The Reclaimers Part 35

running fight between Jim Swaim's determined chin and Lesa's tender eyes. I had hoped to the Lord that Jim would win the day, but that whirlwind campaign of pleading and luxury-tempting letters came just at the end of a hard year's work in the high school, with all that infernal fuss in the Senior cla.s.s, splitting the town open for a month and being forgotten in an hour, and the jealousy toward the best teacher we've ever had here, etcetera. So the '_eyes_' seem to have it. If there were no ladies present," York added, with a half-smile, "I'd feel free to express my lordly judgment of the whole d.a.m.ned s.e.x."

"Don't hesitate, Yorick; a little cussing might ease your liver," Laura declared, surprised and amused at her brother's unexpected vehemence of feeling.

"There's nothing in the English language, as she is cussed, to do the subject justice, but I might practise a few minutes at least," York began.

"Hush, York! That is Mr. Eugene Wellington coming yonder. I'll call Jerry. Poor Joe!" Laura added, pityingly. "I have a feeling he is the real sufferer here."

"Yes, poor Joe!" York echoed, sadly. "Ponk will just soar above his hurt, but men of Joe's dogged make-up die a thousand deaths when they do die."

Lesa Swaim's daughter was gloriously beautiful to Eugene Wellington's artistic eyes as he sat beside her on the porch on this beautiful evening. And Eugene himself held a charm in his very presence. All the memories of the young years of culture and ease; all the daintiness of perfect dress and perfect manners; all the a.s.surance that a vague, sweet dream was becoming real; all the sense of a struggle for a livelihood now ended; all the breaking of the grip of stern duty, and an unbending pride in a clear conscience, although their rewards had been inspiringly sweet--all these seemed to Jerry Swaim to lift her suddenly and completely into the real life from which these three busy, strange years had taken her. Oh, she had been only waiting, after all. Nothing mattered any more. Eugene and she had looked at duty differently. That was all. He was here now, here for her sake. Henceforth his people were to be her people--his G.o.d her G.o.d. Uncle Cornie was wise when he said of Eugene: "He comes nearer to what you've been dreaming about." He seemed not so much a lover as a fulfilment of a craving for love.

The first sweet moment of meeting was over. Her future, their future, shrouded only by a rose-hued mist, beyond which lay light and ease, was waiting now for them to enter upon. In this idyllic hour Geraldine, daughter of Lesa Swaim, had come to the very zenith of life's romance.

"It has been a cruel three years, Jerry," Eugene was saying, as, their first greetings over, he lighted a cigarette and adjusted himself picturesquely and easefully in York Macpherson's big porch chair--a handsome, perfectly groomed, artistic fellow, he appeared fitted as never before to adorn life's ornamental places.

"But they are past now. You won't have to teach any more, little cousin o' mine. York Macpherson says your land lease expires to-day. So your business transactions here are over, and we'll just throw that ground in the river and forget it."

He might have taken the girl's hand in his as they sat together, but instead he clasped his own hands gracefully and studied their fine outlines.

"I have all the Darby estate in my own name now, you know, and I didn't have to work a stroke at earning it. G.o.d! I wonder how a fellow can stand it to work for every dollar he gets until he is comfortably fixed.

I simply filled in my banking-hours in a perfunctory way, and I didn't kill myself at it, either. See what I have saved by it for myself and you, and how much better my course was than yours, after all. Just three years of waiting, and dodging all the drudgery I possibly could. And you can just bet I'm a good dodger, Jerry."

Something like a chill went quivering through Jerry Swaim's whole being, but the smile in her eyes seemed fixed there, as Eugene went on:

"Now if I had stuck to art, where would I have been and where would you be right now? I've always wanted to paint the prairies. If I can stand this blasted, crude country long enough, and if I'm not too lazy, we'll play around here a little while, till I have smeared up a few canvases, and then we'll go home, never to return, dear. Art is going to be my pastime hereafter, you know, as it was once my--my--"

"Oh, never mind what it once was." Jerry helped to end the sentence.

The sunset on the Sage Brush was never more radiantly beautiful than it was on this evening, and the long midsummer twilight gave promise of its rarest grandeur of coloring. But a dull veil seemed to be slowly dropping down upon Jerry's world.

Eugene Wellington looked at her keenly.

"Why, Jerry, aren't you happy to see me--glad for us to be together again?" he asked, with just a tinge of sharpness edging his tones.

