CHAPTER XXV
Las Vegas Carmichael was a product of his day.
The Pan Handle of Texas, the old Chisholm Trail along which weredriven the great cattle herds northward, Fort Dodge, where the cowboysconflicted with the card-sharps--these hard places had left their markson Carmichael. To come from Texas was to come from fighting stock. Anda cowboy's life was strenuous, wild, violent, and generally brief. Theexceptions were the fortunate and the swiftest men with guns; and theydrifted from south to north and west, taking with them the reckless,chivalrous, vitriolic spirit peculiar to their breed.
The pioneers and ranchers of the frontier would never have made the Westhabitable had it not been for these wild cowboys, these hard-drinking,hard-riding, hard-living rangers of the barrens, these easy, cool,laconic, simple young men whose blood was tinged with fire and whopossessed a magnificent and terrible effrontery toward danger and death.
Las Vegas ran his horse from Widow Cass's cottage to Turner's saloon,and the hoofs of the goaded steed crashed in the door. Las Vegas'sentrance was a leap. Then he stood still with the door ajar and thehorse pounding and snorting back. All the men in that saloon who saw theentrance of Las Vegas knew what it portended. No thunderbolt couldhave more quickly checked the drinking, gambling, talking crowd. Theyrecognized with kindred senses the nature of the man and his arrival.For a second the blue-hazed room was perfectly quiet, then men breathed,moved, rose, and suddenly caused a quick, sliding crash of chairs andtables.
The cowboy's glittering eyes flashed to and fro, and then fixed onMulvey and his Mexican companion. That glance singled out these two, andthe sudden rush of nervous men proved it. Mulvey and the sheep-herderwere left alone in the center of the floor.
"Howdy, Jeff! Where's your boss?" asked Las Vegas. His voice was cool,friendly; his manner was easy, natural; but the look of him was whatmade Mulvey pale and the Mexican livid.
"Reckon he's home," replied Mulvey.
"Home? What's he call home now?"
"He's hangin' out hyar at Auchincloss's," replied Mulvey. His voice wasnot strong, but his eyes were steady, watchful.
Las Vegas quivered all over as if stung. A flame that seemed white andred gave his face a singular hue.
"Jeff, you worked for old Al a long time, an' I've heard of yourdifferences," said Las Vegas. "Thet ain't no mix of mine.... But youdouble-crossed Miss Helen!"
Mulvey made no attempt to deny this. He gulped slowly. His handsappeared less steady, and he grew paler. Again Las Vegas's wordssignified less than his look. And that look now included the Mexican.
"Pedro, you're one of Beasley's old hands," said Las Vegas, accusingly."An'--you was one of them four greasers thet--"
Here the cowboy choked and bit over his words as if they were a materialpoison. The Mexican showed his guilt and cowardice. He began to jabber.
"Shet up!" hissed Las Vegas, with a savage and significant jerk ofhis arm, as if about to strike. But that action was read for its truemeaning. Pell-mell the crowd split to rush each way and leave an openspace behind the three.
Las Vegas waited. But Mulvey seemed obstructed. The Mexican lookeddangerous through his fear. His fingers twitched as if the tendonsrunning up into his arms were being pulled.
An instant of suspense--more than long enough for Mulvey to be tried andfound wanting--and Las Vegas, with laugh and sneer, turned his back uponthe pair and stepped to the bar. His call for a bottle made Turner jumpand hold it out with shaking hands. Las Vegas poured out a drink, whilehis gaze was intent on the scarred old mirror hanging behind the bar.
This turning his back upon men he had just dared to draw showed whatkind of a school Las Vegas had been trained in. If those men had beenworthy antagonists of his class he would never have scorned them. As itwas, when Mulvey and the Mexican jerked at their guns, Las Vegas swiftlywheeled and shot twice. Mulvey's gun went off as he fell, and theMexican doubled up in a heap on the floor. Then Las Vegas reached aroundwith his left hand for the drink he had poured out.
At this juncture Dale burst into the saloon, suddenly to check hisimpetus, to swerve aside toward the bar and halt. The door had notceased swinging when again it was propelled inward, this time to admitHelen Rayner, white and wide-eyed.
In another moment then Las Vegas had spoken his deadly toast toBeasley's gang and had fiercely flung the glass at the writhing Mexicanon the floor. Also Dale had gravitated toward the reeling Helen to catchher when she fainted.
Las Vegas began to curse, and, striding to Dale, he pushed him out ofthe saloon.
"--! What 're you doin' heah?" he yelled, stridently. "Hevn't you gotthet girl to think of? Then do it, you big Indian! Lettin' her run afteryou heah--riskin' herself thet way! You take care of her an' Bo an'leave this deal to me!"
The cowboy, furious as he was at Dale, yet had keen, swift eyes for thehorses near at hand, and the men out in the dim light. Dale liftedthe girl into his arms, and, turning without a word, stalked away todisappear in the darkness. Las Vegas, holding his gun low, returned tothe bar-room. If there had been any change in the crowd it was slight.The tension had relaxed. Turner no longer stood with hands up.
"You-all go on with your fun," called the cowboy, with a sweep of hisgun. "But it'd be risky fer any one to start leavin'."
With that he backed against the bar, near where the black bottle stood.Turner walked out to begin righting tables and chairs, and presently thecrowd, with some caution and suspense, resumed their games and drinking.It was significant that a wide berth lay between them and the door. Fromtime to time Turner served liquor to men who called for it.
