CHAPTER XX
THE FORK OF THE ROAD
It would have looked, to any casual passerby, a pleasant family groupthat occupied the front porch at the Scissor Ranch house one breezymorning.
There was Mrs. Rathburn in a wide-brimmed hat, plying her embroideryneedle and looking, from afar, the picture of contentment. Equallyserene, to all outward appearances, was her daughter, with her headswathed in veiling against the complexion-destroying wind as she rockedto and fro while bringing her already perfect nails to the highestdegree of polish with a chamois-skin buffer. Hugh Disston sat on the topstep cleaning and oiling his shotgun with the loving care of the man whois fond of firearms.
But if the Casual Passerby had ridden closer he might have observed thatMrs. Rathburn was thrusting her needle back and forth through the tautlinen inside the embroidery hoop with a vigor which amounted toviciousness; that Miss Rathburn drew the buffer so briskly across hernails that the encircling flesh was all but blistered with the friction;and that Disston as he oiled and rubbed let his gaze wander frequentlyto the distant mountains and rest there wistfully.
Furthermore, the Casual Passerby--a blood relative of the InnocentBystander--would have been apt to notice that this act of Disston'sseemed automatically to accelerate the movements of the embroideryneedle and the chamois buffer, and speed up the rocking chairs.
Propinquity was not doing all that Mrs. Rathburn had anticipated. Therewere moments like the present when, with real pleasure, she could haverun her needle to the hilt, as it were, in any convenient portion ofDisston's anatomy. She seethed with resentment, and took it out upon theclimate, the inhabitants, the customs of the country, and Teeters--whogave her the careful but unenthusiastic attention he would have given toa belligerent porcupine.
Pique and disappointment smouldered also in the bosom of her fairdaughter, who, if she had been less fair, might have been called sullen,since these emotions evidenced themselves in a scornful silence, whichwas not alleviated by the fact that Disston did not appear to notice it.
While the ladies attributed their occasional temperamental outbursts tothe altitude, which was "getting on their nerves," it was no secretbetween them that their irritability was due to exasperation withDisston. With scientific skill and thoroughness they dissected himprivately until he was hash, working their scalpels far into the watchesof the night with unflagging interest. His words, his actions, histhoughts, as indicated by his changing expressions, were analyzed, yet,to the present, Mrs. Rathburn, trained specialist that she was in thisbranch of psychology, was obliged to confess herself baffled to discoverhis real feelings and intentions toward her daughter.
From the first, Mrs. Rathburn had suspected the "sheep person," and hadcultivated Mrs. Emmeline Taylor who called for the purpose of obtainingsupplementary details to the brief history that she had been able toextract from Disston and Teeters. What Mrs. Rathburn learned from thatsource was, temporarily, eminently satisfactory and soothing. It was toomuch to believe that Disston could be seriously interested in a woman ofKate Prentice's reputation and antecedents. Her daughter's account ofher visit was equally gratifying, for Hugh Disston certainly was toofastidious to be attracted by a woman so uncouth of appearance andmanner as portrayed in the vivid description the lady had received ofher from Beth.
Yet as she looked back it seemed to her that some subtle change had comeover Hugh from the very first day in Prouty, when he had seen thePrentice person and colored. He had been eager to go and see her, andhad not been too keen for Beth's company upon the occasion, she hadimagined.
It was all a mystery, and, thoroughly discouraged, she was aboutconvinced that they were wasting precious time and ruining theircomplexions.
Disston continued to polish vigorously, using the gun grease and cleaneruntil the barrels through which he squinted were spotless and shining.When it was to his satisfaction, Disston put the gun together and satwith it across his knees, staring absently at the spur of mountainswhich Beth Rathburn had come to feel she detested. She tingled withirritation. She wanted to say something mean, something to make him feelsorry and apologetic.
She did not quite dare to speak sneeringly of Kate with no apparentprovocation, but a violent gust of wind that snatched off her veil anddisarranged her carefully dressed hair furnished an excuse to railagainst the country.
"Goodness!" she cried explosively, as she lifted the short ends of hairout of her eyes and replaced them. "Will this everlasting wind _never_stop blowing!"
