The Free Range

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE STORY OF LESTER

  Bud's sleep of exhaustion was ended by the sound of voices calling to oneanother. So deep had been his unconsciousness that as he slowly struggledback to light and reason he forgot where he was and what had happened.

  One thing was certain, the sun had been up a long while, and it wasgrowing extremely hot even under the sheltering cottonwood tree where helay.

  The voices continued to call to one another, and Bud finally sat up toinvestigate.

  On the opposite bank another camp was being made by bow-legged men whowore heavy chaps over their trousers, broad hats, and knottedneckerchiefs. Some of these men limped, and most of them swore at theircramped toes as they went about the business in hand.

  A short distance away from where Bud sat some of the sheepmen were lyingcomfortably on their elbows, chaffing the punchers.

  "I allow you cowmen're gettin' pretty swell," remarked one. "They tell meyuh kinder hanker after photygrafts of yerselves. How about it?"

  "Better lose a hoss fer the sake of yer good looks than be a comicvalentine all yore life, what?" was the drawling retort.

  "Mebbe so, but if I'd lost hosses the way you fellers did last night Iwouldn't have enough vanity left no ways to look a pony in the left leg.I'd go to raisin' grasshoppers to sell to old ladies' chicken ranches, Iplumb would."

  At this sally such a guffaw of laughter greeted the discomfited punchersthat they retired from the field for the time being. Larkin grinned withthe rest. Then he turned his attention to the little tent set up near bybetween two trees. He remembered that Julie had slept there and wonderedif she were awake yet.

  He called her name and presently a very sleepy voice responded, so tenderand helpless in its accents that he laughed for joy.

  "Lazy girl!" he cried. "Do you know what time it is? I've been up forhours."

  "All right; I'll get up, I suppose. Is breakfast ready?"

  "Not quite," he replied seriously, "but I'll have the maid bring it in assoon as the eggs are shirred."

  "Bud Larkin, you're horrid!" she cried. "I don't believe you have evenstarted a fire. Do you expect me to get your breakfast?"

  "It would tickle me silly," he confessed, unrepentant. "Shall I wait foryou? You see the cooks are getting dinner now. Breakfast was over hoursago."

  "Oh, dear, I suppose so! We're not even married and you want me to cookfor you. Oh, dear!"

  "Well," he said, relenting, "I'll get things started, but you come out assoon as you can."

  So saying he beckoned to Ah Sin who had been waiting for the boss, andgave him a number of orders. Then he thrashed about the river bank asthough looking for fagots, while Julie continued pretending to mourn overher hard lot. When at last she appeared, however, and had dashed the sleepfrom her eyes in the icy waters of the river, it was not to cook, but tosit down at one of Ah Sin's little tables and eat a glorious breakfast.

  "You perfect darling!" she cried happily and ran and kissed Bud though theChinaman was looking on.

  During breakfast she noticed the work going forward on the other side ofthe river and asked Bud about it.

  "The cowmen moved their camp down here opposite us as soon as they couldfind out where we were," he explained. "I guess they want to talk with meregarding several matters. I'm pretty sure I have a thing or two to say tothem, now that I am out of their clutches."

  "Oh, then my father must be among those men."

  "He must, although I have not seen him. I intend to take you over to himimmediately after breakfast."

  Suddenly for the first time, the girl's face clouded; through their sweetbantering pierced the hideous visage of the thing that haunted her andthat she had come to ask him about.

  "Talk to me a little while first, will you?" she pleaded. "You know I cameto see you for a special reason last night but had no time to discuss itthen."

  "Certainly, dear girl," he replied.

  When they had finished eating they strolled a little way up the noisystream and finally found a cozy nook between two trees. All about them inthe succulent grass of the banks and river bottoms they could hear thebells and contented blethering of the flocks; for Sims had determined torest his animals for a few days before starting again the long treknorth.

  "Bud," she began, speaking slowly so as to choose her words, "I am goingto ask you questions about things that you have never chosen to discusswith me for some reason I could not fathom. If it is unmaidenly I amsorry, but I must ask them. I cannot stand any more such anxiety and painas I have suffered in the last few weeks."

  Bud's features settled themselves into an expression of thought that toldthe girl absolutely nothing.

  "Yes, go on," he said.

  "First I want you to read this note," she continued, drawing a soiled bitof paper from the bosom of her dress. "A photographer called Skidmore washeld up by the rustlers and asked to bring it to the Bar T and give it tome."

  Her hand trembled a little as she held the paper out to him. He took itgravely, unfolded and read it.

  Then he smiled his old winning smile at her and kissed the hand she hadextended.

  "Lies! All lies!" he said. "Please think no more about them."

  She looked at him steadily and withdrew her hand.

  "That won't do, Bud," she replied firmly, but in a low voice. "What is thething for which Caldwell blackmailed you three years ago and again thisyear?"

  Bud looked at her quizzically for a moment, and then seemed to recede intothought. She waited patiently, and, after a while, he began to speak.

  "Yes, I suppose you are right," he said. "It is a woman's privilege toknow what a man's life holds if she desires it. There are but a few raresouls who can marry men against whom the world holds something, and say:'Never tell me what you were or what you have done; what you are and whatyou will be are enough for me.'

  "Putting myself in your place, I am sure I should do what you are doing,for I have always told myself that those who marry with points unsettledbetween them have taken the first step toward unhappiness. Suspicion anddeceit would undermine the greatest love that ever existed. Acts in thepast that cannot be explained create suspicion, and those in the presentthat are better unobserved father deceit."

