Part 14

"She was fine an' dandy when I seen her last, which, was in the shank of the evening two nights ago." Lovingly fingering a huge bump that occupied a central position in his altered scenery, he went into the intimate details of his matrimonial venture. "Till then it had all been lovely. She'd sorter cut up a bit, at first, me an her padre having fixed up the match without any of her 'sistance. But after I'd given her a fair larruping with a saddle strap, jest to show who wore the pants, as the saying goes, she come right into camp; snuggled in like a kitten. Sure, she behaved real domestic till Fernando, that hawk-nosed arriero from San Ramon, blew in with his mules two nights gone. I orter 'a' suspicioned him, he was that free in handing out drinks. But I didn't--leastways not till Felicia laid me out with one whack of a cordwood stick from behind. The rest I got from the mirror an' the padre when I woke next morning and found him doctoring my map. She an' Fernando had gone off together."

"She's gone!" Lee gave a little hysterical laugh. "For good?"

"An' then some--they're off to the wars." Gently massaging the bump, Sliver added: "She'll stay there if she's wise. It'll be a 'tarnation sight less risky than coming back. She was for cutting my throat, but neither the padre nor Fernando would stan' for that, they being afraid of 'The Black Devil' an' 'The Python,' which they call Bull an' Jake. 'For I knew, señor, that they would follow us to the ends of the earth if any harm came to thee,' the old fellow tol'. But they made her free of my map, an', as you see, she done a good job."

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I must go back and care for your face."

With Lee's exclamation the props trembled beneath the widow's plot, but Sliver restored their stability. "It's cheap at the price. Many's the man up home that gets as bad or worse an' is stuck, to boot, for lawyer's fees an' al'mony. Don't you bother 'bout me, Lady-girl. All I need is a bit of salve, an' Maria kin get me that."

As Sliver rode on, the widow looked at Lee, who returned her meaning glance. Neither looked at Gordon, who discreetly watched Betty. But the thought was the same in the minds of all three. "Thank goodness, she's gone."

For a while Lee hesitated and debated whether, after all, she ought not to go back, and she reined in, startled, when a long howl presently drifted over the rise behind which Sliver had disappeared. A coyote, in its death agony, might have equaled the sound. But as, presently, the tortured notes resolved into the opening bars of "The Cowboy's Lament," she giggled and rode on for another five miles. Sliver was happy!

While Lee was kissing Betty good-by the widow managed to pass a whisper to Gordon. "Now don't let her escape! And remember--look out for Ramon to-morrow."

He nodded and, looking back from behind the crest of the next rise, she saw for herself how well he obeyed. Lee had made to get off at a gallop, but had reined in when he spoke, and now they were riding side by side, deep in earnest conversation.

Nodding, the widow rode on, but stopped again for a last look while she could still see over the rise. She was practically invisible when Lee looked back, protesting, as Gordon grabbed her bridle and pulled her beast alongside. Her pointing finger said, quite plainly:

"They will see!"

The widow gasped, for with one swift reach he snatched Lee out of the saddle and set her before him.

XXIV: UNDERSTANDING

Had she heard the conversation which preceded that bold action, Mrs. Mills would have been still more impressed. Determination is the natural foe of diplomacy. Warned by one single, furtive glance that Lee intended to make off, Gordon plunged at one smash through her fence of reserve.

"Do you intend to keep that engagement?"

Coming from a young man whom one hated so vindictively that one could "just kill any other girl that tried to take him," the question was well calculated to arrest attention. Neither was its force lessened by the fact that it was _his_, not _hers_--perish the thought!--outrageous conduct which had caused said engagement!

The audacity of it caused her first to gasp, then draw rein and stare at him in utter surprise; finally to ride slowly on while preparing an answer that should not only wither him, there, in the saddle, but also hide the tumult of fright and pleasure in her own breast.

Her glance said, "You certainly have got your gall with you!" But her answer was much more dignified, "By what right do you ask?"

"The right of a man who loves you."