The fact that Disston did not even hear added to her exasperation. Thesoft voice, which was one of her many charms, was distinctly shrill asshe reiterated:
"I say, will this everlasting wind _never stop blowing_?"
"It is disagreeable," he murmured, without looking at her.
"Disagreeable? It's horrible! I detest the country and everybody in it!"
Mrs. Rathburn shook her head reprovingly, but at the same moment anotherviolent gust swept around the corner and lifted not only that lady'sbroad-brimmed hat, but her expensive "transformation."
Mrs. Rathburn replaced it with guilty haste, and declared furiously:
"I must say I agree with my daughter--the country and its people areequally impossible."
"I'm sorry," Disston replied contritely. "I shouldn't have urged you tocome, but I was hoping you would like it--its picturesqueness, theunconventionality, and the dozen-and-one other things which appeal to meso strongly. In my enthusiasm, perhaps I exaggerated."
"I can't see anything picturesque in discomfort," Miss Rathburnretorted. "There's nothing picturesque in trying to bathe in water thatcurdles when you put soap in it, and makes your hands like nutmeggraters; or in servants who call you by your first name; or in trying toride scraggly horses that have no gaits and shake you to pieces; oranything even moderately interesting about a country where there are notrees to sit under and nothing to look at but sagebrush, and rocks, andprairie dogs, and mountains, and not a soul that one can know socially!"
"I had no notion you disliked it out here so much, Beth," he repliedgravely.
But he was not sufficiently apologetic, not sufficiently humble. Shewent on in a tone in which spite was uppermost:
"And furthermore, if unconventionality could ever make me look and actlike that 'Sheep Queen' over there," she nodded towards the mountain, "Ihope to leave before it happens."
"Hush, Beth!" Her mother's expostulation was lost upon her for, lookingat Disston, she was a little dismayed by the expression upon his facewhen he turned and, leaning his back against the porch post, faced her,saying with a sternness which was foreign to him:
"It's quite impossible for you to understand or appreciate a woman likeKate Prentice, and you will oblige me, Beth, by refraining fromcriticising her, at least in my presence."
Hugh would as well have slapped her. She scattered the manicure articlesin her lap as she sprang up and stamped a tiny foot at him:
"She is impossible! Unspeakable! And I believe you are in love withher!"
For an instant Disston looked at her with an expression which was atonce angry and startled, but before he had framed an answer Teetersappeared in the doorway behind them and said soberly:
"Looks like somethin' serious is startin' over yonder." He nodded towardthe mountains.
"What do you mean?" Disston asked quickly.
"One of Kate's sheep wagons was blowed up a few nights ago, and there'sa story circulatin' that somebody's goin' to shoot up the Outfit."
Disston's face wore a frown of concentration.
"Teeters," in sudden decision, "I'm going up to see her. She may needus."
"But isn't it dangerous?" Mrs. Rathburn protested.
"Not unless he's mistook for one of the Outfit, then they might try achunk of lead on him," Teeters reassured her.
Miss Rathburn, having recovered her poise together with her drawl, wasregarding the high luster on her nails when Disston came up on the porchbefore leaving.
"I am sorry I was rude, B
eth," he said earnestly.
"Were you?" indifferently. "I hadn't noticed it."
"I did a contemptible thing to that girl once," he continued, "and Ifeel that the least I can do to make amends is to refuse to allow her tobe spoken of slightingly in my presence."
"Quite right, Hughie. You are a credit to our southern chivalry." MissRathburn suppressed a yawn with the tips of her pink tapering fingers.
"When I come back," he spoke propitiatingly, "the day after to-morrow,probably we'll go and see that petrified tree of which Teeters told us."
"A lovely bribe," languidly, "but don't hurry, for mother and I areleaving to-morrow."
"You mean that?"
"Certainly."
"I won't believe it."
"You always were incredulous, Hughie."
"I don't suppose I can convince you that I am very fond of you, and thatI shall feel badly if you leave like this?"
This was more like it:--Miss Rathburn lowered her beautiful lashes.
"You haven't tried, have you?" she asked softly.
