The Last Straw Part 44

"Yes, Sam, the chances are that he'll go to the tank alone."

Whereupon the other started and whispered savagely:

"How'd you know I was thinkin' _that?_"

Hilton laughed lowly and put an arm across Sam's shoulders and they walked at length in the darkness, talking, talking.... The Easterner looked close into McKee's face and flattered and suggested and encouraged....

CHAPTER XX

"WORK AMONG THE HEATHEN"

The chuck wagon had gone, followed by the bed wagon and the cavet, the last made up of one hundred and forty saddle horses, stringing along the road, a solid column of horse flesh. In a day the round-up would be on. Camp was to be made first far down on Coyote Creek and the country from Cathedral Tank eastward would first be ridden.

Outwardly the departure was not so different from others of its sort.

There were rifles on saddles, to be sure, but there was banter and fun.

Still, a spirit prevailed which told that the men were not wholly concerned with the normal business of the range. There were other things, more grim, more serious, than gathering steers and branding calves.

H C hands were not the only ones who rode heavily armed. There were others, skulking on high ridges, watching, waiting. The whole country knew they were there. The eyes of the whole country were on the factions. The ears of the country were strained to catch what sounds of clash might rise. For the coming of that clash was sensed as an impending crash of thunder will be sensed under cloud banked skies.

"I'll be joinin' them tonight or in the morning," Beck told Jane as the cavalcade disappeared down creek. "I'm glad there are things to hold me here a few hours longer because I'll be gone a long time an' I'm jealous of the days I have to be away from you."

"You'll come to say good-bye?"

"If I have to crawl to you!"--as he gave her one of his lingering kisses. "When I come back from the ride there's something I'd like to talk over with you ... which we ain't mentioned yet."

"I'll be waiting to talk it over, dear," she whispered, for she understood.

Not long after Beck had ridden away the Reverend stumped down from the corral to the big ranch house and rapped on the door. Jane was at her desk and looked up in surprise for it was the first time the elder Beal had ever come to her alone.

"I come to ask for aid, ma'am, in what might be termed work among the heathen, though, it is in a sense the task of a home missionary."

Jane put down her pen and sat back in her chair, trying to hide her amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Yes, Reverend," in her crisp manner--"I'm interested."

He blinked and rattled pens in a side pocket of the rusty coat.

"I trust that you will bear with me, ma'am, until I have finished. I have been moved to speak to you for long but have hesitated because it is difficult to present the matter without intruding on privacies.

"An unholy love is being hidden in the solitudes of these hills, a man who is at heart a serpent seeks to corrupt the white soul of a child.

You possess a knowledge of this man which may hold the only hope of salvation for the innocent."

A feeling of apprehension swept through the girl; with it was suspicion, for though her mind easily fastened on d.i.c.k Hilton as the man referred to, she could connect him with no other woman.

"I trust, ma'am, that you will be charitable in your estimate of my works. It is no more possible for Azariah Beal to go through life with his eyes closed and his powers of deduction dormant than it is for the birds to refrain from flight or the fishes from swimming. I try to do good as I go my way. I realize that it is not in the orthodox manner, that my methods are strange; but my work is among unusual people and the old ways of accomplishment will not produce results any more than the old standards of morality will fit the lives of my people.

"I observed this man, a stranger to the country, in town on my arrival.

When I reached here to tarry with my brother until I am called to move I observed you, also a stranger to the frontier. I observed other things which you will not consider prying curiosity, I hope. There was a connection, a logical connection, between you two strangers: were it not for subsequent events this observation would have remained in my heart. So far it has, but now I must reveal it to you.

"You are the only individual who stands between d.i.c.k Hilton and the ruin of Bobby Cole!"

He stopped talking and rattled his pens again. The apprehension which had possessed Jane pa.s.sed and she experienced a sharp abhorrence.

"You mean that he ..." she began and let the question trail off.

The Reverend nodded.

"Exactly. He has charmed her. He speaks with the cunning of a serpent and she, under his influence, is as guileless as a quail.

"He cannot be driven off by threats because he is not that sort. The girl cannot be convinced of his wicked purpose because she trusts no man but him. If the affair proceeds she will pay the price of a broken heart because, in spirit, she is pure gold.

"He might protest his sincerity to men of this country and force them into belief, but with you it is different. There is in every man, no matter how far he may have fallen, a sense of shame. He can bury it deeply from those who do not know him but to his own kind it is ever near the surface.

"I beg of you, ma'am, to join me in this holy cause and dissuade him from his black purpose, if not by an appeal to honor, then by an appeal to his shame."

Jane rose.

"You mean that he has been making ... making love to this girl? And that you think I can save her?"

"It's the only way. She will not listen to men, she will not listen to you because she considers you her enemy. He may be so far sunk in sin that he will not heed the advice of one he has known and respected and, excuse me, loved ... after his manner of loving." Jane flushed but he gave no notice. "But unless I attempt to bring your influence to bear upon him I will feel that I have not answered the call to duty."

He blinked again and looked at her with an appeal that wiped out any impression of charlatanry, of preposterousness that she might have had; he was wholly sincere.

"Why ... I don't know what I could say ... what I could do."

"Nor I. But you know Hilton; you know the girl; I have made you familiar with the situation. I rely on your resourcefulness. May I bring him to you?"

"Why, he wouldn't come here!"

The Reverend rattled his pens and said:

"I think I might persuade him. Have I, as your employee, your permission, I might say, your _order_, to bring him here?"

"Of course. If there is anything I can do.... Ugh!" She shuddered and pressed a wrist against her eyes. "It's beastly! Beastly!"

The Reverend departed and throughout the day Jane Hunter could think of little other than the situation which he had outlined to her. Her wrath was roused, replacing the disgust she had felt at first, and her heart went out to Bobby Cole with a tenderness that only woman can know for woman.

She tried to think ahead, to consider what she could say or do, to speculate on what the results of this next meeting with d.i.c.k Hilton might be.

Evening was well into dusk with the first stars p.r.i.c.king through the failing daylight when two riders came through the HC gate. d.i.c.k Hilton rode first and behind him, one hand in a deep pocket of his frock coat, rode the Reverend.

"You can get down and open the gate," the Reverend said and Hilton, sulkily obeying, led his horse through.

"Now what?" he asked in surly submission.