CHAPTER XI
"It's Going to Be an Uphill Climb!"
Ford was no moral weakling except, perhaps, when whisky and he came tohand-grips. He had made up his mind that Mason must be told of hisbacksliding, and protected from the risk of leaving a drunkard in chargeof his ranch. And when he saw that the opportunity for opening thesubject easily did not show any sign of presenting itself, he grimlyinterrupted Mason in the middle of a funny story about Josephine andBuddy and Kate, involving themselves in a three-cornered argument to thecomplete discomfiture of the women.
"I tell you, Ford, that kid's a corker! Kate's got all kinds of booktheories about raising children, but they don't none of 'em work, withBud. He gets the best of her right along when she starts to reason withhim. Gosh! You can't reason with a kid like Bud; you've got to take himon an equal footing, and when he goes too far, just set down on him andno argument about it. Kate's going to have her hands full while I'mgone, if--"
"She sure will, Ches, unless you get somebody here you can depend on,"was the way in which Ford made his opportunity. "You've got the idea,somehow, that cutting out whisky is like getting rid of a mean horse.It's something you don't--"
"Oh, don't go worrying over that, no more," Mason expostulated hastily."Forget it. That's the quickest cure; try Christian Science dope on it.The more you worry about it, the more--"
"But wait till I tell you! That day I went to town, and you came onhome, I got drunk as a fool, Ches. I don't know what all I did, but Iknow--"
"Well, I know--more about it than you do, I reckon," Mason cut in dryly."I was told five different times, by one stranger and four of these heretrouble-peddlin' friends that clutter the country. That's all right,Ford. A little slip like that--" He held out his hand for Ford's sack oftobacco.
"I ain't the least bit uneasy over that, old man. I'm just as sure as Istand here that you're going to pull up, all right."
"I know you are, Ches." Ford's voice was humble. "That's the hell of it.You're more sure than sensible--but--But look at it like I was astranger, Ches. Just forget you ever knew me when I was kinda half-waydecent. You ain't a fool, even if you do act like one. You know what I'mup against. I'm going to put up the damnedest fight I've got in me, butI don't want you to take any gamble on it. Maybe I'll win, and thenagain maybe I won't. Maybe I'll go down and out. I don't know--I don'tfeel half as sure of myself as I did before I made that bobble in town.Before that, I did kinda have an idea that all there was to it was toquit. I thought, once I made up my mind, that would settle it. Butthat's just the commencement; you've got to fight something inside ofyou that's as husky a fighter as you are. You've got to--"
"There!" Mason reached out and tapped him impressively on the arm with amatch he was about to light. "Now you've got the bull right by thehorns! You ain't so darned sure of yourself now--and so I'm dead willingto gamble on you. I ain't a bit afraid to go off and let you have fullswing."
"Well, I hope you won't feel like kicking me all over the ranch when youget back," Ford said, after a long pause, during which Mason's wholeattention seemed centered upon his cigarette. "It's going to be anuphill climb, old-timer--and a blamed long hill at that. And it's goingto be pretty darned slippery, in places."
"I sabe that, all right," grinned Mason. "But I sabe you pretty well,too. You'll dig in your toes and hang on by your eye-winkers if you haveto. But you'll get up, all right; I'll bank on that.
"Speaking of booze-fighters," he went on, without giving Ford a chanceto contradict him, "I wish you'd keep an eye on old Mose. Now, there's aman that'll drink whisky as long as it's made, if he can get it. Iwouldn't trust that old devil as far as I can throw him, and that's afact. I have to watch pretty close, to keep it off the ranch, and himon. It's the only way to get along with him--he's apt to run amuck, ifhe gets full enough; and good cooks are as scarce as good foremen." Aheartening smile went with the last sentence.
"If he does make connections with the booze, don't can him, Ford, if youcan help it. Just shut him up somewhere till he gets over it. There'snothing holds good men with an outfit like the right kind of grub--andMose sure can cook. The rest of the men you can handle to suit yourself.Slim and Johnnie are all right over at Ten Mile--you made a good stabwhen you picked them two out--and you will want a couple of fellows herebesides Walt, to feed them calves. When the cows are throwed back on therange and the fences gone over careful--I ought to have tended to thatbefore, but I got to putting it off--you can pay off what men you don'tneed or want."
There was no combating the friendship of a man like that. Ford mentallysquared his shoulders and set his feet upon the uphill trail.
He realized to the full the tribute Mason paid to his innatetrustworthiness by leaving him there, master of the ranch and guardianof his household god--and goddess, to say nothing of Josephine, whomMason openly admired and looked upon as one of the family.