  He paused for a few moments, and appeared to be thinking.

  "Do you know who that Ed Skidmore is?" he asked abruptly.

  "No; only he was quite nice, and evidently from the East."

  "He is my brother Lester, and he is the man who stampeded the punchers'horses last night with his flashlight."

  "He is? I should never have suspected it; you are absolutely different inlooks."

  "I know we are, or I shouldn't have risked his life last night. Well, Ibring him into this because I have to. He is part of the story. Lester wasalways a wild youth, particularly after the governor stuck him on abookkeeper's stool and tried to make a business man out of him. The boycouldn't add a column of figures a foot long correctly inside of tentries. I took to the game a little better than he did, and managed to getpromoted occasionally. But Lester never did.

  "Father believed, and announced often enough, that anybody that couldn'tadd figures and keep accounts had no business to handle money. Todiscipline Lester, who he thought was loafing when he really wasincapable, the governor cut off the boy's allowance almost entirely andtold him he would have to live on his wages until he showed he could earnmore.

  "Well, Julie, you know what kind of a cad I was back in the olddays--rich, spoiled, flattered by men, and sought after by women. (I cansay these things now, since I've learned their opposites!) Just try toimagine, then, the effect of such an order on Lester, who was always thepetted one of us two because he was small and delicate! It was likepouring cold water on a red-hot stove lid.

  "Tied more than ever to his desk, Lester wanted more amusements than ever.But he had only about fifteen a week where he had been accustomed to fivetimes the amount. He drifted and borrowed and pledged and pawned, andfinally was caught b
y some loan-sharks, who got him out of one difficultyonly to plunge him into three others.

  "Although my father had a narrow-gauge mind as far as life in general isconcerned, I will say this for him: that he was right in everything he didabout business. He had made it a rule of the firm that anybody whoborrowed money was fired on the spot. Lester knew this, and, while hewould have liked nothing better than the sack, he did not want todisgrace the governor before his employees and all the business world. Sohe clung along and tried to make a go of it.

  "I must confess that I think some of the blame for what followed should belaid at my door. I had been patient with the kid and loaned him moneyuntil I came to the conclusion that it was like throwing it down a well.Then I got fond of a certain person"--he paused a moment and smiled atJulie--"and I needed all my money to entertain her properly; so I quitloaning.

  "I don't know whether to tell you the rest or not; it isn't what I wouldwant anyone else to tell you, even about a perfect stranger, but I thinkit is right you should know everything if you know anything."

  The girl nodded without speaking.

  "In the loan-shark office was a very pretty little girl, and Lesterthought he fell in love with her. She had a red-headed cousin and anadmirer named Smithy Caldwell, who belonged to a tough gang on the SouthSide.

  "The girl was fond of Lester for a while, but she wouldn't forsake herfriends as he ordered her to, and they quarreled. Her name was Mary, andafter the fuss the three friends, together with the loan-shark people,played Lester for a gilt-edged idiot, basing their operations on allegedfacts concerning Mary. In reality Smithy Caldwell had married her in themeantime, and Lester eventually proved he had always treated herhonorably, though now she denied it."

  "Poor, innocent boy in the hands of those blood-suckers!" cried Julietcompassionately.

  "Naturally driven frantic by the fear of exposure and the resultingdisgrace of the whole family, the boy lost his head and tried to buy hispersecutors off. And to do this he took money out of the safe. But what'sthe use of prolonging the agony? Finally he forged my father's signature,and when the check came back from the bank he tried to 'fix' the books,and got caught.

  "I'll pass over everything that followed, except to say that the disgracedid not become public. But it broke father's heart and hastened his death.When that occurred it was found that practically all the estate had cometo me, and this fellow Smithy Caldwell threatened to disclose the forgeryif I did not buy him off.

  "That scared me, because I was now the head of the family, and I handedover two thousand dollars. Then I came West, and thought the whole matterwas buried, until Caldwell turned up at the Bar T that night for supper.

  "That's about all. You see, it's an ugly story, and it paints Lesterpretty black. But I've thought the thing over a great many times, andcan't blame him very much, after all, for it really was the result of myfather's stern and narrow policy. The boy was in his most impressionableyears, and was left to face the music alone. It seemed to age himmightily."

  "But what will happen now?" asked Julie anxiously. "Aren't the other twostill alive? Can't they make trouble?"

  "Yes, but I don't think they will. I have the drop on Smithy now, and hewill either write a full dismissal of the matter for all three of them orhe will swing with the rustlers. And if I know my Smithy Caldwell, hewon't be able to get pen and paper fast enough."

  "But can you save him, even at that cost, do you think? The cowmen won'tunderstand all this."

  "That will rest with your father, dear," replied Bud, getting to his feet."Now, let's go over and see him, for I have something else I want to askhim."

  His face that had been clouded during his recital was suddenly floodedwith the sunlight of his smile, and Julie realized for the first time whatit had cost him to lay bare again these painful memories of a past he hadsought to bury.

  When he had helped her to her feet she went to him and laid her hands onhis shoulders, looking up into his face with eyes that brimmed with theloosed flood of her love, so long pent up.

  "Can I ever be worth what I have cost you to-day?" she asked humbly.

  Tenderly he gathered her to him.

  "In love there is no such word as cost," he said.