Over the Border Part 24

"If he ain't stopped," Bull qualified.

"If he ain't stopped," Jake nodded. "An' it's up to you to do it."

"But how?" Sliver's broad, round face struggled like a full moon in clouds of helplessness. "How in the 'tarnal kin _I_ stop him?"

"By 'quiring vested rights in the premises," Jake nodded sagely. "If you marry her he kain't come 'round."

"_Marry_ her? _Me?_ Marry a _Mex_?" Sliver almost yelled it.

"That's what." While his thin lips parted in his characteristic wolf grin, Jake went on: "Anyhow, what's your idee in shying an' rearing this-a-way at domestic happiness wuss 'n a colt at flying paper? Why, other men rush for it like 'twas-"

"Sticky fly-paper," Sliver ungallantly supplied. "An' once they're in-_good night_!"

But Jake ignored the interruption. "You-all orter take shame to yourself. Marriage is nature's most holy an' necessary ordinance. Don't all the preachers tell it? An' what would become of the census without it? But here, instead of accepting your lot with thankfulness an'

thanking your stars that a girl can be found that's d.a.m.n fool enough to take you, you-all go a-holding up your head an' howling like a hungry coyote."

While Jake thus orated, Sliver's expression of obstinacy was leavened by fleeting hope. "If you b'lieve all that-what's the matter with you marrying her yourself?"

Jake's thin lips parted again in his sarcastic grin. "I've no calling for it. You see I'm that soft by nat'er any woman could crush my tender feelings. But one glance at your brutal count'nance would tell even a blind man that your wife would be kep' in her place. Besides-was it me that took Gordon up there?"

"Quit your fooling," Bull interposed. Then, unconscious of the humor of the situation, aware in his simplicity only of the danger to his cherished plan, he faced Sliver. "Yes or no-will you do it?"

"No, I'm da-"

"You won't?" Bleak eyes pin-points of steel, teeth bared in a snarl, knife flas.h.i.+ng blue in the lantern-light, Jake sprang from the pile of corn fodder on which he was sitting. "You upset the beans we put to b'ile an' refuse to pick 'em up?"

Almost as quickly Sliver's knife took the lantern gleam, and as they circled, looking for an opening, the friendly habit of the last months dropped away. They were again the rustlers, wild, fierce, united against man and his law, but equally ready to fight among themselves. But before they could close, Bull's bulk pushed in between. One shove of his great hands sent them staggering back.

"Cut it out! We can't stand for no blood-letting around Miss Lee."

Towering in the lantern-light, he turned to Sliver and laid down the law. "You an' us have ridden an' fit together for many a year. So far you've never failed us an' I don't believe you will. We brought this young fellow in, as you know, to cut that d.a.m.n Mexican out, an' you've sp'iled our game by throwing him in Felicia's way. Now it's up to you.

If you make good-we go on. If you don't-there's the trail."

He could not have taken better ground. Where threats would have provoked only further obstinacy, the appeal won. While putting up his knife, though, Sliver glared at Jake.

"I'll knock your block off the first time I catch you alone on the range." Addressing Bull, he went on: "Of course if it's to help Lady-girl, you bet I'll go the limit. But what d'you-all expect? That I'm a-going to cinch her with a priest an' license?"

"That'd be more loving-like; she'd appreciate it, too."

"Shut up, Jake! We don't care so long as you acquire enough t.i.tle to shoo Gordon off. Here's fifty pesos. For half that, old Antonio 'u'd sell her along with his soul. You kin settle the details with him. Of course you'll have to live out there for a whiles-mebbe till this Ramon business is knocked out of Miss Lee's head."

"What! An' cut out the range?" Sliver exclaimed in horror. "Me hang around there a-selling aguardiente to _peones_?"

"What's left after you get through," Jake began, but was cut off again.

"No, we can arrange the work so there'll be plenty for you within easy riding."

"So's you won't be drug too far away during the honeymoon. She wouldn't stan' for that."

Though a model in force and brevity, Sliver's answer transcends print.

He wound up with the complaint: "All right, I'll go, but I see my finish. I'll die on Felicia's grub."

"Couldn't be any worse than Rosa's," Jake comforted. "You managed to live on that."

With a certain resignation, but still grumbling, Sliver set out next morning. To make sure that he followed program, Jake and Bull packed his kit and even escorted him a mile or two on his way. Throughout all these preliminaries, Sliver's mien was rather that of chief mourner at a funeral than a groom on his way to his bride, and just before they left him he even advanced a belated plea.

"Don't you allow we ked get some one else?"

"With all the men in the country off at the wars?" Bull shook his head.

"Besides, no _peon_ could hold her down. She needs a strong hand."

"It's either you or Gordon," Jake added. "You'll have to sacrifice."

Not until they turned homeward after his lone figure had faded behind the next rise did they consider how the affair was to be broken to Lee.

"'Tain't going to be so dreadful easy," Bull frowned thoughtfully, "she being a girl and prejudiced. She'd hardly cotton to sech primitive nupt'als as Sliver is likely to consummate."

"I she'd think not!" Jake looked his horror and scorn. "You'll make a mess of it. Better leave it to me."

Bull was quite willing, but though he had looked for some embroidery on the bare facts, the woof of romance Jake wove through the warp of fact at lunch that day made him choke on his food and gasp. A tale of secret love and stealthy visitations, a reluctant lady gradually won, ornamented with priests and licenses and other tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs necessary for feminine approval, were woven into a consistent narrative that proved how much Bacchus gained and the Muses lost when Jake enlisted in the former's service.

"No, Missy, you ain't a-going to lose him," Bull answered, on his part, Lee's troubled question. "He'll take care of things over that way."

"Well-" Lee laughed, a little choked laugh, "I hope he'll be-happy."

Then becoming conscious of Gordon's gaze, she dropped her glance to her plate. But not before he had read its meaning.

"Why hadn't this happened a week ago!"

XXI: THE WIDOW TO THE RESCUE

Who shall interpret the feelings of a high-minded maid who is bent on wrecking her own and two other lives through a mistaken sense of honor?

Broadly, one might hint at rebellions sternly repressed, at doubts and misgivings, secret tears, agonizings of spirit that affected Lee's flesh during the next week till her roses paled, eyes grew dark and heavy.

Not that she was altogether unhappy. A woman's life is her feelings, and if they be sufficiently intense she obtains from their exercise a certain mournful satisfaction-akin, no doubt, if a little paler, to the ecstasies of a martyr. But into these innermost recesses, innocent springs of the woman soul whence flow endless capacities for devotion and self-sacrifice, into these it is not given to the eternally masculine to enter. Accordingly, during the following week Gordon perceived only a surface resignation that manifested itself toward him in a quiet, sisterly manner.

A blunt male, his psychology was much more simple, fluctuating between desperation, depression, determination, and despair, the composite of which showed on the surface as a decided case of the sulks. Yes, it has to be set down that he followed the customary and unheroic masculine precedent, returning for Lee's sisterly solicitude more than the average brotherly brusqueness.

Nature having neglected to insert a compensating balance in the feelings of the eternally masculine, the poor fellow was utterly miserable.

Despite the fact that, up to a week ago, he had regarded Lee with neutral friendliness, he now desired more desperately than ever to place her in a certain Java forest adorned with the regalia of a honeymoon.

What is more to the point, under his sulks he was determined to do it.

Summing them, he sulked and she grieved up to the moment that a _mozo_ rode in, one day, with a package from Ramon.

Though it held only a single flower, she easily read the message, "May I come?" and though she returned a single line, "I'm coming to see Isabel next week," the flower had done its work.