heart beats quickly, +and we feel ourselves taking a part in the exciting scenes described. You +lay the book aside with the feeling that you have seen a gloriously true +picture of the Revolution. His whole story is so absorbing that you will sit +up far into the night to finish it. As a love romance it is charming.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em;"> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 340]</span> +<span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;"> +POPULAR LITERATURE FOR THE MASSES, +COMPRISING CHOICE SELECTIONS FROM THE +TREASURES OF THE WORLD'S KNOWLEDGE, +ISSUED IN A SUBSTANTIAL AND ATTRACTIVE +CLOTH BINDING, AT A POPULAR PRICE</span> +</div> + +<div> +<p style="text-indent:0">BURT'S HOME LIBRARY is a series which +includes the standard works of the world's best literature, +bound in uniform cloth binding, gilt tops, embracing +chiefly selections from writers of the most notable +English, American and Foreign Fiction, together with +many important works in the domains +of History, Biography, Philosophy, +Travel, Poetry and the Essays.</p> + +<img style="border:none; float:right; margin-left:25px" src="images/book.jpg" width="80" alt="Illustration: Book" title="" /> + +<p style="text-indent:0">A glance at the following annexed +list of titles and authors will endorse +the claim that the publishers make +for it—that it is the most comprehensive, +choice, interesting, and by +far the most carefully selected series +of standard authors for world-wide +reading that has been produced by +any publishing house in any country, and that at prices +so cheap, and in a style so substantial and pleasing, as to +win for it millions of readers and the approval and +commendation, not only of the book trade throughout +the American continent, but of hundreds of thousands of +librarians, clergymen, educators and men of letters +interested in the dissemination of instructive, entertaining +and thoroughly wholesome reading matter for the masses.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="major"/> + +<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em;"> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 341]</span> +<span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;"> +BURT'S HOME LIBRARY. Cloth. Gilt Tops. Price, $1.00</span> +</div> + +<p class="booklist"> +<span class="bold">Abbe Constantin</span>. <span class="smcap">By Ludovic Halevy</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Abbott</span>. <span class="smcap">By Sir Walter Scott</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Adam Bede</span>. <span class="smcap">By George Eliot</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Addison's Essays</span>. <span class="smcap">Edited by John Richard Green</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Aeneid of Virgil</span>. <span class="smcap">Translated by John Connington</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Aesop's Fables</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Alexander, the Great, Life of</span>. <span class="smcap">By John Williams</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Alfred, the Great, Life of</span>. <span class="smcap">By Thomas Hughes</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Alhambra</span>. <span class="smcap">By Washington Irving</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Alice in Wonderland, and Through the Looking-Glass.</span> <span class="smcap">By Lewis Carroll</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Alice Lorraine</span>. <span class="smcap">By R. D. Blackmore</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">All Sorts and Conditions of Men</span>. <span class="smcap">By Walter Besant</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Alton Locke</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charles Kingsley</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Amiel's Journal</span>. <span class="smcap">Translated by Mrs. Humphrey Ward</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Andersen's Fairy Tales</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Anne of Geirstein</span>. <span class="smcap">By Sir Walter Scott</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Antiquary</span>. <span class="smcap">By Sir Walter Scott</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Arabian Nights' Entertainments</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Ardath</span>. <span class="smcap">By Marie Corelli</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Arnold, Benedict, Life of</span>. <span class="smcap">By George Canning Hill</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Arnold's Poems</span>. <span class="smcap">By Matthew Arnold</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Around the World in the Yacht Sunbeam</span>. <span class="smcap">By Mrs. Brassey</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Arundel Motto</span>. <span class="smcap">By Mary Cecil Hay</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">At the Back of the North Wind</span>. <span class="smcap">By George Macdonald</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Attic Philosopher</span>. <span class="smcap">By Emile Souvestre</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Auld Licht Idylls</span>. <span class="smcap">By James M. Barrie</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Aunt Diana</span>. <span class="smcap">By Rosa N. Carey</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Autocrat of the Breakfast Table</span>. <span class="smcap">By O. W. Holmes</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Averil</span>. <span class="smcap">By Rosa N. Carey</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Bacon's Essays</span>. <span class="smcap">By Francis Bacon</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Barbara Heathcote's Trial</span>. <span class="smcap">By Rosa N. Carey</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Barnaby Rudge</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charles Dickens</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Barrack Room Ballads</span>. <span class="smcap">By Rudyard Kipling</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Betrothed</span>. <span class="smcap">By Sir Walter Scott</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Beulah</span>. <span class="smcap">By Augusta J. Evans</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Black Beauty</span>. <span class="smcap">By Anna + <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Sewall'">Sewell</ins></span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Black