The Trail of Conflict Part 20

"Yes, and do you know what I saw when she said that about G.o.d and man? I didn't see her at all; it was a close-up of Jerry's eyes at her wedding, and the clergyman saying, 'And forsaking all others.' Those words echoed in my brain for days. Jerry is like Mrs. Simms. She'd keep a vow like that if it killed her."

"Wouldn't you?"

"You never can tell," flippantly. "At least I don't intend to get into a position where I'll have to for years--and--years--and years----" The last words floated back to him with laughter as she galloped off. She kept the breakneck pace till she pulled up at the court entrance. Benson was off his horse before she could dismount. He lifted her from the saddle and with his arms about her drew her into the garden.

"I won't take possession till you give me leave,--but--but I--I'll stake my claim now, and that's that!" he whispered huskily as he kissed her once upon her white throat.

"Mr. Tommee! Mr. Tommee Benson!" called a voice from the path as Ming Soy in her gay silks came running toward them. Her slant eyes were almost wide. "Misses Stevie went off on horse after lunch. Tlell Ming Soy just going to flield; Ming Soy bleat glong when you and little Missis come, but she didn't go to flield, and she never come back--not all this time."

CHAPTER XIV

Jerry Courtlandt lingered on the porch to watch her sister and Benson as they raced down the drive. Her eyebrows met in a thoughtful frown. What would her father say if Peg fell in love with Benson, with his poor-but-honest background? There was no "if" about Tommy. Cupid had set signal fires to burning in his eyes already. Benson pere had begun his business career as an errand boy; now he twinkled a large and somewhat dazzling planet in the select heaven of the multies. Well, Glamorgan the oil-king couldn't expect both his daughters to marry the man of his choice. She had done it and what had been her reward? Because she had views as to right and wrong and justice he refused to write to her.

Evidently Peg didn't know the terms of Nicholas Fairfax's will or she wouldn't have been surprised at her lack of enthusiasm about the Alexandrite. Two thousand dollars! It seemed a more stupendous sum than twenty thousand would have seemed to her a year ago. Values were curious things. What had Steve thought? She was beginning to dread his eyes--they were so searching, so compelling.

If she wanted and needed money, she would earn it; other women had been doing it for years; she wouldn't accept it from Steve any other way. In spite of his prohibition she would work on the books for a while. She paused before she entered the house to draw a long breath and take a look at the glorious world about her. The sky spread like a cerulean canopy flecked with motionless white clouds. It seemed near. She felt more as though she were looking up at a vast, decorated dome than at the heavens. Almost she expected to see Dawn or any one of the symbolic head-liners in the mural world, come trailing her scanty draperies across the blue. The far-off mountains reared a patchwork of purple and blue and gold. The noisy stream was fringed with color. The fields rustled their content in the suns.h.i.+ne. On the road to the X Y Z rose a cloud of dust.

"Somebody coming!" she thought with a thrill of excitement. Then she laughed and looked down at the dog who stood in stately, aloof dignity beside her. "Goober, I'm getting to be like a prairie-dog who parks outside his hole to see the pa.s.s," she confided. She still watched the approaching riders. When she recognized in them Felice Denbigh and Bruce Greyson she regretted that she had lingered. It was too late to disappear now. The owner of the X Y Z had seen her and waved his hand.

With a feeling of repugnance, which shocked her even as it swept her, Jerry went to the steps to greet the riders. Felice in her smart silvery linen looked as though she had been removed recently from tissue wrappings. Greyson's eyes met Jerry's. Was she mistaken that they were full of a wordless apology, she wondered, even as she greeted the two cordially.

"Doesn't this morning look as though it had just been returned from the dry-cleanser's?" she asked gayly. "Did you ever feel anything more spick and span than the air? Won't you come in?"

"Thanks, no." Felice Denbigh's answer was hurried. "Where is Steve? He invited me to inspect the Double O with him this morning. He was to come for me but I tired of the role of patient Griselda and made Mr. Greyson bring me over. Not that I had to work hard to persuade him." Her light tone was tinged with malice as she administered one of those subtle female digs commonly imperceptible to the male intelligence. Jerry caught the obvious reply between her teeth and subst.i.tuted:

"Steve was called to Lower Field. I--I doubt if he can ride with you this morning, Mrs. Denbigh."

