CHAPTER NINETEEN
MARY HOPE HAS MUCH TROUBLE
Mary Hope, still taking her own point of view, had troubles in plentyto bear. In her own way she was quite as furious as was Lance, feltquite as injured as did the Devil's Tooth outfit, had all thehumiliation of knowing that the Black Rim talked of nothing but herquarrel with the Lorrigans, and in addition had certain domesticworries of her own.
Her mother harped continually on the piano quarrel and the indignityof having been "slappit" by the painted Jezebel. But that was not whatworried Mary Hope most, for she was long accustomed to her mother'shabit of dwelling tearfully on some particular wrong that had beendone her. Mary Hope was worried over her father.
On the day of the Fourth he had stayed at home, tinkering up hismachinery, making ready for haying that was soon to occupy all hiswaking hours,--and they would be as many as daylight would give him.He had been doing something to an old mower that should have gone tothe junk heap long ago, and with the rusty sickle he had managed tocut his hand very deeply, just under the ball of the thumb. He had nottaken the trouble to cleanse the cut thoroughly, but had wrapped hishandkerchief around the hand and gone glumly on with his work. Now, onthe third day, Mary Hope had become frightened at the discoloration ofthe wound and the way in which his arm was swelling, and had beggedhim to let her drive him to Jumpoff where he could take the train toLava and a doctor. As might be expected, he had refused to do anythingof the kind. He would not spend the time, and he would not spend themoney, and he thought that a poultice would draw out the swelling wellenough. Mary Hope had no faith in poultices, and she was on the pointof riding to Jumpoff and telegraphing for a doctor when her fathercannily read her mind and forbade her so sternly that she quailedbefore him.
There was another thing, which she must do. She must take the moneyshe had gotten from the dance and with it pay Tom Lorrigan for theschoolhouse, or stop the school altogether. Jim Boyle, when she hadridden over to the AJ to tell him, had said that she could do as shepleased about paying for the schoolhouse; but if she refused to teachhis kids, he would get some one else who would. Jim Boyle seemed tofeel no compunctions whatever about accepting favors from the Devil'sTooth. As to Sederson, the Swede, he was working for Boyle, and didwhat his boss said. So the matter was flung back upon Mary Hope foradjustment according to the dictates of her pride or conscience, callit which you will.
Her mother advised her to keep the money and buy another piano. ButMary Hope declared that she would not use the schoolhouse while it wasa Lorrigan gift; whereupon Mother Douglas yielded the point grudginglyand told her to send Hugh, the gawky youth, to the Devil's Tooth withthe three hundred dollars and a note saying what the money was for.But her father would not permit Hugh to go, reiterating feverishlythat he needed Hugh on the ranch. And with the pain racking him andmaking his temper something fearful to face, Mary Hope dared not arguewith him.
So she herself set out with her money and her hurt pride andall her troubles, to pay the Devil's Tooth outfit for theschoolhouse--approximately, since she had only a vague idea ofthe cost of the building--and then be quit of the Lorriganpatronage forever.
It happened that she found Tom at home and evidently in a temper notmuch milder than her father's. Two of the Devil's Tooth men were atthe stable door when she rode up, and to them Tom was talking in avoice that sent shivers over Mary Hope when she heard it. Not loud anddeclamatory, like her father's, but with a certain implacable calmthat was harder to face than stormy vituperation.
But she faced it, now that she was there and Tom had been warned ofher coming by Coaley, who pointed his ears forward inquiringly whenshe neared the stable. The two cowpunchers gave Tom slanting glancesand left, muttering under their breaths to each other as they ledtheir sweaty horses into a farther corral.
Tom lifted his hand to his hat brim in mute recognition of herpresence, gave her a swift inquiring look and turned Coaley into thestable with the saddle on. Mary Hope took one deep breath and,fumbling at a heavy little bag tied beside the fork of her saddle,plunged straight into her subject.
"I've brought the money I raised at the dance, Mr. Lorrigan," shesaid. "Since you refused to take it for the piano, I have brought itto pay you for the schoolhouse--with Mr. Boyle's approval. I havethree hundred and twelve dollars. If that is not enough, I will payyou the balance later." She felt secretly rather well satisfied withthe speech, which went even better than her rehearsals of it on theway over.