Las Vegas leaned with back against the bar. After a while he sheathedhis gun and reached around for the bottle. He drank with his piercingeyes upon the door. No one entered and no one went out. The gamesof chance there and the drinking were not enjoyed. It was a hardscene--that smoky, long, ill-smelling room, with its dim, yellow lights,and dark, evil faces, with the stealthy-stepping Turner passing to andfro, and the dead Mulvey staring in horrible fixidity at the ceiling,and the Mexican quivering more and more until he shook violently, thenlay still, and with the drinking, somber, waiting cowboy, more fiery andmore flaming with every drink, listening for a step that did not come.
Time passed, and what little change it wrought was in the cowboy. Drinkaffected him, but he did not become drunk. It seemed that the liquor hedrank was consumed by a mounting fire. It was fuel to a driving passion.He grew more sullen, somber, brooding, redder of eye and face, morecrouching and restless. At last, when the hour was so late that therewas no probability of Beasley appearing, Las Vegas flung himself out ofthe saloon.
All lights of the village had now been extinguished. The tired horsesdrooped in the darkness. Las Vegas found his horse and led him away downthe road and out a lane to a field where a barn stood dim and dark inthe starlight. Morning was not far off. He unsaddled the horse and,turning him loose, went into the barn. Here he seemed familiar withhis surroundings, for he found a ladder and climbed to a loft, where hethrew himself on the hay.
He rested, but did not sleep. At daylight he went down and brought hishorse into the barn. Sunrise found Las Vegas pacing to and fro the shortlength of the interior, and peering out through wide cracks betweenthe boards. Then during the succeeding couple of hours he watchedthe occasional horseman and wagon and herder that passed on into thevillage.
About the breakfast hour Las Vegas saddled his horse and rode back theway he had come the night before. At Turner's he called for somethingto eat as well as for whisky. After that he became a listening, watchingmachine. He drank freely for an hour; then he stopped. He seemed tobe drunk, but with a different kind of drunkenness from that usual indrinking men. Savage, fierce, sullen, he was one to avoid. Turner waitedon him in evident fear.
At length Las Vegas's condition became such that action was involuntary.He could not stand still nor sit down. Stalking out, he passed thestore, where men slouched back to avoid him, and he went down the road,wary and alert, as if he
expected a rifle-shot from some hidden enemy.Upon his return down that main thoroughfare of the village not a personwas to be seen. He went in to Turner's. The proprietor was there at hispost, nervous and pale. Las Vegas did not order any more liquor.
"Turner, I reckon I'll bore you next time I run in heah," he said, andstalked out.
He had the stores, the road, the village, to himself; and he patrolled abeat like a sentry watching for an Indian attack.
Toward noon a single man ventured out into the road to accost thecowboy.
"Las Vegas, I'm tellin' you--all the greasers air leavin' the range," hesaid.
"Howdy, Abe!" replied Las Vegas. "What 'n hell you talkin' about?"
The man repeated his information. And Las Vegas spat out frightfulcurses.
"Abe--you heah what Beasley's doin'?"
"Yes. He's with his men--up at the ranch. Reckon he can't put off ridin'down much longer."
That was where the West spoke. Beasley would be forced to meet the enemywho had come out single-handed against him. Long before this hour abraver man would have come to face Las Vegas. Beasley could not hireany gang to bear the brunt of this situation. This was the test by whicheven his own men must judge him. All of which was to say that as thewildness of the West had made possible his crimes, so it now held himresponsible for them.
"Abe, if thet--greaser don't rustle down heah I'm goin' after him."
"Sure. But don't be in no hurry," replied Abe.
"I'm waltzin' to slow music.... Gimme a smoke."
With fingers that slightly trembled Abe rolled a cigarette, lit it fromhis own, and handed it to the cowboy.
"Las Vegas, I reckon I hear hosses," he said, suddenly.
"Me, too," replied Las Vegas, with his head high like that of alistening deer. Apparently he forgot the cigarette and also his friend.Abe hurried back to the store, where he disappeared.
Las Vegas began his stalking up and down, and his action now was anexaggeration of all his former movements. A rational, ordinary mortalfrom some Eastern community, happening to meet this red-faced cowboy,would have considered him drunk or crazy. Probably Las Vegas lookedboth. But all the same he was a marvelously keen and strung andefficient instrument to meet the portending issue. How many thousands oftimes, on the trails, and in the wide-streeted little towns all over theWest, had this stalk of the cowboy's been perpetrated! Violent, bloody,tragic as it was, it had an importance in that pioneer day equal to theuse of a horse or the need of a plow.
At length Pine was apparently a deserted village, except for Las Vegas,who patrolled his long beat in many ways--he lounged while hewatched; he stalked like a mountaineer; he stole along Indian fashion,stealthily, from tree to tree, from corner to corner; he disappeared inthe saloon to reappear at the back; he slipped round behind the barns tocome out again in the main road; and time after time he approached hishorse as if deciding to mount.
The last visit he made into Turner's saloon he found no one there.Savagely he pounded on the bar with his gun. He got no response. Thenthe long-pent-up rage burst. With wild whoops he pulled another gun andshot at the mirror, the lamps. He shot the neck off a bottle and dranktill he choked, his neck corded, bulging, and purple. His only slow anddeliberate action was the reloading of his gun. Then he crashed throughthe doors, and with a wild yell leaped sheer into the saddle, haulinghis horse up high and goading him to plunge away.
Men running to the door and windows of the store saw a streak of dustflying down the road. And then they trooped out to see it disappear. Thehour of suspense ended for them. Las Vegas had lived up to the code ofthe West, had dared his man out, had waited far longer than needful toprove that man a coward. Whatever the issue now, Beasley was brandedforever. That moment saw the decline of whatever power he had wielded.He and his men might kill the cowboy who had ridden out alone to facehim, but that would not change the brand.