If a glance could have accomplished it, Jerry would have been neatly and expeditiously skinned, then and there. Felice's voice had the edge of a hari-kari sword as she answered:

"Steve is the person to decide that. Which way to Lower Field, Mr.

Greyson?" Her host's eyes flamed.

"If Mrs. Courtlandt thinks----"

"Oh, but Mrs. Courtlandt doesn't think," protested Jerry laughingly. "Do show Mrs. Denbigh the way to Lower Field, Bruce. I should be delighted to go myself but for a letter which must be ready for Sandy this morning. You will find----"

Felice Denbigh was off before she had finished her sentence. Greyson followed without a word. Jerry looked after the two with troubled eyes.

Her thoughts were in a turmoil.

"What has happened to Bruce Greyson?" she thought anxiously. "His conversational output has shrunk till what he says seems a waste of breath, it amounts to so little. One would think he was under a spell. I wonder--I wonder if Steve did make a date with her?" she mused aloud as she crossed the court on her way to the office. Jose, busy among his flowers, swept off his hat with his single-tooth smile.

"_Buenos dias, Senora._ My roses bloom brighter as you pa.s.s, yes?"

Benito, balancing on one claw on the rim of the fountain, s.h.i.+vered, blinked his yellow eyes and croaked hoa.r.s.ely:

"Piffle!"

With a shocked exclamation Jose flung a chunk of loam at the parrot. It hit him squarely and knocked him backward into the shallow basin. With frightened squawks and much ruffling of feathers the bird regained his place on the basin's rim. For an instant he indulged in a what-hit-me blink, then with his gaudy plumage looking as though it had been electrified croaked angrily:

"I'll be d----!"

Jose swooped and m.u.f.fled the final word beneath his coat. "You weel pardon, Senora? It is Senor Tommee that teaches Benito seence he come to the rancho. I teach heem when he ees so leetle to speak only good. Not till one year ago does he begin to talk like wild devil. Senora weel pardon? He ees all I have, he ees like my child."

Jerry accepted the brown man's apology as seriously as it was offered.

"Children are a great responsibility. You never can tell what they will do, can you, Jose?"

The office seemed a dull, uninteresting drab in contrast to the light and color of the world outside. Even the silent witnesses to the drama and lawlessness of the country, now guarded jealously by gla.s.s doors, failed to spur the girl's imagination. She streamed the curtain up at the window. A light haze of dust lingered above the road Greyson and Felice had taken. The music of the stream stole into the quiet room; down in the corral a horse whinnied intriguingly; the whole gleaming out-of-doors lured, the mountains beckoned.

Jerry resolutely barred heart and mind against temptation and attacked her letters. She worked with single-track intentness until Ming Soy announced luncheon. She looked up in surprise. Her work had burned up the hours. She interned the typewriter and closed her desk with a bang.

She flexed her muscles in luxurious enjoyment of the sensation. What a relief to move, but it wasn't even a sliver of the relief she felt when she looked down at the sheaf of letters awaiting Steve's signature. How it would have pleased her father to know that she had resisted the temptation to be up and away on Patches, she thought wistfully. She could see him now, hear his gruff voice saying:

"Jerry, the more you dread the thing you have to do, the more you should hustle to get it behind you. Make that a rule of your life and you'll find you will have all the time you want and some left with which to speculate." He was a resplendent example of the working out of his own precept, his daughter thought. He was the busiest man she knew yet he always had an abundance of time for pleasure.

What should she do with her afternoon, she wondered, as she enjoyed the dainty luncheon Ming Soy served in a shady corner of the court. The air had lost the keenness of the morning. Birds flew to the rim of the basin, observed the girl at the table critically for an instant, then proceeded with the day's ablutions. They chattered, they splashed, they scolded, they preened and dressed their feathers in the sun. b.u.t.terflies darted in and out among the blossoms. There were none of the usual ranch sounds to break the stillness. Where were the men? Had Steve taken them all with him, she wondered. What were Peg and Tommy doing? Peg might see some real riding if she caught up with the outfit before they started off in pursuit of the missing cattle, but alas for buckskin fringes and----

Suddenly a plan sprang full panoplied, complete, from her brain. It was born of her what-shall-I-do-now mood. If necessity is the mother of invention, idleness is the father of adventure. She would array herself in one of the cowboy suits behind the gla.s.s doors, mount Patches and ride to the field behind the ranch-house, practise with a six-shooter until Peg came, then she'd dash toward her with her gun "spittin' death and d.a.m.nation" into the air.

