Valley of Wild Horses Part 14

"I won't try, Mother."

"Go to her, then, and fill her with the hope you've given me."

CHAPTER SEVEN

From a thick clump of trees Pan had watched Lucy, spied upon her with only love, tenderness, pity in his heart. But he did not know her. It seemed incredible that he could confess to himself he loved her. Had the love he had cherished for a child suddenly, as if by magic, leaped into love for a woman? What then was this storm within him, this outward bodily trembling from the tumult within?

Lucy stood like a statue, gazing into nothingness. Then she paced to and fro, her hands clenched on her breast. This was a secluded nook, where a bench had been built between two low-branching trees, on the bank of the stream. Pan stealthily slipped closer, so he could get clearer sight of her face. Was her love for him the cause of her emotion?

Presently he halted, at a point close to one end of her walk, and crouched down. It did not occur to him that he was trespa.s.sing upon her privacy. She was a stranger whom he loved because she was Lucy Blake, grown from child to woman. He was concerned with finding himself, so that when he faced her again he would know what to do, to say.

Pan had not encountered a great many girls in the years he had ridden the ranges. But he had seen enough to recognize beauty when it was thrust upon him. And Lucy had that. As she paced away from him the small gold head, the heavy braid of hair, the fine build of her, not robust, yet strong and full, answered then and there the wondering query of his admiration. Then she turned to pace back. This would be an ordeal for him. She was in trouble, and he could not hide there much longer. Yet he wanted to watch her, to grasp from this agitation fuel for his kindling pa.s.sion. She had been weeping, yet her face was white. Indeed she did look older than her seventeen years. Closer she came. Then Pan's gaze got as far as her eyes and fixed there.

Unmasked now, true to the strife of her soul, they betrayed to Pan the thing he yearned so to know. Not only her love but her revolt!

That was enough for him. In a few seconds his feelings underwent a tremendous gamut of change, at last to set with the certainty of a man's love for his one woman. This conviction seemed consciously backed by the stern fact of his cool reckless spirit. He was what the cowboys' range of that period had made him. Perhaps only such a man could cope with the lawless circ.u.mstances in which Lucy had become enmeshed. By the time she had paced her beat again and was once more approaching his covert, he knew what the situation would demand and how he would meet it. But he would listen to Lucy, to his mother, to his father, in the hope that they might extricate her from her dilemma. He believed, however, that only extreme measures would ever free her and her father. Pan knew men of the Hardman and Matthews stripe.

He stepped out to confront Lucy, smiling and cool.

"Howdy, Lucy," he drawled, with the cowboy sang-froid she must know well.

"Oh!" she cried, startled, and drawing back. Then she recovered. But there was a single instant when Pan saw her unguarded self expressed in her face.

"I was hiding behind there," he said, indicating the trees and bushes.

"What for?"

"I wanted to _see_ you really, without you knowing."

"Well?" she queried, gravely.

"As I remember little Lucy Blake she never had any promise of growing so--so lovely as you are now."

"Pan, don't tease--don't flatter me now," she implored.

"Reckon I was just stating a fact. Let's sit down on the seat there, and get acquainted."

He put her in the corner of the bench so she would have to face him, and he began to talk as if there were no black trouble between them.

He wanted her to know the story of his life from the time she had seen him last; and he had two reasons for this, first to bridge that gap in their acquaintance, and secondly to let her know what the range had made him. It took him two hours in the telling, surely the sweetest hours he had ever spent, for he watched her warm to intense interest, forget herself, live over with him the lonely days and nights on the range, and glow radiant at his adventures, and pale and trembling over those b.l.o.o.d.y encounters that were as much a part of his experience as any others.

"That's my story, Lucy," he said, in conclusion. "I'd have come back to you and home long ago, if I'd known. But I was always broke. Then there was the talk about me. Panhandle Smith! So the years sped by.

It's over now, and I've found you and my people all well, thank G.o.d.

Nothing else mattered to me. And your trouble and Dad's bad luck do not scare me.... Now tell me your story."

He had reached her. It had been wise for him to go back to the school days, and spare nothing of his experience. She began at the time she saw him last--she remembered the day, the date, the clothes he wore, the horse he rode--and she told the story of those lonely years when his few letters were epochs, and the effect it had when they ceased.