Then, having untied the bag, she looked up, and her satisfactionslumped abruptly into perturbation. Tom was leaning back against thecorral rails, with his arms folded--and just _why_ must he lift hiseyebrows and smile like Lance? She was going to hand him the bag, buther fingers bungled and she dropped it in the six-inch dust of thetrail.
Tom unfolded his arms, moved forward a pace, picked up the bag andoffered it to her. "You've got the buying fever, looks like to me," heobserved coldly. "I haven't got any schoolhouse to sell."
"But you have! You built it, and--"
"I did build a shack up on the hill, awhile back," Tom admitted in thesame deliberate tone, "but I turned it over to Jim Boyle and the Swedeand whoever else wanted to send their kids there to school." SinceMary Hope refused to put out her hand for the bag, Tom began verycalmly to retie it on her saddle. But she struck his hand away.
"I shall not take the money. I shall pay for the schoolhouse, Mr.Lorrigan. Unless I can pay for it I shall never teach school thereanother day!" Her voice shook with nervous tension. One did notlightly and unthinkingly measure wills with Tom Lorrigan.
"That's your business, whether you teach school or not," said Tom,holding the bag as though he still meant to tie it on the saddle.
"But if I don't they will hire another teacher, and that will drive meaway from home to earn money--" Mary Hope had not in the leastintended to say that, which might be interpreted as a bid forsympathy.
"Well, Belle, she says no strange woman can use that schoolhouse.They might not find anything to teach school in, if they tried that."
"You've got to keep that money." Mary Hope turned the Roman-nosedhorse half away, meaning to leave Tom there with the money in hishand.
Tom reached calmly out and caught the horse by the bridle.
"I want to tell you something," he drawled, in the voice which she hadheard when she came up. "I haven't _'got'_ to do anything. But I tellyou what I _will_ do. If you don't take this money back and go aheadwith your school-teaching as if nothing had happened, I'll burn thatschoolhouse to the last chip in the yard. And this money I'll take andthrow down that crevice under the Tooth, up there. The money won't donobody any good, and the schoolhouse won't be nothing at all but ablack spot. You can suit yourself--it's up to you."
Mary Hope looked at him, opened her lips to defy him, and instead gavea small sob. Her Scotch blood chilled at the threat of such wantondestruction of property and money, but it was not that which made herafraid at that moment of Tom Lorrigan,--held her silent, glaringimpotently.
She trembled while he tied the money to the saddle fork again, using aknot she had never seen tied before. She wanted to tell him how muchshe hated him, how much she hated the whole Lorrigan family, how shewould die before she ever entered the door of that schoolhouse againunless it was paid for and she could be free of obligation to him.
But when his head was bent, hiding all of his face but the chin, shehad a wild fleeting notion that he was Lance, and that he would lifthis head and smile at her. Yet when he lifted his head he was just TomLorrigan, with a hardness in his face which Lance did not have, and aglint in his eye that told her his will was inexorable, that he woulddo exactly what he said he would do, and perhaps more, if she opposedhim.
Without a word she turned back, crushed under the sense of defeat.Useless destruction of property and money did not seem to meananything at all to a Lorrigan, but to her the thought was horrible.She could not endure the thought of what he would do if she refused touse the schoolhouse. Much less could she
endure the thought ofentering the place again while it remained a Lorrigan gift.
Blindly fighting an hysterical impulse to cry aloud like a child overher hurt, she reined Jamie into the shortcut trail of the Slide.Coming down she had followed the wagon road, partly because the longertrail postponed a dreaded meeting, and partly because Jamie, beinguncertain in his temper and inclined to panicky spells when things didnot go just right with him, could not safely be trusted on the Slidetrail, which was strange to him.
Until she reached the narrow place along the shale side hill she didnot realize what trail she was taking. Then, because she could notleave the trail and take the road without retracing her steps almostto the stable, she went on, giving Jamie an impatient kick with herheel and sending him snorting over the treacherous stuff in a highcanter.
