Overland Red Part 36

But Louise remained sitting upon the rock as though she had not heard him. Slowly he stepped toward her, his spurs jingling musically. He caught up one of her gloves and turned it over and over in his fingers with a kind of clumsy reverence. "It's mighty little--and there's the shape of your hand in it, just like it bends when you hold the reins. It seems like a thing almost too good for me to touch, because it means _you_. I know you won't laugh at me, either."

Louise turned toward him. "No. I understand," she said.

"Here was where Red and I first saw you to know who you was. I used to hate folks that wore good clothes. I thought they was all the same, you and all that kind. But, no, it ain't so. You looked back once, when you were riding away from the jail that time. I was going to look for Red and not go to work at the Moonstone. I saw you look back. That settled it. I was proud to think you cared even anything for a tramp. I was mighty lonesome then. Since, I got to thinking I'd be somebody some day.

But I can see where I stand. I'm a puncher, working for the Moonstone.

You kind of liked me because I had hard luck when I was a kid. But that made me _love_ you. It ain't wrong, I guess, to love something you can't ever reach up to. It ain't wrong to keep on loving, only it's awful lonesome not to ever tell you about it."

"I'm sorry, Collie," said Louise gently.

"Please don't you be sorry. Why, I'm glad! Maybe you don't think it is the best thing in the world to love a girl. I ain't asking anything but to just go on loving you. Seems like a man wants the girl he loves to know it, even if that is just all. You said I love horses. I do. But loving you started me loving horses. Red said once that I was just living like what I thought you wanted me to be. Red's wise when he takes his time to it. But now I'm living the way I think I want to. I won't ask you to say you care. I guess you don't--that way. But if I ever get rich--then--"

"Collie, you must not think I am different from any other girl. I'm just as selfish and stubborn as I can be. I almost feel ashamed to have you think of me as you do. Let's be sensible about it. You know I like you.

I'm glad you care--for--what you think I am."

"That's it. You are always so kind to a fellow that it makes me feel mean to speak like I have. You listened--and I am pretty glad of that."

He turned and caught Boyar's bridle. Mounting he caught up Yuma and Rally. Slowly Collie and the girl rode the trail to the level of the summit. Slowly they dropped down the descent into Moonstone Canon. The letter, Overland Red, Silent Saunders, were forgotten. Side by side plodded the pony Yuma and Black Boyar. Rally followed. The trees on the western edge of the canon threw long, shadowy bars of dusk across the road. Quail called from the hillside. Other quail answered plaintively from a distance. Alternate warmth and coolness swam in the air and touched the riders' faces.

At a bend in the road the ponies crowded together. Collie's hand accidentally brushed against the girl's and she drew away. He glanced up quickly. She was gazing straight ahead at the distant peaks. He felt strangely pleased that she had drawn away from him when his hand touched hers. Some instinct told him that their old friends.h.i.+p had given place to something else--something as yet too vague to describe. She was not angry with him, he knew. Her face was troubled. He gazed at her as they rode and his heart yearned for her tenderly. Life had suddenly a.s.sumed a tensity that silenced them. The little lizards of the stones scurried away from either side of the road. One after another, with sprightly steps, a covey of mountain quail crossed the road before them, leaving little starlike tracks in the dust. Though homeward bound the ponies plodded with lowered heads. Moonstone Canon, always wonderful in its wild, rugged beauty, seemed as a place of dreams, only real as it echoed the tread of the ponies. The canon stream chattered, murmured, quarreled round a rock-strewn bend, laughed at itself, and pa.s.sed, singing a cool-voiced melody.

They rode through a vale of enchantment, only known to Youth and Love.

Her gray eyes were misty and troubled. His eyes were heavy with unuttered longing. His heart pounded until it almost choked him. He bit his lips that he might keep silent.

The glint of the slanting sunlight on her hair, the turn of her wrist as she held the reins, her apparent unconsciousness of all outward things enthralled him. A spell hung round him like a mist, blinding and baffling all clearer thought. And because Louise knew his heart, knew that his homage was not of books, but of his very self, she lingered in the dream whose thread she might have snapped with a word, a gesture.

Generously the girl blamed herself that she had been the one to cause him sorrow. She could not give herself to him, be his wife as she knew he wished her to be. Yet she liked him more than she cared to admit. He had fought for her once and taken his punishment with a grin. She felt joy in his homage, and yet she felt humility. In what way, she asked herself, was she better, cleaner of heart, kinder or cleverer than Collie? Why should people make distinctions as to birth, or breeding, or wealth, when character and physical excellence meant so much more?