The preceding night Beasley bad been finishing a late supper at hisnewly acquired ranch, when Buck Weaver, one of his men, burst in uponhim with news of the death of Mulvey and Pedro.
"Who's in the outfit? How many?" he had questioned, quickly.
"It's a one-man outfit, boss," replied Weaver.
Beasley appeared astounded. He and his men had prepared to meet thefriends of the girl whose property he had taken over, and because of thesuperiority of his own force he had anticipated no bloody or extendedfeud. This amazing circumstance put the case in very much more difficultform.
"One man!" he ejaculated.
"Yep. Thet cowboy Las Vegas. An', boss, he turns out to be a gun-slingerfrom Texas. I was in Turner's. Hed jest happened to step in the otherroom when Las Vegas come bustin' in on his hoss an' jumped off.... Fustthing he called Jeff an' Pedro. They both showed yaller. An' then, damnif thet cowboy didn't turn his back on them an' went to the bar fer adrink. But he was lookin' in the mirror an' when Jeff an' Pedro went fertheir guns why he whirled quick as lightnin' an' bored them both.... Isneaked out an--"
"Why didn't you bore him?" roared Beasley.
Buck Weaver steadily eyed his boss before he replied. "I ain'ttakin' shots at any fellar from behind doors. An' as fer meetin' LasVegas--excoose me, boss! I've still a hankerin' fer sunshine an' redliquor. Besides, I 'ain't got nothin' ag'in' Las Vegas. If he's rustledover here at the head of a crowd to put us off I'd fight, jest as we'dall fight. But you see we figgered wrong. It's between you an' LasVegas!... You oughter seen him throw thet hunter Dale out of Turner's."
"Dale! Did he come?" queried Beasley.
"He got there just after the cowboy plugged Jeff. An' thet big-eyedgirl, she came runnin' in, too. An' she keeled over in Dale's arms. LasVegas shoved him out--cussed him so hard we all heerd.... So, Beasley,there ain't no fight comin' off as we figgered on."
Beasley thus heard the West speak out of the mouth of his own man. Andgrim, sardonic, almost scornful, indeed, were the words of Buck Weaver.This rider had once worked for Al Auchincloss and had deserted toBeasley under Mulvey's leadership. Mulvey was dead and the situation wasvastly changed.
Beasley gave Weaver a dark, lowering glance, and waved him away. Fromthe door Weaver sent back a doubtful, scrutinizing gaze, then slouchedout. That gaze Beasley had not encountered before.
It meant, as Weaver's cronies meant, as Beasley's long-faithful riders,and the people of the range, and as the spirit of the West meant, thatBeasley was expected to march down into the village to face his singlefoe.
But Beasley did not go. Instead he paced to and fro the length of HelenRayner's long sitting-room with the nervous energy of a man whocould not rest. Many times he hesitated, and at others he made suddenmovements toward the door, only to halt. Long after midnight he wentto bed, but not to sleep. He tossed and rolled all night, and at dawnarose, gloomy and irritable.
He cursed the Mexican serving-women who showed their displeasure athis authority. And to his amaze and rage not one of his men came tothe house. He waited and waited. Then he stalked off to the corrals andstables carrying a rifle with him. The men were there, in a group thatdispersed somewhat at his advent. Not a Mexican was in sight.
Beasley ordered the horses to be saddled and all hands to go down intothe village with him. That order was disobeyed. Beasley stormed andraged. His riders sat or lounged, with lowered faces. An unspokenhostility seemed present. Those who had been longest with him were leastdistant and strange, but still they did not obey. At length Beasleyroared for his Mexicans.
"Boss, we gotta tell you thet every greaser on the ranch hessloped--gone these two hours--on the way to Magdalena," said BuckWeaver.
Of all these sudden-uprising perplexities this latest was the mostastounding. Beasley cursed with his questioning wonder.
"Boss, they was sure scared of thet gun-slingin' cowboy from Texas,"replied Weaver, imperturbably.
Beasley's dark, swarthy face changed its hue. What of the subtlereflection in Weaver's slow speech! One of the men came out of a corralleading Beasley's saddled and bridled horse. This fellow drop
ped thebridle and sat down among his comrades without a word. No one spoke. Thepresence of the horse was significant. With a snarling, muttered curse,Beasley took up his rifle and strode back to the ranch-house.
In his rage and passion he did not realize what his men had known forhours--that if he had stood any chance at all for their respect as wellas for his life the hour was long past.
Beasley avoided the open paths to the house, and when he got there henervously poured out a drink. Evidently something in the fiery liquorfrightened him, for he threw the bottle aside. It was as if that bottlecontained a courage which was false.
Again he paced the long sitting-room, growing more and more wrought-upas evidently he grew familiar with the singular state of affairs. Twicethe pale serving-woman called him to dinner.
The dining-room was light and pleasant, and the meal, fragrant andsteaming, was ready for him. But the women had disappeared. Beasleyseated himself--spread out his big hands on the table.
Then a slight rustle--a clink of spur--startled him. He twisted hishead.
"Howdy, Beasley!" said Las Vegas, who had appeared as if by magic.
Beasley's frame seemed to swell as if a flood had been loosed in hisveins. Sweat-drops stood out on his pallid face.
"What--you--want?" he asked, huskily.
"Wal now, my boss, Miss Helen, says, seein' I am foreman heah, thet it'dbe nice an' proper fer me to drop in an' eat with you--THE LAST TIME!"replied the cowboy. His drawl was slow and cool, his tone was friendlyand pleasant. But his look was that of a falcon ready to drive deep itsbeak.
