Chapter VII
Jess Tighe Spins a Web
"Then you left Denver, did you?" asked Charlton suavely.
Roy laughed. "Yes, then I left Denver and went to college and shouted,'Rah, rah, rah, Cornell.' In time I became a man and put away childishthings. Can I sell you a windmill, Mr. Charlton, warranted to raisemore water with less air pressure than any other in the market?"
"Been selling windmills long?" the rancher asked casually.
It was his ninth question in fifteen minutes. Beaudry knew that he wasbeing cross-examined and his study of law had taught him that he hadbetter stick to the truth so far as possible. He turned to MissRutherford.
"Your friend is bawling me out," he gayly pretended to whisper. "Inever sold a windmill in my life. But I'm on my uppers. I've got agood proposition. This country needs the Dynamo Aermotor and I needthe money. So I took the agency. I have learned a fifteen minutes'spiel. It gives seven reasons why Mr. Charlton will miss half the joyof life until he buys a Dynamo. Do you think he is a good prospect,Miss Rutherford?"
"Dad has been talking windmill," she said. "Sell him one."
"So has Jess Tighe," Charlton added. He turned to Jeff Rutherford."Couldn't you take Mr. Street over to see Jess to-morrow morning?"
Jeff started promptly to decline, but as his friend's eyes met his hechanged his mind. "I guess I could, maybe."
"I don't want to trouble you, Mr. Rutherford," objected Roy.
Something in the manner of Charlton annoyed Beulah. This young man washer guest. She did not see any reason why Brad should bombard him withquestions.
"If Jeff is too busy I'll take you myself," she told Beaudry.
"Oh, Jeff won't be too busy. He can take a half-day off," put in hisfather.
When Charlton left, Beulah followed him as far as the porch.
"Do you think Mr. Street is a horse-thief that you ask him so manyquestions?" she demanded indignantly.
He looked straight at her. "I don't know what he is, Beulah, but I'mgoing to find out."
"Isn't it possible that he is what he says he is?"
"Sure it's possible, but I don't believe it."
"Of course, I know you like to think the worst of a man, but when youmeet him in my house I'll thank you to treat him properly. I vouch forhim."
"You never met him before this afternoon."
"That's my business. It ought to be enough for you that he is myguest."
Charlton filled in the ellipsis. "If it isn't I can stay away, can'tI? Well, I'm not going to quarrel with you, Beulah. Good-night."
As soon as he was out of sight of the ranch, Charlton turned the headof his horse, not toward his own place, but toward that of Jess Tighe.
Dr. Spindler drove up while Beulah was still on the porch. He examinedthe bruised ankle, dressed it, and pronounced that all it needed was arest. No bones were broken, but the ligaments were strained. Forseveral days she must give up riding and walking.
The ankle pained a good deal during the night, so that its owner sleptintermittently. By morning she was no longer suffering, but was fartoo restless to stay in the house.
"I'm going to drive Mr. Street over to the Tighe place in the buggy,"she announced at breakfast.
Her brothers exchanged glances.
"Think you'd better go so far with your bad ankle, honey?" HalRutherford, senior, asked.
"It doesn't make any difference, dad, so long as I don't put my weighton it."
She had her way, as she usually did. One of the boys hitched up andbrought the team to the front of the house. Beaudry took the seatbeside Beulah.
The girl gathered up the reins, nodded good-bye to her father, anddrove off.
It was such a day as comes not more than a dozen times a season even inNew Mexico. The pure light from the blue sky and the pine-combed airfrom the hills were like wine to their young blood. Once when the roadclimbed a hilltop the long saw-toothed range lifted before them, butmostly they could not see beyond the bastioned ramparts that hemmed inthe park or the nearer wooded gulches that ran down from them.
Beulah had brought her camera. They took pictures of each other. Theygathered wild flowers. They talked as eagerly as children. Somehowthe bars were down between them. The girl had lost the manner ofsullen resentment that had impressed him yesterday. She was gay andhappy and vivid. Wild roses bloomed in her cheeks. For this young manbelonged to the great world outside in which she was so interested.Other topics than horses and cattle and drinking-bouts were the themesof his talk. He had been to theaters and read books and visited largecities. His coming had enriched life for her.
The trail took them past a grove of young aspens which blocked themouth of a small canon by the thickness of the growth.
"Do you see any way in?" Beulah asked her companion.
"No. The trees are like a wall. There is not an open foot by whichone could enter."
"Isn't there?" She laughed. "There's a way in just the same. You seethat big rock over to the left. A trail drops down into the aspensback of it. A man lives in the gulch, an ex-convict. His name is DanMeldrum."
