Claim Number One
CHAPTER XV
AN ARGUMENT ENDS
Morning found Agnes only the more firmly determined to bear her troublesalone. Smith came by early. He looked curiously at the revolver, whichshe still carried at her waist, but there was approval in his eyes. Thesight of the weapon seemed to cheer Smith, and make him easier in hismind about something that had given him unrest. She heard him singing ashe passed on to his work. Across the river the bride was singing also,and there seemed to be a song in even the sound of the merry axes amongthe cottonwoods, where her neighboring settler and his two lank sonswere chopping and hewing the logs for their cabin. But there was no songin her own heart, where it was needed most.
She knew that Jerry Boyle had camped somewhere near the stage-road,where he could watch her coming and going to carry the demand on Dr.Slavens which he had left with her. He would be watching the road evennow, and he would watch all day, or perhaps ride up there to learn thereason when he failed to see her pass. She tied back the flaps of hertent to let the wind blow through, and to show any caller that she wasnot at home, then saddled her horse and rode away into the hills. Itneeded a day of solitude, she thought, to come to a conclusion on thequestion how she was to face it out with Jerry Boyle. Whether to stayand fight the best that she was able, or to turn and fly, leaving allher hopes behind, was a matter which must be determined before night.
In pensive mood she rode on, giving her horse its head, but following ageneral course into the east. As her wise animal picked its way over thebroken ground, she turned the situation in her mind.
There was no doubt that she had been indiscreet in the manner of takingup her homestead, but she could not drive herself to the belief that shehad committed a moral crime. And the doctor. He would drop all hisprospects in the land that he held if she should call on him, she wellbelieved. He was big enough for a sacrifice like that, with never aquestion in his honest eyes to cloud the generosity of the act. If shehad him by to advise her in this hour, and to benefit by his wisdom andcourage, she sighed, how comfortable it would be.
Perhaps she should have gone, mused she, pursuing this thought, to hisplace, and put the thing before him in all its ugliness, with noreservations, no attempts to conceal or defend. He could have told herhow far her act was punishable. Perhaps, at the most, it would mean nomore than giving up the claim, which was enough, considering all thatshe had founded on it. Yes, she should have ridden straight to Dr.Slavens; that would have been the wiser course.
Considering whether she would have time to go and return that day,wasted as the morning was, she pulled up her horse and looked around tosee if she could estimate by her location the distance from her camp.That she had penetrated the country east of the river farther than everbefore, was plain at a glance. The surroundings were new to her. Therewas more vegetation, and marks of recent grazing everywhere.
She mounted the hill-crest for a wider survey, and there in a littlevalley below her she saw a flock of sheep grazing, while farther alongthe ridge stood a sheep-wagon, a strange and rather disconcerting figurestriding up and down beside it.
Doubtless it was the shepherd, she understood. But a queer figure hemade in that place; and his actions were unusual, to say the least, inone of his sedate and melancholy calling. He was a young man, garbed ina long, black coat, tattered more or less about the skirts and open infront, displaying his red shirt. His hair was long upon his collar, andhis head was bare.
As he walked up and down a short beat near his wagon, the shepherd heldin his hand a book, which he placed before his eyes with a flourish now,and then with a flourish withdrew it, meantime gesticulating with hisempty hand in the most extravagant fashion. His dog, sharper ofperception than its master, lay aside from him a little way, its earspricked up, its sharp nose lifted, sniffing the scent of the stranger.But it gave no alarm.
Agnes felt that the man must be harmless, whatever his peculiarities.She rode forward, bent on asking him how far she had strayed from theriver. As she drew near, she heard him muttering and declaiming,illustrating his arguments of protestation with clenched fist andtossing head, his long hair lifting from his temples in the wind.
He greeted her respectfully, without sign of perturbation or surprise,as one well accustomed to the society of people above the rank ofshepherd.
"My apparent eccentric behavior at the moment when you first saw me,madam, or miss, perhaps, most likely I should say, indeed----"
Agnes nodded, smiling, to confirm his penetration.
"So, as I was saying, my behavior may have led you into doubt of mybalance, and the consequent question of your safety in my vicinity," hecontinued.
"Nothing of the kind, I assure you," said she. "I thought you might bea--a divinity student by your dress, or maybe a candidate for the legalprofession."
