The Last Straw Part 28

And then, the day that the sorrel threw her, he had felt her body and the man in him had been stirred and when next he paced those shadows it was not as a protector of some defenseless life, but as one who quite tenderly lays siege to the heart of a woman.

He did not admit that even to himself. He reasoned that he was protecting her because she was a stranger in a strange land and that the impulse was only kindness. But his reason in that was a conscious lie for as he stood under the stars with the cool, quiet night all about him he could hear her voice in the murmur of the creek, hear her limbs rustling her skirts in the soft sigh of wind in the trees, could feel her presence there ... when he was stark alone....

And he fought it off, fought stubbornly, coldly because he did not know, he did not know love, did not know the ground into which he was being carried.

Women? He had had many but the experiences had been casual, mere surface rifflings, and he had never been stirred as this woman stirred him. It was new, entirely new, and Tom Beck feared that which he did not know.

He was accustomed to talk to his horses as men will who love them and while he rode the gulches alone he would in later days reason aloud with his own roan or the HC black or bay he used.

"Why, old stager, we can't take a chance like that!" he said time after time. "We've kept our heels out of trouble by playing a close game, not gettin' out on a limb, but up to now everything that come along has been boy's play ... compared to this.

"If an _hombre_ took a chance with his love that'd be the limit, wouldn't it? He'd have his stack on the table, an' the deal wouldn't be more than started!"

He talked over the loves of other men with those horses, earnestly, soberly. He recalled the marriages he had known between men and women who were from the same stocks, who knew none but the same life; so many were failures! And this girl, this girl of whom he dreamed at night and thought by day, scarcely yet spoke his language!

But he could not argue away the disturbing impulse. He could cover it, hide it from others, hide it from himself at times, but drive it out?

Never!

Tom's report to Jane after his trip to town offered no encouragement.

The filing had been legally accomplished and its significance was further impressed on the girl when he said:

"It's a mighty popular subject in town, ma'am. Everybody's interested."

"I suppose they all think it will mean trouble for me?"

"Yes, an' they're likely to be right."

She shook her head sharply.

"We don't want trouble, but if it does come we must meet it half way!"

She leaned forward determinedly and Beck stirred in his chair. It was a gesture of delight for those were almost his very words to Hepburn when they cleared their relations.h.i.+ps of pretense; but he said only:

"That's the easiest way to take trouble on."

Just then Hepburn came in with his report on his visit to the Hole.

"The old fellow seems reasonable, Miss Hunter," he said ponderously.

"He don't look like he's a permanent neighbor even if he has bought some cows from Webb, which I found out today. He's poor as a church mouse to begin with--"

"And buyin' more cattle?" put in Beck.

"Oh, they were old stock an' I guess Webb was glad to get rid of 'em,"

the foreman said with a wave of his hand, yet he did not return Beck's searching gaze.

"Cole told me he didn't have any intention of fencin' up the water so I guess there ain't anything to fret you, Miss Hunter. I sounded him out on buyin' but didn't get far. He's a s.h.i.+ftless old cuss, from th' look of things, so I don't antic.i.p.ate any trouble at all. He may not even last the summer out."

Tom left and afterward Hepburn talked at length of the situation, minimizing the menace the others saw, urging Jane to put the matter out of her mind. But the girl was not satisfied and the next day, with Tom, rode off toward the Hole.

They made an early start, riding out of the ranch just as the sun topped the heights to the eastward. Dew hung heavily on the sage from which fresh, clean fragrance rose as their horses stirred the brush.

Their shadows were thrown far in advance as they followed a narrow gulch and the sunlight was caught and concentrated and scattered again as the drops flew from leaf and twig.

The girl breathed deeply of the light, sweet air and looked at Beck with a little laugh as of relief.

"When I sit at that desk, I feel like a prosaic business woman whose interest is in ledgers," she said, "but when I ride in this country I feel like a character in some romantic story."

Tom scratched his chin thoughtfully.

"That's too bad, 'ma'am," he said.

"Which?"

"Both."

"I can see disadvantages to the first, but why the other?"

"I guess I ain't struck much with stories. Used to read 'em, used to get real interested in some but that was before I commenced to get interested in folks."

"Yes?" she encouraged after a moment.

"You see, I think the folks I see and hear and live with and get to know are a lot more interestin' than the folks somebody's thought up out of his head.

"A man in a book talks and acts like a man in a book an' nothing else.

You never hear men talk out here in the bunk house or ridin' the country like a writer would make 'em talk on the page of a book; take my word for that....

"Folks are mighty interestin'. The best fun I get is watching folks, studying them. It's a lot more fun than reading about some man or woman you know ain't real, ma'am.

"Life is mighty interesting if you look at it right. If you try to glorify and lie about it you cheapen the whole works. It's either d.a.m.ned serious or a joke. There's no in between. I don't know which it is, yet, but I do know that most of the books I ever read was th'

in-between kind, neither one thing nor the other.

"I've been around considerable among men but I never seen things happen in life like writers make things happen in books. Everything works out so lovely in books, folks never make mistakes in anything ... that is, the heroes don't. Why, love even works out right in books!"

He spoke the last in a lowered voice as if he talked of a sacred thing that had been mistreated. Unconsciously he had voiced the fear that had grown in his own soul and when he turned to look at her his eyes reflected a queer mental conflict, almost fright!

She caught something of his mood and waited a moment to summon the courage to ask very gently:

"And doesn't it ... doesn't love work out in life?"

He shook his head.

"Seldom, ma'am. In books folks gamble with it like it was ... why, ma'am, like their love was a white chip!"

Again he spoke as of a sacrilege and his earnestness, though he did not appear to be thinking of her, confused the girl. The wordless interval which followed was distressing to her so she said:

"And the other forms of expression? Music? Poetry? Painting?"

"You've got me on music," he confessed with a laugh. "I've heard greasers playin' fandangoes on busted old guitars that sounded a lot sweeter to me than any band I ever heard.