The Trail of Conflict Part 13

Curious that he should pull off that cut-up stuff there, infernally risky I call it. He couldn't have been doing it for my benefit. What do you make of it, Steve?"

"Probably some crazy, reckless flier getting ready for a contest,"

Courtlandt observed, and disappeared below the bank.

Doc Hand and Greyson left directly after luncheon. Benson packed the basket which some of the boys would take back to the ranch before he rode off to Upper Farm on an errand for Courtlandt. Steve helped Jerry mount and swung into the saddle. The girl tightened her rein then held up an arresting finger.

"Listen! The Kreutzer Sonata," she whispered.

From somewhere up-stream came the notes of a violin. There was a rare brightness, an aerial quality to the music that most artists take too gravely. The variations of the slow movements gave the sense of a glorified voice. Jerry drew a long, tremulous breath as the last note died away.

"That must have been the Man of Mystery," she confided in a low voice, as though fearful even at that distance of disturbing the musician. "I don't care if he did drop from the sky, if he never receives letters, he plays like--like an angel--if angels can play," with a laugh. Courtlandt looked up-stream as though mystified.

"I knew a man who played that sonata, just like that, but--but it can't possibly be he. Who did you say you thought it was?"

"Bill Small, the range-rider at the B C. Mrs. Carey told me about him when I called there yesterday. She said that the boys of the Double O and X Y Z outfits trailed over there every chance they could get to hear him play. That reminds me," her beautiful face glowed with enthusiasm, "I--I wonder if--if the boys of our outfit would care to have me play and sing for them? I should so love to do it."

"Care! I know they would. Pete says that they line up outside the court wall after dinner on the chance of hearing you sing."

"Really--really, Steve? I'd rather have that tribute than--than my name in electric lights on the Great White Way. Ask them up this afternoon.

We'll have an honest-to-goodness musicale with Signora Geraldina Courtlandta as head-liner. Hurry!" She touched her horse with her heels.

"It's a pity that Bruce Greyson didn't wait. He----"

"Your proposition was to sing for the Double O outfit. Greyson doesn't come in on that."

"Ogre! I can hear my bones scrunch between those strong white teeth of yours when you look at me like that."

"Then remember that you're married."

"Are you sure that the ceremony wasn't a dream?" with a provocative ripple of laughter. "Do you know, Steve, somehow I never can think of you as Bened.i.c.k the married man. You--you are such a good-looking boy."

She was the incarnation of girlish diablerie indulging an irresistible desire to torment. The color burned to Courtlandt's temples. He caught the bridle and drew Patches close. His eyes compelled Jerry's.

"Do you know what happens to a person who rocks a boat, Mrs.

Courtlandt?" he demanded autocratically.

"Do you know what happens when a person gets unbearably dictatorial, Mr.

Courtlandt? This!" She slapped her horse smartly on the hip. Patches threw up his head and broke from Steve's hold. The girl looked over her shoulder. Lips and eyes challenged in unison as she sang mischievously:

"'My road calls me, lures me West, east, south and north; Most roads lead me homewards, But my road leads----'"

Patches stepped in a gopher hole, which, feat brought the song to an abrupt termination.

When she met him in the late afternoon on the terrace which overlooked the court Jerry was as coolly friendly as though the little pa.s.sage-at-arms, which had left Steve's pulses hammering, had never taken place. The piano had been moved out and the outfit, in its Sunday best, occupied the rustic seats and benches and overflowed to the turf paths. The girl felt choky as the men rose to greet her. They looked so big and fine, so like eager, wistful boys. She smiled at them through a mist.

"I'll sing what I think you'll like, then you must ask for anything you want. Please smoke," she added, as she realized what it was that had made them seem so unfamiliar. They looked from her to Steve. He nodded.

With delighted grins they dropped back to their places and proceeded with the business of rolling cigarettes.

Courtlandt and Benson took their places on the edge of the terrace.

