CHAPTER XI
TOM DIXON
With whoops and a waving of caps boys burst out of one door, while girlscame out of the opposite one more demurely, but with the piping of gaysoprano voices. For school was out, and young America free of restraintfor eighteen hours at least. Resilient youth, like a coiled spring thathas been loosed, was off with a bound. Horses were saddled or put toharness. The teacher came to the door, hand in hand with six-year-olds,who clung to her with fond good-bys before they climbed into the waitingbuggies. The last straggler disappeared behind the dip in the road.
The girl teacher turned from waving her fare-wells--to meet the eyes ofa young man fastened upon her. Light-blue eyes they were, set in agood-looking, boyish face, that had somehow an effect of petulancy. Itwas not a strong face, yet it was no weaker than nine out of ten thatone meets daily.
"Got rid of your kiddies, Phyl?" the young man asked, with an air ofcheerful confidence that seemed to be assumed to cover a doubt.
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "They have just gone--all but little JimmieTryon. He rides home with me."
"Hang it! We never seem to be alone any more since you came back,"complained the man.
"Why should we?" asked the young woman, her gaze apparently as frank anddirect as that of a boy.
But he understood it for a challenge. "You didn't use to talk that way.You used to be glad enough to see me alone," he flung out.
"Did I? One outgrows childish follies, I suppose," she answered quietly.
"What's the matter with you?" he cried angrily. "It's been this way eversince----"
He broke off.
A faint, scornful smile touched her lips. "Ever since when, Tom?"
"You know when well enough. Ever since I shot Buck Weaver."
"And left me to pay forfeit," she suggested quickly, and as quicklybroke off. "Hadn't we better talk of something else? I've tried to avoidthis. Must we thrash it out?"
"You can't throw me over like that, after what's been between us. Ireckon you pretend to have forgotten that I used to keep company withyou."
A flush of annoyance glowed through the tan of her cheeks, but her eyesrefused to yield to his. "Nonsense! Don't talk foolishness, Tom. We werejust children."
"Do you mean that everything's all off between us?"
"We made a mistake. Let us be good friends and forget it, Tom," shepleaded.
"What's the use of talking that way, Phyl?" He swung from the saddle,and came toward her eagerly. "I love you--always have since I wasknee-high to a grasshopper. We're going to be married one of thesedays."
She held up a hand to keep him back. "No--we're not. I know now thatyou're not the right man for me, and I'm not the right girl for you."
"I'm the best judge of that," he retorted.
She shook her head with certainty. It seemed a lifetime since this boyhad kissed her at the dance and she had run, tingling, from his embrace.She felt now old enough in experience to be his mother.
"No, Tom--let us both forget it. Go back to your other girls, and let mebe just a friend."
"I haven't any other girls," he answered sullenly. "And I won't be putoff like that. You've got to tell me what has come between us. I've gota right to know, and I'm going to know."
"Yes, you have a right--but don't press it. Just let it go at this: Ididn't know my own mind then, and I do now."
"It's something about the shooting of Buck Weaver," he growled uneasily.
She was silent.
"Well?" he demanded. "Out with it!"
"I couldn't marry a man I don't respect from the bottom of my heart,"she told him gently.
"That's a dig at me, I reckon. Why don't you respect me? Is it because Ishot Weaver?"
"You shot him from ambush."
"I didn't!" he protested angrily. "You know that ain't so, Phyl. I sawhim riding down there, as big as coffee, and I let him have it. I wasn'tlying in wait for him at all. It just came over me all of a heap toshoot, and I shot before----"
"I understand that. But you shouldn't have shot without giving warning,even if it was right to shoot at all--which, of course, it wasn't."
"Well, say I did wrong. Can't you forgive a fellow for making amistake?"
"It isn't a question of forgiveness, Tom. Somehow it goes deeper thanthat. I can't tell you just what I mean."
"Haven't I told you I'm sorry?" he demanded, with boyish impatience.
"Being sorry isn't enough. If you can't see it then I can't explain."
"You're sore at me because I left you," he muttered, and for very shamehis eyes could not meet hers.
"No--I'm not sore at you, as you call it. I haven't the leastresentment. But there's no use in trying to hide the truth. Since youask for it, you shall have it. I don't want to be unkind, but I couldn'tpossibly marry you after that."
The young man looked sulkily across the valley, his lips trembling withvexation and the shame of knowing that this girl had been a witness ofthat scene when he had fled like a scared rabbit and left her to bearthe brunt of what he had done.
"You told me to go, and now you blame me for doing what you said," hecomplained bitterly.
