The Song of the Wolf Part 23

Dougla.s.s grinned at her rosy confusion. "You've got a good eye for color, Red. But you ought to cultivate the virtue of forbearance, ought he not, Mrs. Brevoort?" But she scornfully ignored him and was rather profuse in her protestations to Red of her happiness at being back in "G.o.d's country" again.

At the dinner table that night Dougla.s.s maliciously reverted to the topic of forbearance. Turning to McVey he a.s.sumed a becoming gravity which the twinkle in his eyes belied.

"Say, old-timer, Mrs. Brevoort is skeptical of we poor cowpunchers'

virtue; she thinks we have no power of forbearance. Can't you help me to convince her that we often keep from doing wicked things just for the pure love of being good."

Red, catching the mischievous note in his question, rose to the occasion manfully.

"Why, yuh ain't thinkin' that bad of us, are yuh?" he said with sorrowful reproach to Constance. "Indeed, ma'am, we are real gentle by spells. Why, I mind las' yeah when I was ridin' fences foh thu C Bar I got to thinkin' haow foolish it were o' me to keep hankerin' after thu delusions o' thu Alcazah, an' to keep wantin' to go oveh theah simultaneous an' waste my hawd eahned money on thu see-ductions o' thu flowin' bowl. So I braces up, an' says to thu devil o' temptation, kinda contemptuous-like, 'Hit thu back trail, Satan!'

"Every time I feels thu iniquity o' thust comin' on me I jes' swaps the price o' a drink from my sack to a leetle ole terbacca bag I totes especial foh thet puppos, and goes an' dips my beak in healthy alkali wateh like a sensibul, fohbeahing Christian should. It were two bits every time an' by thu time Chris'mas comes raound thu smoke bag were plumb full. I suttinly fohboah a heap thet summah."

Genuinely interested at the simple relation, Constance asked sympathetically: "And what did you do with the money so heroically saved, may I ask?"

"Well, I had thu price O' nine bottles o' booze in thu bag when I counted her oveh at Tin Cup on Chrismus eve. Theah's five bottles goes to a gallon, yuh know, so I rattles thu bones with thu perfessor an' o'

cose I wins thu odd bottle. Then I blows six bits fer a two-gallon jug an'--"

Constance glared at him severely. Dougla.s.s laid his head on the table and cried.

The greater portion of the next day was spent by Constance in shopping and resting after her wearisome stage ride. Dougla.s.s had some saddlery matters to attend to and Grace's letter to answer. Red had volunteered to drive 'Rastus and Lucindy over to the VN ranch with the luggage and so it happened that Dougla.s.s and Mrs. Brevoort rode out together alone in the pleasant evening to her home-coming.

They jogged along very leisurely, talking only the veriest commonplaces after they had exhausted the more interesting topics of ranch and mine.

Curiously enough, neither referred once to Grace Carter, her name not being mentioned throughout the whole journey. Toward the end of their ride both man and woman grew strangely silent. The white May moon was just peeping over the horizon as he dismounted before the door of the ranch house to a.s.sist her to alight.

As she released her foot from the stirrup and held out her hands, from somewhere far out on the prairie came the call of a wolf. Telepathically both turned toward the moonlit plain awaiting the answering cry; as it rang out in not unmusical cadence through the stilly night she s.h.i.+vered slightly and her hands trembled in his warm grasp. He leaned toward her, his eyes gleaming.

"Come," he said, masterfully. s.h.i.+fting her left hand to his shoulder he threw his arm about her waist and lifted her from the saddle. But before her feet touched the ground he had gathered her up in his arms and was striding towards the house. Taken by surprise, she clung to him breathlessly, one arm still tightly clasped about his neck as he placed her feet upon the threshold. Very gently she disengaged herself from his embrace but made no effort to enter the house. He looked hungrily at her full red lips for a second, then stooped and laid his own upon the hand which he still retained.

"Welcome, oh, Queen, to your lair!" he said softly. "May you have good hunting."

Then, sombrero in hand, he bowed again and turning abruptly left her standing there silent in the white moonlight. Not until the shadows of the corral had swallowed him up did she so much as move a muscle.

Unto him a half hour later came old 'Rastus with her invitation to dine.

When he finally joined her she was secretly relieved at the very presentable appearance he made in the modest suit of gray negligee which, he apologetically stated with engaging candor, was the nearest approximation he could make to full dress. All other cowboys of her acquaintance, while delightfully picturesque in their range costume, had looked disappointingly commonplace and uninteresting when clothed in civilized habiliments; but there was neither _gaucherie_ nor self-consciousness about this exceedingly self-possessed young fellow, whose evident familiarity with the niceties of etiquette came as an agreeable surprise. Every slave to Convention is more or less a sn.o.b, and she had been under the yoke a whole lifetime. Her relief at his perfect deportment changed to an irritating sense of chagrin as she realized her own obtuseness in not recognizing from the first that this man had a.s.suredly been bred, if not born, a gentleman. How was she to know if he were not even mentally amused at her inexcusable lack of perspicacity?

The truth of the matter was that Dougla.s.s thought nothing at all about it; he was thinking only of how attractive this woman was--in a different way from Grace Carter.

Old 'Rastus he had captivated instanter by his critical commendation of the really superb wine which she had, whimsically, it must be confessed, and to the secret indignation of the old darkey, ordered served. 'Rastus had mumbled something about the casting of pearls, but he melted instantly at Dougla.s.s's evident appreciation.