It was a fine stroke; established at once his freedom to meddle with her affairs. His right in the premises would have been upheld in any ancient court of love. Though she tried to conceal it from herself, it was so conceded by one girl's fluttering heart. As a matter of fact, she had been aching for a week to hear him say it; yet, with that natural cruelty which is displayed alike by cats and maids in torturing mice and men, she proceeded to deny it.

"Yes?" she raised cool brows. "Judging by what I saw in the cañon--it must be recent."

She looked for him to wither, but--the fellow refused! He did not even flinch. On the contrary, he just looked at her with shining earnestness; sat his saddle so trim, erect, irritatingly handsome, that she couldn't help taking notice. No, he was not to be side-tracked by such light subterfuge! He swept it away with masculine bluntness.

"I thought so myself--but now I know. It was all so strange, wonderful, picturesque, this new life, that I was blinded. I knew that I liked you, but never paused to analyze my feelings, and it wasn't till you shot that announcement at me a week ago that I awoke--awoke to the fact that all of it, the beauty, romance, centered on you. Since then, the life and light have faded, leaving it drab and drear."

This was not all. Laying it down, as it were, for his major premise, he built thereon, worked, and enlarged, and embroidered while she played with the coils of her _riata_. As an oratorical effort, it could not compare with fire and passion, melodious swing of Ramon's rhythmical Spanish. But what it lacked in eloquence it made up in sincere, vibrant feeling. The stronger for its reserves, it was just such a talk any honest young Anglo-Saxon might make to his lady-love. And if judged by its effects, it must be regarded as successful, for long before he finished two large tears made small splashes on her pommel.

"When--when did you find this out?"

She had intended it to be light, if not satirical; but the little hesitation, helped out by a sympathetic quiver, basely betrayed her hunger for more.

Be certain she got it--in detail, not a thing left out. With a touch of poetry, now, he told of his marvelous discovery on the morning they had ridden over to the widow's together that the sunlight proceeded from her hair; also the freshness of the morning, roll of tawny plains, breath of the chaparral, all that was beautiful in creation.

There was also some mention of the hair in connection with a certain Java forest, with passing reference to the Chinese Wall and a voyage he had intended to make up the great Asian rivers. Not having personal experience in their navigation, said references were rather vague, but her imagination abundantly supplied the requisite flora and fauna from magazine articles and pictures. Porcelain towers, orchids, giant palms; deep jungle temples; the crowded boat life of the Yangtse-Kiang, junks and sampans with their cargoes of saffron-faced, slant-eyed Celestials, men, women, and children--especially children--her imagination improved on the lovely dreams she had so cruelly disrupted. He concluded with that:

"And you smashed it--all to smithereens."

For a while she rode in silence. Apprehension and fright had given place to sorrow that contended tumultuously with delight for possession of her soul. "I'm sorry," she spoke at last. "_So_ sorry, but--you provoked it."

"Why! How?"

He was reminded, of course, that he "lost interest in girls after they grew up." She added, a little vindictively, "And _you_ didn't flirt with Mrs. Mills?"

"Only in self-defense. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, isn't it?"

But she denied this bit of ancient wisdom. "No, it isn't! And--and you _kissed_ that dreadful girl! I--oh, I could have _killed_ you!"

"Why?"

She was looking at him now, and the compound of bright anger, pleading and defiance, regret, love, hope, and despair that alternately flashed and swam in the wet eyes gave sufficient answer. It was then he plucked her from the saddle; crushed her to him with force that squeezed out, for the moment, the anger, regret, despair, left only love and hope.

Ensued the usual delirious moment when poor mortals conquer time and eternity, set at naught the black riddle of existence. Her face buried in his shoulder, his in her hair, they clung to each other while his horse moved slowly forward and hers went careering on over the next earth roll.

Elsewhere on this globe some three thousand millions of souls were coming and going on the ordinary business of life at trade, barter; feasting or fasting; mourning or making merry; dying, some hundreds of them, every second, to make way for a new spawn of life. Beyond the blue loom of the mountains men were robbing and murdering, hunting one another like beasts of the jungle in the name of this or that "cause"; committing frightful infamies in the sacred name of love. Swaying hither and thither, that tide of lust and carnage might sweep at any moment over these sunlit plains.