"I have looked forward to this meeting as a dream, an impossible joy. I hardly realize yet that it isn't a dream any more," Jerry answered him.

"Say, cousin girl," Eugene Wellington exclaimed, suddenly, "I have been trying all this time to find out what it is that is changed in your face. Now I know. You have grown to look so much more like your father than you did three years ago. Better looking, of course, but his face, and I never noticed it before. Only you will always have your mother's beautiful eyes."

"Thank you, Gene. They were, each in his and her way, good to me. I hope I shall never put a stain upon their good names," Jerry murmured, wondering strangely whether the feeling that gripped her at the moment could be joy or sorrow.

"They didn't leave you much of an inheritance. That's the only thing that could be said against them. My father was partly to blame for that, I guess, but I never had the courage to tell you so till now. You know courage and Eugene Wellington never got on well together." Somehow his words seemed to rattle harshly against Jerry's ears. "You know, my dad, John Wellington, came out here to this very forsaken Sage Brush Valley somewhere and started in to be a millionaire himself on short notice, by the short-cut plan of finance. When the thing began to look like work he threw up the whole blamed concern, just as I would have done. Work never was a strong element in the Wellington blood, any more than courage, you know." Gene stopped to light another cigarette. Then he went on: "Well, after that, dad clung close to Jim Swaim and Uncle Darby till he died. I guess, if the truth were told, he helped most to tear your father down financially. He could do that kind of thing, I know.

Jim Swaim spent thousands stopping the cracks after dad, to save the good name of Wellington for his daughter to wear--as your mother always hoped you would, because I was an artist then. You see, Mrs. Swaim loved art--and, as Aunt Darby always insisted (that was before you ran away from her), because it would keep her money and Uncle Darby's all in the family. That's why I'm so glad to bring all this fortune that I do to you now. I'm just making up to you what your father lost through mine, you see, and it came to me so easily, without my having to grub for it.

Just pleasing Aunt Darby and taking a soft snap of clerical work, with short hours and good pay, instead of toiling at painting, even if I do love the old palette and brush. And I used to think I'd rather do that sort of thing than anything else in the world."

Jerry's eyes were fixed on the young artist's face with a gaze that troubled him.

"Don't stare at me that way, Jerry. That isn't the picture I want you to pose for when I paint your portrait, Saint Geraldine. Now listen,"

Eugene continued. "Your York Macpherson was East this spring, and he told me that that wild-goose chase of dad's out here had left a desert behind him. He said a poor devil of a fellow had fought for years against the sand that dad sowed (I don't know how he did the sowing), till it ate up about all this poor wretch had ever had. The unfortunate cuss! York tried to tell Aunt Darby (but I headed him off successfully) that dad started a thing that became what they call a 'blowout' here.

York Macpherson wanted to put up a big spiel to her about justice to you and some other folks--this poor critter who got sanded over, maybe. But it didn't move me one mite, and I didn't let it get by to Aunt Jerry's ears, although I half-way promised York I would, to get rid of the thing the easiest way, for that's my way, you know. Did you ever see such a precious thing as a 'blowout' here, Jerry?"

Jerry's face was white and her eyes burned blue-black now with a steady glow. "Never, till to-night," she said, slowly. "I never dreamed till now how barren a thing a l.u.s.t for property can create."

Gene Wellington dropped his cigarette stub and stared a moment. He did not grasp her meaning at all, but her voice was not so pleasant, now, as her merry laugh and soft words had been three years ago.

"By the way, coming up to-day, I heard of a dramatic situation. I think I'll hunt up the local color for a canvas for it," Eugene began, by way of changing the theme. "You know you had a horribly rotten storm of thunder and lightning and wind, and a cloudburst down the river valley where our train was stuck in the mud, and the tracks were all lost in the sand-drift and other vile debris. Well, coming up here from the derailed train, some one said that the young fellow who had leased that land, or owned the land, that is just above the sand-line, the poor devil who had such a struggle, you know--well, he was lost when the river overflowed its banks. But somebody else said he might be marooned, half starved, on an island of sand out in the river, waiting for the flood to go down. The roads are just impa.s.sable around there, so they can't get in to see what has become of him. His house was washed away, it seems--I saw a part of it in the river--but n.o.body knows where he is.

Hard luck, wasn't it? I know you'll be glad to leave this G.o.d-forsaken country, won't you, dearie? How you ever stood it for three whole years I can't comprehend. Only you always were the bravest girl I ever knew.

