The Forfeit Part 21

He set about his packing with furious zest. In a moment, it seemed, his room was in a state of chaos. And all the while, as he bundled garments together and flung them into his grips, his busy thought went on in the only direction in which it seemed capable of moving just now.

His mind had gone back to the days before their visit to Calthorpe. He remembered the delighted antic.i.p.ation which Nan had displayed. Her displays of happy affection for himself in the midst of her own great looking forward. The ravis.h.i.+ng hours she had spent in choosing patterns of material, and styles of gown. He remembered the bright sparkling eyes s.h.i.+ning, it seemed to him, at all times. That wonderful looking forward. Oh, the holiday of it had been nothing. There was only one thing, one thought, which had inspired the child. It was Jeff. It was a week that was to see honor done him, and she--she was to join in honoring him. Jeff was the whole hub about which her happiness revolved.

He was pained. He was angry. And the vision of Elvine van Blooren's dark beauty haunted him. He admitted it--her beauty. And for all his disquiet, his bitter feeling, he found it impossible to blame the man.

Yes, for all his exasperation. For all he regarded Jeff as a "fool man," he was just enough to remember that Nan was his own little daughter, a pretty prairie girl, with nothing of the showy attraction of this city woman. Then Jeff's att.i.tude toward her. It had never been more than the sheerest friendliness. He reflected bitterly, even, that they might have been simply brother and sister. While the dream of his life was some day to be able to pour out the wealth he was storing up into the out-stretched palms of their children.

Well, it was a dream. And now it had come tumbling about his feet, and it almost looked to him as if poor little Nan's heart was to be buried beneath the debris.

He flung his evening suit, which Nan had so much admired, into the gaping jaws of a large leather grip, with a disregard that more than ill.u.s.trated his feelings. Then he strove to close the grip tucking in the projecting oddments of silk-lined cloth without the least consideration for their well-being. He felt he never wanted to wear such things again, never wanted even to see them. He and Nan belonged to the prairie, not to a city. That was good enough for them. What was the use----?

But his reflections were interrupted by the abrupt appearance of Jeff himself. Bud looked up as the door was unceremoniously thrust open, and his regard was quite unshaken by the depths of his feelings. It displayed a mute question, however.

Jeff began at once.

"I saw the light through your transom, Bud, so I just came right in."

Jeff was a shade paler than usual. There was a look of some doubt in his blue eyes. And his manner hinted at a decision taken. A decision that had not been arrived at without some considerable exercise of mind.

Slowly, as he regarded him, all Bud's bitterness subsided. If Nan were his daughter, this man was almost a son to him.

"Say, old friend, I'm--I'm not going back home with you to-morrow,"

Jeff went on. He stirred with a suggestion of nervousness, and then flung himself upon the old man's littered-up bed. "I just can't, an'

that's a fact. I want to stop around here for a while. I got to."

He paused as though awaiting an answer, but none was forthcoming. Only was there that steady regard from the man beyond the still open grip.

Bud was not thinking of the announcement. Jeff was certainly a "good-looker," and he was beginning to understand something of the attraction he must have for a woman like Elvine van Blooren. He was slim and muscular, with a keen face of decision and strength. Then, was he not on the rising wave which must ever appeal to the maturer mind of a widow, however young? His disappointment rose again and threatened to find expression. But he thrust it aside and struggled to remember only his regard for the man.

"D'you mind?" Jeff's question came nervously.

Did he mind? It was a weak question. Coming from Jeff it sounded foolish. Bud smiled, and his quiet sense of humor saved him from himself.

"Why, if you feel that way I don't guess you need worry a thing, Jeff."

Then he added: "Guess Nan an' me'll get right along home. But it don't need to cut no ice. I take it you're askin' me to fix things right at the Obars till you get around. That so?"

Jeff nodded. He was feeling that he was doing something mean, even brutal. He knew that what he contemplated must result in the bitterest disappointment to his old friend. He had well enough known throughout their partners.h.i.+p Bud's yearning desire that he should marry Nan.

Well, such a course was unthinkable now. Somehow it had never seemed really possible. He was troubled, grievously troubled, but he was determined now to act in the only honest way. He was determined that Bud should know the truth--at all costs.