Yet, blind to it all, oblivious of the past and future, conscious only of the present that had bloomed in sudden glory, sufficient to themselves as the first man and woman in Eden, they rode forward lost in an illumined dream.

It lasted, that wonderful, bright ecstasy, until, turning up her face, he made to kiss her. Then, by a thought of Ramon, was she abruptly recalled to unpleasant realities. She laid a determined, if gentle, hand over his mouth.

"You mustn't."

"Why?"

"You forget--I am still engaged."

"Why--so you are!" Laughing, he tried to dodge her hand, but desisted when he saw she was in earnest. "You surely don't intend--"

"No, indeed!" She read his thought. "I had believed, at first, that I ought. But Mrs. Mills showed me how unfair it would be to marry Ramon while--"

"Say it."

"While I loved _you_."

For a girl who had just restated her engagement to another man, she behaved most disgracefully during a long silence that was broken only by the measured tread of the horse. Snuggling in closer, she re-entered that illumined dream, and made no attempt to check the kisses he showered on the soft palm of the restraining hand. It was, no doubt, some realization of her misbehavior that caused her to sit up, presently, and pull it away.

"This won't do. For the present we'll have to behave like ordinary persons."

"But your horse is gone," he protested when she gently put away his arm. "You can't walk."

"No, but I can ride behind you in the Mexican fashion. Stop, while I change."

He would have preferred it as it was, but when, after mounting behind him, she slid her arm about his waist, he had to concede the Mexican habit its own delights. It was surely nice of her to allow him to cover her hand.

"The young people," she explained, "are not allowed to do this--only husbands and wives."

"Poor young people!" he pitied. "But, on the whole, quite right. It would never do to have them cavorting over the country like this; too much of a strain on the conventions. Indeed, I think we ought to conform ourselves at once."

"How?" Just as if she hadn't known what he meant.

"Let's ride into San Carlos, get a license from the jefe and be married at once?"

The bold proposal drew only a soft laugh. "To think that, up to a week ago, he didn't even see me--except as part of the scenery. No, amigo, till to-morrow we are to be ordinary persons. Then I shall go and tell Ramon."

"And if he refuses?"

"I shall break it myself."

It was in his mind to say that she could not go alone. But he remembered that Ramon would probably arrive at Los Arboles before she started. He turned again to the delightful present.

"And after that?"

A little pressure at his waist made answer.

Reaching behind, he drew her other arm forward till her hands clasped in front, then squeezed his own elbows down tight over hers. Thus, oblivious once more of the toiling billions, revolutionists beyond the mountain's loom, they rode forward again in that illumined dream, two foolish, happy souls at loose in the spheres.

XXV: LOVE AND BUSINESS

In those days of raids and "requisitions," the customary oversight of the herds on the Chihuahua _haciendas_ had grown of necessity into a system of patrols. At Los Arboles not a day passed without Gordon and the Three describing a circle around the _hacienda_.

Riding south after the others left, Bull had covered only a few miles before he spied a lone horseman topping a distant ridge. As the rider drew near the first indefinite outlines resolved into the square, hard figure of William Benson. Scarcely a week had passed without a visit from the Englishman. From the first he had accorded Bull the respect due to his quiet strength. Later, this had developed into a real liking which showed in the smile that wiped out, for the moment, his native harshness.

"Heard the news? The Carranzistas have given Valles a lovely trimming. He didn't stop running till he reached El Oro."

Bull's black brows rose. "We'd allus allowed Valles could whip twice his weight in Carranzistas. So long as they keep on killing one another off, we sh'd worry."

Nodding, Benson went on. "Valles lost heavily in horses, and is looking for fresh mounts. One of his colonels came to my place yesterday and offered me a thousand pesos apiece for all I have."

"_Gold?_"

Benson's big mouth split in a sardonic grin. "Valles money, amigo, beautifully printed on butcher paper. He must have used up all the newspaper stocks in northern Mexico."

"And you sold?"