"Neither," he disclaimed. "I am a philosopher, and at the moment youfirst beheld me I was engaged in a heated controversy with Epictetus,whose _Discourses_ I hold in my hand. We are unable to agree on manypoints, especially upon the point which he assumes that he has made inthe discussion of grief. He contends that when one is not blamable forsome calamity which bereaves him or strips him of his possessions, griefis unmanly, regret inexcusable.
"'How?' say I, meeting him foot to foot on the controversy, 'in case Ilose my son, my daughter, my wife--the wife of my soul and heart--shallI not grieve? shall I not be permitted the solace of a tear?'
"And Epictetus: 'Were you to blame for the disease which cut them off?Did you light the fire which consumed them, or sink the ship whichcarried them down?'
"'No,' I answer; 'but because I'm blameless shall I become inhuman, andclose my heart to all display of tenderness and pain?'
"And there we have it, miss, over and over again. Ah, I am afraid weshall never agree!"
"It is lamentable," Agnes agreed, believing that the young man's life inthe solitudes had unsettled his mind. "I never agree with him on thatmyself."
The philosopher's hollow, weathered face glowed as she gave thistestimony. He drew a little nearer to her, shaking the long, dark, loosehair back from his forehead.
"I am glad that you don't think me demented," said he. "Many, who do notunderstand the deeper feelings of the soul, do believe it. Thehollow-minded and the unstable commonly lose their small balance ofreason in these hills, miss, with no companionship, month in and monthout, but a dog and the poor, foolish creatures which you see in thevalley yonder. But to one who is a philosopher, and a student of thehigher things, this situation offers room for the expansion of the soul.Mine has gone forth and enlarged here; it has filled the universe."
"But a man of your education and capabilities," she suggested, thinkingto humor him, "ought to be more congenially situated, it seems to me.There must be more remunerative pursuits which you could follow?"
"Remuneration for one may not be reward for another," he told her. "Ishall remain here until my mission is accomplished."
He turned to his flock, and, with a motion of the arm, sped his dog tofetch in some stragglers which seemed straying off waywardly over thecrest of the opposite hill. As he stood so she marked his asceticgauntness, and noted that the hand which swung at his side twitched andclenched, and that the muscles of his cleanly shaved jaws swelled as helocked his teeth in determination.
"Your mission?" she asked, curious regarding what it might be, there inthe solitude of those barren hills.
"I see that you are armed," he observed irrelevantly, as if the subjectof his mission had been put aside. "I have a very modern weapon of thatpattern in the wagon, but there is little call for the use of it here.Perhaps you live in the midst of greater dangers than I?"
"I'm one of the new settlers over in the river bottom," she explained."I rode up to ask you how far I'd strayed from home."
"It's about seven miles across to the river, I should estimate," he toldher. "I graze up to the boundary of the reservation, and it's calledfive miles from there."
"Thank you; I think I'll be going back th
en."
"Will you do me the favor to look at this before you go?" he asked,drawing a folded paper from the inner pocket of his coat and handing itto her.
It was a page from one of those so-called _Directories_ which smallgrafters go about devising in small cities and out-on-the-edgecommunities, in which the pictures of the leading citizens are printedfor a consideration. The page had been folded across the center; it wasbroken and worn.
"You may see the person whose portrait is presented there," said he,"and if you should see him, you would confer a favor by letting meknow."
"Why, I saw him yesterday!" she exclaimed in surprise. "It's JerryBoyle!"
The sheep-herder's eyes brightened. A glow came into his brown face.
"You do well to go armed where that wolf ranges!" said he. "You knowhim--you saw him yesterday. Is he still there?"
"Why, I think he's camped somewhere along the river," she told him,unable to read what lay behind the excitement in the man's manner.
He folded the paper and returned it to his pocket, his breath quick uponhis lips. Suddenly he laid hold of her bridle with one hand, and withthe other snatched the revolver from her low-swinging holster.
"Don't be alarmed," said he; "but I want to know. Tell me true--leanover and whisper in my ear. Is he your friend?"
"No, no! Far from it!" she whispered, complying with his strange orderout of fear that his insanity, flaming as it was under the spur of somehalf-broken memory, might lead him to take her life.