Of a truth, it would seem that she had really become so. Ford hadgathered, bit by bit, the information that she was quite alone in theworld, so far as immediate relatives were concerned, and that she wasKate's cousin, and that Kate insisted that this was to be her home, fromnow on. Josephine's ankle was well enough now so that she was often tobe met in unexpected places about the ranch, he discovered. And thoughshe was not friendly, she was less openly antagonistic than she hadbeen--and when all was said and done, eminently able to take care ofherself.
So also was Kate, for that matter. No sooner was her beloved Chester outof sight over the hill a mile away, than Mrs. Kate dried her wifelytears and laid hold of her scepter with a firmness that amused Fordexceedingly. She ordered Dick up to work in the depressed-looking areabefore the house, which she called her flower garden, a task which Dickseemed perfectly willing to perform, by the way--although his assistancewould have been more than welcome at other work than tying scraggly rosebushes and protecting them from the winter already at hand.
As to Buddy, he surely would have resented, more keenly than the women,the implication that he needed any one to take care of him. Buddy'sallegiance to Ford was wavering, at that time. Dick had gone to sometrouble to alter an old pair of chaps so that Buddy could wear them, andhis star was in the ascendant; a pair of chaps with fringes were, inBuddy's estimation, a surer pledge of friendship and favor than theprivilege of feeding a lame horse.
Buddy was rather terrible, sometimes. He had a way of standing backunnoticed, and of listening when he was believed to be engrossed in hisplay. Afterward he was apt to say the things which should not be said;in other words, he was the average child of seven, living withoutplaymates, and so forced by his environment to interest himself in theendless drama played by the grown-ups around him. Buddy, therefore, wasnot unusually startling, one day at dinner, when he looked up fromspatting his potato into a flat cake on his plate.
"What hill you going to climb, Ford?" was his manner of exploding hisbomb. "Bald pinnacle? I can climb that hill myself."
"I don't know as I'm going to climb any hills at all," Ford saidindulgently, accepting another helping of potato salad from Mrs. Kate.
"You told dad before he went to gran'ma's house you was going to climb abig, long hill, and he was more sure than sensible." He giggled andshowed where two front teeth were missing from among their fellows. "Dadtold him he'd make it, but he'd have to dig in his toes and hang on byhis eye-winkers," he added to the two women. "Gee! I'd like to see Fordhang onto a hill by his eye-winkers. Jo could do it--she's got winkerssix feet long."
Miss Josephine had been looking at Ford's face going red, asenlightenment came to him, but when she caught a quick glance leveledat her lashes, she drooped them immediately so that they almost touchedher cheeks. Bud gave a squeal and pointed to her with his fork.
"Jo's blushing! I guess she's ashamed because she's got such longwinkers, and Ford keeps looking at 'em all the time. Why don't you shave'em off with dad's razor? Then Ford would like you, maybe. He don't now.He told dad--"
"Robert Chester Mason, do you want me to get
the hairbrush?" This, itneed not be explained, from Mrs. Kate, in a voice that portended gravedisaster.
"I guess we can get along without it, mamma," Buddy answered her, withan ingratiating smile. Even in the first seven years of one's life, onelearns the elementary principles of diplomacy. He did not retire fromthe conversation, but he prudently changed the subject to what heconsidered a more pleasant channel.
"Dick likes you anyway, Jo," he informed her soothingly. "He likes you,winkers and all. I can tell, all right. When you go out for a ride hegives me nickels if I tell him where--"
"Robert Ches--"
"Oh, all right." Buddy's tone was wearily tolerant. "A man never knowswhat to talk about to women, anyway. I'd hate to be married to'em--wouldn't you, Ford?"
"A little boy like you--" began his mother, somewhat pinker of cheeksthan usual.
"I guess I'm pretty near a man, now." He turned his eyes to Ford,consciously ignoring the feminine members of his family. "If I had awife," he stated calmly, "I'd snub her up to a post and then I'd talk toher about anything I damn pleased!"
Mrs. Kate rose up then in all the terrifying dignity of outragedmotherhood, grasped Buddy by the wrist, and led him away, in thedirection of the hairbrush, if one would judge by Buddy's reluctance togo.
"So you are going to climb the--Big Hill, are you?" Miss Josephineobserved, when the two were quite alone. "It is to be hoped, Mr.Campbell, that you won't find it as steep as it looks--from the bottom."
Ford was not an adept at reading what lies underneath the speech of awoman. To himself he accented the last three words, so that theyovershadowed all the rest and made her appear to remind him where hestood--at the bottom.
