The Trail of Conflict Part 12

Jerry liked her dignity. She showed no consciousness of the difference between her three-room shack and the luxurious ranch-house from which the visitor had come. "Thoroughbred," thought the girl as she preceded her hostess into a small but immaculately clean room. With a happy laugh tinged with excitement, Nell Carey waved her to a seat.

"Do make yourself comfortable. If you'll excuse me for a moment I'll bring some tea. The kettle has just boiled. You won't vanish while I'm gone, will you? Promise. I have a horrible fear that your being here may be nothing but an iridescent dream."

Jerry's heart smarted with self-reproach. What heathen people can be and yet be neighbors, she thought. Here was this girl, and she was a girl in spite of that betraying heap of white sewing on the machine in the corner, craving companions.h.i.+p, and she spent hours and hours riding about the country with never a thought of being neighborly. She looked about the room. What part of it wasn't taken up by a roll-top desk was filled by a table fairly groaning under its load of magazines. Three chairs and the machine completed the furnis.h.i.+ngs; that is, unless a worn violin case in a corner came under that head. She hastily cleared an end of the table as Nell Carey entered with a tea-tray.

"Thank you. You are the first woman who has been inside my house since I came here a year ago," she announced breathlessly. Her eyes glowed, her cheeks were flushed. "Of course Jim has flivvered me to town, but--but I haven't met anyone whom I cared to have here. Cream?"

The loneliness of it, Jerry thought, as she watched her hostess pour thick cream into the fragrant tea with hands that trembled. Then she remembered that she had been at the Double O three months, and that except for Ming Soy and Mrs. Simms, the foreman's wife at Upper Farm, she had not seen a woman. Curious that she had not missed them. Doc Rand had been as neighborly as his busy life permitted; Bruce Greyson had been away from the X Y Z since her arrival. With Steve and Tommy she had been absolutely content. Why? Her thoughts bolted on a tour of investigation; she dragged them back to answer a question from her hostess:

"Not another cookie, thank you. I've been a gourmand, but they are delicious."

"Jim likes them."

"I wonder if I saw your husband by the stream?"

"No. Jim left yesterday on a hunt for help. He'll only be away four days but it seems years to look forward to. You must have met our range-rider, Bill Small. He dropped from the sky, figuratively speaking, ten months ago. I call him the Man of Mystery. He never talks about himself, never mentions his people, never has letters, but he's a shark for work and he plays beautifully. That is his." She nodded toward the violin case in the corner. "The boys from the Double O and the X Y Z hit the trail for the Bear Creek every chance they can get to hear him play."

The sun topped the cap of a mountain like a mammoth red b.u.t.ton as Jerry leaned from the saddle and held out her hand.

"You will come and see me, won't you?"

Nell Carey's lips quivered betrayingly.

"Of course, if you really want me. But it will be after----" Jerry gave the hand she held an impulsive squeeze.

"I'll come here again before that. Aren't you madly happy? I must hurry or they'll have the entire outfit hunting for me. Good-bye!"

As she reached the pack-trail she turned and waved and the woman standing alone by her door waved back. What an atom she seemed in the wide s.p.a.ces about her. As she rode Jerry's mind was full of the home she had left behind. What courage Nell Carey had had to follow her man into a wilderness like that. And now a little child was coming. She thought of her father, of his anger because his daughter had insisted upon accompanying the man she had married to the Double O ranch with all its luxury. Men were curious creatures.

The sun had disappeared, fluffy islands of cloud, pink, lemon and violet, floated above the tops of the mountains, the sky was fast purpling, there was a suspicion of razor-edge in the crystal-clear air as Jerry unlatched the gate by the road and closed it after her. She gave Patches his head and raced toward the ranch-house. In the distance she saw two hors.e.m.e.n galloping toward her. Steve and Pete Gerris.h.!.+ She glanced guiltily at her wrist watch. She was late. Did Steve care enough to be anxious? The thought gave a tingling sense of excitement. As she came near the two riders she touched Patches with her spurs, then pulled him up suddenly. He stop-slid on his haunches, a bit of circus-variety of horsemans.h.i.+p which Tommy had taught her. She pulled off her broad-brimmed hat with a sweep reminiscent of Jose at his best and called gayly:

"_Que hay, senors! Buenos dias!_ La senora has been on a wild devil of a ride, yes?"

She laughed up into Steve's white face. He moistened his lips as though they were stiff. She had worried him then. Pete Gerrish's eyes regarded her with frank admiration.