He gave her back the revolver and released the horse.
"Go," said he. "But don't warn him, as you value your own life! Mymission here is to kill that man!"
Perhaps it was a surge of unworthiness which swept her, lifting herheart like hope. The best of us is unworthy at times; the best of us isbase. Selfishness is the festering root of more evil than gold. In thatflash it seemed to her that Providence had raised up an arm to save her.She leaned over, her face bright with eagerness.
"Has he wronged you, too?" she asked.
He lifted his hand to his forehead slowly, as if in a gesture of pain.The blood had drained from his face; his cheek-bones were marked whitethrough his wind-hardened skin.
"It's not a subject to be discussed with a woman, sir," said heabsently. "There was a wife--somewhere there was a wife! This man camebetween us. I was not then what I am today--a shepherd on the hills....But I must keep you here; you will betray me and warn him if I let yougo!" he cried, rousing suddenly, catching her bridle again.
"No, I'll not warn him," Agnes assured him.
"If I thought you would"--he hesitated, searching her face with hisfevered eyes, in which red veins showed as in the eyes of an angrydog--"I'd have to sacrifice you!"
Agnes felt that she never could draw her weapon in time, in case theeccentric tried to take it away again, and her heart quailed as shemeasured the distance she would have to ride before the fall of theground would protect her, even if she should manage to break his hold onthe bridle, and gallop off while he was fetching his pistol from thewagon.
"I'll not warn him," said she, placing her hand on his arm. "I give youmy sincere word that I'll do nothing to save him from what I feel to beyour just vengeance."
"Go, before I doubt you again!" he cried, slapping her horse with hispalm as he let go the bridle.
From the tip of the hill she looked back. He had disappeared--into thewagon, she supposed; and she made haste to swerve from the straightcourse to put another hill between them, in case he might run after her,his mad mind again aflame with the belief that she would cheat him ofhis revenge.
Agnes arrived in camp full of tremors and contradictory emotions. Oneminute she felt that she should ride and warn Boyle, guilty as he mightbe, and deserving of whatever punishment the hand of the wronged manmight be able to inflict; the next she relieved herself of this impulseby arguing that the insane sheep-herder was plainly the instrument offate--she lacked the temerity, after the first flush, to credit it toProvidence--lifted up to throw his troubles between her and her own.
She sat in the sun before her tent thinking it over, for and against,cooling considerably and coming to a saner judgment of the situation.Every little while she looked toward the hills, to see if the shepherdhad followed her. She had seen no horse in the man's camp; he could notpossibly make it on foot, under two hours, even if he came at all, shetold herself.
Perhaps it was an imaginary grievance, based upon the reputation whichBoyle had earned for himself; maybe the poor, declaiming philosopher hadforgotten all about it by now, and had returned to his discourses andhis argument. She brewed a pot of tea, for the shadows were markingnoonday, and began to consider riding down the river to find Boyle andtell him of the man's threat, leaving him to follow his own judgment inthe matter. His conscience would tell him whether to stand or fly.
Strong as her resentment was against the man who had come into her plansso unexpectedly and thrown them in a tangle, she felt that it would bewrong to her own honesty to conceal from him the knowledge of hisdanger. Perhaps there remained manliness enough in him to cause him towithdraw his avaricious scheme to oust Dr. Slavens in return for aservice like that. She determined at last to seek Boyle in his camp.
She brought up her horse and saddled it, took a look around camp to seethat everything was in shape--for she liked to leave things tidy, incase some of the neighbors should stop in--and was about to mount, whena man's head and shoulders appeared from behind her own cottonwood log.A glance showed her that it was the sheep-herder. His head was bare, hiswild hair in his eyes.
He got to his feet, his pistol in his hand.
"I watched you," said he, sheathing the weapon, as if he had changed hismind about the use of it. "I knew you'd go!"
"But I didn't intend to when I parted from you up there on the hill,"she declared, greatly confused over being caught in this breach of faithwith even a crazy man.
"I considered that, too," said the philosopher. "But I watched you. I'llnever be fool enough to entirely trust a woman again. You all lie!"