"I suppose a hollow does look pretty high, to a man down a well," heretorted, glancing into his teacup because he felt and was resisting animpulse to look at her.
"One can always keep climbing," she murmured, "and never give up--" MissJosephine, also, was tilting her teacup and looking studiously into itas if she would read her fortune in the specks of tea leaves there.
"Like the frog in the well--that climbed one jump and fell back two!" heinterrupted, but she paid no attention, and went on.
"And the reward for reaching the top--"
"Is there supposed to be a reward?" Ford could not tell why he askedher that, nor why he glanced stealthily at her from under his eyebrowsas he awaited her reply.
"There--might--there usually is a reward for any greatachievement--and--" Miss Josephine was plainly floundering where she hadhoped to float airily upon the surface.
"What's the reward for--climbing hills, for instance?" He looked at herfull, now, and his lips were ready to smile.
Miss Josephine looked uneasily at the door. "I--really, Inever--investigated the matter at all." She gave a twitch of shouldersand met his eyes steadily. "The inner satisfaction of having climbed thehill, I suppose," she said, in the tone of one who has at last reachedfirm ground. "Will you have more tea, Mr. Campbell?"
Her final words were chilly and impersonal, but Ford left the table,smiling to himself. At the door he met Dick, whom Buddy had mentionedwith disaster to himself. Dick saw the smile, and within the room he sawMiss Josephine sitting alone, her chin resting in her two palms and hereyes fixed upon vacancy.
"Hello," Ford greeted somewhat inattentively. "Do you want me foranything, Dick?"
"Can't say I do," drawled Dick, brushing past Ford in the doorway.
Ford hesitated long enough to give him a second glance--an attentiveenough glance this time--and went his way; without the smile, however.
"Lordy me!" he said to himself, when his foot touched the bridge, but hedid not add anything to the exclamation. He was wondering when it wasthat he had begun to dislike Dick Thomas; a long while, it seemed tohim, though he had never till just now quite realized it, beyondresenting his covert sneer that day in town. He had once or twice sincesuspected Dick of a certain disappointment that he himself was notforeman of the Double Cross, and once he had asked Mason why he hadn'tgiven the place to Dick.
"Didn't want to," Mason had replied succinctly, and let it go at that.
If Dick cherished any animosity, however, he had not made it manifestin actual hostility. On the contrary, he had shown a distinctinclination to be friendly; a friendliness which led the two to pair offfrequently when they were riding, and to talk over past rangeexperiences more or less intimately. Looking back over the six weeksjust behind him, Ford could not remember a single incident--a sentence,even--that had been unpleasant, unless he clung to his belief in Dick'scontempt, and that he had since set down to his own super-sensitiveness.And yet--
"He's got bad eyes," he concluded. "That's what it is; I never did likeeyes the color of polished steel; nickel-plated eyes, I call 'em; allshine and no color. Still, a man ain't to blame for his eyes."
Then Dick overtook him with Buddy trailing, red-eyed, at his heels, andFord forgot, in the work to be done that day, all about hisspeculations. He involved himself in a fruitless argument with Buddy,upon the subject of what a seven-year-old can stand in the way ofriding, and yielded finally before the quiver of Buddy's lips. They wereonly going over on Long Ridge, anyway, and the day was fine, and Buddyhad frequently ridden as far, according to Dick. Indeed, it was Dick'seasy-natured, "Ah, let the kid go, why don't you?" which gave Ford anexcuse for reconsidering.
And Buddy repaid him after his usual fashion. At the supper table helooked up, round-eyed, from his plate.
"Gee, but I'm hungry!" he sighed. "I eat and eat, just like a horseeating hay, and I just can't fill up the hole in me."
"There, never mind, honey," Mrs. Kate interposed hastily, fearing worse."Do you want more bread and butter?"
"Yes--you always use bread for stuffing, don't you? I want to bestuffed. All the way home my b--my stomerch was a-flopping against mybackbone, just like Dick's. Only Dick said--"
"Never mind what Dick said." Mrs. Kate thrust the bread toward him, halfbuttered.
"Dick's mad, I guess. He's mad at Ford, too."
Buddy regarded his mother gravely over the slice of bread.
"First I've heard of it," Ford remarked lightly. "I think you must bemistaken, old-timer."
But Buddy never considered himself mistaken about anything, and he didnot like being told that he was, even when the pill was sweetened withthe term "old-timer." He rolled his eyes at Ford resentfully.