She looked very desirable at the moment--pink and white and soft andfluffy--all that the traditions of his family demanded in a woman. Heknew perfectly what was expected of him, and there was every reason whyhe should ask her to marry him, and none at all why he should not, yetsomehow when he opened his lips to ask, "Will you let me?" the wordschoked him. He said, instead, with the utmost cordiality:
"Don't you dare do anything so unfriendly as to leave without sayinggood-bye to me. Will you promise to wait until I return?"
If she had obeyed her impulse she would have shrieked at him:
"No! no! no! Not a minute, if you go to see that woman!" She would haveliked to make him choose between them, but she dared not put him to thetest for fear that she would place herself in a position from which herpride would not allow her to recede.
Beth wept in chagrin and rage while Disston rode away buoyantly,marvelling at his own light-heartedness, tingling with the old-timeeagerness which used to come to him the moment he was in the saddle withhis horse's head turned toward Bitter Creek.
He had stubbornly fought his desire to visit Kate again. What was theuse, he demanded of himself sternly. She did not want to see him andvirtually had said so. She had changed radically; she cared only for hersheep--even Teeters admitted that much. Anything beyond a warmfriendship between them was, of course, impossible. She was not of hisworld, she did not "belong," and had no desire to. She could no morepreside at a dinner table or pour tea gracefully, as would be expectedof his wife, than Beth could shear a sheep or earmark one.
These things and many others he had told himself a thousand times tostop the longing he had to saddle his horse and go to her. What aweakling he was, he thought contemptuously, that he could not put herout of his mind and do the obviously right and proper thing by askingBeth to marry him, and so end forever this disquieting conflict withinhim--a conflict that had not been in his calculations when he hadplanned a happy summer.
It was physical attraction, he argued, together with the interestaroused by her unusual personality, which drew him to Kate--a passingfancy, a curious, inexplicable infatuation; but, he assured himselfstoutly, not at all the foundation upon which to build for permanency.Yet as he rode towards the mountains with his eyes fixed upon the lowpass to which Teeters had directed him, he experienced the first realthrill of carefree happiness that had come to him since his arrival.
The trail was a long and a hard one. His horse lost a shoe and limpedbadly, so, as the day waned, he walked frequently to spare the animal.He was tired, but too eager to be conscious of it. He wondered what shewould be doing when he found her, and whether he could surprisesomething like the old-time welcome from her. How her eyes used tosparkle when he rode up to her! He smiled to himself as he recalled hersmile--frank, beaming, her face radiant with undisguised pleasure.
Kate was sitting on a rock on the backbone of a ridge when he drew insight of her--a dark picturesque silhouette against the sky. The sheepfed below, and her horse, with a bedroll across its back, nibbled notfar away.
Hugh stopped and looked at the lonely figure sitting motionless in theopaline-tinted light of the sunset, her chin sunk in her palm, hershoulders drooping. The tears rose to the man's eyes unexpectedly. Itwas not right, such solitude for a woman, he told himself vehemently.
It was singular, too, he reflected, how the mere sight of herrevitalized him. Life took on a sudden interest, a zest that it neverhad elsewhere. He supposed it was because she was herself so vital. Afeeling of exultation now swept over him--he forgot his fatigue, that hewas hungry, and was conscious only of the fact that he was going to benear her, to talk to her uninterruptedly--for hours, maybe. After thathe would go back content, ask Beth to marry him, and recover from thisfever, this unreasoning, uncontrollable longing to see Kate again, whichmade him weak to imbecility.
Thinking her own thoughts, Kate stared at the ground, or at the sheepfeeding quietly below her. Her rifle leaned against the rock upon whichshe was sitting. Occasionally she searched the juniper-covered sides ofan adjacent mountain where an enemy could find convenient hiding, butmostly she sat looking at the ground at her feet.
She had taken over the valuable buck herd in the face of Bowers'sprotest, and was the first to graze on the top of the mountain, thoughthe other bands were now also close to the summit. If more trouble wascoming, it would very likely come quickly. They were fighters, theseRambouillets, she was thinking as she looked at them absently, andrecalled an instance where a herd of them had battered a full-growncoyote to a jelly. They had surrounded him and by bunting him in theribs, back and forth between them like a football, had stopped only whenthere was not a whole bone left in his carcass. However, she reflected,the coyotes were mostly puppies yapping at the entrance of their den atthis time of year, and the last wolf had been cleaned out of themountains, so there really was not much danger from any source savethese human enemies.