"Can she ride, Chief? I want to know! Can she ride! Steve is scared, ma'am. There's a lot of strangers snooping round and he----"

"Where have you been, Jerry?" Courtlandt had recovered his voice.

"Don't beat me, Steve!" Patches was loping along between Blue Devil and Gerrish's big sorrel. Encouraged by the foreman's quickly suppressed "Haw-haw" at her pleasantry, she went on, "I've been to Bear Creek ranch for tea."

"To the B C alone?"

"Do I look as though I carried concealed escorts?" with tormenting charm. "I had an acute attack of conscience. It occurred to me that I had been something of a heathen to ignore little Mrs. Carey, though I didn't know that she was little when I went. I only knew what Sandy had told me, that there was a woman at Bear Creek hungering for someone of her own s.e.x to talk to."

"You are to be commended more for your conscience than your common sense," retorted Courtlandt dryly. "Don't do it again." They reached the ranch-house steps as he spoke. He slipped to the ground and before Jerry could protest had lifted her from the saddle. She felt the muscles of his arms twitch in the second he held her. Before she could speak he had gathered up the bridles of the horses and started for the corral. The brown depths of the girl's eyes were troubled as she looked after him.

What menaced the good-comrades.h.i.+p which their arrival at the Double O had established between herself and Steve? Now he reminded her of a wary foe thrusting and retreating on the slightest pretext. What could she have done to change him so? She looked up at Gerrish, a puzzled question in her eyes. He shook his head as his met them.

"We mustn't mind if the Chief does act a little locoed, ma'am. He's walkin' right into trouble. It's Ranlett the Skunk, saving your presence. Somebody's cayuse got rid of some hobbles when the fence was cut where the Double O and the X Y Z join, and a bunch of calves has disappeared. There ain't hide nor hair of 'em to be seen. But, shucks, don't tell the Chief I told you. I'll mosey 'long now."

Jerry looked after him with narrowed eyes. "Where the Double O and the X Y Z join," Pete had said. That was where Bear Creek ranch came in! Like a movie close-up came a vision of the solitary horseman she had hailed, the man who had dropped from the air, who never talked about himself or his people, who never received letters, the Man of Mystery.

CHAPTER X

Courtlandt backed his horse suddenly into the shadow of the quaking aspens which were fluttering their gold in the suns.h.i.+ne. He adjusted the field-gla.s.ses which he carried slung from his saddle-fork and looked intently at the bluff which reared from the western bank of the stream.

He was right. There were two men there. The day being Sunday, ordinarily he would have thought nothing of it, but disturbing things were happening every day now and Instinct and Caution were riding close to his saddle-bow. He had the sense of living on the thin crust of a simmering volcano. He couldn't distinguish their faces, but he would be willing to swear that the men belonged to the Double O outfit.

Above the roar of the stream as it made its way through the canon formed by the bluff he heard another sound. There was no mistaking it. Steve had heard the curious whirr of a plane too often not to recognize it now. It was not uncommon to have one pa.s.s over the Double O, but for some unaccountable reason Courtlandt linked this one to those two skulking figures at the foot of the bluff. He heard its approach for some minutes before it came in sight above the hill which he knew was back of the B C ranch.

"That's queer! Looks as though it came out of Buzzard's Hollow," he muttered as he watched the approaching aeroplane. He focussed his gla.s.ses on the men again. They were waving something. Something white.

As though in answer to the signal the huge mechanical bird went wing-over-wings and slid gracefully into a barrel-roll, then sailed off into the distance. When Courtlandt's eyes returned from their journey with the plane the two men had disappeared.

Motionless, deep in thought, Steve sat his horse. What baneful force was at work on the ranch? Calves had vanished as completely as though conjured into thin air, curiously enough, though they were the least valuable in the herd. The man who had taken them couldn't know much about cattle. Some of the boys appeared surly and disgruntled. The stand he had taken on the alien question couldn't account for it all. The trouble had started a few weeks after his arrival at the ranch. He had expected that Ranlett would resent having a much younger man than himself in possession, but he had looked for no such series of complications as had presented themselves.

The situation had one compensating side. He had been too occupied with Double O affairs to have much time for Jerry. He said something under his breath. Blue Devil nosed round at him inquiringly. Courtlandt looked at the sun and touched the horse lightly with his heels. It was time to meet her now. To-day they were resuming a custom that Nicholas Fairfax had inaugurated, which was to have luncheon beside the stream on Sunday.

