The Ranchman

Marion will have considerable money and I don’t want no sneak to get hold of it – like the sneak that got hold of the money my wife had, that I saved. There’s a lot of them around. If Marion is going to fall in with one of that kind, I’d rather she wouldn’t get what I leave; the man would get it away from her. Use your own judgment and I’ll be satisfied.

And Taylor’s judgment was that Carrington and Parsons were fortune-hunters; that if they discovered the girl to be entitled to a share of the money that had been received from the sale of the mine, they would endeavor to convert it to their own use. And Taylor was determined they should not have it.

The conversation he had overheard in the dining-car had convinced him of their utter hypocrisy and selfishness; it had aroused in him a feeling of savage resentment and disgust that would not permit him to transfer a cent of the money to the girl as long as they held the slightest influence over her.

Again he mentally quoted from Larry’s note to him:

The others were too selfish and sneaking. (That meant Parsons – and one other.) Squint, I want you to take care of her… Sell – the mine – take my share and for it give Marion a half-interest in your ranch, the Arrow. If there is any left, put it in land in Dawes – that town is going to boom. Guard it for her, and marry her, Squint; she’ll make you a good wife.

Since the first meeting with the girl on the train Taylor had felt an entire sympathy with Larry Harlan in his expressed desire to have Taylor marry the girl; in fact, she was the first girl that Taylor had ever wanted to marry, and the passion in his heart for her had already passed the wistful stage – he was determined to have her. But that passion did not lessen his sense of obligation to Larry Harlan. Nor would it – if he could not have the girl himself – prevent him doing what he could to keep her from forming any sort of an alliance with the sort of man Larry had wished to save her from, as expressed in this passage of the note: “If Marion is going to fall in with one of that kind, I’d rather she wouldn’t get what I leave.”

Therefore, since Taylor distrusted Carrington and Parsons, he had decided he would not tell the girl of the money her father had left – the share of the proceeds of the mine. He would hold it for her, as a sacred trust, until the time came – if it ever came – when she would have discovered their faithlessness – or until she needed the money. More, he was determined to expose the men.

He knew, thanks to his eavesdropping on the train, at least something regarding the motives that had brought them to Dawes; Carrington’s words, “When we get hold of the reins,” had convinced him that they and the interests behind them were to endeavor to rob the people of Dawes. That was indicated by their attempt to have David Danforth elected mayor of the town.

Taylor had already decided that he could not permit Marion to see the note her father had left, for he did not want her to feel that she was under any obligation – parental or otherwise – to marry him. If he won her at all, he wanted to win her on his merits.

As a matter of fact, since he had decided to lie about the money, he was determined to say nothing about the note at all. He would keep silent, making whatever explanations that seemed to be necessary, trusting to time and the logical sequence of events for the desired outcome.

He was forced to begin to lie at once. When he had finished the story of Larry’s untimely death, the girl looked straight at him.

“Then you were with him when he died. Did – did he mention anyone – my mother – or me?”

“He said: ‘Squint, there is a daughter’” – Taylor was quoting from the note – “‘she was fifteen when I saw her last. She looked just like me – thank God for that!’” Taylor blushed when he saw the girl’s face redden, for he knew what her thoughts were. He should not have quoted that sentence. He resolved to be more careful; and went on: “He told me I was to take care of you, to offer you a home at the Arrow – after I found you. I was to go to Westwood, Illinois, to find you. I suppose he wanted me to bring you here.”

The speech was entirely unworthy, and Taylor knew it, and he eased his conscience by adding: “He thought, I suppose, that you would like to be where he had been. I’ve not touched the room he had. All his effects are there – everything he owned, just as he left them. I had given him a room in the house because I liked him (that was the truth), and I wanted him where I could talk to him.”

“I cannot thank you enough for that!” she said earnestly. And then Taylor was forced to lie again, for she immediately asked: “And the mine? It proved to be worthless, I suppose. For,” she added, “that would be just father’s luck.”

“The mine wasn’t what we thought it would be,” said Taylor. He was looking at his boots when he spoke, and he wondered if his face was as red as it felt.

“I am not surprised.” There was no disappointment in her voice, and therefore Taylor knew she was not avaricious – though he knew he had not expected her to be. “Then he left nothing but his personal belongings?” she added.

Taylor nodded.

The girl sat for a long time, looking out over the river into the vast level that stretched away from it.

“He has ridden there, I suppose,” she said wistfully. “He was here for nearly three years, you said. Then he must have been everywhere around here.” And she got up, gazing about her, as though she would firmly fix the locality for future reminiscent dreams. Then suddenly she said:

“I should like to see his room – may I?”

“You sure can!”

She followed him into the house, and he stood in the open doorway, watching her as she went from place to place, looking at Larry’s effects.

Taylor did not remain long at the door; he went out upon the porch again, leaving her in the room, and after a long time she joined him, her eyes moist, but a smile on her lips.

“You’ll leave his things there – a little longer, won’t you? I should like to have them, and I shall come for them, some day.”

“Sure,” he said. “But, look here, Miss Harlan. Why should you take his things? Leave them here – and come yourself. That room is yours, if you say the word. And a half-interest in the ranch. I was going to offer your father an interest in it – if he had lived – ”

He realized his mistake when he saw her eyes widen incredulously. And there was a change in her voice – it was full of doubt, of distrust almost.

“What had father done to deserve an interest in your ranch?” she demanded.