But even a fighting Rambouillet was not proof against a 30-30.Instinctively her eyes swept the surrounding country for some unfamiliarmoving object. Well, that was what she was there for--to protect them.She did not expect any quarter because she was a woman--or intend togive any. She meant to shoot to kill, if she had the opportunity.
It was in this survey that Kate saw Disston and recognized himinstantly. She had a notion that even if her eyesight had failed her,her heart would have told her, for it jumped as if she had been badlyfrightened. She felt dizzy for a moment after she verified her firstlook--the world swam, as though she had been blinded. If she hadfollowed her impulse, she would have held out her arms and ran to meethim crying, "Hughie! Hughie!" But her impulses, she remembered in time,always came back like boomerangs to hurt her, if she followed them, so,instead, she endeavored to pull herself together by recalling that hehad been six weeks at Teeters' without coming to see her but the onetime when he had brought that girl to laugh at her. Why had he come now,she wondered.
Kate's pride had come to be her strongest ally and she summoned it allin this emergency, so when Disston climbed to her, finally, leading hislimping horse, she was awaiting him calmly, her enigmatic smile upon herface, which was but a shade paler than usual. Her composure chilled anddisappointed him; he could not know that she had clasped her handstightly about her knee to hide their trembling.
"I wanted to surprise you," he said regretfully.
"You have."
"You don't show it."
"Then I'm improving."
"I liked you as you were, Kate--warm-hearted, impulsive." He dropped thebridle reins and sat down beside her.
"That got me nothing," she replied curtly.
A shadow crossed his face.
"And you don't care for anything that doesn't get you something?"
"Absolutely not."
"That doesn't sound like you," he said after a silence.
"I'm not 'me' any longer," she responded. "I made myself over to suit myenvironment. I get along better
."
"What has changed you so much, Kate--what in particular?"
She hesitated a moment, then answered coldly:
"Nothing in particular--everything."
"You mean you don't want to tell me?"
"What's the use?" indifferently.
"I might help you."
"How?"
"In ways that friends can help each other."
"I've tried that," she answered dryly.
"You've grown so self-sufficient that you make me feel superfluous andhelpless."
"A clinging vine that has nothing to cling to sprawls on the ground,doesn't it?"
Since he did not answer immediately, she reminded him:
"Better loosen your horse's cinch; he'll feed better."
He glanced at her oddly as he obeyed her. How practical she was! Whatshe said was the right and sensible thing, of course, but was she, asshe seemed, quite without sentiment?
He returned to his place beside her and they sat without speaking,watching the colors change on a bank of sudslike clouds and the shadowsdeepen in the gulches. It never occurred to the new Kate to makeconversation, so she was unembarrassed by the silence. Save for anoccasional whimsical soliloquy, she seldom spoke without a definitepurpose nowadays. To Disston, who remembered her faculty for findingsomething interesting or amusing in everything about which to chatter,the difference was noticeable.
It saddened him, the change in her, yet he was conscious that she stillretained her strong attraction for him. With nerves relaxed, content, hehad an absurd notion that he could sit beside her on that rockindefinitely, without speaking, and be happy.
Kate did not ask him the purpose of his visit, for her etiquette was theetiquette of the ranges, which does not countenance questions, andDisston, absorbed in the beauty of the sunset and his own thoughts, wasin no mood to introduce the unpleasant subject of the dynamiting of thesheep wagon.
The pink deepened on gypsum cliffs and sandstone buttes of the distantBad Lands, while purple shadows crept over the green foothills andblackened the canyons.
"Isn't it wonderful?" he said, finally, in a half whisper.
"Yes," she replied, huskily, wondering if Heaven itself had anythinglike this to offer.
It seemed as though without his volition his hand sought hers andcovered it.
She left it so for a moment, then took hers away and got up abruptly.
"They are working up to the bed-ground and will lie down pretty soon.When they're settled, I'll go to camp and get you something to eat." Hertone was matter-of-fact, casual. She stooped, and, picking up a pebble,tossed it at two bucks that were butting each other violently:
"Here--you! Stop it! You give me a headache to look at you."