"I expect he isn't troubled much with visitors."'
"No. He lives alone. I don't like him. I wish he would move away.He doesn't do the park any good."
A man was sitting on the porch of the Tighe place as they drove up.Beside him lay a pair of crutches.
"That is Jess," the girl told Beaudry. "Don't mind if he is gruff orbad-tempered. He is soured."
But evidently this was not the morning for Tighe to be gruff. He cameto meet them on his crutches, a smile on his yellow, sapless face.That smile seemed to Roy more deadly than anger. It did not warm thecold, malignant eyes nor light the mordant face with pleasure. Onlythe lips and mouth responded mechanically to it.
"Glad to see you, Miss Beulah. Come in."
He opened the gate and they entered. Presently Beaudry, his bloodbeating fast, found himself shaking hands with Tighe. The man had anodd trick of looking at one always from partly hooded eyes and at anangle.
"Mr. Street is selling windmills," explained Miss Rutherford. "BradCharlton said you were talking of buying one, so here is your chance."
"Yes, I been thinking of it." Tighe's voice was suave. "What is yourproposition, Mr. Street?"
Roy talked the Dynamo Aermotor for fifteen minutes. There wassomething about the still look of this man that put him into a coldsweat.
It was all he could do to concentrate his attention on the patter of asalesman, but he would not let his mind wander from the single trackupon which he was projecting it. He knew he was being watched closely.To make a mistake might be fatal.
"Sounds good. I'll look your literature over, Mr. Street. I supposeyou'll be in the park a few days?"
"Yes."
"Then you can come and see me again. I can't come to you so easy,Mr.--er--"
"Street," suggested Beulah.
"That's right--Street. Well, you see I'm kinder tied down." Heindicated his crutches with a little lift of one hand. "Maybe MissBeulah will bring you again."
"Suits me fine if she will," Beaudry agreed promptly.
The half-hooded eyes of the cripple slid to the girl and back again toRoy. He had a way of dry-washing the backs of his hands like UriahHeep.
"Fine. You'll stay to dinner, now, of course. That's good. That'sgood. Young folks don't know how it pleasures an old man to meet upwith them sometimes." His low voice was as smooth as oil.
Beaudry conceived a horror of the man. The veiled sneer behind thesmile on the sapless face, the hooded hawk eyes, the almost serviledeference, held a sinister threat that chilled the spine of his guest.The young man thought of him as of a repulsive spider spinning a web oftrouble that radiated from this porch all over the Big Creek country.
"Been taking pictures of each other, I reckon. Fine. Fine. Now, Iwonder, Miss Beulah, if you'd do an old man a favor. This porch is myhome, as you might say, seein
g as how I'm sorter held down here. I'dkinder like a picture of it to hang up, providing it ain't asking toomuch of you."
"Of course not. I'll take it now," answered the girl.
"That's right good of you. I'll jest sit here and be talking to Mr.Street, as you might say. Wouldn't that make a good picture--kinderliven up the porch if we're on it?"
Roy felt a sudden impulse to protest, but he dared not yield to it.What was it this man wanted of the picture? Why had he baited a trapto get a picture of him without Beulah Rutherford knowing that heparticularly wanted it? While the girl took the photograph, his mindwas racing for Tighe's reason.
"I'll send you a copy as soon as I print it, Mr. Tighe," promisedBeulah.
"I'll sure set a heap of store by it, Miss Beulah. . . . If you don'tmind helping me set the table, we'll leave Mr. Street this oldnewspaper for a few minutes whilst we fix up a snack. You'll excuseus, Mr. Street? That's good."
Beulah went into the house the same gay and light-hearted comrade ofBeaudry that she had been all morning. When he was called in todinner, he saw at once that Tighe had laid his spell upon her. She wasagain the sullen, resentful girl of yesterday. Suspicion filmed hereyes. The eager light of faith in him that had quickened them whileshe listened for his answers to her naive questions about the greatworld was blotted out completely.
She sat through dinner in cold silence. Tighe kept the ball ofconversation rolling and Beaudry tried to play up to him. They talkedof stock, crops, and politics. Occasionally the host diverted the talkto outside topics. He asked the young man politely how he liked thepark, whether he intended to stay long, how long he had lived in NewMexico, and other casual questions.
Roy was glad when dinner was over. He drew a long breath of reliefwhen they had turned their backs upon the ranch. But his spirits didnot register normal even in the spring sunshine of the hills. For thedark eyes that met his were clouded with doubt and resentment.