CHAPTER XIII
THE OTHER LADY'S HUSBAND
Miss Knowles did not seem to observe Ashton's deflection. She remainedworshipfully downbent over the wriggling, chuckling baby until itsparents reappeared.
Mrs. Blake had changed to an easy and serviceable dress of plain,strong material. The skirt, cut to walking length, showed thather feet and ankles were protected by a pair of absurdly smalllaced boots. Her husband had shifted to an equally serviceablecostume--flannel shirt, broad-brimmed felt hat, and surveyor'sboots.
"Crossing the plains we packed a trunk with what we considered mostnecessary," said Mrs. Blake, as she took the baby. "It is not a largeone, and in addition there is only my satchel and the level and thelunch my maid is putting up for us."
"There is room for more, if you wish," replied Isobel. "But we cansend over here for anything you need, any time."
"You're not going to let us really rough-it!" complained Mrs. Blake,as her husband swung her to the ground. "Were it not for ThomasHerbert--"
"--We'd go to Africa again and eat lions," Blake completed thesentence. "Wait, though--we may have a chance at mountain lions."
The porter had gone to help a manservant fetch the trunk from theother end of the car. Isobel untied the saddle horses from the rear ofthe buckboard. The trunk was lifted in, and Blake lashed it on,together with his level rod and tripod, using Ashton's lariat.
"Level is in the trunk," he explained, in response to Ashton's look ofinquiry. "I suppose we ride."
"I think it will be better if Lafe drives," objected Isobel. "I am soreckless, and you don't know the road, as he does. The only thing isRocket--Lafe has about trained him out of his tricks. But I shouldwarn you that the hawss has been rather vicious."
"Tom will ride him," confidently stated Mrs. Blake.
Her husband took the bridle reins of the big horse and mounted himwith the agility of a cowboy. For a moment Rocket stood motionless.Then, whether because of Blake's weight or the fact that he was astranger, all the beast's newly acquired docility vanished. He beganto plunge and buck even more violently than when first mounted byAshton.
Half a hundred Stockchuteites--all the residents of the town andseveral floaters--had come down to inspect the palatial private carand its passengers. At Rocket's first leap these highly interestedspectators broke into a murmur of joyful anticipation. They were aboutto see the millionaire tenderfoot pull leather.
Yet somehow the event failed to transpire. Blake sat the flat saddleas if glued fast to it. His knees and legs were crushing against thesides of the leaping, whirling beast with the firmness of an ironvise. He held both hands upraised, away from the "leather."
Presently Rocket's efforts began to flag. Instead of seeking to quietthe frantic beast, Blake began to whoop and to strike him with hishat. Thus taunted, Rocket resorted to his second trick. He took thebit in his teeth and started to bolt. The crowd scattered beforethe rush of the runaway. But they need not have moved. Blakereached down on each side of the beast's outstretched neck andpulled. Tough-mouthed as he was, Rocket could not resist thatpowerful grip. His head was drawn down and backwards until his trumpetnostrils blew against his deep chest. After half a dozen wild plunges,he was forced to a stand, snorting but subdued.
"That's some riding, Miss Chuckie!" called the burly sheriff of thecounty. "Your guest forks a hawss like a buster."
The girl rode forward beside Blake, her face radiant. She paid him thehighest of compliments by taking his riding as a matter of course; butin her eyes was a look strangely like that of his wife's fond gaze,--alook of pride at his achievement, rather than admiration.
"We'll ride ahead of the team to keep clear of the dust," sheremarked.
He twisted about and saw that Ashton was starting to drive after them.His wife's elderly maid was waving her handkerchief from one of thecar windows. The porter and the manservant stood at attention. Heexchanged a nod and smile with his wife, patted Rocket's arched neckand clicked to him to start.
"This is great, Miss Knowles!" he said. "I did not look for such fun,first crack out of the box. And--if you don't mind my saying it--it'ssuch a jolly surprise your being what you are."
The girl blushed with pleasure. "I--we have been so eager to meetyou," she murmured. She added hurriedly, "On account of your wonderfulwork as an engineer, you know."
"I wouldn't have suspected Ashton of bragging for me," he replied.
"Oh, he--he says you have a remarkable knack of hitting on thesolution of problems. But it's in the engineering journals and reportsthat we've read about your work. Perhaps that is why you thought wehad met before. After reading about you so much, I felt that I alreadyknew you, and so my manner, you know--"
He shook his head at this seemingly ingenuous explanation. "No, thereis something about your voice and face--" His eyes clouded withthe grief of a painful memory; his head sank forward until his squarechin touched his broad chest. He muttered brokenly: "But that'simpossible.... Anyway--better for them they died--better than tolive after...."
Behind her veil the girl's face became deathly white. He raised hishead and looked at her with a wistful gleam of hope. She had avertedher face from him and was gazing off at the hills with dim unseeingeyes.
"Pardon me, Miss Knowles," he said, "but do you mind if I ask what isyour first name?"