She realized the weakness of his defense--that he had saved himself atthe expense of the girl he claimed to love, simply because she hadoffered herself as a sacrifice in his place. She thought of another man,who, at the risk of his life, had held back the half dozen pursuers justto give a better chance to a girl he had not known a week. She thoughtof the cattleman who had ridden gayly into this valley of enemies,because he loved her, and was willing to face any punishment for thewrong he had done her. Her brother, too, pointed the same moral. He haddefied the enemy, though he had been in his power. Not one of them wouldhave done what Tom Dixon, in his panic terror, had allowed himself todo. But they were men, all of them--men of that stark courage thatclings to self-respect rather than to life. This youth had met the acidtest, and had failed in the assay. She had no anger toward him--only akindly pity, and a touch of contempt which she could not help.
"No--I don't blame you, Tom," she told him, very kindly. "But I can'tmarry you. I couldn't if you explained till Christmas. That is final.Now let us be friends."
She held out her hand. He looked at it through the tears ofmortification that were in his eyes, dashed it aside with an oath, swungto the saddle, and galloped down the road.
Phyllis gave a wistful sigh. Tears filmed her eyes. He was her firstlover, had given her apples and candy hearts when he was in the thirdgrade and she learning her A, B, C. So she felt a heartache to see himgo like this. Their friendship was shattered, too. Nor had sheexperience enough to know that this could not have endured, save as aform, after the wrench he had given it. Yet she knew him well enough nowto be sure that it was his vanity and self-esteem that were hurt, andnot his love. He would soon find consolation among the other ranchgirls, upon whom he had been used to lavish his attentions at intervalswhen she was not handy to receive them.
"Was Tom Dixon mean to you, teacher?"
Little five-year-old Jimmie Tryon was standing before her, feet apart,fists knotted, and brow furrowed. She swooped upon her champion andsnatched him up for a kiss.
"Nobody has been mean to teacher, Jimmie, you dear little kiddikins,"she cried. "It's all right, honey. Tom thinks it isn't, but before longhe'll know it is."
"Who'll tell him?" Jimmie wanted to know anxiously.
"Some nice girl, little curiosity box. I don't know who yet, but it willbe one of two or three I could name," she laughed.
She harnessed the horse and hitched it to the trap in which Jimmie andshe came to school. But before she had gathered up the reins to start,another young man strolled upon the scene.
This one was walking and carried a rifle.
At sight of him a glow began to burn through her dark cheeks. They hadnot been alone together before since that moment when the stress oftheir emotion had swept them to a meeting of warm lips and warm bodiesthat had startled her by the electric pulsing of her blood.
Her eyes could not hold to his. Shame dragged the lashes down.
With him it was not shame. The male in him rode triumphant because hehad moved a girl to the deeps of her nature. But something in him, somesaving sense of embarrassment, of reverence for the purity and innocencehe sensed in her, made him shrink from pressing the victory. His mindcast about for a commonplace with which to meet her.
He held up as a trophy of his prowess two cottontails. "Who says I can'tshoot?" he wanted to know boisterously.
"Where did you buy them?" she scoffed, faintly trying for sauciness.
"That's a fine reward for honest virtue, after I tramped five miles toget them for your supper," protested Keller.
She recovered her composure quickly, as women will.
"If they are for my supper, we'll have to ask him to ride home withus--won't we, Jimmie? It would never do to have them reach the ranch toolate," she said, making room for Keller in the seat beside her.
It was after she had driven several hundred yards that he said, with asmile: "I met a young man on horseback as I was coming up. He went by melike a streak of light. Looked like he found this a right mournfulworld. You had ought to scatter sunshine and not gloom, Miss Phyllis."
"Am I scattering gloom?" she asked demurely.
"Not right now," he laughed. "But looks like you have been."
She flicked a fly from the flank of her horse before she answered: "Somepeople are so noticing."
"It was hanging right heavy on him. Had the look of a man who had losthis last friend," the young man observed meditatively.
"Dear me! How pathetic!"
"Yes--he sure looked like he'd rejoice to plug another cattleman. I'most arranged to send for Buck Weaver again," said Keller calmly.
Phyllis turned on him eyes brilliant with amazement. "What's that yousay?"
"I said he looked some like he'd admire to go gunning again."
"Yes, but you said too----"
"Sho! I've been using my eyes and ears. I never did find that story ofyours easy to swallow. When I discovered from your brother that you wasriding with Tom Dixon the day Buck was shot, and when I found out from'Rastus that the gun that did the shooting was Dixon's, I surely smelt amouse. Come to mill the thing out, I knew you led Buck's boys off on ablind trail, while the real coyote hunted cover."
"He isn't a coyote," she objected.
Larrabie thought of the youth with a faint smile of scorn. He knew howto respect an out-and-out villain; but there was no bottom to a man whowould shoot from cover without warning, and then leave a girl to bearthe blame of his wrongdoing. "No--I reckon coyote is too big a name forhim," he admitted.
