The Reclaimers Part 24

"I may as well tell you the other side of the story." Jerry's voice trembled a little. "Cousin Gene Wellington was in the same boat with me, a dependent like myself. But now that he has given up to Aunt Jerry's wishes, I suppose he will be her heir some day, unless I go back and get forgiven."

"This artist's father was in business with your father once, wasn't he?"

York asked.

"Yes, and there was something I never could understand, and Aunt Jerry never mentioned, about that; but she did say often that Cousin Gene would make up for what John Wellington lacked, if things went her way.

They haven't all gone her way--only half of them, so far."

"Do you fully understand what you are giving up, Jerry?" York asked, earnestly. "That life might be a much pleasanter story back East, even if it were a bit less romantic than the story on the Sage Brush. Might not your good judgment take you back, in spite of a little pride and the newness of a different life here?"

As York spoke, Jerry Swaim sat looking earnestly into his face, but when he had finished she said, lightly:

"I thought before I saw you that you were an old man. You seem more like a brother now. I never had a brother, nor a sister--nothing but myself, which makes too big a houseful anywhere." She grew serious again as she continued: "I do understand what I'm giving up. It was tabulated in a letter to me yesterday, and I do not give up lightly nor for a girl's whim now. I have my time extended. There seems to be indefinite patience at the other end of the line, if I'll only be sure to agree at last."

"Pardon me, Jerry, if I ask you if it is a question of mere funds." York spoke carefully. "I know that Mrs. Darby may be drawn on at any time for that purpose."

"Did she tell you so?" Jerry asked, bluntly.

"She did--when you first came here," York replied, as bluntly.

Jerry did not dream of the struggle that was on in the mind of the man before her, but her own strife had made her more thoughtful.

For a little while neither spoke. Then York Macpherson's face cleared, as one who has reached the top of a difficult height and sees all the open country on the other side. Jerusha Darby's plea had won.

"Jerry, you do not understand what is before you. Whoever takes up the business of self-support, depending solely on the earnings that must be won, has a sure battle with uncertainty, failure, sacrifice, and slow-wearing labor. Of course it is a glorious old warfare--but it has that other side. In the face of the fact that I am your fortunate host, and that my sister is happier now than she has ever been before in New Eden, and hopes to keep you here, I urge you, Jerry, to consider well before you refuse to go back to your father's sister and your artist cousin."

The "father's sister" was a master-stroke. It caught Jerry at an angle she had not expected. But that "artist cousin"! If Gene had been truly the artist, Jerry Swaim had yielded then. The failure to be true to oneself has long tentacles that reach far and grip back many things that else had come in blessing to him who lies to his own soul.

"I won't go back. That is settled. Now as to my last will and testament, please," Jerry said, prettily.

"Imprimis," York began, with his pen on the lease form before him.

"Oh, drop the Latin," Jerry urged. "Say, 'I, Geraldine Darby Swaim, being of sound mind and in full possession of all my faculties, and of nothing else worth mentioning, being about to pa.s.s into the final estate and existence of an old-maid school-teacher, a high-school teacher of mathematics'--Please set that down."

"So you are going to teach. I congratulate you." York rose and took the girl's hand.

"Thank you. Yes, I just 'soared' over to the hotel and signed my contract with Mr. Ponk and the other two members in good standing, or whatever they are." Jerry would not be serious now. "And the remainder of my will: 'I hereby give and bequeath all my worldly goods, excepting my gear, to wit: one claim of twelve hundred acres, containing three cottonwood-trees, three times three acres of oak timber, and three times three times three million billion grains of golden sand, to the Macpherson Mortgage Company to have and to hold, free of all expense to me, and to lease or give away to any lunatic, or lunatics, at the company's good-will and pleasure, for a term not to exceed three million years. All of which duly signed and sworn to.'"

As Jerry ran on, York wrote busily on the lease form before him.

"Please sign here," he said, gravely pointing to a blank s.p.a.ce when he had finished. "It is a three years' lease to your property herein legally described. The Macpherson Mortgage Company will pay you twenty-five cents per acre, per year, with the exclusive right to all the profits accruing on the land, and to sublease the same at will."

