The Fighting Edge

  CHAPTER II

  "A SPUNKY LI'L' DEVIL"

  Houck rode away next morning after breakfast, but not before he had madea promise June construed as a threat.

  "Be back soon, girl."

  Her eyes were on the corral, from which her father was driving thedogies. "What's it to me?" she said with sullen resentment.

  "More'n you think. I've took a fancy to you. When I come back I'll talkbusiness."

  The girl's eyes did not turn toward him, but the color flooded the darkcheeks. "With Father maybe. Not with me. You've got no business to talkover with me."

  "Think so? Different here. Take a good look at me, June Tolliver."

  "What for?" Her glance traveled over him disdainfully to the hound puppychasing its tail. She felt a strange excitement drumming in her veins."I've seen folks a heap better worth lookin' at."

  "Because I'm tellin' you to." His big hand caught her chin and swung itback. "Because I'm figurin' on marryin' you right soon."

  Her dark eyes blazed. They looked at him straight enough now. "Take yorehand off'n me. D'you hear?"

  He laughed, slowly, delightedly. "You're a spunky li'l' devil. Suits mefine. Jake Houck never did like jog-trotters in harness."

  "Lemme go," she ordered, and a small brown fist clenched.

  "Not now, nor ever. You're due to wear the Houck brand, girl."

  She struck, hard, with all the strength of her lithe and supple body.Above his cheek-bone a red streak leaped out where the sharp knuckles hadcrushed the flesh.

  A second time he laughed, harshly. Her chin was still clamped in avice-like grip that hurt. "I get a kiss for that, you vixen." With asweeping gesture he imprisoned both of the girl's arms and drew the slimbody to him. He kissed her, full on the lips, not once but half a dozentimes, while she fought like a fury without the least avail.

  Presently the man released her hands and chin.

  "Hit me again if you like, and I'll c'lect my pay prompt," he jeered.

  She was in a passionate flame of impotent anger. He had insulted her,trampled down the pride of her untamed youth, brushed away the bloom ofher maiden modesty. And there was nothing she could do to make him pay.He was too insensitive to be reached by words, no matter how she peltedthem at him.

  A sob welled up from her heart. She turned and ran into the house.

  Houck grinned, swung to the saddle, and rode up the valley. June wouldhate him good and plenty, he thought. That was all right. He had her inthe hollow of his hand. All her thoughts would be full of him. After shequit struggling to escape she would come snuggling up to him with agirl's shy blandishments. It was his boast that he knew all about womenand their ways.

  June was not given to tears. There was in her the stark pioneer bloodthat wrested the West in two generations from unfriendly nature. But theyoung virgin soul had been outraged. She lay on the bed of her room, facedown, the nails of her fingers biting into the palms of the hands, a lumpin the full brown throat choking her.

  She was a wild, free thing of the hills, undisciplined by life. Back ofJune's anger and offended pride lurked dread, as yet indefinite andformless. Who was this stranger who had swaggered into her life andannounced himself its lord and master? She would show him his place,would teach him how ridiculous his pretensions were. But even as sheclenched her teeth on that promise there rose before her a picture of thefellow's straddling stride, of the fleering face with its intrepid eyesand jutting, square-cut jaw. He was stronger than she. No scruples wouldhold him back from the possession of his desires. She knew she wouldfight savagely, but a chill premonition of failure drenched the girl'sheart.

  Later, she went out to the stable where Tolliver was riveting a brokentug. It was characteristic of the man that all his tools, harness, andmachinery were worn out or fractured. He never brought a plough in out ofthe winter storms or mended a leak in the roof until the need wasinsistent. Yet he was not lazy. He merely did not know how to orderaffairs with any system.

  "Who is that man?" June demanded.

  He looked up, mildly surprised and disturbed at the imperative in thegirl's voice. "Why, didn't I tell you, honey--Jake Houck?"

  "I don't want to know his name. I want to know who he is--all abouthim."

  Tolliver drove home a rivet before he answered. "Jake's a cowman." Hisvoice was apologetic. "I seen you didn't like him. He's biggity, Jakeis."

  "He's the most hateful man I ever saw," she burst out.

  Pete lifted thin, straw-colored eyebrows in questioning, but June had nointention of telling what had taken place. She would fight her ownbattles.

  "Well, he's a sure enough toughfoot," admitted the rancher.

  "When did you know him?"

  "We was ridin' together, a right long time ago."

  "Where?"

  "Up around Rawlins--thataway."

  "He said he knew you in Brown's Park."

  The man flashed a quick, uncertain look at his daughter. It appeared toask how much Houck had told. "I might 'a' knowed him there too. Come tothink of it, I did. Punchers drift around a heap. Say, how about dinner?You got it started? I'm gettin' powerful hungry."

  June knew the subject was closed. She might have pushed deeper into herfather's reticence, but some instinct shrank from what she might uncover.There could be only pain in learning the secret he so carefully hid.

  There had been no discussion of it between them, nor had it beennecessary to have any. It was tacitly understood that they would havelittle traffic with their neighbors, that only at rare intervals wouldPete drive to Meeker, Glenwood Springs, or Bear Cat to dispose of furs hehad trapped and to buy supplies. The girl's thoughts and emotions werethe product largely of this isolation. She brooded over the mystery ofher father's past till it became an obsession in her life. To be broughtinto close contact with dishonor makes one either unduly sensitive orcallously indifferent. Upon June it had the former effect.

  The sense of inferiority was branded upon her. She had seen girlsgiggling at the shapeless sacks she had stitched together for clotheswith which to dress herself. She was uncouth, awkward, a thin black thingugly as sin. It had never dawned on her that she possessed rarepotentialities of beauty, that there was coming a time when she wouldbloom gloriously as a cactus in a sand waste.

  After dinner June went down to the creek and followed a path along itsedge. She started up a buck lying in the grass and watched it go crashingthrough the brush. It was a big-game country. The settlers lived largelyon venison during the fall and winter. She had killed dozens ofblacktail, an elk or two, and more than once a bear. With a rifle she wasa crack shot.

  But to-day she was not hunting. She moved steadily along the windingcreek till she came to a bend in its course. Beyond this a fishing-rodlay in the path. On a flat rock near it a boy was stretched, face up,looking into the blue, unflecked sky.