He did not even interest her, that was evident. Disston tried to assurehimself that he would not have it otherwise, that anything else would bea misfortune in the circumstances; but self-deception was useless--hisfeelings were not a matter for argument or logic, they were of theheart, not the head, when he was near her, and his mind had nothing todo with them.
She walked away a little and stood apart with her face to the sunset, alonely figure, silent, aloof, fitting perfectly into the picture.Disston tried to analyze his feelings, the emotions she inspired in himas he looked at her, but his lines of thought with their manyramifications always came back to the starting point--to the sureknowledge that he wanted her tremendously, that he yearned and hungeredfor her with every fiber of his nature.
She was the last woman in the world who would seem to need protection,yet he had a savage primitive desire to protect her, to put his armabout her and defy the world, if need be.
Beth's helpless femininity inspired no such passionate chivalry. Hesaved her annoyances, shielded her, helped her over the rough places,from habit--but this was different. And it had been so, he reflected,from that night at the Prouty House when he would gladly have foughtthose who had slighted and hurt her, when he would have shed blood, hadhis judgment not restrained him. Ever since then the least insinuationor slur against Kate had set his blood tingling, and Beth's ridicule hadbeen one of the hardest things he had found to overlook in her. And,too, the curious serenity, the sense of completeness which came to himwhen she sat quietly beside him, puzzled him. He wondered if it was onlya temporary state of mind, or would it last forever if he were withher. He would conquer himself--of course, he must; and he had proved byhis life thus far that he was strong enough to do anything he had to.
Suddenly Hugh felt a keen desire to know what she was thinking, that shewas so long silent, and he asked her. He was not sure that she answeredhis question when she said prosaically:
"You had better go on down to camp and feed your horse--it's over theridge there; make a fire and put on the tea kettle. I'll be down in halfan hour or three-quarters."
Disston lingered to watch her as she pulled the bedroll from her horse;and, clearing a space with her foot, freeing it of sticks and pebbles,spread out the canvas, pulling the "tarp" over a pillow beneath which henoticed a box of cartridges and a six-shooter.
"For close work," she said, with a short laugh, observing his interest.
He did not join her; instead his brows contracted.
"I can't bear to think of you going through such hardships."
"This isn't hardship--I'm used to it--I like it. I like to get awake inthe night and look at the stars and to feel the wind in my face. When itrains, I pull the tarp over my head, and I love to listen to the patteron it. The sheep 'bed' all around me, and some of them lie on thecorners, so it's not lonely." She said it with a touch of defiance, asthough she resented his pity and wished him to believe there was no roomfor it.
"You see," she added, "I'm a typical sheepherder, even to mumbling tomyself occasionally."
The sheep in the meantime had grazed to the top of the ridge and hadspread out over the flat backbone for a few final mouthfuls beforepawing their little hollows. Soon they would sink down singly and inpairs, by the dozen and half dozen, with a crackling of joints, theirjaws waggling, sniffing, coughing, grunting from overladen stomachs,raising in their restless stirrings a little cloud of dust above thebed-ground.
As he stood to go, Disston pictured her night after night waiting inpatient silence for the sheep to grow quiet and then creeping betweenher blankets to sleep among them.
He left her reluctantly at length, for he had a feeling that, since histime with her was short, each minute that he was away from her waswasted; but as it was her wish, he could do nothing less than complyand, obviously, she did not share his regret. So he followed herdirections and was soon at the summer camp, established near a springone lower ridge over.
A half hour passed--three-quarters. He smoked and looked at his watchfrequently. The stars came out and the moon rose full. The fire burneddown and the water cooled in the kettle. Whatever was detaining her?Impatient at first, Disston finally grew worried. He ate a little coldfood that he found, and started to walk back to her.
He was well up the first ridge when a sharp report broke thenight-stillness and brought him to an abrupt standstill. It was followedby another, then three, four--a number of shots in succession. It wasnot loud enough for a 30-30. It was the six-shooter! "For close work!"she had told him tersely.
If he had been in doubt before as to the exact word to apply to hisfeelings for Kate, there was no need to hesitate longer. What did itmatter that she did not know how to pour tea gracefully and preside at adinner table? By God--he wanted her, and that was all there was to it!