So, with simple directness, she went on to relate the downfall of her father and how the disgrace and heartbreak had killed her mother. When she finished her story she was crying.

"Lucy, don't cry. Just think--here we are!" he exclaimed, as she ended.

"That's what--makes me cry," she replied brokenly.

"Very well. Here. Cry on my shoulder," he said forcefully, and despite her resistance he drew her into his arms and her head to his breast. There he held her, feeling the strain of her muscles slowly relax. She did not weep violently, but in a heartbroken way that yet seemed relief.

"Pan, this is--is foolish," she said, presently stirring. "I mean my crying here in your arms, as if it were a refuge. But, oh! I--I have needed someone--something so terribly."

"I don't see where it's foolish. Reckon it's very sweet and wonderful for me.... Lucy, let's not rush right into arguments. We're bound to disagree. But let's put that off.... I'm so darned glad to see you, _know_ you, that I'm the foolish one."

"You're a boy, for all your size. How can we help but talk of my troubles? ... Of this horrible fix I'm in! ... How can I lay my head on your shoulder? ... I didn't. You forced me to."

"Well, if you want to deny me such happiness, you can," replied Pan.

"Is it happiness for you--knowing it's wrong--and can never be again?"

she whispered.

"Pure heaven!" he said. "Lucy, don't say this is wrong. You belong to _me_. My mother told me once you'd never have lived but for me."

"Yes, my mother told me the same thing.... Oh, how sad it is!"

"Sad, nothing! It was beautiful. And I tell you that you do belong to me."

"My soul does, yes," she returned, dreamily. And then as if reminded of her bodily weakness she moved away from him to the corner of the bench.

"All right, Lucy. Have it your way now. But you'll only have all the more to make up to me later," said Pan, with resigned good nature.

"Pan, you don't seem to recognize anything but your own will," she returned, pondering. "I've _got_ to save my father.... There's only one way."

"Don't talk such rot to me," he flashed, sharply. "I'd hoped you would let us get acquainted first. But if you won't, all right.... You've been frightened into a deal that is terrible for you. No wonder. But you're only a kid yet. What do you know of men? These Hardmans are crooked. They pulled out of Texas because they were crooked.

Matthews, magistrate or marshal, whatever he calls himself, he's crooked too. I _know_ such men. I've met a hundred of them. Slowly they've been forced farther west, beyond the Rockies. And here they work their will. But it can't last. Why, Lucy, I'm amazed that some miner or cowboy or gun-fighter hasn't stopped them long ago."

"Pan, you must be wrong," she declared, earnestly. "Hardman cheated Dad, yes. But that was only Dad's fault. His blindness in business.

Hardman is a power here. And Matthews, too. You talk like a--a wild cowboy."

"Sure," replied Pan, with a grim laugh. "And it'll take just a wild cowboy to clean up this mess.... Now Lucy, don't go white and sick. I promise you I'll listen to Dad and you before I make a move. I'll go to see your father. And I'll call on Hardman. I'll talk sense and reason, and business to these men. I know it'll not amount to beans, but I'll do it just to show you I can be deliberate and sane."

"Thank you--you frightened me so," she murmured. "Pan, there was something terrible about you--then."

"Listen, Lucy," he began, more seriously. "I've been here in Marco only a few hours. But this country is no place for us to settle down to live. It's mostly a mining country. I've heard a lot about Arizona. I'm going to take you all down there. Dad and Mother will love the idea. I'll get your father out of jail--"

"Pan, are you dreaming?" she interrupted, in distress. "Dad is a rustler. He admits it. Back in Texas he can be jailed for years. All Hardman has to do is to send for officers to come take Dad. And I've got to marry d.i.c.k Hardman to save him."

"You poor little girl! ... Now Lucy, let me tell you something funny.

This will stagger you. Because it's gospel truth, I swear.... Rustler you call your dad. What's that? It means a cowman who has appropriated cattle not his own. He has driven off unbranded stock and branded it. There's no difference. Lucy, my dad rustled cattle. So have all the ranchers I ever rode for."

"Pan!" she gasped, with dilating eyes. "What are you saying?"

"I'm trying to tell you one of the queer facts about the ranges,"