"Go on and break your neck and mine too, if ye like," she sobbed. "Yeneedn't think I'll give an inch to _you;_ it's bad enough." WhenJamie, still snorting, still reckless with his feet, somehow managedto pass over the boulder-strewn stretch without breaking a leg, MaryHope choked back the obstreperous lump in her throat and spoke againin a quiet fury of resentment. "Burn it he may if he likes; I shall_not_ put my foot again inside a house of the Lorrigans!"
Whereat Jamie threw up his head, shied at a white rock on the steepslope beneath, loped through the sagebrush where the trail was almostlevel, scrambled up a steep, deep-worn bit of trail, turned the sharpcorner of the switch-back and entered that rift in the cap-rock knownas the Slide.
Mary Hope had traveled that trail many times on Rab, a few years ago.She had always entered the Slide with a little thrill along her spine,knowing it for a place where Adventure might meet her face toface--where Danger lurked and might one day spring out at her. To-dayshe thought nothing about it until Jamie squatted and tried to whirlback. Then she looked up and saw Adventure, Danger and Lance Lorriganjust ahead, where the Slide was steepest.
Lance pulled up his hired horse, his thoughts coming back with a jerkfrom the same disagreeable subject that had engrossed Mary Hope. Thehired horse jumped, tried his best not to sit down, lunged forward tosave himself, found himself held back with a strength that did notyield an inch, and paused wild-eyed, his hind feet slipping andscraping the rock.
Jamie in that moment was behaving much worse. Jamie, finding that hecould not turn around, was backing down the Slide, every stepthreatening to land him in a heap. Mary Hope turned white, her eyesstaring up at Lance a little above her. In that instant they bothremembered the short turn of the switch-back, and the twelve-foot bankwith the scrambling trail down which no horse could walk backwards andkeep his legs under him.
"Loosen the reins and spur him!" Lance's voice sounded hollow, pentwithin that rock-walled slit. In the narrow space he was crowding hisown horse against the right wall so that he might dismount.
Mary Hope leaned obediently forward, the reins hanging loose. "He_always_ backs up when he's scared," she panted, when Jamie paid noattention.
Instinctively Lance's hand felt for his rope. On the livery saddlethere did happen to be a poor sort of grass-rope riata, cheap andstiff and clumsily coiled, but fortunately with a loop in the end.
"Don't lasso Jamie! He always fights a rope. He'll throw himself!"Mary Hope's voice was strained and unnatural.
Lance flipped a kink out of the rope. In that narrow space the loopmust be a small one; he had one swift, sickening vision of what mighthappen if the little loop tightened around her neck. "Put up yourhands--close to your head," he commanded her. "It's all right. Don'tbe afraid--it's all right, girl--"
He shot the loop straight out and down at her, saw it settle over herhead, slip over her elbows, her shoulders. "It's all right--can youget off!"
She tried, but the space was too narrow to risk it, with Jamie stillgoing backward in a brainless panic. He would have trampled herbeneath him had she done so.
"Stay on--but be all ready to jump when he leaves the Slide. Don't beafraid--it's all right. He won't hurt you; he won't hurt you at all."He was edging closer to the horse, holding the rope taut in his righthand, his left ready to catch Jamie by the bridle once he came nearenough. His one fear was that the horse might fall before he was outof the gash, and in falling might crush Mary Hope against the rocks.
As Lance came on, Jamie backed faster, his haunches dropped, his feetslipping under him. Lance dared not crowd him, dared not reach for thebridle, still more than an arm's length away. So Jamie came out of theSlide backwards, saw with a sudden panic-stricken toss of his headthat he had open daylight all around him, whirled short and gave oneheadlong leap away from the place that had terrified him so.
Lance jumped, reaching for Mary Hope as the horse went over the bank.By the length of his hand he missed her, but the rope pulled her freefrom Jamie, and she fell prone on the trail and lay still.
"Are you hurt? Good God! are you hurt?" Lance gathered her in his armsand carried her to where the rock wall made a shady band across thesteep slope.
