The Branding Iron

  CHAPTER II

  PIERRE LAYS HIS HAND ON A HEART

  Maud Upper was the first girl of her own age that Joan had ever seen.Joan went in terror of her and Maud knew this and enjoyed herascendancy over an untamed creature twice her size. There was thecrack of a lion-tamer's whip in the tone of her instructions. That wasafter a day or two. At first Maud had been horribly afraid of Joan. "Awild thing like her, livin' off there in the hills with that man, why,ma, there's no tellin' what she might be doin' to me."

  "She won't hurt ye," laughed Mrs. Upper, who had lived in the wildsherself, having been a frontierman's wife before the days even of thisfrontier town and having married the hotel-keeper as a second venture.She knew that civilization--this rude place being civilization toJoan--would cow the girl and she knew that Maud's self-assertivebuoyancy would frighten the soul of her. Maud was large-hipped,high-bosomed, with a small, round waist much compressed. She carriedher head, with its waved brown hair, very high, and shot blue glancesdown along a short, broad nose. Her mouth was thin and determined, hercolor high. She had a curiously shallow, weak voice that soundedbreathless. She taught Joan impatiently and laughed loudly but notunkindly at her ways.

  "Gee, she's awkward, ain't she?" she would say to the men; "trail likea bull moose!"

  The men grinned, but their eyes followed Joan's movements. As a matterof fact, she was not awkward. Through her clumsy clothes, theheaviness of her early youth, in spite of all the fetters of herignorance, her wonderful long bones and her wonderful strengthasserted themselves. And she never hurried. At first this apparentsluggishness infuriated Maud. "Get a gait on ye, Joan Carver!" shewould scream above the din of the rough meals, but soon she found thatJoan's slow movements accomplished a tremendous amount of work in anamazingly short time. There was no pause in the girl's activity. Shepoured out her strength as a python pours his, noiselessly, evenly,steadily, no haste, no waste. And the men's eyes brooded upon her.

  If Joan had stayed long at Mrs. Upper's, she would have beguninevitably to model herself on Maud, who was, in her eyes, a marvelousthing of beauty. But, just a week after her arrival, there came to theinn Pierre Landis and for Joan began the strange and terrible historyof love.

  In the lives of most women, of the vast majority, the clatter andclash of housewifery prelude and postlude the spring song of theiryears. And the rattle of dishes, of busy knives and forks, the quicktapping of Maud's attendant feet, the sound of young and ravenous jawsat work: these sounds were in Joan's bewildered ears, and the sightswhich they accompanied in her bewildered eyes, just before she heardPierre's voice, just before she saw his face.

  It was dinner hour at the hotel, an hour most dreadful to Joan becauseof the hurry, the strangeness, and the crowd, because of theresponsibility of her work, but chiefly because at that hour sheexpected the appearance of her father. Her eyes were often on thedoor. It opened to admit the young men, the riders and ranchers whohung up their hats, swaggered with a little jingle of spurs to theirchairs; clean-faced, clean-handed, wet-haired, murmuring low-voicedcourtesies,--"Pass me the gravy, please," "I wouldn't be carin' ferany, thank you,"--and lifting to the faces of waiting girls now andagain their strange, young, brooding eyes, bold, laughing, and afraid,hungry, pathetic, arrogant, as the eyes of young men are, tameless anduntamable, but full of the pathos of the untamed. Joan's heart shook alittle under their looks, but when Pierre lifted his eyes to her, herheart stood still. She had not seen them following her progress aroundthe room. He had come in late, and finding no place at the long,central table sat apart at a smaller one under a high, uncurtainedwindow. By the time she met his eyes they were charged with light;smoky-blue eyes they were, the iris heavily ringed with black, thepupils dilated a little. For the first time it occurred to Joan,looking down with a still heart into his eyes, that a man might bebeautiful. The blood came up from her heart to her face. Her eyesstruggled away from his.

  "What's yer name, gel?" murmured Pierre.

  "Joan Carver."

  "You run away from home?" He too had heard of her.

  "Yes."

  "Will your father be takin' you back?"

  "I won't be goin' with him."

  She was about to pass on. Pierre cast a swift look about thetable--bent heads and busy hands, eyes cast down, ears, he knew,alert. It was a land of few women and of many men. He must leave inthe morning early and for months he would not be back. He put out along, hard hand, caught Joan's wrist and gave it a queer, urgentshake, the gesture of an impatient and beseeching child.

  "Will you be comin' home with me, gel?" asked Pierre hurriedly.

  She looked at him, her lips apart, and she shook her head.

  Maud's voice screamed at her from the kitchen door. Pierre let her go.She went on, very white.