"Chateau Yquem, is it not, and of a vintage surely previous to '57!" he averred with the confidence of a connoisseur, lovingly rolling the delicious liquor under his tongue. "You are an exaggerated Lady Bountiful, my dear Mrs. Brevoort. This is ambrosia for the G.o.ds rather than a tipple for an obscure cowpuncher!"

"Yes, this Yquem has been in our cellars since '59; so Mr. Brevoort informs me. I am extremely fortunate in having selected it since it meets with your favor!" Her tone was sweetly sincere and he was inordinately flattered. She on her part was not a little amazed at the anomaly of a mere ranch hand's knowledge of rare old vintages and looked at him with a new interest. He was surely going to be worth exploitation!

When the cloth had been removed they adjourned to a little room which had been fitted up as a den by Brevoort. Here the coffee was served, and over her cigarette she watched him deftly preparing the cognac and kirschenwa.s.ser with all the a.s.surance of an epicure, the caraffe having been set beside him by the old servitor as a matter of course; there was no doubt now in 'Rastus's mind about this "cow-gentleman" being to the manner born.

It being an unusually mild night, the windows, which faced on the open prairie land to the north, were partly open. The air was sweet with the fragrance of the purpling lucerne, punctuated by the aroma of her Turkish tobacco. In the mellow light of the rose-tinted acetylene globe suspended overhead everything was invested with a deliciously soft warmth. Dougla.s.s, puffing luxuriously at his havana, was filled with a great conviction that he had not been so happy for years. This was what he would have when his mines were in bonanza and he had come to his own!

But try as he would, he could not permanently establish Grace's presence on the divan over yonder; somehow the conditions did not lend themselves concordantly. The woman furtively watching him smiled intuitively; he was a very transparent young man, after all!

And yet how perfectly he fitted into the environment's scheme! In the soft rose light his clean-cut aquiline profile was as perfect as a well-chiseled cameo in red bronze. Vigor, strength and indomitable power breathed from every well-balanced line of his well-knit frame.

"Fit, and ready, to fight for his strong young life!" she was thinking admiringly, "a man among a thousand in these degenerate days. A 'running mate' who would go far with the wolf of his choosing. I wonder what he ever saw in that insipid goody-goody. She will tame him down to mediocrity, never realizing what she is desecrating, what she is robbing some other better-fitted woman of. She ought to have married Anselm!"

At the thought of her husband her face hardened. Very contemptuous did she wax in her merciless comparison of him with the stalwart young fellow sitting there so lordly in the arrogance of l.u.s.ty manliness. Now that it was too late she realized that she had sold herself for a price!

Of course Brevoort had paid, generously, magnificently, and without demur; but how had she benefited thereby? To the end only of being the leader of her social set, queen regnant of a symposium of s.e.xless degenerates with whom she had not one mental or physical desire in common! The best proof of it was that she was here, far from their wearying inanities and hollow gilded gauds by deliberate choice. Her meditations terminated abruptly at this point; was that the real reason of her coming? She turned to him with a curious shyness, thankful for that rose-colored globe.

"You are fond of children, Mr. Dougla.s.s?" It was more an a.s.sertion than a question. His face lit up rarely.

"I love them!" he said, simply. "They are the sweetest flowers in G.o.d's garden!"

"Even as I do!" There was something strangely like a sob in her low voice, but she had not meant him to hear. "I congratulate you on your conquest of the little Blount girl; her adoration of you is actually idyllic!"

"Oh, Eulalie and I have been sweethearts for ages," he said, laughingly.

"It was a case of love at first sight."

"Happy Eulalie!" she said, enviously. "She has been favored beyond the computation of the G.o.ds. That beat.i.tude falls to the lot of but few of her s.e.x."

"Are you voicing a personal grievance?" His eyes were full of amused incredulity. She smiled a little bitterly but evaded his question.

"What do you hear from Grace?" she asked, inconsequentially. He was sobered instantly.

"She is well; and enjoying herself, I gather from her last letter. They are on the wing constantly, you know, and it was unusually short. They are now headed for Venice, with a certain Lord Ellerslie in train. Do you happen to know him?" There was a mild anxiety in his tone.

"Yare Ellerslie? Yes, I know him very well. One of England's 'best'

types; a fine gentleman of mildewed lineage. He Is immensely wealthy!"

"Oh! I say, don't rub it into a fellow!" he protested, laughingly, but his eyes held a glitter that caught Constance's attention disagreeably.

She rather pitied Lord Ellerslie at that moment.

"Oh! he is perfectly innocuous," she hastened to a.s.sure him; "nearly every designing mamma has given him up as impossible. His price is above the rubies of any woman's offering!" Her lip curled scornfully. "His _metier_ is platonics."

"And you don't believe in their possibility," he concluded, dryly. She eyed him narrowly.

"Do you?"

"Not in their putative purity at any event. Of course, I am not a competent authority and my circle of acquaintances is limited to people of flesh and blood. Imagine such an absurdity as platonics between--"

"Between--?" she prompted audaciously, her seductive face close his.

"Between you and me, for instance!" he finished, calmly, his cool demeanor betraying nothing of the seething volcano beneath that unruffled surface. She rose somewhat precipitately and went over and stood by the window.

Faint and eerie from the m.u.f.fling mazes of some far-off coulie came again the wolf cry. She turned shudderingly away.

"It sounds like the wail of a lost soul!"

"Calling to another affinitive soul, neither of them knowing or caring, in the all-compensative ecstasy of their own making, that they have lost anything at all! Do you imagine that fellow is mouthing platonics out there?"

He had risen unconsciously and laid his hot hand on her bare arm; she shrank from it as though it burned her and deliberately placed the table between them. She rang the silver call bell.