Mary Hope was very white, very limp, and her eyes were closed. On hercheeks he saw where tears had lately been. Her mouth had a pitifullittle droop. He sat down, still holding her like a child, and felttentatively of her arms, her shoulders, vaguely prepared to feel thecrunch of a broken bone. There was no water nearer than the ranch.Jamie, having rolled over twice, was lying on his side near a scragglybuck-brush, looking back up the hill, apparently wondering whether itwould be worth while to get up. The hired horse, having found a nichewherein to set his hind feet, stood staring down through the Slide,afraid to come farther, unable to retreat.
One side of Mary Hope's face was dusty, the skin roughened with smallscratches where she had fallen. With his handkerchief Lance verygently wiped away the dust, took off her hat and fanned her face,watching absently two locks of hair that blew back and forth acrossher forehead with the breeze made by the swaying hat brim.
She was not dead! She could not be dead, with that short fall. Then hesaw that she was breathing faintly, unevenly, and in another minute hesaw her lashes quiver against her tanned cheek. But her eyes did notopen, the color did not flow back into her face.
"Oh, girl--girl, wake up!" With a little shake he pulled her close tohim. "Open your eyes. I want to see your eyes. I want to see if theyare just as blue as ever. Girl--oh, you poor little girl!"
He had been hating her, furious at the insult she had given hisfamily. Angry as he was with the Lorrigans, resenting fiercely whatthey had done, he had hated Mary Hope Douglas more, because the hurtwas more personal, struck deep into a part of his soul that had growntender. But he could not hate her now--not when she lay there in hisarms with her tear-stained cheek against his heart, her eyes shut,and with that pathetic droop to her lips. Gently he tucked back thelocks of hair that kept blowing across her forehead. Very tenderly,with a whimsical pretense at self-pity, he upbraided her for thetrouble she was giving him.
"Must I go clear down to the ranch and pack up water in my hat, andslosh it on your face? I'll do that, girl, if you don't open your eyesand look at me. _You're_ not hurt; _are_ you hurt? You'd better wakeup and tell me, or I'll have to take you right up in my arms and carryyou all the way down to the house, and ride like heck for a doctor,and--"
"Ye will not!" she retorted faintly, and unexpectedly he was lookinginto her eyes, bluer than he had remembered them; troubled,questioning--but stubborn against his suggestion. She moved uneasily,and he lifted her to the bank beside him and put one arm behind her,so that she leaned against him.
"Oh, very well--then I will not. You'll walk with me to the house, andwe'll let Belle--"
"I will not! Never in my life will I enter the house of a Lorrigan!"Mary Hope brushed a palm against her forehead, straightened herself asif she resented her weakness, wished to hold herself aloof from him.She did not look at Lance, but stared across the narrow valley to thesage-clothed bluff beyond.
"Why not? You've just come from the Lorrigans, haven't you?" Lancestudied her face. "You must have, or you woul
dn't be on this trail."
"I went down to pay for the schoolhouse, since your father took thepiano away.--And he would not take the money, and he said he wouldburn the house if I don't teach in it--and I'll die before ever I'llopen the door again, unless he takes the money. And he said if I leftthe money he would throw it down the crevice yonder--and he would _do_it! And do you think I'll be under any obligation to Tom Lorrigan? Youcalled my father hard, but your father is the hardest man that everlived. The Lorrigans shall _not_--"
Lance laughed, set her hat wrong side before on her head, tucked theelastic band under her chin, laughed again when she pettishly removedit and set the hat straight. "I wouldn't worry over the schoolhouseright now--nor Tom Lorrigan either," he said. "Look at your horse downthere. If you're all right, I'll go down and see how many bones he'sbroken. You had a chance for a nasty pile-up. Do you know that?"
"I'm grateful," said Mary Hope soberly. "But it was Lorrigan meannessbrought me here; it was a Lorrigan got me into the trouble now, and aLorrigan got me out of it. It's _always_ the Lorrigans."
"Yes, and a Lorrigan's got to see you a little farther before you'rethrough with them, so cheer up." Lance laughed again, an amusedlittle chuckle that was calculated to take the droop out of MaryHope's lips, and failed completely.