Beasley's reply was loud, incoherent, hoarse.
Las Vegas seated himself across from Beasley.
"Eat or not, it's shore all the same to me," said Las Vegas, and hebegan to load his plate with his left hand. His right hand rested verylightly, with just the tips of his vibrating fingers on the edge ofthe table; and he never for the slightest fraction of a second took hispiercing eyes off Beasley.
"Wal, my half-breed greaser guest, it shore roils up my blood to see yousittin' there--thinkin' you've put my boss, Miss Helen, off this ranch,"began Las Vegas, softly. And then he helped himself leisurely to foodand drink. "In my day I've shore stacked up against a lot of outlaws,thieves, rustlers, an' sich like, but fer an out an' out dirty low-downskunk, you shore take the dough!... I'm goin, to kill you in a minit orso, jest as soon as you move one of them dirty paws of yourn. But I hopeyou'll be polite an' let me say a few words. I'll never be happy againif you don't.... Of all the--yaller greaser dogs I ever seen, you're theworst!... I was thinkin' last night mebbe you'd come down an' meet melike a man, so 's I could wash my hands ever afterward without gettin'sick to my stummick. But you didn't come.... Beasley, I'm so ashamed ofmyself thet I gotta call you--when I ought to bore you, thet--I ain'teven second cousin to my old self when I rode fer Chisholm. It don'tmean nuthin' to you to call you liar! robber! blackleg! a sneakin'coyote! an' a cheat thet hires others to do his dirty work!... ByGawd!--"
"Carmichael, gimme a word in," hoarsely broke out Beasley. "You'reright, it won't do no good to call me.... But let's talk.... I'll buyyou off. Ten thousand dollars--"
"Haw! Haw! Haw!" roared Las Vegas. He was as tense as a strung cord andhis face possessed a singular pale radiance. His right hand began toquiver more and more.
"I'll--double--it!" panted Beasley. "I'll--make over--half theranch--all the stock--"
"Swaller thet!" yelled Las Vegas, with terrible strident ferocity.
"Listen--man!... I take--it back!... I'll give up--Auchincloss's ranch!"Beasley was now a shaking, whispering, frenzied man, ghastly white, withrolling eyes.
Las Vegas's left fist pounded hard on the table.
"GREASER, COME ON!" he thundered.
Then Beasley, with desperate, frantic action, jerked for his gun.
CHAPTER XXVI
For Helen Rayner that brief, dark period of expulsion from her home hadbecome a thing of the past, almost forgotten.
Two months had flown by on the wings of love and work and the joy offinding her place there in the West. All her old men had been only tooglad of the opportunity to come back to her, and under Dale and RoyBeeman a different and prosperous order marked the life of the ranch.
Helen had made changes in the house by altering the arrangement ofrooms and adding a new section. Only once had she ventured into the olddining-room where Las Vegas Carmichael had sat down to that fatal dinnerfor Beasley. She made a store-room of it, and a place she would neveragain enter.
Helen was happy, almost too happy, she thought, and therefore mademore than needful of the several bitter drops in her sweet cup oflife. Carmichael had ridden out of Pine, ostensibly on the trail of theMexicans who had executed Beasley's commands. The last seen of himhad been reported from Show Down, where he had appeared red-eyed anddangerous, like a hound on a scent. Then two months had flown by withouta word.
Dale had shaken his head doubtfully when interrogated about the cowboy'sabsence. It would be just like Las Vegas never to be heard of again.Also it would be more like him to remain away until all trace of hisdrunken, savage spell had departed from him and had been forgotten byhis friends. Bo took his disappearance apparently less to heart thanHelen. But Bo grew more restless, wilder, and more wilful than ever.Helen thought she guessed Bo's secret; and once she ventured a hintconcerning Carmichael's return.
"If Tom doesn't come back pretty soon I'll marry Milt Dale," retortedBo, tauntingly.
This fired Helen's cheeks with red.
"But, child," she protested, half angry, half grave. "Milt and I areengaged."
"Sure. Only you're so slow. There's many a slip--you know."
"Bo, I tell you Tom will come back," replied Helen, earnestly. "I feelit. There was something fine in that cowboy. He understood me betterthan you or Milt, either.... And he was perfectly wild in love withyou."
"Oh! WAS he?"
"Very much more than you deserved, Bo Rayner."
Then occurred one of Bo's sweet, bewildering, unexpectedtransformations. Her defiance, resentment, rebelliousness, vanished froma softly agitated face.
"Oh, Nell, I know that.... You just watch me if I ever get anotherchance at him!... Then--maybe he'd never drink again!"
"Bo, be happy--and be good. Don't ride off any more--don't tease theboys. It'll all come right in the end."
Bo recovered her equanimity quickly enough.
"Humph! You can afford to be cheerful. You've got a man who can't livewhen you're out of his sight. He's like a fish on dry land.... Andyou--why, once you were an old pessimist!"
Bo was not to be consoled or changed. Helen could only sigh and praythat her convictions would be verified.
The first day of July brought an early thunder-storm, just at sunrise.It roared and flared and rolled away, leaving a gorgeous golden cloudpageant in the sky and a fresh, sweetly smelling, glistening green rangethat delighted Helen's eye.
Birds were twittering in the arbors and bees were humming in theflowers. From the fields down along the brook came a blended song ofswamp-blackbird and meadow-lark. A clarion-voiced burro split the airwith his coarse and homely bray. The sheep were bleating, and a soft baaof little lambs came sweetly to Helen's ears. She went her usual roundswith more than usual zest and thrill. Everywhere was color, activity,life. The wind swept warm and pine-scented down from the mountainheights, now black and bold, and the great green slopes seemed to callto her.