She wondered how he had arrived there so quickly and silently, for hegave no evidence of fatigue or heat. She did not know the dry endurancewhich a life like his builds up in a man. Sheep-herders in that countryare noted for their fleetness. It is a common saying of them that theirheels are as light as their heads.
But there he was, at any rate, and her good intentions toward Boyle mustbe surrendered. Conscience had a palliative in the fact that she hadmeant to go.
"Heaven knows I have as little reason to wish him well as you!" saidshe, speaking in low voice, as if to herself, as she began to undo thesaddle girth.
"Stay here, then," said the sheep-herder, watching her with glisteningeyes. "I'll kill him for both of us! Where is his camp?"
"I don't know," she replied, shuddering.
The demented shepherd's way of speaking of taking a human life, eventhough a worthless one, or a vicious one, was eager and hungry. Helicked his lips like a dog.
"You said he was camped on the river. Where?"
"I don't know," she returned again.
"I'll tell you," said he, staying her hand as she tugged on a strap."Both of us will go! You shall ride, and I'll run beside you. But"--hebent over, grinding his teeth and growling between them--"you sha'n'thelp kill him! That's for me, alone!"
She drew back from his proposal with a sudden realization of what adesperately brutal thing this unstrung creature was about to do,with a terrible arraignment of self-reproach because she had made noeffort to dissuade him or place an obstacle in the way of accomplishinghis design. It was not strange, thought she, with a revulsion ofself-loathing, that he accepted her as a willing accomplice andproposed that she bear a hand. Even her effort to ride and find Boylehad been half-hearted. She might have gone, she told herself, beforethe herder arrived.
"No, no! I couldn't go! I couldn't!" she cried, forgetting that she wasfacing an unbalanced man, all the force of pleading in her voice.
&nb
sp; "No, you want to kill him yourself!" he charged savagely. "Give me thathorse--give it to me, I tell you! I'll go alone!"
He sprang into the saddle, not waiting to adjust the stirrups to hislong legs. With his knees pushed up like a jockey's, he rode off, thepointer of chance, or the cunning of his own inscrutable brain,directing him the way Boyle had gone the evening before.
His going left her nerveless and weak. She sat and watched him out ofsight beyond the cottonwoods and willows, thinking what a terrible thingit was to ride out with the cold intention of killing a man. This manwas irresponsible; the strength of his desire for revenge hadoverwhelmed his reason. The law would excuse him of murder, for in thedimness of his own mind there was no conception of crime.
But what excuse could there be for one who sat down in deliberation----
Base Jerry Boyle might be, ready to sacrifice unfeelingly the innocentfor his own pleasure and gain, ready to strike at their dearest hopes,ready to trample under his feet the green gardens of their hearts'desire; yet, who should sit in judgment on him, or seek a justificationin his deeds to--to---- Even then she could not bring her thoughts toexpress it, although her wild heart had sung over it less thantwenty-four hours before.
A shiver of sickness turned her cold. With quick, nervous fingers sheunbuckled the belt which held her revolver and cartridges; she carriedthe weapon into the tent and flung it to the ground.
At dusk the sheep-herder returned, with the horse much blown.
"He had been there, but he's gone," he announced. "I followed himeastward along the stage-road, but lost his trail."
He dismounted and dropped the reins to the ground. Agnes set about torelieve the tired animal of the burden of the saddle, the sheep-herderoffering no assistance. He stood with his head bent, an air of dejectionand melancholy over him, a cloud upon his face. Presently he walkedaway, saying no more. She watched him as he went, moodily and unheedingof his way, until he passed out of view around a thicket of tangledshrubs which grew upon the river-bank.
While her horse was relieving his weariness in contented sighs over hisoats, Agnes made a fire and started her evening coffee. She had afeeling of cleanness in her conscience, and a lightness of heart whichshe knew never could have been her own to enjoy again if the crazedherder had come back with blood upon his hands.
There was no question about the feeling of loneliness that settled downupon her with aching intensity when she sat down to her meal, spread ona box, the lantern a yellow speck in the boundless night. A rod away itspoor, futile glimmer against such mighty odds was understood, standingthere with no encompassing walls to mark the boundary of its field. Itwas like the struggle of a man who stands alone in the vastness of lifewith no definite aim to circumscribe his endeavor, wasting his feebleillumination upon a little rod of earth.