"Buck Weaver ruined his father and drove him from his homestead. It wasnatural he should feel a grudge."
"That's all right, too. We're talking about the way he settled it. Howcome you to let him do it?"
"I was riding about twenty yards behind him. Suddenly I saw his gun goup, and stopped. I thought it might be an antelope. As soon as he hadfired, he turned and told me he had shot Weaver. The poor boy was crazywith fear, now that he had done it. I took his gun and made him hide inthe big rocks, while I cut across toward the canon. The men saw me, andgave chase."
"They fired at you. Thank God, none of them hit you," said Keller, withemphasis.
Her swift gaze appreciated the deep feeling that welled from him. "Ofcourse they did not know I was a woman. All they could see was thatsomebody was riding through the chaparral."
"Jimmie, what do you think of a girl game enough to take so big a chanceto save a friend? Deserves a Carnegie medal, don't you reckon?" Kellerput the question to the third passenger, using him humorously as a ventto his feelings.
Phyllis did not look at him, nor he at her. "And what do you think of aman game enough to take the same chance to save a girl who was not evena friend?" the girl asked of little Jimmie, as lightly as she could.
"Wasn't she? Well, if my friends will save my life every time I needthem to, like this enemy did, I'll be satisfied with them a-plenty."
"He stood by her, too," she answered, trying to keep the matterimpersonal.
"Perhaps he wanted to make her his friend," Larrabie suggested.
"There is no perhaps about his success," she said quietly, her gaze justbeyond the ears of her horse. The young man dared now to look at her--achild of the sun despite her duskiness. Eagerly he awaited the deep,lustrous eyes that would presently sweep round upon him, big and darkand sparkling. When she turned her head, they were full of that newwomanly dignity that yet did not obscure the shy innocence.
"Look!" Jimmie Tryon pointed suddenly to the figure of a mandisappearing from the road into the mesquite two hundred yards in frontof them.
"That's odd. I reckon you'd better wait here, and let me investigate afew," suggested Keller.
"Be careful," she said anxiously.
"It's all right. Don't worry," the young man assured her.
He got down from the trap and dived into the underbrush, rifle in hand.The two in the buggy waited a long time. No sound came to them from thecactus-covered waste to indicate what was happening. When Phyllis' watchtold her that he had been gone ten minutes, a cheerful hail came fromthe road in front.
"All right. Come on."
But it was far from all right. Keller had with him an old Mexicanherder, called Manuel Quito--a man in the employ of her father. Abandanna was tied round his shoulder, and it was soaked withbloodstains. He told his story with many shrugs and much excitedgesticulation. He and Jesus Menendez had been herding on Lone Pine whenriders of the Twin Star outfit had descended upon them and attacked thesheep. He and Menendez had elected to fight, and Jesus had been shotdown; he himself had barely escaped with his life--and that not withouta wound. The cow-punchers had followed him, and continued to fire athim, but he had succeeded in escaping. Yes--he felt sure that Menendezwas dead. Even if he had not been dead at first, they would have killedhim.
Keller consulted Miss Sanderson silently. He knew that she was thinkingthe thought that was in his own mind. It would never do to let thisstory reach her father and her brother, while Buck Weaver was still intheir power. Inflamed as they already were against him, they wouldsurely do in hot blood that which they would repent later. Somehow,Keller and she must hold back the news until they could contrive a wayto free the cattleman.
"Best leave Manuel at the Tryon place till morning. They will look outfor him as well as you can. That will give us twelve hours to workbefore they hear what has happened."
"But what about poor Jesus, lying out there alone?"
"We'll get Bob Tryon to drive out. But you needn't worry about Jesus. Ifthey found him still living, the Twin Star boys will attend to him justas kindly as we could. Cowboys have tender hearts, even though they gooff at half cock."
They did as Keller had suggested, and left the old Mexican under thecare of Mrs. Tryon, having pledged the family to a reluctant silenceuntil morning. Manuel's wound was not a bad one, and there seemed to beno reason why he should not do well.
It was difficult to decide upon a plan for the release of Weaver. He wasconfined in an old log cabin and watched continually by some one of theriders; but a tentative plan was accepted, subject to revision if abetter chance of escape should occur. The success of this depended uponthe possibility of Keller drawing off the guard by a diversion, whilePhyllis slipped in and freed the prisoner.
The outlook was not roseate, but nothing better occurred to them. Onething was sure--if Buck Weaver was not out of the hands of his enemiesbefore the news of this last outrage of his cowboys reached them, hischance of life was not worth even an odds-on bet. For the hot blood ofthe South raced through the veins of the sheepmen. They would strikefirst and think about it afterward. And without doubt that first swiftblow would be a deadly one.