She hesitated almost imperceptibly before replying: "I am calledChuckie--Chuckie Knowles. Doesn't that sound cowgirlish? We alwayshave a chuck-wagon on the round-ups, you know. But it's a name thatused to be quite common in the West."
"Yes, it comes from the Spanish Chiquita," he said. He repeated theword with the soft caressing Spanish accent, "_Che-kee-tah!_"
A flood of scarlet swept up into the girl's pallid face, and slowlysubsided to her normal rich coloring. After a short silence she askedin a conventional tone: "I suppose you are glad to get away fromChicago. The last papers we received say that the East is swelteringin one of those smothery heat waves."
"It's the humidity and close air that kills," said Blake. "I ought toknow. I lived for years in the slums."
"Oh, you--you really speak of it--openly!" the girl exclaimed.
"What of it?" he asked, astonished in turn at her lack of tact.
"Nothing--nothing," she hastened to disclaim. "Only I know--have readabout the dreadful conditions in the Chicago slums. It is--it must beso painful to recall them--That was so rude of me to--"
"Not at all," he interrupted. To cover her evident confusion he heldup his white hand in the scorching sunrays and commented jovially:"Talk about Eastern heat--this is a hundred and five Fahrenheit at thevery least! A-a-ah!" He drew in a deep breath of the dry pure air."This is something like! When you get your land under ditch, you'llhave a paradise."
"Oh, but you do not understand," she replied. "We want you to find outand tell us that Dry Mesa _cannot_ be watered. Irrigation would breakup Daddy's range and put him out of business. It is just what we donot want."
"I see," said Blake, with instant comprehension of the situation.
"I know it cannot be done. But there are so many reclamation projects,and Daddy has read and read about them until he almost has a bee inhis bonnet."
"Yet you sent for me--an engineer."
"Because I knew that when _you_ told him our mesa couldn't be watered,he would stop worrying. You know, you are quite a hero with us. Wehave read all about your wonderful work."
Blake's pale eyes twinkled. "So I'm a hero. Will you dynamite mypedestal if I figure out a way to water your range?"
She flashed him a troubled glance, but rallied for a quick rejoinder:"Even you can't pump the water out of Deep Canyon, and Plum Creek isonly a trickle most of the year."
"I see you want me to make my report as dry as I can write it," hebantered.
"No," she replied, suddenly serious. "We wish the exact truth, thoughwe hope you'll find it dry."
"Then you are to blame if the matter does not figure out your way," hewarned her. "You've given me a
problem. If there is any possible wayfor me to irrigate your mesa, I am bound to try my best to work itout. Hadn't you better head me off before I start in? At present Ihaven't the remotest desire to do this except to comply with yourwishes."
"It's as I told Daddy," she said. "If there really is a way, thesooner we know it the better. It is the uncertainty that is botheringDaddy. If your report is for us, all well and good; if against us, hewill stand up and fight and forget about worrying."
"Fight?" asked Blake.
"Fight the project, fight against the formation of any irrigationdistrict. He owns five sections. The reservoir might have to be on hispatented land. He'd fight fair and square and hard--to the lastditch!"
"Isn't that a Dutchman's saying?" asked Blake humorously.
The girl's tense face relaxed, and she burst out in a ringing laugh.She shifted the conversation to less serious subjects, and theycantered along together, laughing and chatting like old friends.
By this time Ashton and Mrs. Blake had gradually come to the samestage of pleasant comradeship. Ashton had started the drive in asullen mood, his manner half resentful and wholly embarrassed. Of thisthe lady was tactfully oblivious. Avoiding all allusion to thecatastrophe that had befallen him, she told him the latest news of themutual friends and acquaintances in whom ordinarily he would have beenexpected to be interested.
She even spoke casually of his father. His face contracted with pain,but he showed no bitterness against the parent who had disowned him.After that her graciousness towards him redoubled. With Isobel forexcuse, she gradually shifted the conversation to ranch life and hisemployment as cowboy. In many subtle ways she conveyed to him heradmiration of the manner in which he had turned over a new leaf andwas making a clean fresh start in life.
After delicately intimating her feelings, she at once turned to lesspersonal topics. The last traces of his embarrassment and moodinessleft him, and he began to talk quite at his ease, though with acertain reserve that she attributed to the vast change in hisfortunes. In return for her kindness, he repaid her by showing a realinterest in Thomas Herbert Vincent Leslie Blake.
That young man spent his time chuckling and crowing and kicking, untilovercome with sleep. Two hours out from Stockchute he awoke andvociferously demanded nourishment. Promptly the party was brought to ahalt. They were among the pinyons on one of the hillsides. While thebaby took his dinner, Isobel laid out the lunch and the men burnedincense in the guise of a pair of Havana cigars produced by Blake.
The lunch might have been put up in the kitchen of a first-classmetropolitan hotel. The fruit was the most luscious that money couldbuy; the sandwiches and cake would have tempted a sated epicure; themineral water had come out of an ice chest so nearly frozen that itwas still refreshingly cool. But--what was rather odd for a lunchpacked in a private car--it included no wine or whiskey or liqueur.Blake caught Ashton's glance, and smiled.