"Collie!" she whispered, and the touch of her fingers on his arm was as the touch of fire,--"Collie!"

She drew one of her little gray gauntlets from her belt. "Here," she said, and the word was a caress.

But he put the proffered token away from him with a trembling hand.

"Don't!" he cried. "I tried not to want you! I did try! This morning--before I told you--I could have knelt and prayed to your glove.

But now, Louise, Louise Lacharme, I can't. That glove would burn me and drive me wild to come back to you."

"To come back to you ...?" The words sung themselves through her consciousness. "Come back to you...." He was going away. "You care so much?" she asked. There was a new light in her eyes. Her face was almost colorless. So she had looked when Saunders threatened her. She swayed in the saddle. Collie's arm was about her. She raised one arm and flung it round his neck, drawing his face down to her trembling lips. Then she drew away, her face burning.

Across the end of the canon a vagrant sunbeam ran like a bridge of faery gold. It pelted the gray wall with a million particles of mellow fire.

It flickered, flashed anew, and faded. The ponies drew apart. The colt Yuma grew restless.

"Good-bye," murmured Louise.

"Like the suns.h.i.+ne," he said, pointing to the cliff.

"It is gone," she whispered, s.h.i.+vering a little as the shadows drew down.

"It will s.h.i.+ne again," he said, smiling.

Without a word she touched Black Boyar with the spurs. A stone clattered down as he leaped forward, and she was gone.

Collie curbed the colt Yuma, who would have followed. "No, little hummingbird," he said whimsically. "We aren't so used to heaven that we can ride out of it quite so fast."

Next morning, with blanket and slicker rolled behind his saddle, he rode down the Moonstone Canon Trail. At the foot of the range he turned eastward, a new world before him. The far hills, hiding the desert beyond, bulked large and mysterious.

Louise had not been present when he bade good-bye to his Moonstone friends.

CHAPTER XXV

IN THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS

The afternoon of the third day out from the Moonstone Ranch, Collie picketed the roan pony Yuma near a water-hole in the desert. He spread his saddle-blankets, rolled a cigarette, and smoked. Presently he rose and took some food from a saddle-pocket.

The pony, unused to the desert, fretted and sniffed at the sagebrush with evident disgust. Collie had given her water, but there was no grazing.

After he had eaten he studied the rough map that Overland had given him.

There, to the south, was the desert town. He had pa.s.sed that, as directed, skirting it widely. There to the east were the hills.

Somewhere behind them was the hidden canon and Overland Red.

Stiff and tired from his long ride, he stretched himself for a short rest. He dozed. Something touched his foot. It was the riata with which he had picketed the pony. He meant to travel again that night. He would sleep a little while. The horse, circling the picket, would be sure to awaken him again.

He slept heavily. The Yuma colt stood with rounded nostrils sniffing the night air. The pony faced in the direction of the distant town. She knew that another horse and rider were coming toward her through the darkness. They were far off, but coming.

For a long time she stood stamping impatiently at intervals. Finally she grew restive. The oncoming horse had stopped. That other animal, the man, had dismounted and was coming toward her on foot. She could not see through the starlit blanket of night, but she knew.

The man-thing drew a little nearer. The pony swerved as if about to run, but hesitated, ears flattened, curious, half-belligerent.

That afternoon Silent Saunders, riding along the border of the desert town, had seen a strange horse and rider far out--away from the road and evidently heading for the water-hole. Saunders rode into town, borrowed a pair of field-gla.s.ses, and rode out again. He at once recognized the roan pony as the Oro outlaw, but the rider? He was not so sure. He would investigate.

The fact that he saw no glimmer of fire as he now approached the water-hole made him doubly cautious. Nearer, he crouched behind a bush.

He threw a pebble at the pony. She circled the picket, awakening Collie, who spoke to her sleepily. Saunders crept back toward his horse. He knew _that_ voice. He would track the young rider to the range and beyond--to the gold. He rode back to town through the night, entered the saloon, and beckoned to a belated lounger.

s.h.i.+vering in the morning starlight, Collie arose and saddled the pony.

He rode in the general direction of the range. The blurred shadow of the foothills seemed stationary. His horse was not moving forward--simply walking a gigantic treadmill of black s.p.a.ce that revolved beneath him.

The hills drew no nearer than did the constellations above them.

Suddenly the shadows of the hills pushed back. Almost instantly he faced the quick rise of the range. Out of the silence came the slithering step of some one walking in the sand. The darkness seemed to expand.

Overland Red stood before him, silent, alert, anxious. "You, Chico?" he asked.

"Sure. h.e.l.lo, Red."