The Settling of the Sage Part 3

"Then why did you come?" she insisted. "Half of it was yours by merely keeping away."

"Maybe I'm sort of tied up myself--in ways you don't suspect," he offered.

"Very likely!" she returned; "sounds plausible. You might offer to marry me," she suggested when he failed to answer. "You could gain full possession at once that way."

He removed his gaze from the fire and looked long at her.

"It will likely come to that," he said.

"I'll put a weapon in your hands," she retorted. "Whenever it does come to that I'll leave the ranch--so now you know the one sure way to win."

"I hope it won't pan out like that," he said. "I'll be disappointed--more than I can say."

She rose and stood waiting for him to go.

"Good night, Billie," he said. "I expect maybe things will break all right for us."

She did not answer and he went out. Waddles hailed him in friendly fas.h.i.+on as he pa.s.sed through the cookhouse, then wiped his hands and stepped into Billie's quarters. Waddles was a fixture at the Three Bar; he had ridden for her father until he had his legs smashed up by a horse and had thereafter reigned as cook. He was confidential adviser and self-appointed guardian of the girl. His mind was still pleasantly concerned with the stranger's warm praise of his culinary efforts.

"That new man now, Billie," he remarked. "He's away off ahead of the average run. You mark me--he'll be top hand with this outfit in no time at all." Then he observed the girl's expression. "What is it, Pet?" he inquired. "What's a-fretting you?"

"Do you know who he is?" she asked.

Waddles wagged a negative head.

"He's Calvin Harris," she stated.

Instead of the blank dismay which she had expected to see depicted on Waddles's face at this announcement, it seemed to her that the big man was pleased.

"The h.e.l.l!" he said. "'Scuse me, Billie. So this here is Cal! Well, well--now what do you think of that?"

"I think that I don't want to stay here alone with him while you're out after the horses," she returned.

"Wrong idea!" the big man promptly contradicted. "You've got to stick it out for two years, girl. The best thing you can do is to get acquainted; and figure out how to get along the best you can--the pair of you."

"That's probably true," she a.s.sented indifferently. "I'll have to face a number of things that are equally unpleasant in the next two years--so I might as well start now. He must have praised the food in order to win you to his side in two minutes flat."

Waddles's face expressed pained reproach.

"Now there it is again!" he said. "You know I'm only on one side--yours. Old Cal Warren had some definite notion when he framed this play; so it's likely this young Cal is on your side, too."

"But even more likely not," she stated.

"Then what?"

"Why, then I'll have to kill him and put a stop to it," the big man announced. "But it's noways probable that it will come to that. Let's use logic. He spoke well of my cooking--like you said--which proves him a man of some discernment. No way to get around that. Now a man with his judgment wouldn't suspect for one living second that he could play it low-down on you with me roosting close at hand. Putting two plain facts together it works out right natural and simple that he's on the square. As easy as that," he finished triumphantly. "So don't you fret. And in case he acts up I'll clamp down on him real sudden," he added by way of further rea.s.surance.

His great paw opened and shut to ill.u.s.trate his point as he moved toward the door and the Three Bar girl knew that when Waddles spoke of clamping down it was no mere figure of speech.

III

Billie Warren heard the steady buzz of a saw and later the ringing strokes of an axe. The men had departed three hours before to be gone for a week on the horse round-up but she had not yet issued from her own quarters. The music of axe and saw was ample evidence that her new and undesired partner was making valuable use of his time. She went outside and he struck the axe in a cross section of pine log as she moved toward him.

"We'll have to get along the best we can," she announced abruptly. "Of course you will have a say in the management of the Three Bar and draw the same amount for yourself that I do."

He sat on a log and twisted a cigarette as he reflected upon this statement.

"I'd rather not do that," he decided. "I don't want to be a drain on the brand--but to help build it up. Suppose I just serve as an extra hand and do whatever necessary turns up--in return for your letting me advise with you on a few points that I happen to have worked out while I was prowling through the country."

"Any way you like," she returned. "It's for you to decide. Any money which you fail to draw now will revert to you in the end so it won't matter in the least."

