The Heart of Thunder Mountain Part 18

She tried to clap her hand over his mouth, but succeeded only in hitting his nose a smart tap, which was just as effective, since it checked him.

"No swearing, either!" she went on. "You've been rude enough for one night, don't you think? I'll tell you my opinion of it later. She's going to be easy with you because she's sorry about it all. Come!"

Huntington did not move, or answer her.

"Do you want her to leave by the next stage--and have this all over the Park too--like Haig's visit? Come!"

He groaned, but followed her. At the door of the living room he caught sight of Marion seated before the fireplace, where only embers glowed dull red.

"I'll get some wood," he said quickly, glad of even a few minutes'

grace.

Fortune tossed him a small favor: the wood bin near the kitchen door was empty--almost. Another time that would have brought a storm down on the head of the unlucky stable hand whose duty it was to keep the bin filled. But now Seth rejoiced at having to go to the wood yard, and found it much too near.

He re-entered the house with an armload of sticks, and placed them carefully on the embers; stirred up the glowing ma.s.s with a poker; readjusted the fresh wood; provoked the red coals once more; and at last, having exhausted the dilatory possibilities of the fire, stood up clumsily to face the ordeal.

"Well, Marion," he began awkwardly, "I'm in for it, I reckon."

She did not reply; she only looked at him. There were dark shadows around her eyes that heightened the pallor of her cheeks; but the eyes themselves were clear and piercing, and as cold now as they had been fiery before. For once in his life Huntington was conscious of his bulk; he felt conspicuous; and the wound in his shoulder, almost healed, began to itch and ache.--There were worse things than being shot.--If she would only turn those eyes away from him! And then it dawned upon him that she was waiting.

"I beg your pardon, Marion!" he stammered. "I was ugly. I didn't really mean--I hope you'll forgive me."

For a minute longer she let him stew in his kettle, then lifted him out scrupulously, at the end of a very long fork, and dropped him steaming, as if he had been a lump of unsavory fat.

"Yes, I forgive you," she said, very, very distantly. "You probably weren't thinking."

If that was forgiveness! But he did not know--even Claire did not know then--how deeply he had wounded Marion with his rude and accusing speech,--as if he had called a jeering crowd to look at the little flower that blooms but once, and very secretly, in a woman's heart.

Forgive him? She never would forgive him for that blundering outburst, which was indeed the more unforgivable because he did not seriously mean, and certainly did not believe, the thing he said.

"Thank you, Marion dear!" said Claire softly.

At that Marion suddenly rushed to Claire, and knelt by her chair. She had her own faults to be forgiven.

"I've been very foolis.h.!.+" she cried. "I've caused you pain and humiliation. I'm sorry. Please forgive me!"

So they cried it out in each other's arms, while Huntington rolled a cigarette, took one whiff of it, and tossed it into the fire. It required a stronger narcotic than tobacco to soothe his fevered spirits. After a while he whirled around and faced the two women.

"See here, Marion!" he said. "It's all our fault for not telling you about Haig. But we didn't want to annoy you with our troubles, and we never imagined you'd stumble on to him. Do you know now what this is all about?"

She spared him the answer that she had heard something on that point the day of the shooting.

"No; that is, very little."

"Well, it's just this: Before he came here we were all playing the game peacefully together. Each of us had just about enough land, with the cut hay and the winter pastures, to pull through the winter, and there was just enough free grazing up in the edges of the timber to keep the cattle going through the summer and early fall."

"That was government land," explained Claire.

"And open to all of us," added Seth. "We never had any dispute with the Englishman who owned Haig's ranch before him, and he got fair treatment, though he wasn't here much of the time to look after it. We heard he had some family trouble, and one day when he'd been gone a long time--"

"That's four years now," interrupted Claire.

"Yes. Haig showed up, and said the ranch was his. He started in straight off to hog the whole thing. Bought a thousand head of cattle--that made thirteen hundred head--almost as many as all the rest of us had put together. He turned the thirteen hundred into the open range, and hired men to keep them moving the right way for the good feed, and--"

"He had a perfect right to do that, you see," Claire put in hastily.

"Legal right, maybe," Huntington went on. "But he didn't have any real right to more than his share. We organized, bunched our cattle, and stayed with 'em. That way we were stronger than he, and soon had his cattle starving. Then he disappeared, and we didn't see anything of him for three weeks. And what do you suppose the d.a.m.ned skunk--"

"Seth!" cried Claire warningly, with an anxious look at Marion.

Marion merely shook her head.

"Well, he fooled us. He went to Denver, got a lawyer on the job, looked up the records, found there'd been a mistake in the surveys, and came back to us with a government deed to almost half the forest reserve that we'd been using as free pasture. Then he ordered us off, and we went, with six Winchesters pointed at our fool backs. What do you think of that, Marion?"

"But why?" asked Marion. "I mean what was his motive in all that? He isn't a cattleman. I mean--I don't think he cares enough--"

She stopped, finding herself in dangerous waters.

"Why? Because he's a--" Huntington checked himself. "Anyhow, he barely escaped a lynching that night. And if he only knew it, I'm the one that stopped it. I said we'd find some other way. But we haven't found it. We had to bring most of our stock down to the pastures we needed for winter, and in winter we had to buy hay at eighteen dollars a ton.

And Haig had hay to sell. Three of our men were driven out of business. Tom Jenkins, being dead broke and discouraged, with a family, killed himself. I had to sell off a third of my cattle, and twenty head disappeared, and I never saw them again. And maybe you can understand now how I felt when I saw him this evening, standing there in my own house, grinning at me. G.o.d!"

He turned, grabbed up the poker, and began jabbing viciously at the fire.

Yes, Marion could understand that, but--She was not satisfied. There was something missing from Seth's narrative. Haig's accusations that day at the post-office--his missing cattle, and the cut wires at the Forbidden Pasture--And if all that Seth had said was true, which she doubted, the mystery was only deepened. She was sure that Haig was only playing a part, that he was not a cattleman by choice, and that his heart was not in the game, whatever it was. She wanted to ask questions, but refrained, lest she should again arouse Seth's suspicions. She would see Smythe.

CHAPTER X

STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

The next afternoon Huntington, with painful diffidence, yet anxious to come to some sort of terms with Marion, proposed that she should begin her shooting lessons. She acquiesced in a manner that relieved him immensely, for she, on her side, was sorely in need of distraction. So they were presently on the hillside behind the ranch house with the rifles,--Seth's Winchester and the little Savage he had bought for Claire, who, to his great disappointment, did not like guns, and never could be taught to see the sights with one eye closed. His delight, therefore, was unbounded when Marion took to the Savage with almost the quick adaptability of a man. True, her first shots went high and wild among the foliage, but she was fast getting the grip of the gun, and had actually once sc.r.a.ped the bark of the tree on which the target of white paper was tacked, when they were hailed by a cheerful voice demanding permission for an unarmed and perfectly harmless man to approach.

"Smythe!" growled Huntington, resenting the interruption. Then aloud, as heartily as he could: "h.e.l.lo, Smythe! You're quite safe."

"What's going on here, anyhow?" asked Smythe.

"Where are your boasted powers of observation?" retorted Marion.

"It's more polite to ask."

"In Paradise Park?" she queried, in a tone of mild surprise.

Seth's face reddened as he stooped over a half-empty cartridge-box. He had congratulated himself too soon. But while Smythe and Marion exchanged more badinage he refilled the magazine of the Savage, and held it ready.

"Will you have another try?" he asked.