Her idea developed with magic-beanstalk rapidity, as all ideas will if they are dropped in fertile and well-cultivated soil. She laughed until she was breathless as she confronted herself in the mirror in her own room an hour later. Over her linen riding breeches she had drawn a pair of flapping black and white Angora chaps. Great Mexican rowels adorned her riding boots. A hectic yellow bandana, with red spots which gave the cheery effect of a geometrical nosebleed, almost covered her delicate blouse. Her sleeves were rolled to the elbows, at her hip swung a six-shooter of sinister portent. A heavy belt filled with cartridges sagged from her waist. She had slipped a silver filigree band above the black and gold cord of Steve's campaign hat.

In a little whirlwind of laughter she blew a kiss to the gleaming eyes of her vis-a-vis and lifted the saddle which she had purloined from the gla.s.s case. It was gay with silver. The tapideros were choice examples of Mexican craftsmans.h.i.+p. The head-stall of the bridle was fantastically trimmed with the metal. As Jerry pa.s.sed through the living-room the huge rowels on her boots caught in the rug. She dropped the saddle with a crash and caught at the table to save herself from falling. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks pink when she had Patches saddled. She had brought him up from the corral herself before she dressed. He rolled his great eyes at her as she came out of the house. He pranced skittishly until she spoke. Then he quieted but he kept an appraising, suspicious eye on her. As the crowning touch of realism Jerry fastened a coil of rawhide rope beside the saddle fork.

It was with difficulty, punctuated by _sotto voce_ exclamations, that the girl mounted. The chaps were heavy and perversely unadaptable. As she gathered up the reins Ming Soy appeared at the door. The little Oriental's eyes were globules of wonder. Jerry antic.i.p.ated her.

"I am off to practise shooting in the field behind the house, Ming Soy.

Don't be frightened if you hear shots. Watch the road for Miss Glamorgan and Mr. Benson. They ought to be here within an hour. The moment they appear in sight sound the gong at the back of the ranch-house. Do you understand?"

"All light. Ming Soy understan'. Slandy tlell Hopi Soy he see Clarey range-rider ketch Double O steers, other day. Said first he thought he doin' it for Hopi Soy's chief, so he doan't say nodin'. Now he wonder."

"Ming Soy! Are you sure?"

"Slandy tlell Hopi Soy he see um ketch um. Clarey range-rider drove steers over hill black of Blear Cleek ranch, Slandy tlell Hopi Soy."

"Ming Soy, don't let anyone know you told me that."

"All light, Ming Soy no tlell."

Jerry didn't know why she put that embargo on the Chinese woman's tongue. Perhaps a vague fear that a warning would get to the thief prompted it. The girl's mind was in a tumult as she raced Patches along the road. She didn't stop to unfasten the gate, she jumped it. As she entered the field which led to the stream she had quite forgotten the exhibition she had staged for Peg. She had suspected that range-rider of crookedness. Absorbed in thought she allowed Patches to race across the rustic bridge. The thud of his hoofs on the wood brought her back to the present. She pulled the horse down to a walk. Where was she going? To see what was on the other side of that ridge beyond which the range-rider had disappeared!

She followed the pack-trail cautiously. Bear Creek ranch-house in the glare of suns.h.i.+ne was outlined distinctly against the dark cliff behind it. Was it only this morning that she had come out of that door to find Steve waiting for her? She had the curious feeling of being in another decade. How were things going with the little mother, she wondered and--and where was the Man of Mystery?

She touched Patches lightly with the great spurs and raced along the trail toward the hill. It didn't seem possible that the man who had seemed so concerned when he came for her last night could be a rustler--but Sandy had seen him and the calves were missing. Her thoughts urged her on. She was the one person of authority within reach.

She didn't know just what she intended to do, but she must do something.

She only knew that a frenzied voice somewhere inside her head kept reiterating:

"He shan't get away with it! He shan't get away with it!"