We must have walls around us, both lanterns and men, rightly to fill thesphere of our designed usefulness; walls to restrain our wastrel forces;walls to bind our lustful desires, our foolish ambitions, our outwingingflights. Yet, in its way, the lantern served nobly, as many a man servesin the circle which binds his small adventures, and beyond which hisfame can never pass.
From the door of her tent Agnes looked out upon the lantern, comparingherself with it, put down there as she was in that blank land, which wasstill in the night of its development. Over that place, which she hadchosen to make a home and a refuge, her own weak flame would fall dimly,perhaps never able to light it all. Would it be worth the struggle, theheart-hunger for other places and things, the years of waiting, the toiland loneliness?
She went back to her supper, the cup which she had gone to fetch in herhand. The strength of night made her heart timid; the touch of food wasdry and tasteless upon her lips. For the first time since coming to thatcountry she felt the pain of discouragement. What could she do againstsuch a great, rough thing? Would it ever be worth the labor it wouldcost?
Feeble as her light was against the night, it was enough to discovertears upon her cheeks as she sat there upon the ground. Her fair hairlay dark in the shadows, and light with that contrast which painterslove, where it lifted in airy rise above her brow. And there were thepensive softness of her chin, the sweep of her round throat, the profileas sharp as a shadow against the mellow glow. Perhaps the lantern wascontent in its circumscribed endeavor against the night, when it couldlight to such good advantage so much loveliness.
* * * * *
"If I'd have put my hands over your eyes, who would you have named?"asked a voice near her ear, a voice familiar, and fitted in that momentwith old associations.
"I'd have had no trouble in guessing, Jerry, for I was expecting you,"she answered, scarcely turning her head, although his silent manner ofapproach had startled her.
"Agnes, I don't believe you've got any more nerves than an Indian," hesaid, dropping down beside her.
"If one wanted to make a facetious rejoinder, the opening is excellent,"she said, fighting back her nervousness with a smile. "Will you havesome supper?"
"I'd like it, if you don't mind."
She busied herself with the stove, but he peremptorily took away fromher the office of feeding the fire, and watched her as she put bacon onto fry.
"Agnes, you ought to have been frying bacon for me these four yearspast--figuratively, I mean," he remarked, musingly.
"If you don't mind, we'll not go back to that," she said.
Boyle made no mention of the purpose of his visit. He made his supperwith ambassadorial avoidance of the subject which lay so uneasily on hermind. When he had finished, he drew out his tobacco-sack and rolled acigarette, and, as it dangled from his lip by a shred of its wrapping,he turned to her.
"Well?" he asked.
She was standing near the lantern, removing the few utensils--the baconhad been served to him in the pan--from her outdoor table. When sheanswered him she turned away until her face was hidden in the shadow.
"I didn't carry your message to Dr. Slavens as you ordered, Jerry."
"I know it," said he. "What next?"
"I guess it's 'up to you,' as you put it. I'm not going to try to savemyself at the expense of any of my friends."
Boyle got up. He took a little turn away from the box whereon thelantern stood, as if struggling to maintain the fair front he had wornwhen he appeared. After a little he turned and faced her, walking backslowly until only the length of the little stove was between them.
"Have you considered your own danger?" he asked.
"It wouldn't help you a great deal here, among these rough, fair-mindedpeople, to take an advantage like that of a woman, especially when hertransgression is merely technical and not intentional," she rejoined.
"I wouldn't have to appear in it," he assured her.
"Well, set the United States marshal after me as soon as you want to;I'll be here," she said, speaking with the even tone of resignationwhich one commands when the mind has arrived at a determined stand toface the last and worst.
"Agnes, I told you yesterday that I was all over the old feeling that Ihad for you."
Boyle leaned forward as he spoke, his voice earnest and low.
"But that was a bluff. I'm just as big a fool as I ever was about it. Ifyou want to walk over me, go ahead; if you want to--oh, rats! But I'lltell you; if you'll come away with me I'll drop all of this. I'll leavethat tin-horn doctor where he is, and let him make what he can out ofhis claim."
"I couldn't marry you, Jerry; it's impossible to think of that," shetold him gently.