At that very moment she came suddenly upon Dale, in his shirt-sleeves,dusty and hot, standing motionless, gazing at the distant mountains.Helen's greeting startled him.
"I--I was just looking away yonder," he said, smiling. She thrilled atthe clear, wonderful light of his eyes.
"So was I--a moment ago," she replied, wistfully. "Do you miss theforest--very much?"
"Nell, I miss nothing. But I'd like to ride with you under the pinesonce more."
"We'll go," she cried.
"When?" he asked, eagerly.
"Oh--soo
n!" And then with flushed face and downcast eyes she passed on.For long Helen had cherished a fond hope that she might be married inParadise Park, where she had fallen in love with Dale and had realizedherself. But she had kept that hope secret. Dale's eager tone, hisflashing eyes, had made her feel that her secret was there in hertelltale face.
As she entered the lane leading to the house she encountered one of thenew stable-boys driving a pack-mule.
"Jim, whose pack is that?" she asked.
"Ma'am, I dunno, but I heard him tell Roy he reckoned his name was mud,"replied the boy, smiling.
Helen's heart gave a quick throb. That sounded like Las Vegas. Shehurried on, and upon entering the courtyard she espied Roy Beemanholding the halter of a beautiful, wild-looking mustang. There wasanother horse with another man, who was in the act of dismounting on thefar side. When he stepped into better view Helen recognized Las Vegas.And he saw her at the same instant.
Helen did not look up again until she was near the porch. She haddreaded this meeting, yet she was so glad that she could have criedaloud.
"Miss Helen, I shore am glad to see you," he said, standing bareheadedbefore her, the same young, frank-faced cowboy she had seen first fromthe train.
"Tom!" she exclaimed, and offered her hands.
He wrung them hard while he looked at her. The swift woman's glanceHelen gave in return seemed to drive something dark and doubtful out ofher heart. This was the same boy she had known--whom she had liked sowell--who had won her sister's love. Helen imagined facing him thus waslike awakening from a vague nightmare of doubt. Carmichael's face wasclean, fresh, young, with its healthy tan; it wore the old glad smile,cool, easy, and natural; his eyes were like Dale's--penetrating, clearas crystal, without a shadow. What had evil, drink, blood, to dowith the real inherent nobility of this splendid specimen of Westernhardihood? Wherever he had been, whatever he had done during thatlong absence, he had returned long separated from that wild and savagecharacter she could now forget. Perhaps there would never again be callfor it.
"How's my girl?" he asked, just as naturally as if he had been gone afew days on some errand of his employer's.
"Bo? Oh, she's well--fine. I--I rather think she'll be glad to see you,"replied Helen, warmly.
"An' how's thet big Indian, Dale?" he drawled.
"Well, too--I'm sure."
"Reckon I got back heah in time to see you-all married?"
"I--I assure you I--no one around here has been married yet," repliedHelen, with a blush.
"Thet shore is fine. Was some worried," he said, lazily. "I've beenchasin' wild hosses over in New Mexico, an' I got after this heah blueroan. He kept me chasin' him fer a spell. I've fetched him back for Bo."
Helen looked at the mustang Roy was holding, to be instantly delighted.He was a roan almost blue in color, neither large nor heavy, butpowerfully built, clean-limbed, and racy, with a long mane and tail,black as coal, and a beautiful head that made Helen love him at once.
"Well, I'm jealous," declared Helen, archly. "I never did see such apony."
"I reckoned you'd never ride any hoss but Ranger," said Las Vegas.
"No, I never will. But I can be jealous, anyhow, can't I?"
"Shore. An I reckon if you say you're goin' to have him--wal, Bo 'd befunny," he drawled.
"I reckon she would be funny," retorted Helen. She was so happy thatshe imitated his speech. She wanted to hug him. It was too good to betrue--the return of this cowboy. He understood her. He had come backwith nothing that could alienate her. He had apparently forgotten theterrible role he had accepted and the doom he had meted out to herenemies. That moment was wonderful for Helen in its revelation of thestrange significance of the West as embodied in this cowboy. He wasgreat. But he did not know that.
Then the door of the living-room opened, and a sweet, high voice pealedout:
"Roy! Oh, what a mustang! Whose is he?"
"Wal, Bo, if all I hear is so he belongs to you," replied Roy with ahuge grin.
Bo appeared in the door. She stepped out upon the porch. She saw thecowboy. The excited flash of her pretty face vanished as she paled.
"Bo, I shore am glad to see you," drawled Las Vegas, as he steppedforward, sombrero in hand. Helen could not see any sign of confusion inhim. But, indeed, she saw gladness. Then she expected to behold Bo runright into the cowboys's arms. It appeared, however, that she was doomedto disappointment.
"Tom, I'm glad to see you," she replied.
They shook hands as old friends.
"You're lookin' right fine," he said.
"Oh, I'm well.... And how have you been these six months?" she queried.
"Reckon I though it was longer," he drawled. "Wal, I'm pretty tip-topnow, but I was laid up with heart trouble for a spell."
"Heart trouble?" she echoed, dubiously.
"Shore.... I ate too much over heah in New Mexico."
"It's no news to me--where your heart's located," laughed Bo. Then sheran off the porch to see the blue mustang. She walked round and roundhim, clasping her hands in sheer delight.
"Bo, he's a plumb dandy," said Roy. "Never seen a prettier hoss. He'llrun like a streak. An' he's got good eyes. He'll be a pet some day. ButI reckon he'll always be spunky."