"Dick is mad! He got mad when you galloped over where Jo's red ribbonwas hanging onto a bush. I saw him a-scowling when you rolled it up andput it in your shirt pocket. Dick wanted that ribbon for his bridle; andyou better give it to him. Jo ain't your girl. She's Dick's girl. Andyou have to tie the ribbon of your bestest girl on your bridle. That'swhy," he added, with belated gallantry, "I tie my own mamma's ribbons onmine. And," he returned with terrible directness to the real issue,"Jo's Dick's girl, 'cause he said so. I heard him tell Jim Felton she'shis steady, all right--and you are his girl, ain't you, Jo?"
His mother had tried at first to stop him, had given up in despair, andwas now sitting in a rather tragic calm, waiting for what might come ofhis speech.
Josephine might have saved herself some anxious moments, if she had beenso minded; perhaps she would have been minded, if she had not caughtFord's eyes fixed rather intently upon her, and sensed the expectancy inthem. She bit her lip, and then she laughed.
"A man shouldn't make an assertion of that sort," she said quizzically,in the direction of Buddy--though her meaning went straight across thetable to another--"unless he has some reason for feeling very sure."
Buddy tried to appear quite clear as to her meaning. "Well, if you areDick's girl, then you better make Ford give that ribbon--"
"I have plenty of ribbons, Buddy," Josephine interrupted, smiling at himstill. "Don't you want one?"
"I tie my own mamma's ribbons on my bridle," Buddy rebuffed. "My mammais my girl--you ain't. You can give your ribbons to Dick."
"Mamma won't be your girl if you don't stop talking so much at
thetable--and elsewhere," Mrs. Kate informed him sternly, with a glance oftrepidation at the others. "A little boy mustn't talk about grown-ups,and what they do or say."
"What can I talk about, then? The boys talk about their girls all thetime--"
"I wish to goodness I had let you go with your dad. I shall not let youeat with us, anyway, if you don't keep quiet. You're getting perfectlyimpossible." Which even Buddy understood as a protest which was not tobe taken seriously.
Ford stayed long enough to finish drinking his tea, and then he left thehouse with what he privately considered a perfectly casual manner. As amatter of fact, he was extremely self-conscious about it, so that Mrs.Kate felt justified in mentioning it, and in asking Josephine a questionor two--when she had prudently made an errand elsewhere for Buddy.
Josephine, having promptly disclaimed all knowledge or interestpertaining to the affair, Mrs. Kate spoke her mind plainly.
"If Ford's going to fall in love with you, Phenie," she said, "I thinkyou're foolish to encourage Dick. I believe Ford is falling in love withyou. I never thought he even liked you till to-night, but what Buddysaid about that ribbon--"
"I don't suppose Bud knows what he's talking about--any more than youdo," snapped Josephine. "If you're determined that I shall have a loveaffair on this ranch, I'm going home." She planted her chin in her twopalms, just as she had done at dinner, and stared into vacancy.
"Where?" asked Mrs. Kate pointedly, and then atoned for itwhole-heartedly. "There, I didn't mean that--only--this is your home.It's got to be; I won't let it be anywhere else. And you needn't haveany love affair, Phene--you know that. Only you shan't hurt Ford. Ithink he's perfectly splendid! What he did for Chester--I--I can't thinkof that without getting a lump in my throat, Phene. Think of it! Goingwithout food himself, because there wasn't enough for two,and--and--well, he just simply threw away his own chance of gettingthrough, to give Chester a better one. It was the bravest thing I everheard of! And the way he has conquered--?"
"How do you know he has conquered? Rumor says he hasn't. And lots of mensave other men's lives; it's being done every day, and no one hears muchabout it. You think it was something extraordinary, just because ithappened to be Chester that was saved. Anybody will do all he can for asick partner, when they're away out in the wilds. I haven't a doubt Dickwould have done the very same thing, when it comes to that." Josephinegot up from the table then, and went haughtily into her own room.
Mrs. Kate retired quite as haughtily into the kitchen, and there was adistinct coolness between them for the rest of the day, and a part ofthe next. The chill of it affected Ford sufficiently to keep him awayfrom the house as much as possible, and unusually silent and unlikehimself when he was with the men.
But, unlike many another, he did not know that his recurrentdissatisfaction with life was directly traceable to the apparentintimacy between Josephine and Dick. Ford, if he had tried to put hisgloomy unrest into words, would have transposed his trouble and wouldhave mistaken effect for cause. In other words, he would have ignoredJosephine and Dick entirely, and would have said that he wantedwhisky--and wanted it as the damned are said to want water.