  She did not sleep at all that night. Her father's face, Pierre's face,looked at her. In the morning Pierre would be gone. She had heard Maudsay that the "queer Landis feller would be makin' tracks back to thatranch of his acrost the river." Yes, he would be gone. She might havebeen going with him. She felt the urgent pressure of his hand on herarm, in her heart. It shook her with such a longing for love, for allthe unknown largesse of love, that she cried. The next morning, pale,she came down and went about her work. Pierre was not at breakfast,and she felt a sinking of heart, though she had not known that she hadbuilt upon seeing him again. Then, as she stepped out at the back toempty a bucket, there he was!

  Not even the beauty of dawn could lend mystery to the hideous,littered yard, untidy as the yards of frontier towns invariably are,to the board fence, to the trampled half-acre of dirt, known as "TheSquare," and to the ugly frame buildings straggled about it; but itcould and did give an unearthly look of blessedness to the bare,gray-brown buttes that ringed the town and a glory to the sky, whileupon Pierre, waiting at his pony's head, it shed a magical and tenderlight. He was dressed in his cowboy's best, a white silk handkerchiefknotted under his chin, leather "chaps," bright spurs, a sombrero onhis head. His face was grave, excited, wistful. At sight of Joan, hemoved forward, the pony trailing after him at the full length of itsreins; and, stopping before her, Pierre took off the sombrero, slowlystripped the gauntlet from his right hand, and, pressing both hat andglove against his hip with the left hand, held out the free, cleanpalm to Joan.

  "Good-bye," said he, "unless--you'll be comin' with me after all?"

  Joan felt again that rush of fire to her brows. She took his hand andher fingers closed around it like the frightened, lonely fingers of alittle girl. She came near to him and looked up.

  "I'll be comin' with you, Pierre," she said, just above her breath.

  He shot up a full inch, stiffened, searched her with smouldering eyes,then held her hard against him. "You'll not be sorry, Joan Carver,"said he gently and put her away from him. Then, unsmiling, he bade hergo in and get her belongings while he got her a horse and told hisnews to Mrs. Upper.

  That ride was dreamlike to Joan. Pierre put her in her saddle and sherode after him across the Square and along a road flanked by the uglyhouses of the town.

  "Where are we a-goin'?" she asked him timidly.

  He stopped at that, turned, and, resting his hand on the cantle of hissaddle, smiled at her for the first time.

  "Don't you savvy the answer to that question, Joan?"

  She shook her head.

  The smile faded. "We're goin' to be married," said he sternly, andthey rode on.

  They were married by the justice, a pleasant, silent fellow, who withWestern courtesy, asked no more questions than were absolutelyneedful, and in fifteen minutes Joan mounted her horse again, a ringon the third finger of her left hand.

  "Now," said Pierre, standing at her stirrup, his shining, smoke-blueeyes lifted to her, his hand on her boot, "you'll be wantin' somethings--some clothes?"

  "No," said Joan. "Maud went with me an' helped me buy things with mypay just yesterday. I won't be needin' anything."

  "All right," said he. "We're off, then!" And he flun
g himself with asudden wild, boyish "Whoopee!" on his pony, gave a clip to Joan'shorse and his own, and away they galloped, a pair of young, wildthings, out from the town through a straggling street to where theroad boldly stretched itself toward a great land of sagebrush, ofbuttes humping their backs against the brilliant sky. Down the valleythey rode, trotting, walking, galloping, till, turning westward, theymounted a sharp slope and came up above the plain. Below, in the heartof the long, narrow valley, the river coiled and wandered, divided andcame together again into a swift stream, amongst aspen islands andwillow swamps. Beyond this strange, lonely river-bed, the cottonwoodsbegan, and, above them, the pine forests massed themselves and strodeup the foothills of the gigantic range, that range of iron rocks,sharp, thin, and brittle where they scraped the sky.

  At the top of the hill, Pierre put out his hand and pulled Joan'srein, drawing her to a stop beside him.

  "Over yonder's my ranch," said he.

  Joan looked. There was not a sign of house or clearing, but shefollowed his gesture and nodded.

  "Under the mountains?" she said.

  "At the foot of Thunder Canyon. You can see a gap in the pines.There's a waterfall just above--that white streak. Now you've got it.Where you come from 's to the south, away yonder."

  Joan would not turn her head. "Yes," said she, "I know."

  Suddenly tears rushed to her eyes. She had a moment of unbearablelonging and regret. Pierre said nothing; he was not watching her.

  "Come on," said he, "or your father will be takin' after us."

  They rode at a gallop down the hill.