"Bo ventured to step closer, and at last got a hand on the mustang, andthen another. She smoothed his quivering neck and called softly to him,until he submitted to her hold.
"What's his name?" she asked.
"Blue somethin' or other," replied Roy.
"Tom, has my new mustang a name?" asked Bo, turning to the cowboy.
"Shore."
"What then?"
"Wal, I named him Blue-Bo," answered Las Vegas, with a smile.
"Blue-Boy?"
"Nope. He's named after you. An' I chased him, roped him, broke him allmyself."
"Very well. Blue-Bo he is, then.... And he's a wonderful darling horse.Oh, Nell, just look at him.... Tom, I can't thank you enough."
"Reckon I don't want any thanks," drawled the cowboy. "But see heah, Bo,you shore got to live up to conditions before you ride him."
"What!" exclaimed Bo, who was startled by his slow, cool, meaning tone,of voice.
Helen delighted in looking at Las Vegas then. He had never appeared tobetter advantage. So cool, careless, and assured! He seemed master ofa situation in which his terms must be accepted. Yet he might have beenactuated by a cowboy motive beyond the power of Helen to divine.
"Bo Rayner," drawled Las Vegas, "thet blue mustang will be yours, an'you can ride him--when you're MRS. TOM CARMICHAEL!"
Never had he spoken a softer, more drawling speech, nor gazed at Bomore mildly. Roy seemed thunderstruck. Helen endeavored heroically torestrain her delicious, bursting glee. Bo's wide eyes stared at herlover--darkened--dilated. Suddenly she left the mustang to confront thecowboy where he lounged on the porch steps.
"Do you mean that?" she cried.
"Shore do."
"Bah! It's only a magnificent bluff," she retorted. "You're only in fun.It's your--your darned nerve!"
"Why, Bo," began Las Vegas, reproachfully. "You shore know I'm not thefour-flusher kind. Never got away with a bluff in my life! An' I'm jestin daid earnest aboot this heah."
All the same, signs were not wanting in his mobile face that he wasalmost unable to restrain his mirth.
Helen realized then that Bo saw through the cowboy--that the ultimatumwas only one of his tricks.
"It IS a bluff and I CALL you!" declared Bo, ringingly.
Las Vegas suddenly awoke to consequences. He essayed to speak, but shewas so wonderful then, so white and blazing-eyed, that he was strickenmute.
"I'll ride Blue-Bo this afternoon," deliberately stated the girl.
Las Vegas had wit enough to grasp her meaning, and he seemed about tocollapse.
"Very well, you can make me Mrs. Tom Carmichael to-day--thismorning--just before dinner.... Go get a preacher to marry us--andmake yourself look a more presentable bridegroom--UNLESS IT WAS ONLY
ABLUFF!"
Her imperiousness changed as the tremendous portent of her words seemedto make Las Vegas a blank, stone image of a man. With a wild-rose colorsuffusing her face, she swiftly bent over him, kissed him, and flashedaway into the house. Her laugh pealed back, and it thrilled Helen, sodeep and strange was it for the wilful sister, so wild and merry andfull of joy.
It was then that Roy Beeman recovered from his paralysis, to let outsuch a roar of mirth as to frighten the horses. Helen was laughing, andcrying, too, but laughing mostly. Las Vegas Carmichael was a sight forthe gods to behold. Bo's kiss had unclamped what had bound him. Thesudden truth, undeniable, insupportable, glorious, made him a madman.
"Bluff--she called me--ride Blue-Bo saf'ternoon!" he raved,reaching wildly for Helen. "Mrs.--Tom--Carmichael--beforedinner--preacher--presentable bridegroom!... Aw! I'm drunk again! I--whoswore off forever!"
"No, Tom, you're just happy," said Helen.
Between her and Roy the cowboy was at length persuaded to accept thesituation and to see his wonderful opportunity.
"Now--now, Miss Helen--what'd Bo mean by pre--presentable bridegroom?...Presents? Lord, I'm clean busted flat!"
"She meant you must dress up in your best, of course," replied Helen.
"Where 'n earth will I get a preacher?... Show Down's forty miles....Can't ride there in time.... Roy, I've gotta have a preacher.... Life ordeath deal fer me."
"Wal, old man, if you'll brace up I'll marry you to Bo," said Roy, withhis glad grin.
"Aw!" gasped Las Vegas, as if at the coming of a sudden beautiful hope.
"Tom, I'm a preacher," replied Roy, now earnestly. "You didn't knowthet, but I am. An' I can marry you an' Bo as good as any one, an'tighter 'n most."
Las Vegas reached for his friend as a drowning man might have reachedfor solid rock.
"Roy, can you really marry them--with my Bible--and the service of mychurch?" asked Helen, a happy hope flushing her face.
"Wal, indeed I can. I've married more 'n one couple whose religionwasn't mine."
"B-b-before--d-d-din-ner!" burst out Las Vegas, like a stuttering idiot.
"I reckon. Come on, now, an' make yourself pre-senttible," said Roy."Miss Helen, you tell Bo thet it's all settled."
He picked up the halter on the blue mustang and turned away toward thecorrals. Las Vegas put the bridle of his horse over his arm, and seemedto be following in a trance, with his dazed, rapt face held high.
"Bring Dale," called Helen, softly after them.
So it came about as naturally as it was wonderful that Bo rode the bluemustang before the afternoon ended.
Las Vegas disobeyed his first orders from Mrs. Tom Carmichael and rodeout after her toward the green-rising range. Helen seemed impelled tofollow. She did not need to ask Dale the second time. They rode swiftly,but never caught up with Bo and Las Vegas, whose riding resembled theirhappiness.