His reply was irrelevant, a deliberate refusal to notice her ungenerous misinterpretation of his offer.

"Do you mind if I gather a few Three Bar colts round here close and break out my own string before they get back?" he asked.

"Anything you like," she repeated. "I'm not going to quarrel. I've made up my mind to that. I'll be gone the rest of the day."

Five minutes later he saw her riding down the lane. She was not seeking companions.h.i.+p but rather solitude and for hours she drifted aimlessly across the range, sometimes dismounting on some point that afforded a good view and reclining in the warm spring sun. Dusk was falling when she rode back to the Three Bar. As she turned her sorrel, Papoose, into the corral she noticed several four-year-old colts in the pasture lot. As she returned to the house Harris appeared in the door.

"Grub-pile," he announced.

They sat down to a meal of broiled steak, mashed potatoes, hot biscuits, coffee and raspberry jam. She had deliberately absented herself through the noon hour and well past the time for evening meal, confidently expecting to find him impatiently waiting for her to return and prepare food for him.

"You make good biscuits--better than those Waddles stirs up," she said.

"Though I'd never dare tell him so." It was the first time she had conceded that there might be even a taint of good in him.

"Well, yes--they're some better than those I usually turn out," he confessed. "Having a lady to feed I flaked the lard in cold instead of just melting it and stirring her in like I most generally do. I'm right glad that you consider them a success."

When the meal was finished she rose without a word and went into her own quarters, convinced that this desertion would certainly call forth a protest; but the man calmly went about the business of was.h.i.+ng the dishes as if he had expected nothing else, and presently she heard the door close behind him and immediately afterwards a light appeared in the bunk-house window.

The rattle of pots and pans roused her before daylight. Some thirty minutes later he called to her.

"I've finished," he said. "You'd better eat yours before it gets cold," and the closing of the door announced that he had gone without waiting for an answer. She heard again the sound of saw and axe as he worked up the dry logs into stove lengths. At least he was making good his word to the cook. The sounds ceased when the sun was an hour high and when she looked out to determine the reason she saw him working with four colts in one of the smaller corrals.

He had fas.h.i.+oned a hackamore for each and they stood tied to the corral bars. He left them there and repaired to the big gates of the main corral. The two swinging halves sagged until their ends dragged on the ground when opened or closed, necessitating the expenditure of considerable energy in performing either operation. She watched him tear down the old support wires and replace them with new ones, stretching a double strand from the top of the tall pivot posts to the free ends of the gates. Placing a short stick between the two strands of heavy wire he twisted until the shortening process had cleared the gate ends and they swung suspended, moving so freely that a rider could lean from his saddle and throw them open with ease.

This completed to his satisfaction he fas.h.i.+oned heavy slabs of wood to serve as extra brake-blocks for the chuck wagon. Between the performance of each two self-appointed duties he spent some little time with the colts, handling them and teaching them not to fear his approach, cinching his saddle on first one and then the next, talking to them and handling their heads.

For three days there was little communication between the two. It was evident that he had no intention of forcing his society upon her, and her failure to prepare his meals failed to elicit a single sign to show that he had expected otherwise; the contrary was true, in fact, for he invariably prepared enough for two. It was clear that he exercised the same patience toward her that he showed in handling the green four-year-olds; and she was inclined to be a little scornful of his method of gentle-breaking them. She felt her own ability to handle any horse on the range although old Cal Warren had gentled every animal she had wanted for her own and flatly refused to let her mount any others.

Waddles was as insistent upon this point as her parent had been, but never had she known a cowhand who took time and pains to gentle his own string.

In the afternoon of the third day she saw him swing to the back of a big bay, easing into the saddle without a jar, and the colt ambled round the corral, rolling his eyes back toward the thing clamped upon him but making no effort to pitch. He dismounted and stripped off the saddle, cinched it on a second horse and let him stand, leading a third out to a snubbing post near the door of the blacksmith shop where he proceeded to put on his first set of shoes.

The girl went out and sat on the sill of the shop door and watched him.

The colt pulled back in an effort to release the forefoot that the man held clamped between his leather-clad knees, then changed his tactics and sagged his weight against Harris.