"I'd cut their throats first. It may come to that, but just now I see a way--if not to pull even, at least to avoid complete loss. Between us we can pretty nearly equip Valles with fresh mounts. The beggar has gold--hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, in the El Paso banks, and my idea is for us, you representing Lee, to go down to El Oro and offer him all that we have for a low price in gold on condition that he permit us to drive our other stock across the line. If he accepts, we then go out of business till order is restored."

"Fine idea!" Bull added. "Could you let Mrs. Mills in on it? She was telling last night she didn't know where to turn for living expenses."

Benson heartily agreed. "Only too glad!"

"And when do you start?"

"To-morrow night. There's a freight going down."

"All right. Pity you hadn't come earlier. Mrs. Mills left only a couple of hours ago. But I'll ride over this afternoon, get her written authority, then meet you at the railroad."

Riding back to Los Arboles, they perfected their plans. They were, indeed, in sight of the buildings before Benson switched the conversation to Lee. Her oldest and stanchest friend, it was his right to know, and Bull told all, from his plotting with the widow down to the disastrous ending in the sudden engagement.

"The little spitfire!" Benson grinned. "Hello! What's that?"

It was Lee's horse galloping down a distant slope toward the _hacienda_. In that wild country a riderless beast generally bespoke tragedy. Without a word they galloped off in the direction from which the beast had come; rode at top speed until Benson, who had gained a lead, suddenly reined in.

A bunch of chaparral intervened, at first, between Bull and the object at which the other was pointing. Then, rising in his stirrups, he saw Lee and Gordon on the one horse; at least in Bull's sight it was a horse. In that of the lovers, horses, plains, _haciendas_, and other commonplaces of ordinary existence had vanished, leaving them unconscious of time and space, proceeding magically through the aforesaid illumined dream.

Perhaps some touch of their feeling wirelessed across the intervening space, for Benson's harshness melted, delight burst like sunlight through Bull's truculence.

"That's too good to spoil," Benson whispered. "Let them go by."

They had passed over the next ridge before Bull spoke. "I tol' you Mrs. Mills could do it. She's a right smart woman."

"A fine woman!" Benson echoed. "I don't know what you are thinking about. Now if I were single----" He burst out laughing at Bull's blush. Instantly it was drowned in brighter scarlet. But this faded as Bull noted the kindly twinkle in the other's eye. He shook his head in deprecation.

"What c'd a nice woman do with a bear like me?"

"That's her business. I'm not denying that it would some job." Benson critically surveyed Bull's great bulk. "But if there's anything in the world a woman loves it is making a man over, like an old dress. After she finishes, she generally realizes that she's spoiled the material and wishes him back as he was. But in the mean time she has had her fun. I'll bet Mary Mills is just itching to try her hand on you."

"Do you really mean that?" Bull looked up with sudden hope--that quickly died. He shook his big head. "She deserves something better. I'd only spoil her life."

Nevertheless, he relapsed into deep thought, returning only monosyllables to Benson's talk. The little seed thus planted rooted deep in his silence.

Strange is first love with its intense desire for purity! Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and Godliness is Love. Thus Cleanliness must be next of kin to Love.

If this be doubted, observe a ten-year-old boy, self-convicted of water-marks on his neck and soil in his ears enough to grow potatoes. See him scrub himself with profuse use of soap till his countenance shines so that it might serve as a mirror for the small charmer who has ensnared his budding affections with her bright curls. Watch him, later, a man grown, solicitous about his daily tub, careful of his raiment, choice in cravats! Later his wife shall drive him with revilings to his bath! Coming to cases, observe Gordon in the bunk-house after a cooling shower, carefully arranging his tie on the bosom of a brand-new shirt.

Now observe a girl, a vestal in purity, delicately perfumed, flowering in her ribands and laces like a pretty bud. At some time all of them earnestly desire that they had been born men. Yet one moment there is when they are unfeignedly glad to be women. So Lee, who was perhaps even a bit more boyish than the average, came to lunch in a soft white dress with a flower at her throat, powdered and delicately perfumed, bright hair framing happy eyes, every soft line and fold proclaiming her womanhood. Like an emanation, soft and effulgent as moonlit mist, the fullness of her content proceeded from her, wrapped her in a bright atmosphere in the midst of which she softly brooded. Not that she was silent. She laughed and talked; seriously discussed Benson's schemes. But that was all of the surface. Behind the chatter she lived in the enchantment of her dream.