Just as soon as I paint a few of its drearinesses we'll be leaving it forever. What's the matter?"

Jerry Swaim had sprung to her feet and was standing, white and silent, staring at her companion with wide-open, burning eyes. Against all the culture and idle ease of her trivial, purposeless years were matched these three times twelve months of industry and purpose that came at a price, with the comrades.h.i.+p of one who had met life's foes and vanquished them, who earned his increase, and served and sacrificed.

"What's the matter, Jerry?" Gene repeated. "Did I shock you? It is a tragical sort of story, I know, but you used to love the romantic and adventurous. Every big storm, and every flood, has such incidents. I never remember them a minute, except the storm that took Uncle Cornie and left me a fortune. They are so unpleasant. But there is a touch of romance in this for you. They told me that a young Norwegian girl down there was moving heaven and earth to find this poor lost devil, because he had been so good to her always and had helped her when her brother was badly hurt. I guess her brother went down-stream, bottom side up, too. See the drift of it all? The time, the place, and the girl--there's your romance, Cousin Jerry, only the actors are terribly common, you know."

Who can forecast the trend of the human heart? Three days ago Jerry had thought complacently of the convenience of this stout little Thelma for Joe's future comfort. Now the thought that Thelma had seen him last, had caught the last word, the last brave look, smote her heart with anguish.

"Doesn't anybody know where Joe is?" she cried, wringing her hands.

"I don't know if his name is Joe. I don't know if anybody knows where he is. I really don't care a sou about it all, Jerry." Gene drawled his words intentionally. "The roads are awful down that way. They nearly b.u.mped me to pieces coming up, hours and hours, it seemed, in a wagon, where a decent highway and an automobile would have brought me in such a short time. It would be hard to find this Joe creature, dead or alive.

Let's talk about something more artistic."

"Gene, I can't talk now. I can't stay here a minute longer. I _must_ go and find this man. I must! I must!"

In the frenzy of that moment, the strength of character in Jerry's face made it wonderful to see.

"Jerry!" Eugene Wellington exclaimed, emphatically. "You perfectly shock me! This horrid country has almost destroyed your culture. Go and find this man--"

But Jerry was already hurrying up the street toward Ponk's Commercial Hotel and Garage.

"Miss Swaim, you can't never get by in a car down there," Ponk was urging, five minutes later. "I know you can drive like--like you can work algebra, logyruthms, and never slip a cog. But you'll never get down the Sage Brush that far to-night. If them Norwegians on beyond the ranch yon side of the big bend 'ain't done nothing, you just can't. The Ekblads and the other neighbors will do all a body can, especially Thelmy. The river's clear changed its channel an' you could run a car up to the top of Bunker Hill Monument, back in New Hamps.h.i.+re, easier than you could cut the gullies an' hit the levels of the lower Sage Brush trail after this flood."

"Get the car ready quick. _I want to go_," Jerry commanded, and Ponk obeyed. A minute later a gray streak whizzed by the Macpherson home, where Eugene Wellington stood on the porch staring in speechless amazement.

"Bless her heart!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, at length. "She is self-willed like her dad. Aunt Darby always told me I'd have to manage her with gloves on, but not to forget to manage her, anyhow."

He strolled back to the Commercial Hotel, where the best-natured man in Kansas lay in wait for him.

"You're in early. Have a real cigar--a regular Havany-de-Cuby--off of me. An' take a smoke out here where it's cool."

Eugene took the proffered cigar and the seat on the side porch of the hotel that commanded a view of the street clear to "Castle Cluny."

"Town's pretty quiet this evenin'. All the men are gone up-stream or down, to see if they can help in the storm region. Every store shut up tight as wax. Three preachers, station-agent, the three movie men--gone with the rest. We are a sympathetic bunch out here, an' rather quick to get the S O S signal and respond n.o.ble."

"So it seems," Eugene replied, wondering the while how he should be able to kill the time till Jerry's return, resolving not to tarry here to paint a single canvas. The sooner Geraldine Swaim was out of Kansas the better for her perverted sense of the esthetic, and the safer for her happiness--and his own.

"Yes," Ponk was going on to say, "everybody helps. Why, I just now let out the pride of the gurrage to a young lady. She's just heard that a man she knows well is lost or marooned on a island in the floods of the Sage Brush. And if anybody'll ever save him, she will. She's been doin'

impossible things here for three years, and the town just wors.h.i.+ps her."

"I should think it would," Eugene Wellington said, with a sarcasm in his tone.