Dwarf</span>. <span class="smcap">By Sir Walter Scott</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Black Rock</span>. <span class="smcap">By Ralph Connor</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Black Tulip</span>. <span class="smcap">By Alexandre Dumas</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Bleak House</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charles Dickens</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Blithedale Romance</span>. <span class="smcap">By Nathaniel Hawthorne</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Bondman</span>. <span class="smcap">By Hall Caine</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Book of Golden Deeds</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charlotte M. Yonge</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Boone, Daniel, Life of</span>. <span class="smcap">By Cecil B. Hartley</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Bride of Lammermoor</span>. <span class="smcap">By Sir Walter Scott</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Bride of the Nile</span>. <span class="smcap">By George Ebers</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Browning's Poems</span>. <span class="smcap">By Elizabeth Barrett Browning</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Browning's Poems</span>. (<span class="smcap">selections</span>.) <span class="smcap">By Robert Browning</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Bryant's Poems</span>. (<span class="smcap">early</span>.) <span class="smcap">By William Cullen Bryant</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Burgomaster's Wife</span>. <span class="smcap">By George Ebers</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Burn's Poems</span>. <span class="smcap">By Robert Burns</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">By Order of the King</span>. <span class="smcap">By Victor Hugo</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Byron's Poems</span>. <span class="smcap">By Lord Byron</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Caesar, Julius, Life of</span>. <span class="smcap">By James Anthony Froude</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Carson, Kit, Life of</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charles Burdett</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Cary's Poems</span>. <span class="smcap">By Alice and Phoebe Cary</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Cast Up by the Sea</span>. <span class="smcap">By Sir Samuel Baker</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Charlemagne</span> (Charles the Great), Life of. <span class="smcap">By Thomas Hodgkin, D. C. L.</span><br /> +<span class="bold">Charles Auchester</span>. <span class="smcap">By E. Berger</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Character</span>. <span class="smcap">By Samuel Smiles</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Charles O'Malley</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charles Lever</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Chesterfield's Letters</span>. <span class="smcap">By Lord Chesterfield</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Chevalier de Maison Rouge</span>. <span class="smcap">By Alexandre Dumas</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Chicot the Jester</span>. <span class="smcap">By Alexandre Dumas</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Children of the Abbey</span>. <span class="smcap">By Regina Maria Roche</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Child's History of England</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charles Dickens</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Christmas Stories</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charles Dickens</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Cloister and the Hearth</span>. <span class="smcap">By Charles Reade</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Coleridge's Poems</span>. <span class="smcap">By Samuel Taylor Coleridge</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Columbus, Christopher, Life of</span>. <span class="smcap">By Washington Irving</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Companions of Jehu</span>. <span class="smcap">By Alexandre Dumas</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Complete Angler</span>. <span class="smcap">By Walton And Cotton</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Conduct of Life</span>. <span class="smcap">By Ralph Waldo Emerson</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Confessions of an Opium Eater</span>. <span class="smcap">By Thomas de Quincey</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Conquest of Granada</span>. <span class="smcap">By Washington Irving</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Conscript</span>. <span class="smcap">By Erckmann-Chatrian</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Conspiracy of Pontiac</span>. <span class="smcap">By Francis Parkman, Jr.</span><br /> +<span class="bold">Conspirators</span>. <span class="smcap">By Alexandre Dumas</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Consuelo</span>. <span class="smcap">By George Sand</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Cook's Voyages</span>. <span class="smcap">By Captain James Cook</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Corinne</span>. <span class="smcap">By Madame de Stael</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Countess de Charney</span>. <span class="smcap">By Alexandre Dumas</span>.<br /> +<span class="bold">Countess Gisela</span>. <span class="smcap">By E. Marlitt</span>.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's notes:</h3> +<p>Punctuation has been made regular and consistent with contemporary standards.</p> +<p>The phrase "Box R" has been used where a literal cattle brand symbol of the letter R inside +two sides of a box was used in the original text. +Similarly, an R within a circle indicating a ranch has been rendered as the "Circle R" ranch +in this transcription.</p> +<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. +Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will +<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ben Blair, by Will Lillibridge + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEN BLAIR *** + +***** This file should be named 17844-h.htm or 17844-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/8/4/17844/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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