He was breathless when he reached the top of the ridge and his heart waspounding with the exertion in the high altitude, but he gave a gasp ofrelief when he saw her standing in the moonlight with dead and dyingsheep around her.
"What's the matter?" he called, when his breath came back to himsufficiently.
"Poison. Somebody has scattered little piles of saltpeter all over thesummit. There's no cure for it, so I shot some of them to put them outof their agony."
&
nbsp; In his relief at finding her unharmed, the loss of the sheep seemed ofno moment and he did not realize what it meant to her until she saidwith a choke in her voice:
"They knew just where to hit me. I've scrimped and saved and sacrificedto buy those sheep--"
Her grief sent a flood of tenderness over him. He went to her swiftly,and taking the six-shooter gently from her hand laid it upon the ground.
"Come here," he said authoritatively, and drew her to him.
She did not resist, and her head dropped to his shoulder in a movementof disheartened weariness.
"Oh, Hughie--I'm so tired of fighting--so tired--of everything."
He smoothed her hair as he would have soothed a child, and saiddecisively--yet with a big tenderness:
"And you shan't do any more of it!"
He felt his heart breaking with the love he felt for her.
"Kiss me--Honey!" he said softly.
She winced at the old sweet term of endearment, then with a sharp intakeof breath she raised her lips to his. He was sure that no other woman'skiss could so draw the soul out of him. Beth seemed only a shadow--likesomeone long dead whose personality is recalled with an effort.
This was love--this was the sort of feeling the Creator intended men andwomen to have for each other--mysterious, inexplicable, yet real asNature. It was as it should be. These thoughts passed through Disston'smind swiftly. Up there on top of the world, in the moonlight, anyconsideration which interfered seemed trifling and indefensible.
"You do love me?" He held her off a little and looked at her. He did notdoubt it--he merely wanted to hear her say it.
She replied simply:
"Yes, Hughie. I have always."
"You're so unexpectedly sweet!" he cried, as he again drew her close tohim. "I've never forgotten that about you." He laughed softly as headded, "I can't understand why everyone that knows you isn't in lovewith you."
"There's no one else who has ever seen this side of me. I am not evenlikable to most people."
"It isn't so! But if it were, it doesn't make any difference, for you'regoing to marry me--you're going home with me and live a woman'slife--the kind for which you were intended."
The radiance that illuminated her face transformed and glorified it.
She was woman--all woman, at heart--he had not been mistaken, he thoughtrapturously as he looked at her.
She stared at him wide-eyed, dazzled by the picture as she breathedrather than whispered:
"To be with you always--never to be lonely again--to have some one thatcared really when I was sick or tired or heavy-hearted--never to besavage and bitter and vindictive, but to be glad every morning just tobe living, and to know that each day would be a little nicer than thelast one! It would be that way, wouldn't it, Hughie?"
"How could it be otherwise when just being together is happiness?" heanswered.
"It's like peeking into Paradise," she said, wistfully.
"But you will--you'll promise me? You'll give up this?" There was afaint note of anxiety in his earnestness as he laid a hand upon hershoulder and looked at her steadily.
In the long space of time that she took to answer, the radiance died outof her face like a light that is extinguished slowly:
"I'll tell you in the morning, Hughie. I must think. I make mistakeswhen I do what my heart impels me to. My impulses have been wrongalways. I rely upon my head nowadays. I am weak to-night, and I've justjudgment enough left to know it."
"But, Kate!" he expostulated in a kind of terror. "There isn't anythingto argue about--to consider. This isn't business."
She shook her head.
"I must think, Hughie. I'll tell you in the morning. You'd better godown to camp now," she urged gently. "There isn't anything to be done uphere, for every sheep will die that got enough poison."
"I can't bear to think of leaving you alone up here," he protestedvehemently. "Why not let me stay and you go down to the wagons?"
She shook her head.
"There's not the slightest danger. He's done his work for the present,and it may be a long time before I'm again molested."
"Whom do you mean?" he asked quickly.
"A 'breed' named Mullendore that hates me."
"Do you mean to say," incredulously, "that since you know who did it,he'll ever have another opportunity?"
"I can't prove it; and, besides," bitterly, "you don't know Prouty."
