Ben Blair Part 18

"Florence," the voice was very near now, and very low. "Florence, I love you. I can't have you go away, can't have you pa.s.s out of my life. I'll do anything for you,--live for you, die for you, fight for you, slave for you,--anything but give you up." Of a sudden his arms were about her, his lips touched her cheek. "Can't you love me in return? Speak to me, tell me--for I love you, Florence!"

The girl started, and drew away involuntarily. "Oh, don't, don't! please don't!" she pleaded. The dream faded, and she awoke to the reality of her position. The brown head bowed, dropped into her hands. Her whole body shook. "Oh, what have I done!" she sobbed. "Oh, what have I done!

Oh--oh--oh--"

For a time, neither of them realized nor cared how long, they sat side by side, though separate now. Warmly and brightly as before, the sun shone down upon them. A breath of breeze, born of the heated earth, wandered gently over the land. The big thoroughbred s.h.i.+fted on its feet and whinnied suggestively.

Gradually the girl's hysterical weeping grew quieter. The sobs came less frequently, and at last ceased. Ben Blair slowly arose, folded his arms, and waited. Another minute pa.s.sed. Florence Baker, the storm over, glanced up at her companion--at first hesitatingly, then openly and soberly. She stood up, almost at his side; but he did not turn. Awe, contrition, strange feelings and emotions flooded her anew. She reached out her hand and touched him on the arm; at first hesitatingly, then boldly, she leaned her head against his shoulder.

"Ben," she pleaded, "Ben, forgive me. I've hurt you terribly; but I didn't mean to. I am as I am; I can't help it. I can't promise to do what you ask--can't say I love you now, or promise to love you in the future." She looked up into his face. "Won't you forgive me?"

Still the man did not turn. "There's nothing to forgive, Florence," he said sadly. "I misunderstood it all."

"But there is something for me to say," she went on swiftly. "I knew from the first what you were going to tell me, and knew I couldn't give you what you asked; yet I let you think differently. It's all my fault, Ben, and I'm so sorry!" She gently and timidly stroked the shoulder of the rough flannel s.h.i.+rt. "I should have stopped you, and told you my reasons; but they seemed so weak, and somehow I couldn't help listening to you." There was a hesitating pause. "Would you like to hear my reasons now?"

"Just as you please." There was no unkindness in the voice--only resignation and acceptance of the hard fact she had already made known to him.

Florence hesitated. A catch came into her throat, and she dropped her head to the broad shoulder as before.

"Ben, Ben!" she almost sobbed, "I can't tell you, after all. It'll only hurt you again."

He was looking out over the prairies, watching the heat-waves that arose in fantastic circles, as in Spring. "You can't hurt me again," he said wearily.

The vague feeling of irreparable loss gripped the girl anew; but this time she rushed on desperately, in spite of it. "Oh, why couldn't I have met you somewhere else, under different circ.u.mstances?" she wailed. "Why couldn't your mother have been--different?" She paused, the brown head raised, the loosened hair tossed back in abandon. "Maybe, as you say, it's a rainbow I'm seeking. Maybe I'll be sorry; but I can't help it. I want them all--the things of civilization. I want them all," she finished abruptly.

Gently the man disengaged himself. "Is that all you wished to say?"

"Yes," hesitatingly, "I guess that's all."

Ben picked up the blanket and returned it to his saddle; then he led the horse to the girl's side. "Can I help you up?"

His companion nodded. The youth held down his hand, and upon it Florence mounted to the saddle as she had done many times before. The thought came to her that it might be the last time.

Not a word did Ben speak as they rode back to the ranch-house; not once did he look at his companion. At the door he held out his hand.

"Good-bye," he said simply.

"Good-bye," she echoed feebly.

Ben made his adieu to Mrs. Baker, and then rode out to the barn where Scotty was working. "Good-bye," he repeated. "We'll probably not meet again before you go." The expression upon the Englishman's face caught his eye. "Don't," he said. "I'd rather not talk now."

Scotty gripped the extended hand and shook it heartily.

"Good-bye," he said, with misty eyes.

The youth wheeled the buckskin and headed for home. Florence and her mother were still standing in the doorway watching him, and he lifted his big sombrero; but he did not glance at them, nor turn his head in pa.s.sing.

CHAPTER XII

A DEFERRED RECKONING

Time had dealt kindly with the saloon of Mick Kennedy. A hundred electric storms had left it unscathed. Prairie fires had pa.s.sed it by.