It was too marked to pass unnoticed. But if Bull and Benson saw the clinging of glances, sensed the pulsing feeling, they observed with the friendly indulgence of experience the young man's honest devotion, the girl's shy happiness. During the long hour they sat talking after lunch, no silly jest marred its beauty. Except for a greater kindliness of manner, with delicacy quite foreign to his harsh exterior, Benson gave no hint of his understanding up to the moment he rode away.

Then for a brief moment Bull was taken into the dream. While Gordon went for his horse, Lee packed his saddlebags with clean things for the journey, and was giving him the usual last critical inspection. As he stood smiling down on her, hugely pleased, her eyes rose from the tie she was arranging to his; and as she read their sympathy and intelligence, she clasped his neck and hid her face against his broad breast.

Until the beat of hoofs at the _patio_ gate announced Gordon's return, he held her to him with one arm while the other hand gently patted her shoulder. Neither spoke. Words would have told less. When she withdrew and walked with him to the gate, she was soothed and comforted as any girl that ever made a confidante of her mother.

When she ran back after the quirt he had purposely left on the table, he had time to pass a word to Gordon. "Remember, she don't leave this house to go _anywhere_ alone!"

Gordon nodded, and, satisfied, he rode away with Lee's last charge floating after him, "Come home soon!"

The words were still ringing in his ears, he still felt the firm, cool clasp on his neck, when he drew rein at the first rise and looked back at the _hacienda_. From one corner, where an _anciano_ had burned some rubbish, rose a lazy pennon of smoke, but the brown girls, women, and children who usually filled the compound with restless life were in full enjoyment of the noon _siesta_. Within its bright walls, the place dozed in the pleasant shade of its towering cottonwoods.

Somehow the stillness recalled to Bull's mind the Spaniard's house he had shown Gordon from the railroad--sacked, burned, its vacant windows staring like empty eyes over the desert. His face clouded. He moved uneasily in his saddle, but presently the golden peace that incited the memory worked its own remedy. Jake and Sliver and Gordon were there, and the place was still far beyond the surge and swirl of the revolution.

"And I'll be home again in less than a week," he encouraged himself.

Home! It recalled again Lee's words. He felt her clasp, thrilled at the memory. He, "Bull" Perrin, the rustler! Around his neck that had been in constant hazard of the halter for a dozen years, this fine, clean girl had thrown her arms. His tender musing over the wonder would have excited the scorn of a city man, _blasé_ and stale from the constant presence and attentions of pretty women. But it was sincere. While he rode on over the hills and plains, the thought warmed his heart, quickened the seed planted therein by Benson, freed his soul from the bonds of his great humility.

"Of course it's damn foolish for you even to think of it," he chid himself. Nevertheless, he did, slowly, heavily, taking stock with minute exactness of his own demerits. How great they were none knew better. The rustling, of course, he had abandoned along with certain gross habits of life. But the liquor? These periodical debauches? Was he strong enough to conquer them?

"If I c'd only ride into a town an' either leave it alone or take a man's fair allowance," he mused. "But kin I? Mebbe with a fine little woman like that to help me." But the next instant he shook his head. "An' have her take the chance? No, no, hombre, you're crazy. You put all that behind you by your own act years ago."

Yet this conclusion did not end the argument. When, at sundown, he drew rein at the accustomed spot and looked down on the _rancho_ buildings now dyed a flaming apricot he took his breath deeply. With its bougainvillea draping walls and porches in rich purple clusters, its pretty _patio_ and outside kitchen garden, it was just such a home as would fit the dreams of a common man. Instantly his mind filled in the picture, the man and woman sitting after supper on the veranda, he with his pipe and paper, a child on his knee, she with her sewing. A thousand intimacies were supplied by his lonely, hungry soul, and when the picture stood complete he burst out with a great resolve.

"By God, I'll do it! You're a-going to walk like a man into town an' come out without teching a drop!"