With a swift transition of mood she crept into his arms voluntarily,crying chokingly:
"Hold me close, Hughie! I feel so safe with your arms about me, asthough nothing or nobody could hurt me ever!"
In the morning Kate drove down to the camp at daylight the few sheepthat had not eaten enough of the saltpeter to kill them, or had missedit altogether--only a small percentage of the valuable herd that hadstarted up the mountain.
Brusque, businesslike, she was as different from the girl who had clungto Hugh for love and sympathy as could well be imagined.
They had breakfast together in the cook tent, which in the summer campwas used as a dining tent also. It was while she was standing by thestove that she turned suddenly and said impulsively:
"Do you know, Hughie, I love to cook, this morning, and ordinarily Ihate it! It's because it's for you--isn't it curious?" Her eyes wereshining with a look of love that was warm and generous; then the tearsfilled them and she turned her back quickly.
"If I hadn't the same feeling about you, I might think so," heresponded. "I'm simply aching to do something for you--to help you insome way--that's what I came for."
"Did you--really?" She looked at him gratefully.
"That--and because I couldn't stay away any longer. All the way up thetrail I had a feeling that you had hold of my heartstrings pulling me toyou, and as if they would break if I didn't get to you faster. I can'tdescribe it exactly, but it was as real as an actual physicalsensation."
She looked her understanding, though she made no response.
When breakfast was over and they had washed the dishes together in asilence which each felt momentous, Kate said finally:
"You'd better tack a shoe on your horse before you go. If you don't knowhow, I'll show you." He took her hand and looked at her searchingly:
"Is that my answer?"
As she stood with her back against the table she gripped the edge of ittightly.
"I guess it is, Hughie. I've thought it all out and it seems best."
"I can't--I won't believe you mean that!" he exclaimed, passionately.
"But I do. There are many reasons why I can't leave here and do as youask."
"And," incredulously, "the fact that we love each other doesn't count?"He shook his head. "I must say I don't understand. I didn't know thatyou were so happy here--"
"Happy!" The color flooded her face as she cried fiercely, "Mostlyit's--hell!"
"I don't comprehend at all."
"In the first place, your world and mine are far apart--that girl youbrought to the corrals made me see that clearer than ever before. Imight, in time, adapt myself--I don't know. I'm not ignorant of thethings one can learn from books, and I'm not dull, but it would be anexperiment, and if it failed it might be like that experience at theProuty House on a larger scale. I would humiliate you and make youashamed." Then, looking at him searchingly, she added: "Tell me thetruth, Hughie--haven't you thought something of this yourself?"
"I realize, of course," he admitted candidly, "that naturally therewould be situations which would be difficult for you at first; but whatof that? You'll learn. You are more than intelligent--you have brains,and your instincts are right from first to last. I tell you I love you,and nothing else counts. I'm so sure of the result that I'm willing torisk the experiment."
Her eyes, fixed upon him, shone with pride, and there was a note ofexultation in her voice as she cried:
"I hoped you would say that!"
He smiled back:
"You're tricky, Kate. You set traps for me. But," impatiently, "go on;if your oth
er reasons are not more serious than this--"
She looked at him speculatively and doubtfully:
"I wonder, if I can make you see things from my point of view--if it'spossible for you to understand how I feel. Our lives and experienceshave been so different. I'm afraid I shall fail. It's just this--" anexpression of grim purpose which he saw was not new to it settled uponher face--"I've set myself a goal; it's in sight now and I've got toreach it. If I stopped, I know that the feeling that I had been aquitter when a real temptation came to me would gnaw inside of me untilI was restless and discontented, and I would have a contempt for myselfthat I don't believe ever would leave me.
"When people live alone a lot they get to know themselves--the way theirminds work, their moods and the causes, their dispositions; and I knowthat whether my judgment is right or wrong I've got to follow the trailstretching away before me until I've reached my destination."
"What is it you want to do, Kate? Why can't I help you?"
"I want success--money! It's the only weapon for a woman in my position.Without it she's as helpless as though her hands were shackled and lefta target for every one who chooses to throw a stone at her. It's anobsession with me. I've sworn to win out here, by myself, single-handed;it's a vow as sacred as an oath to me! It means time, patience,hardships and more hardships; and after this I'm going to suffer becauseyou've shown me what I'm turning my back on. But no matter," fiercely,"I can crucify myself, if necessary!"