Dale read Helen's mind, or else his own thoughts were in harmony withhers, for he always seemed to speak what she was thinking. And as theyrode homeward he asked her in his quiet way if they could not spare afew days to visit his old camp.
"And take Bo--and Tom? Oh, of all things I'd like to'" she replied.
"Yes--an' Roy, too," added Dale, significantly.
"Of course," said Helen, lightly, as if she had not caught his meaning.But she turned her eyes away, while her heart thumped disgracefully andall her body was aglow. "Will Tom and Bo go?"
"It was Tom who got me to ask you," replied Dale. "John an' Hal can lookafter the men while we're gone."
"Oh--so Tom put it in your head? I guess--maybe--I won't go."
"It is always in my mind, Nell," he said, with his slow seriousness."I'm goin' to work all my life for you. But I'll want to an' need to goback to the woods often.... An' if you ever stoop to marry me--an' makeme the richest of men--you'll have to marry me up there where I fell inlove with you."
"Ah! Did Las Vegas Tom Carmichael say that, too?" inquired Helen,softly.
"Nell, do you want to know what Las Vegas said?"
"By all means."
"He said this--an' not an hour ago. 'Milt, old hoss, let me give you ahunch. I'm a man of family now--an' I've been a devil with the wimmenin my day. I can see through 'em. Don't marry Nell Rayner in or near thehouse where I killed Beasley. She'd remember. An' don't let her rememberthet day. Go off into the woods. Paradise Park! Bo an' me will go withyou."
Helen gave him her hand, while they walked the horses homeward in thelong sunset shadows. In the fullness of that happy hour she had time fora grateful wonder at the keen penetration of the cowboy Carmichael. Dalehad saved her life, but it was Las Vegas who had saved her happiness.
Not many days later, when again the afternoon shadows were slanting low,Helen rode out upon the promontory where the dim trail zigzagged farabove Paradise Park.
Roy was singing as he drove the pack-burros down the slope; Bo and LasVegas were trying to ride the trail two abreast, so they could holdhands; Dale had dismounted to stand beside Helen's horse, as she gazeddown the shaggy black slopes to the beautiful wild park with its graymeadows and shining ribbons of brooks.
It was July, and there were no golden-red glorious flames and blazes ofcolor such as lingered in Helen's memory. Black spruce slopes and greenpines and white streaks of aspens and lacy waterfall of foam and darkoutcroppings of rock--these colors and forms greeted her gaze with allthe old enchantment. Wildness, beauty, and loneliness were there, thesame as ever, immutable, like the spirit of those heights.
Helen would fain have lingered longer, but the others called, and Rangerimpatiently snorted his sense of the grass and water far below. And sheknew that when she climbed there again to the wide outlook she would beanother woman.
"Nell, come on," said Dale, as he led on. "It's better to look up."
The sun had just sunk behind the ragged fringe of mountain-rim whenthose three strong and efficient men of the open had pitched camp andhad prepared a bountiful supper. Then Roy Beeman took out the littleworn Bible which Helen had given him to use when he married Bo, and ashe opened it a light changed his dark face.
"Come, Helen an' Dale," he said.
They arose to stand before him. And he married them there under thegreat, stately pines, with the fragrant blue smoke curling upward, andthe wind singing through the branches, while the waterfall murmured itslow, soft, dreamy music, and from the dark slope came the wild, lonelycry of a wolf, full of the hunger for life and a mate.
"Let us pray," said Roy, as he closed the Bible, and knelt with them.
"There is only one God, an' Him I beseech in my humble office for thewoman an' man I have just wedded in holy bonds. Bless them an' watchthem an' keep them through all the comin' years. Bless the sons ofthis strong man of the woods an' make them like him, with love an'understandin' of the source from which life comes. Bless the daughtersof this woman an' send with them more of her love an' soul, which mustbe the softenin' an' the salvation of the hard West. O Lord, blaze thedim, dark trail for them through the unknown forest of life! O Lord,lead the way across the naked range of the future no mortal knows! Weask in Thy name! Amen."
When the preacher stood up again and raised the couple from theirkneeling posture, it seemed that a grave and solemn personage had lefthim. This young man was again the dark-faced, clear-eyed Roy, droll anddry, with the enigmatic smile on his lips.
"Mrs. Dale," he said, taking her hands, "I wish you joy.... An' now,after this here, my crownin' service in your behalf--I reckon I'll claima reward."
Then he kissed her. Bo came next with her warm and loving felicitations,and the cowboy, with characteristic action, also made at Helen.
"Nell, shore it's the only chance I'll ever have to kiss you," hedrawled. "Because when this heah big Indian once finds out what kissin'is--!"
Las Vegas then proved how swift and hearty he could be upon occasions.All this left Helen red and confused and unutterably happy. Sheappreciated Dale's state. His eyes reflected the precious treas
urewhich manifestly he saw, but realization of ownership had not yet becomedemonstrable.
Then with gay speech and happy laugh and silent look these five partookof the supper. When it was finished Roy made known his intention toleave. They all protested and coaxed, but to no avail. He only laughedand went on saddling his horse.
"Roy, please stay," implored Helen. "The day's almost ended. You'retired."
"Nope. I'll never be no third party when there's only two."
"But there are four of us."
"Didn't I just make you an' Dale one?... An', Mrs. Dale, you forget I'vebeen married more 'n once."
Helen found herself confronted by an unanswerable side of the argument.Las Vegas rolled on the grass in his mirth. Dale looked strange.