Old Nick, young Nick he was then, had announced that the ceremony would stand for church, that he would wors.h.i.+p G.o.d through nature. He and Doc Rand had provided the fish which were cooked on forked sticks over a fire on the bank of the stream. The work-logged physician's weekly holiday came to be respected in Slippy Bend. Men, women and children endured to the limit before they would disturb the doctor's fis.h.i.+ng trip.

Opposite the rendezvous Courtlandt drew rein and looked across the stream. Benson, on his knees on the pebbly beach, was struggling with a fire. He was in khaki riding clothes. A small book protruded from his hip pocket. Steve smiled. To think of Tommy without a book would be like thinking of an elephant without his trunk. Beyond the firemaker a spring bubbled out of the bank in a clear, pure stream, above him the land sloped smoothly, greenly up to a clump of cottonwoods. In the middle of the clearing knelt Jerry. A lovely Jerry in riding coat and breeches, hatless, with millions of golden motes glinting in her hair where the sunlight rested. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glowed with friendliness as she talked eagerly with the man who knelt on the other side of the cloth spread between them.

Bruce Greyson! Steve's jaws set ominously. The owner of the X Y Z was pa.s.sing something to the girl and it seemed to the prejudiced eyes of the looker-on that their fingers touched and lingered. The two had evidently been preparing the feast, for with a satisfied nod Jerry sank back on her heels. She made a megaphone of her hands and called:

"Coo-e-e! Coo-e-e-e!"

From around a bend of the river came an answering shout. In spite of the unaccountable fury which the sight of Greyson in just that spot had roused in Courtlandt, he laughed as his eyes rested on the figure which came splas.h.i.+ng down the middle of the stream. It was Doc Rand attired in his usual ministerial black frock coat, with the unusual addition of hip boots of rubber. The effect of the combination would have tickled the risibilities of a stoic, if a stoic has the luck to be blessed with risibilities. A fish basket was slung from one shoulder, his white hair bushed beneath the brim of his Stetson; the sun on his gla.s.ses added an uncanny touch. His broad black tie, which he usually wore in a Byronic bow, streamed back over his shoulders. He waved and shouted as Courtlandt rode his horse down the bank and forded the stream. When Steve reached the improvised table Greyson and Jerry sat at discreet distances from it.

"When did you get back, Bruce?" he asked as with cordial friendliness the owner of the X Y Z sprang to his feet and gripped his extended hand.

In that instant Courtlandt saw that the whiteness of the hair about the older man's temples was more noticeable, that it added to his fine, upright air of distinction.

"Yesterday. Brought my sister Paula, Vance, her husband, and a friend of hers along. I want you all to dine with us to-morrow night. We'll show these blown-in-the-gla.s.s New Yorkers that we are not entirely devoid of the social graces even if we are not in the Dude-ranch neighborhood. Got half-way to the Double O before I remembered that it was the old custom to lunch here Sundays. You'll come, won't you?"

"Come!" Jerry's eyes were starry with excitement. "Yes, thank--oh, what beauties!" as Doc Rand puffed up the bank dangling a string of trout for her inspection.

"Take 'em, Steve. You and the Benson boy can cook 'em. Isn't that an equitable division of labor, Mrs. Jerry? I caught them." He dropped to the ground beside her and pulled off his hat. "These--these fis.h.i.+ng trips aren't what they were. I miss Nick," he confided as he mopped his hot brow. Jerry's eyes were tender with sympathy. They wandered dreamily to the illimitable s.p.a.ces above the purple mountains as she asked softly:

"Where is he, Doctor Rand? Death is such a strange thing. I--I try to keep a brave front to Peggy but--but I don't care to think about it."

"Why should you at your age? All your thought should be on making your life count for something. It is different with me. I find it profoundly interesting to wonder and imagine what follows this world. For instance, look at the question in this way. At this moment I can send my mind to the Manor; in spirit I'm pacing the terrace with Sir Peter. I can see the boats chugging up and down the river, can smell the queer fragrance which the sun is baking out of the box hedge in the garden, can hear the birds twittering among the vines. If I can do all that now, what will it be when the spirit is not hampered by the body? It will be like flying, won't it? That reminds me! Oh, Steve!"

Courtlandt poked his head above the bank beneath which he and Benson were cooking the fish. A tiny spiral of smoke rose and with it the aroma of sizzling bacon and frying trout.

"Did you see the plane that went over?"

"Yes, Doc."

"I wonder where it came from. It wasn't one of the government flyers. I know their marks. Did you see the pilot do those stunts above the bluff?