"You see I'm still on the waterwagon," he remarked. "I've got apermanent seat. There have been times when it looked as if I might bejolted off, but--"
"But there's never been the slightest chance of that!" put in hiswife. She looked at Isobel, her soft eyes shining with love and pride."Once he gets a grip on anything, he never lets go."
"Oh, I can believe that!" exclaimed the girl with an enthusiasm thatbrought a shadow into the mobile face of Ashton.
"A man can't help holding on when he has something to hold on for,"said Blake, gazing at his wife and baby.
"That's true!" agreed Ashton, his eyes on the dimpled face of Isobel.
Refreshed by the delicious meal, the party prepared to start on. Butthey did not travel as before. While Ashton was considerately washingout the dusty nostrils of the horses with water from his canteen,Isobel decided to drive with Mrs. Blake. Declaring that it would belike old times to sit a cowboy saddle, the big engineer lengthened thegirl's stirrup leathers and swung on to the pony. This left Rocket tohis owner.
At first Ashton seemed inclined to be stiff with his new road-mate.But as they jogged along, side by side, over the hills and across thesagebrush flats, Blake restricted his talk to impersonal topics andspared his companion from any allusion to their past difficulties.Throughout the ride, however, the two men maintained a certain reservetowards each other, and at no time approached the cordial intimacythat developed between the girl and Mrs. Blake before the end of theirfirst mile together.
After telling merrily about her dual life as summer cowgirl and wintersociety maiden, Isobel drifted around, by seemingly casual associationof ideas, to the troublesome question of irrigation on Dry Mesa, andfrom that to Blake and his work as an engineer.
"I do so hope Mr. Blake finds that there is no project practicable,"she went on. "He has warned me that if there seems to be any chance towork out an irrigation scheme on our mesa he is bound to try to doit."
"And he would do it," added Mrs. Blake with quiet confidence.
"Then I hope and pray he will find there is no chance, because Daddywould have to oppose him. That would be such a pity! He and I haveread so much about Mr. Blake's work that we have come to regard him asour--as one of our heroes."
Mrs. Blake smiled. It was very apparent, despite the quietness andrepression of her high-bred manner, that she was very much in lovewith her husband.
The girl continued in a meekly deferential tone: "So you will not mindmy worshiping him. He is a hero, a real hero! Isn't he?"
The words were spoken with an earnestness and sincerity that won Mrs.Blake to a like candor. "You are quite right," she said. "Lafayettemay have told you how Mr. Blake and I were wrecked on the most savagecoast of Africa. He saved me from wild beasts and tropical storms,from fever and snakes,--from death in a dozen horrible forms. Then,when he had saved me--and won me, he gave me up until he could proveto himself that he was worthy of me."
"He did?" cried the girl. "But of course!--of course!"
"Yet that was nothing to the next proof of his strength and manhood,"went on the proud wife. "He destroyed a monster more frightful thanany lion or tropical snake--he overcame the curse of drink that hadcome down to him from--one of his parents."
"From--from his--" whispered the girl, her averted face white anddrawn with pain.
Mrs. Blake had bent over to kiss the forehead of her sleeping baby anddid not see. "If only all parents knew what terrible misfortunes,what tortures, their transgressions are apt to bring upon theirinnocent children!" she murmured.
"He told me that he won his way up out of the--the slums," saidIsobel. "It must be some men fail to do that because they haverelatives to drag them down--their families."
"It seems hard to say it, yet I do not know but that you are right, mydear," agreed Mrs. Blake. "Strong men, if unhampered, have a chance tofight their way up out of the social pit. But women and girls, evenwhen they escape the--the worst down there, can hardly hope ever toattain--And of course those that fall!--Our dual code of morality ishideously unjust to our sex, yet it still is the code under which welive."
The girl drew in a deep, sighing breath. Her eyes were dark withanguish. Yet she forced a gay little laugh. "Aren't we solemnsociologists! All we are concerned with is that _he_ has won his wayup, and there's no one ever to drag him down or disgrace him; and--andyou won't be jealous if I set him up on a pedestal and bring incenseto him on my bended knees."
"Only you must give Thomas Herbert his share at the same time,"stipulated the mother.
The girl burst into prolonged and rather shrill laughter that passedthe bounds of good breeding. Her emotion was so unrestrained that whenshe looked about at her surprised companion her face was flushed andher eyes were swimming with tears.
"Please, oh, do please forgive me!" she begged with a humility asimmoderate as had been her laughter. "I--I can't tell you why, but--"
"Say no more, my dear," soothed Mrs. Blake. "You are merely a bithysterical. Perhaps the excitement of our coming, after your months oflonely ranch life--"
"You're so good!" sighed the girl.
"Yes, it was due to--your coming.But now the worst is over. I'll not shock you again with any more suchoutbursts."
She smiled, and began to talk of other things, with somewhat unsteadybut persistent gayety.