"That is about half of what Aunt Jerry spent on my wardrobe just before I came West," Jerry exclaimed. "But I couldn't take twenty-five cents a year. I've seen the property, you know, and I don't want charity here any more than I did in Philadelphia."

"Then sign up the lease. This is business. Our company is organized on a strictly financial basis for strictly financial transactions. It is a matter of 'value received' both ways with us."

York Macpherson never trifled in business matters, even in the smallest details, and there was always something commanding about him. It pleased him now to note that Jerry read every word of the doc.u.ment before accepting it, and he wondered how much a girl of such inherent business qualities in the small details of affairs would waver in steadfastness of purpose in the larger interests of life.

"Will you let me give a receipt for the cash instead of taking a check?"

Jerry asked, as York reached for his check-book.

"Why do you prefer that?" York asked, with business frankness.

"Because I do not care to have the transaction known to any one besides your company," Jerry replied.

"But suppose I should sublease this land?" York suggested.

"That would be different, of course, even if the lessee was a lunatic.

Otherwise I don't care to have it known to any one that I draw an income from what is not worth an effort," Jerry declared, quoting Joe Thomson's words regarding her possessions.

"If I give my word to exclude every one else from knowing of this transaction it means every one--even my sister Laura." York looked at Jerry questioningly.

"Even your sister Laura," Jerry repeated, conclusively.

York was too well-bred to ask her why, and, while he voluntarily refrained from telling his sister many things, she was his counselor in so many affairs that he wondered not a little at Jerry's request, while he chafed a little under his promise. He was so accustomed to being master of himself in all affairs that it surprised him to find how easily he had put himself where he would rather not have been placed.

Half an hour later Joe Thomson came into the office.

"What can I do for you to-day, Joe?" York inquired.

"Do you control the sections south of mine?" Joe asked. "I want to lease them, but I shouldn't care to have the owner know anything about it."

"That old blowout! What's your idea, Joe?"

"I want to try an experiment," Joe replied.

York Macpherson had the faculty of reading some men like open books.

"You must have been hanging around eavesdropping this morning. I just got a three years' lease on Miss Swaim's land at twenty-five cents an acre, and here you come for it. I took it on a venture, of course, hoping to sell sand to the new cement-works up the river, sand being scarce in these parts." There was a twinkle in York's eyes as he said this. "I can sublease it, of course, and at the same price, but you know, Joe, that the land is worthless."

"I don't know it," Joe said, stubbornly. "You seem to have been willing enough to get the lease secured this morning."

York ignored the thrust. "You know I leased that land merely to help Miss Swaim, but you don't know yet whether or not you can tame your own share of that infernal old sand-pile that you want to put a mortgage on your claim to fight," York reminded him.

"I'll take a part of that loan to pay for the lease, and the rest I'll use on the Swaim land, not on mine. I'm going to go beyond the blowout to begin, and work north the same way it goes," Joe explained.

"All of which sounds pretty crazy to me. You are shouldering a big load, young man--a regular wildcat venture. There's one of you to myriads of sand-heaps. You'll have to take the Lord Almighty into partners.h.i.+p to work a miracle before you win out. I've known the Sage Brush since the first settler stuck in a plow, and I've never known one single miracle yet," York admonished him.

"As to miracles," Joe replied, "they are an every-day occurrence on the Sage Brush, if you can only look far enough above money-loaning to see them, you Shylock."

Calling York Macpherson a Shylock was standard humor on the Sage Brush, he was so notoriously everybody's friend and helper.

"And I've had to take the Lord in for a partner all my life," Joe added, seriously.

York looked at the stern face and stalwart form of the big, st.u.r.dy fellow before him, recalling, as he did so, the young ranchman's years of struggle through his boyhood and young manhood.

"Of course you can win," he a.s.sured Joe. "Your kind doesn't know what failure means. It isn't the _work_, it is the stake that makes me uneasy."

Joe looked up quickly and York knew that he understood.