"It isn't yet clear to me why success means so much to you," he said,bewildered.
"Because," she cried, "soon after you left I went through purgatory forthat want of money, and because I was nobody--because I was 'MormonJoe's Kate,' accused of murder, and the daughter of 'Jezebel of the SandCoulee,' and have nobody for a father!"
"Why didn't you ask me to come when I telegraphed you!"
"I didn't dare--I was afraid to test you. If you, too, had failed me, itwould have crushed me. Perhaps all this sounds absurd and melodramatic,but I can't help it.
"You know, everybody has some little quirk in his brain that makes himdifferent--some trait that isn't quite normal. I've come to watch forit, and it's always there, even in the most commonplace people. It's thequirk which, when accentuated, makes religious fanatics, screamingsuffragists and anarchists. My 'twist' takes the form of anuncontrollable desire to retaliate upon those who have deliberately,through sheer cruelty and without any personal reason for theiranimosity, gone out of their way to hurt me."
That was it, then--she had been hurt--terribly!
Her eyes were like steel, her voice trembled with the intensity of thepassion that shook her as she continued:
"I hate them in Prouty! I can't conceive of any other feeling towardsthe town or its inhabitants. I don't suppose it will ever come in my wayto pay in full the debt I owe them, but I can at least by my own effortsrise above them and force their grudging recognition!"
"I understand now," Disston said slowly. "But, Kate, is it worth theprice you'll pay for it?"
"I'm used to paying well for everything, whether it's success orexperience," she replied bitterly. "As I feel now, it's worth thesacrifice demanded, and I'm willing to make it."
"It's like seeing a great musician concentrate his energies upon thebanjo--he may dignify the instrument, but he belittles himself in doingit. Kate," he pleaded, "don't throw away any years of happiness! Don'thurt your own character for a handful of nonentities whose importanceyou exaggerate! I'm right, believe me."
"I am as I am, and I have to learn all my lessons by experience."
"It may be too late when you've learned this one," he said sadly.
"Too late!" She shivered. A specter rose before her that she had seenbefore--hard-featured, domineering, unloved, unloving, chafing inghastly solitude, alone with her sheep and her money, and the best yearsof her life behind her. She saw herself as her work and her thoughtswould make her. For an instant she wavered. If Disston had known, hemight have swayed her then, but, since he could not, he only said withan effort:
"If your love for me isn't big enough to make you abandon this purpose,I shan't urge you. I know it would be useless. You have a strangenature, Kate--a mixture of steel and velvet, of wormwood and honey."
Absorbed in the swiftly moving panorama that was passing before her, shescarcely heard him. She was gazing at a bizarre figure in a wreath ofpaper roses trip down a staircase, radiant and eager--to be greeted bymocking eyes and unsuppressed titters; at a crowded courtroom, staringmercilessly, tense, with unfriendly curiosity; at Neifkins with hisinsolent stare, his skin, red, shiny, stretched to cracking across hisbroad, square-jawed face; at Wentz, listening in cold amusement to afrightened, tremulous voice pleading for leniency; at a sallow face withdead brown eyes leering through a cloud of smoke, suggesting incontemptuous familiarity, "Why don't you fade away--open a dance hall insome live burg and get a liquor license?"; at Mrs. Toomey, pinched withworry and malnutrition, a look of craven cowardice in her blue eyes,blurting out in the candor of desperation, "Your friendship might hurtus in our business!"
She saw it all--figures and episodes passed in review before her, evento irrelevant details, and each contributed its weight to turn thescales in this crisis.
"It's the fork of the road," she said in curt decision, "and I'vechosen."
There was something so implacable in her face and voice and manner thatDisston felt like one shut out behind a door that is closed and bolted;he had a sensation as though his heart while warm and beating had beenlaid upon the unresponsive surface of cold marble. The chill of it wentall through him. With another woman than Kate he might still haveargued. But he could only look at her sorrowfully:
"When you are older, and have grown more tolerant and forgiving, I'mafraid you will find that you have chosen wrongly."
"If ever I should grow tolerant and forgiving," she cried fiercely,"then I will have failed miserably."