"Roy, then that's why you're so nice," said Bo, with a little devil inher eyes. "Do you know I had my mind made up if Tom hadn't come around Iwas going to make up to you, Roy.... I sure was. What number wife wouldI have been?"
It always took Bo to turn the tables on anybody. Roy looked mightilyembarrassed. And the laugh was on him. He did not face them again untilhe had mounted.
"Las Vegas, I've done my best for you--hitched you to thet blue-eyedgirl the best I know how," he declared. "But I shore ain't guaranteein'nothin'. You'd better build a corral for her."
"Why, Roy, you shore don't savvy the way to break these wild ones,"drawled Las Vegas. "Bo will be eatin' out of my hand in about a week."
Bo's blue eyes expressed an eloquent doubt as to this extraordinaryclaim.
"Good-by, friends," said Roy, and rode away to disappear in the spruces.
Thereupon Bo and Las Vegas forgot Roy, and Dale and Helen, the campchores to be done, and everything else except themselves. Helen's firstwifely duty was to insist that she should and could and would help herhusband with the work of cleaning up after the sumptuous supper. Beforethey had finished a sound startled them. It came from Roy, evidentlyhigh on the darkening slope, and was a long, mellow pealing halloo, thatrang on the cool air, burst the dreamy silence, and rapped acrossfrom slope to slope and cliff to cliff, to lose its power and die awayhauntingly in the distant recesses.
Dale shook his head as if he did not care to attempt a reply to thatbeautiful call. Silence once again enfolded the park, and twilightseemed to be born of the air, drifting downward.
"Nell, do you miss anythin'?" asked Dale.
"No. Nothing in all the world," she murmured. "I am happier than I everdared pray to be."
"I don't mean people or things. I mean my pets."
"Ah! I had forgotten.... Milt, where are they?"
"Gone back to the wild," he said. "They had to live in my absence. An'I've been away long."
Just then the brooding silence, with its soft murmur of falling waterand faint sigh of wind in the pines, was broken by a piercing scream,high, quivering, like that of a woman in exquisite agony.
"That's Tom!" exclaimed Dale.
"Oh--I was so--so frightened!" whispered Helen.
Bo came running, with Las Vegas at her heels.
"Milt, that was your tame cougar," cried Bo, excitedly. "Oh, I'll neverforget him! I'll hear those cries in my dreams!"
"Yes, it was Tom," said Dale, thoughtfully. "But I never heard him cryjust like that."
"Oh, call him in!"
Dale whistled and called, but Tom did not come. Then the hunter stalkedoff in the gloom to call from different points under the slope. Aftera while he returned without the cougar. And at that moment, from farup the dark ravine, drifted down the same wild cry, only changed bydistance, strange and tragic in its meaning.
"He scented us. He remembers. But he'll never come back," said Dale.
Helen felt stirred anew with the convictions of Dale's deep knowledge oflife and nature. And her imagination seemed to have wings. How full andperfect her trust, her happiness in the realization that her love andher future, her children, and perhaps grandchildren, would come underthe guidance of such a man! Only a little had she begun to comprehendthe secrets of good and ill in their relation to the laws of nature.Ages before men had lived on the earth there had been the creatures ofthe wilderness, and the holes of the rocks, and the nests of the trees,and rain, frost, heat, dew, sunlight and night, storm and calm, thehoney of the wildflower and the instinct of the bee--all the beautifuland multiple forms of life with their inscrutable design. To knowsomething of them and to love them was to be close to the kingdom ofearth--perhaps to the greater kingdom of heaven. For whatever breathedand moved was a part of that creation. The coo of the dove, the lichenon the mossy rock, the mourn of a hunting wolf, and the murmur of thewaterfall, the ever-green and growing tips of the spruces, and thethunderbolts along the battlements of the heights--these one and allmust be actuated by the great spirit--that incalculable thing in theuniverse which had produced man and soul.
And there in the starlight, under the wide-gnarled pines, sighing lowwith the wind, Helen sat with Dale on the old stone that an avalancheof a million years past had flung from the rampart above to serve ascamp-table and bench for lovers in the wilderness; the sweet scent ofspruce mingled with the fragrance of wood-smoke blown in their faces.How white the stars, and calm and true! How they blazed their singletask! A coyote yelped off on the south slope, dark now as midnight. Abit of weathered rock rolled and tapped from shelf to shelf. And thewind moaned. Helen felt all the sadness and mystery and nobility of thislonely fastness, and full on her heart rested the supreme consciousnessthat all would some day be well with the troubled world beyond.
"Nell, I'll homestead this park," said Dale. "Then it'll always beours."
"Homestead! What's that?" murmured Helen, dreamily. The word soundedsweet.
"The government will give land to men who locate an' build," repliedDale. "We'll run up a log cabin."
"And come here often.... Paradise Park!" whispered Helen.
Dale's first kisses were on her lips then, hard and cool and clean, likethe life of the man, singularly exalting to her, completing her woman'sstrange and unutterable joy of the hour, and rendering her mute.
Bo's melodious laugh, and her voice with its old mockery of torment,drifted softly on the night breeze. And the cowboy's "Aw, Bo," drawlinghis reproach and longing, was all that the tranquil, waiting silenceneeded.
Paradise Park was living again one of its romances. Love was no strangerto that lonely fastness. Helen heard in the whisper of the wind throughthe pine the old-earth story, beautiful, ever new, and yet eternal.She thrilled to her depths. The spar-pointed spruces stood up blackand clear against the noble stars. All that vast solitude breathed andwaited, charged full with its secret, ready to reveal itself to hertremulous soul.
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