"I'd be thankful to you, Bud."

"You don't need to say a word. It's fixed."

For some moments no other word was spoken. There was awkwardness. But it was with Jeff alone. He feared the result of what he must tell.

"You're--packing?" he said presently.

Bud sat himself heavily into a rocker.

"Yep. Lestways I don't guess Nan 'ud call it that way." He raked his curly iron-gray hair with his strong fingers, and gazed ruefully at the chaos.

"Maybe I can help some."

Bud shook his head, and his smile was good.

"Guess one darn fool's enough playin' this game. When're you coming along to--home?"

"Maybe a week."

The reply was prompt.

"An'--you'll bring her along with you?"

The eyes of the two men met. Each was reading the other like an open book.

Jeff shook his head. Somehow there was nothing absurd to him in Bud's suggestion. There was nothing startling even in the probing of his secret with so much directness.

"I haven't asked her--yet."

Then it was that the big heart of the friend, who was almost a father, made itself apparent.

"But you're goin' to, Jeff. An' she's goin' to take you. Say, Jeff, she's one lucky woman."

In a moment the tide of the younger man's feelings was set flowing. In a moment the egoism of the lover made a generous nature forget all else but the pa.s.sion that absorbed him. In a moment the thought that this man was Nan's father, and that the dearest wish of his life was that he, Jeff, should marry his daughter, was forgotten.

"Lucky? But you got it wrong, Bud," Jeff cried, sitting erect, his face flushed with the pa.s.sionate stirring of Ills strong heart. "It's I who'll be lucky, if she don't turn me down. Man, I'm not worth the dust on her shoes. I'm not fit to lackey for her. Nor--nor is any other feller. Say, Bud," he went on, leaning impressively forward, his eyes s.h.i.+ning with his pa.s.sion, "I'm just crazy to death for her.

And--and I can't just help it. I'd go through h.e.l.l's flames for her, man, I'd----"

"Say, boy, don't worry that-a-way. Jest marry her instead," Bud broke in with his gentlest smile. "You're all sorts of a boy, Jeff, and I don't figger you got call to talk about the dust of any woman's shoes.

But I guess ther's times when it's good fer a man to feel he ain't as big as he's told. Anyways, you get right ahead, and leave me to the Obars. I ain't goin' to fail you now, any more than any other time."

Then he rumpled his stubbly hair again, and it was an action that suggested heavy thought. "Say," he went on, a moment later, his eyes looking squarely into the face of the other, "we're hittin' the trail good an' early to-morrow. Guess you best let me say 'good-bye' to Nan for you. That so?"

Jeff nodded. He understood. And somehow the bigness of this man made him almost despise himself.

"Then I guess I'll get right on with my--packin'."

They were standing on the stoop of Aston's Hotel. In front of them the broad Avenue opened out with its central walk, between an aisle of wide-spreading maple trees bathed in the early morning sun. A spring wagon was already moving away, piled up with baggage. The saddle horses were ready, held by one of the hotel servants. Nan, in her riding costume, was waiting while her father exchanged a few parting words with the hotel manager.

"Guess you're right. It's been a darn good week this year. The best in my memory. I'd say the Conference was a heap better attended, an'

the weather's been just great. We got through a deal o' legislation, too. Guess things are goin' to hum, with the Obars at the head of 'em this year. Our big play is to be dealin' with rustlers. We got a h.e.l.l of a piece o' leeway to make up. Four years ago we guessed we'd got 'em fixed where we wanted 'em. But they hatched out since like a brood o' wolf cubs. So long."

"Mr. Masters is stopping on for a while," the manager observed, with that intimate touch which he always practiced with his more influential customers of the cattle world.

"Why, yes." Bud's eyes were watching Nan as she mounted her pony, carefully held by a solicitous barn-hand. Under other circ.u.mstances the man's attention would have afforded him amus.e.m.e.nt. Just now he was regretting the manager's remark. "Y'see, ther's a deal to fix. Seein'

he's president this year, why, I guess it's up to him to kep his ladle busy in the soup."