Overhead the sky spread like a flawless turquoise; cameoed against the blue were snow-tipped mountains. The court was gay and fragrant with blossoms. In the dark shadow of the open doorway Ming and Hopi Soy made a patch of Oriental brilliance. Jerry in her filmy pink frock looked not unlike a flower herself, against the rosewood background of the raised piano top, Courtlandt thought. He looked from her to the rapt, weather-browned faces of his men. His gaze came back and rested in fascinated interest on her foot in its pink slipper on the pedal of the instrument.

Jerry sang as she had never sung before, ballads, rollicking melodies.

The men drew nearer. When she stopped a swarthy Italian stepped as near the piano as the terrace would permit. His black eyes seemed too big for his thin face, his plastered-down hair suggested infinite labor with brush and pomade.

"What is it, Tony?" Jerry asked with a smile.

"Hava you the one grand opera song?" he asked shyly. Jerry was nonplussed. She had not thought of opera for these men. As she turned over her music she asked:

"You like opera, Tony?"

"Vera much, Signora. At home we taka the leetle seester to grand opera even if we have not mucha to eat. We feel that eef the leetle seester hear great music, she be fine lady, not common, not bad--never." His earnest voice broke as he realized that he was being stared at in amazement by the outfit. He mumbled an apology and hurried back to his seat. With a smile at Tony, Jerry placed Tales of Hoffmann on the rack.

She sang the Barcarole. As the exquisite, langorous notes floated out over the court the shadows lengthened, the sun dropped behind the mountains. There was no applause when she finished, no one was smoking, the men sat motionless. Where were their thoughts, the girl wondered.

With a glance at the crimsoning foot-hills she struck a few chords and sang softly:

"'Day is dying in the west; Heaven is touching earth with rest; Wait and wors.h.i.+p while the night Sets her evening lamps alight Thro' all the sky.'"

With the second verse the men took up the song. To most of them it brought a vivid picture of mother and home and the village church at sunset. They sang until with the last line mountains and foot-hills took up the words and sent them pealing into s.p.a.ce.

That closed the musicale. One by one the men came forward and thanked Jerry as she stood between Courtlandt and Benson. As the last one left the court Tommy turned to the girl.

"I'll say that was a wonderful thing to do, Mrs. Steve." With a quick change of tone he spoke to Courtlandt. "Marks and Schoeffleur weren't here; did you miss them?"

"Would you expect them to be here?"

"I should have expected it until to-day. Ever since Marks blew in here from nowhere two months ago I've been wondering where the d.i.c.kens I'd seen him. When that airplane pa.s.sed over to-day memory flipped into place the missing piece of the puzzle. He was a mechanician at the hangar where I tried to develop wings in 1917."

"You are sure of that, Tommy?"

"Sure as shootin'. What's up? Why that 'Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman' scowl, old dear?"

"Nothing, except that your information confirms me in my suspicion that Marks and Schoeffleur signaled to that pilot when he went over."

"'And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew,'"

contributed Benson in mock amazement.

Up from the corral floated a chorus of men's voices singing:

"'Wait and wors.h.i.+p while the night Sets her evening lamps alight Thro' all the sky.'"

CHAPTER XI

Courtlandt's fine brow puckered in a thoughtful crease as he waited in the living-room of the Double O for Jerry the next evening. Benson, on the arm of a chair, bent forward to get the light from the lamp on the book he had picked up. Through the open windows came the scent of pine and dewy fields, the murmur of the distant stream as it thundered and rippled its never-ending triumphal march to the sea, the occasional soft lowing of cattle.

Jerry had been tremendously pleased and excited over Greyson's invitation to dine, Steve thought as he lighted a cigarette and blew the smoke toward Goober. The dog was regarding him with an air of watchful waiting. Was he to be invited to jump on the running-board of the automobile which stood in the drive outside the front door? Courtlandt remembered as clearly as though it had been yesterday what she had answered the first night they met when he had asked her if she liked the city. He could see her eyes now with their golden lights, hear her musical voice:

"I love it. It is so big, so beautiful, so faulty. I--I like people; I should starve for companions.h.i.+p, not food, in a wilderness."