He saw her cheeks were reddening, saw too that her face gave evidenceof no particular bodily pain. She had probably fainted from fright,more than anything else, he decided, and her fright was now forgottenin her animosity. He slid off the bank, went down to where Jamie lay,took him by the bridle and urged him to stand. Which Jamie, after oneor two scrambling attempts, managed to do. But the horse was hurt. Hecould scarcely hobble to the trail.
Without paying any visible attention to Mary Hope, Lance removed hersaddle from Jamie, and brought it up to where she sat dispiritedlywatching him. His manner was brisk, kind enough, but had an aloofnesswhich made her keenly aware that he accepted her adherence to the feudand tacitly took his own place with the Lorrigans. Over this emergencyshe felt that he had unspokenly set a flag of truce. His attitudedepressed her.
"There are just two things to do," he said, laying the saddle at herfeet. "You may ride that livery horse back home, and I'll come alongto-morrow and pick him up and take him in with me to Jumpoff; or youcan let me go down to the ranch and bring up a gentle horse, and youcan ride that home. I can get him when I come out to-morrow with mytraps. I advise you to take the gentle horse from the ranch, after theshake-up you've had. This town horse is not easy gaited, by any means.Your horse I'll manage to get down to the ranch and do what I can forhim. It's his shoulder, I think, from the way he acts. He may be allright after a while."
Mary Hope looked distressfully at Jamie, standing dejected where Lancehad left him, his head sagging, every line of him showing how sick oflife he was. She glanced swiftly up at Lance, bent her head suddenlyand pressed the tips of her fingers along her cheek bones, wiping awaytears that came brimming over her eyelids.
"You'd better let me bring up a horse and take you home," Lance urged,the caressing note creeping into his voice.
"Oh, no! I can't! I--what do I care how I get home? But if your fatherwon't take the money--You don't _know!_ The whole Rim talks andgossips until I wish I were dead! And I can't go on using theschoolhouse--and Tom Lorrigan says if I don't--" She was crying atlast, silently, miserably, her face hidden behind her hands.
"He'll take the money." Lance, after an indeterminate minute while hewatched her, laid his hand lightly on her shoulder. "I'll see that dadtakes it. And I'll give you a bill of sale that ought to shut theBlack Rim mouths. I'm a Lorrigan and I'm not going to apologize forthe blood that's in me, but I want you to know that if I had been homeon the night of the Fourth the Lorrigans wouldn't have done the rottencheap thing they did."
Mary Hope heard him tearing a leaf out of his memorandum book, lookedup at him while he wrote rapidly. Without any comment whatever he gaveher the paper, went up to where the hired horse stood, and coaxed itdown through the Slide. Quickly, with the deftness that told oflifelong intimacy with horses and saddles, he set her own saddle onthe hired horse, while Mary Hope read the terse bill of sale that setforth the legal "Ten dollars and other valuable considerations," andwas signed "Thomas Lorrigan, per L. M. Lorrigan." It all seemed verybusinesslike, and heartened her so much that she was willing to benice to Lance Lorrigan. But Lance remained strictly neutral.
"I'll lead him up the Slide for you," he said unemotionally when thehorse was ready. "After he's over that, I think you'll be all right;you're a good rider. And you need not feel under any obligations thento the Lorrigans. I was practically through with the horse, anyway,and it will be no trouble at all to drive by your place and get himto-morrow."
"I can lead him up--" Mary Hope began, but Lance had already turnedthe horse and started him up the Slide, so there was nothing for herto do but follow.
At the top she gave him the money bag, which he took without any wordswhatever on the subject. He held the horse until she had mounted, madesure that she was all right, chilled by his perfect politeness hernervous overture toward a more friendly parting, lifted his hat andturned immediately to go back down the Slide.
Mary Hope glanced back over her shoulder and saw his bobbing hatcrown. "Ah, he's just a Lorrigan, and I hate them all. But he let mepay--I'm quits with them now--and I'll never in my life speak to oneof them again!"