Only the relentless sun and rain had fastened the mark of their handiwork upon it and stained it until it was the color of the earth itself. Within, man had performed a similar office. The same old cottonwood bar stretched across the side of the room, taking up a third of the available s.p.a.ce; but no stranger would have called it cottonwood now. It had become brown like oak from continuous saturation with various colored liquids; and upon its surface, indelible record of the years, were innumerable bruises and dents where heavy bottles and gla.s.ses had made their impress under impulse of heavier hands. The continuous deposit of tobacco smoke had darkened the ceiling, modulating to a lighter tone on the walls. The place was even gloomier than before, and immeasurably filthier under the acc.u.mulated grime of a dozen years.

Once in their history the battered tables had been recovered, but no one would have guessed it now. The gritty decks of cards had been often replaced, but from their appearance they might have been those with which Tom Blair long ago bartered away his honor.

Time had left its impress also on bartender Mick. A generous sprinkling of gray was in his hair; the single eye was redder and fiercer, seeming by its blaze to have consumed the very lashes surrounding it; the cheeks were sunken, the great jaw and chin prominent from the loss of teeth.

Otherwise Mick was not much changed. The hand which dealt out his wares, which insisted on their payment to the last nickel, was as steady as of yore. His words were as few, his control of the reckless and often drunken frequenters was as perfect. He was the personified spirit of the place--crafty, designing, relentless.

Bob Hoyt, the foreman, shambled into Mick's lair at the time of day when the lights were burning and smoking on the circling shelf. He peered through the haze of tobacco smoke at the patrons already present, received a word from one and a stare from another, but from none an invitation to join the circle.

Bob sidled up to the bar where Kennedy was impa.s.sively waiting. "Warmer out," he advanced.

Mick made no comment. "Something?" he suggested.

Bob's colorless eyes blinked involuntarily. "Yes, a bit of rye."

Mick poured a very small drink into a whiskey gla.s.s, set it with another of water before the customer, on a big card tacked upon the wall added a fresh line to those already succeeding the other's name, and leaned his elbows once more upon the bar.

Upon the floor of his mouth Bob Hoyt laid a foundation of water, over this sent down the fiery liquor with a gulp, and followed the retreat with the last of the water, unconsciously making a wry face.

Kennedy whisked the empty gla.s.ses through the doubtful contents of a convenient pail, and set them dripping upon a perforated shelf. "Found the horses yet?" he queried, in an undertone.

Bob s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably and searched for a place for his hands, but finding none he let them hang awkwardly over the rail of the bar.

"No, not even a trail."

"Looked, have you?" The single searchlight turned unwinkingly upon the other's face.

"Yes, I've been out all day. Made a circle of the places within forty miles--Russel's of the Circle R, Stetson's of the 'XI,' Frazier's, Rankin's--none of them have seen a sign of a stray."

"That settles it, then. Those horses were stolen." The red face with its bristle of buff and gray came closer. "I didn't think they'd strayed.

The two best horses on a ranch don't wander off by chance; if they'd been broncos it might have been different. It's the same thing as three years ago; pretty nearly the same date too--early in January it was, you remember!"

Bob's long head nodded confirmation. "Yes. We thought then they'd come around all right in the next round up, but they didn't, and never have."

Kennedy stepped back, spread his hands palm down upon the bar, leaned his full weight upon them, and gazed meditatively at the other occupants of the room. A question was in his mind. Should he take these men into his confidence and trust to their well-known method of dealing with rustlers--a method very effective when successful in catching the offender, but infinitely deficient in finesse--or depend wholly upon his own ingenuity? He decided that in this instance the latter offered little hope. His province was in dealing with people at close range.

"Boys,"--his voice was normal, but not a man in the room failed to give attention,--"boys, line up! It's on the house."

Promptly the card games ceased. In one, the pot lay as it was, its owners.h.i.+p undecided, in the centre of the table. The loungers' feet dropped to the floor. An inebriate, half dozing in the corner, awoke.

Well they knew it was for no small reason that Mick interrupted their diversions. Up they came--Grover of the far-away "x.x.x" ranch, who had been here for two days now, and had lost the price of a small herd; Gilbert of the "Lost Range," whose brand was a circle within a circle; Stetson of the "XI," a short heavy-set man, with an immovable pugilist's face, to-night, as usual, ahead of the game; Thompson, one-armed but formidable, who drove the stage and kept the postoffice and inadequate general store just across to the north of the saloon; McFadden, a wiry little Scotchman with sandy whiskers, Rankin's nearest neighbor to the south; a half-dozen lesser lights, in distinction from the big ranchers called by their first names, "Buck" or "Pete" or "Bill" as the case might be, mere cowmen employed at a salary. Elbow to elbow they leaned upon the supporting bar, awaiting with interest the something they knew Kennedy had to say.

Kennedy did not ask a single man what he would have. It was needless.

Silently he placed a gla.s.s before each, and starting a bottle of red liquor at one end of the line, he watched it, as, steadily emptying, it pa.s.sed on down to the end.

"I never use it, you know," he explained, as, the preparation complete, they looked at him expectantly.