"Oh, well, that's a formality," he returned, far more in his voice thanhis words. "I'll say to you----"
"You've said too much!" she stopped him, feeling her cheeks burn underthe outrage which he had offered to her chaste heart. "There's no roomfor any more words between you and me--never! Go now--say no more!"
She walked across the bright ring of light toward the tent, making alittle detour around him, as if afraid that his violent words might befollowed by vi
olent deeds.
Boyle turned where he stood, following her with his eyes. The light ofthe lantern struck him strongly up to the waist, leaving his head andshoulders in the gloom above its glare. His hands were in the pockets ofhis trousers, his shoulders drooping forward in that horseback stoopwhich years in the saddle had fastened on him.
Agnes had reached the tent, where she stood with her hand on the flap,turning a hasty look behind her, when a shot out of the dark from thedirection of the river-bank struck her ears with a suddenness and aportent which seemed to carry the pain of death. She was facing thatway; she saw the flash of it; she saw Jerry Boyle leap with litheagility, as if springing from the scourge of flames, and sling hispistol from the hostler under his coat.
In his movement there was an admirable quickness, rising almost to thedignity of beauty in the rapidity with which he adjusted himself to meetthis sudden exigency. In half the beat of a heart, it seemed, he hadfired. Out of the dark came another leap of flame, another report. Boylewalked directly toward the point from which it came, firing as he went.No answer came after his second shot.
Agnes pressed her hand over her eyes to shut out the sight, fearing tosee him fall, her heart rising up to accuse her. She had forgotten towarn him! She had forgotten!
Boyle's voice roused her. There was a dry harshness in it, a hoarsenessas of one who has gone long without water on the lips.
"Bring that lantern here!" he commanded.
She did not stand to debate it, but took up the light and hurried to theplace where he stood. A man lay at his feet, his long hair tossed indisorder, his long coat spread out like a black blotch upon the ground.Boyle took the lantern and bent over the victim of his steady arm,growled in his throat, and bent lower. The man's face was partly hiddenby the rank grass in which he lay. Boyle turned it up to the light withhis foot and straightened his back with a grunt of disdain.
"Huh! _That_ rabbit!" said he, giving her back the light.
It did not require that gleam upon the white face to tell Agnes that thevictim was the polemical sheep-herder, whose intention had been steadierthan his aim.
Boyle hesitated a moment as if to speak to her, but said nothing beforehe turned and walked away.
"You've killed him!" she called after him sharply. "Don't go away andleave him here like this!"
"He's not dead," said Boyle. "Don't you hear him snort?"
The man's breathing was indeed audible, and growing louder with eachlabored inspiration.
"Turn him over on his face," directed Boyle. "There's blood in histhroat."
"Will you go for Smith?" she asked, kneeling beside the wounded man.
"He's coming; I can hear the sauerkraut jolt in him while he's half amile away. If anybody comes looking for me on account of this--coroneror--oh, anybody--I'll be down the river about a quarter below thestage-ford. I'll wait there a day longer to hear from you, and this ismy last word."
With that Boyle left her. Smith came very shortly, having heard theshots; and the people from up the river came, and the young man from thebridal nest across on the other side. They made a wondering, awed ringaround the wounded man, who was pronounced by Smith to be in deepwaters. There was a bullet through his neck.
Smith believed there was life enough left in the sheep-herder to lastuntil he could fetch a doctor from Meander.
"But that's thirty miles," said Agnes, "and Dr. Slavens is not more thantwenty. You know where he's located--down by Comanche?"
Smith knew, but he had forgotten for the minute, so accustomed toturning as he was to the center of civilization in that section for allthe gentle ministrants of woe, such as doctors, preachers, andundertakers.
"I'll have him here before morning," said Smith, posting off to get hishorse.
The poor sheep-herder was too sorely hurt to last the night out. BeforeSmith had been two hours on his way the shepherd was in the land ofshades, having it out face to face with Epictetus--if he carried thememory of his contention across with him, to be sure.
The neighbors arranged him respectably upon a board, and covered himover with a blanket, keeping watch beside him in the open, with theclear stars shining undisturbed by this thing which made such a turmoilin their breasts. There he lay, waiting the doctor and the coroner, andall who might come, his earthly troubles locked up forever in his coldheart, his earthly argument forever at an end.