“Why,” he answered hesitatingly, “it’s rather hard to say. But he helped me much; he suggested improvements that made the place more valuable; he was a good man, and he took a great deal of the work off my mind – and I liked him,” he finished lamely.

“And do you think I could do his share of the work?” she interrogated, looking at him with an odd smile, the meaning of which Taylor could not fathom.

“I couldn’t expect that, of course,” he said boldly; “but I owe Harlan something for what he did for me, and I thought – ”

“You thought you would be charitable to the daughter,” she finished for him, with a smile in which there was gratitude and understanding.

“I am sure I can’t thank you enough for feeling that way toward my father and myself. But I can’t accept, you know.”

Taylor did know, of course. A desperate desire to make amends for his lying, to force upon her gratuitously what he had illegally robbed her of, had been the motive underlying his offer. And he would have been disappointed had she accepted, for that would have revealed a lack of spirit which he had hoped she possessed.

And yet Taylor felt decidedly uncomfortable over the refusal. He wanted her to have what belonged to her, for he divined from the note her father had left that she would have need of it.

He discovered by judicious questioning, by inference, and through crafty suggestion, that she was entirely dependent upon her uncle; that her uncle had bought the Huggins house, and that Carrington had made her a present of the horse she rode.

This last bit of information, volunteered by Marion, provoked Taylor to a rage that made him grit his teeth.

A little while longer they talked, and when the girl mounted her horse to ride away, they had entered into an agreement under which on Tuesdays and Fridays – the first Tuesday falling on the following day – Taylor was to be absent from the ranch. And during his absence the girl was to come and stay at the ranchhouse, there to occupy her father’s room and, if she desired, to enter the other rooms at will.

As a concession to propriety, she was to bring Martha, the Huggins housekeeper, with her.

But Taylor, after the girl had left, stood for an hour on the porch, watching the dust-cloud that followed the girl’s progress through the big basin, his face red, his soul filled with loathing for the part his judgment was forcing him to play. But arrayed against the loathing was a complacent satisfaction aroused over the thought that Carrington would never get the money that Larry Harlan had left to the girl.

CHAPTER X – THE FRAME-UP

James J. Carrington was unscrupulous, but even his most devout enemy could not have said that he lacked vision and thoroughness. And, while he had been listening to Danforth in his apartment in the Castle Hotel, he had discovered that Neil Norton had made a technical blunder in electing Quinton Taylor mayor of Dawes. Perhaps that was why Carrington had not seemed to be very greatly disturbed over the knowledge that Danforth had been defeated; certainly it was why Carrington had taken the first train to the capital.

Carrington was tingling with elation when he reached the capital; but on making inquiries he found that the governor had left the city the day before, and that he was not expected to return for several days.

Carrington passed the interval renewing some acquaintances, and fuming with impatience in the barroom, the billiard-room, and the lobby of his hotel.

But he was the first visitor admitted to the governor’s office when the latter returned.

The governor was a big man, flaccid and portly, and he received Carrington with a big Stetson set rakishly on the back of his head and an enormous black cigar in his mouth. That he was not a statesman but a professional politician was quite as apparent from his appearance as was his huge, welcoming smile, a certain indication that he was on terms of intimate friendship with Carrington. Formerly an eastern political worker, and a power in the councils of his party, his appointment as governor of the Territory had come, not because of his ability to fill the position, but as a reward for the delivery of certain votes which had helped to make his party successful at the polls. He would be the last carpetbag governor of the Territory, for the Territory had at last been admitted to the Union; the new Legislature was even then in session; charters were already being issued to municipalities that desired self-government – and the governor, soon to quit his position as temporary chief, had no real interest in the new régime, and no desire to aid in eliminating the inevitable confusion.

“Take a seat, Jim,” he invited, “and have a cigar. My secretary tells me you’ve been buzzing around here like a bee lost from the hive, for the past week.” He grinned hugely at Carrington, poking the latter playfully in the ribs as Carrington essayed to light the cigar that had been given him.

“Worried about that man Taylor, in Dawes, eh?” he went on, as Carrington smoked. “Well, it was too bad that Danforth didn’t trim him, wasn’t it? But” – and his eyes narrowed – “I’m still governor, and Taylor isn’t mayor yet – and never will be!”

Carrington smiled. “You saw the mistake, too, eh?”

“Saw it!” boomed the governor. “I’ve been watching that town as a cat watches a mouse. Itching for the clean-up, Jim,” he whispered. “Why, I’ve got the papers all made out – ousting him and appointing Danforth mayor. Right here they are.” He reached into a pigeon-hole and drew out some legal papers. “You can serve them yourself. Just hand them to Judge Littlefield – he’ll do the rest. It’s likely – if Taylor starts a fuss, that you’ll have to help Littlefield handle the case – arranging for deputies, and such. If you need any more help, just wire me. I don’t pack my carpetbag for a year yet, and we can do a lot of work in that time.”

Carrington and the governor talked for an hour or more, and when Carrington left for the office he was grinning with pleasurable anticipation. For a municipality, already sovereign according to the laws of the people, had been delivered into his hands.

Just at dusk on Tuesday evening Carrington alighted from the train at Dawes. He went to his rooms in the Castle, removed the stains of travel, descended the stairs to the dining-room, and ate heartily; then, stopping at the cigar-counter to light a cigar, he inquired of the clerk where he could find Judge Littlefield.

“He’s got a house right next to the courthouse – on your left, from here,” the clerk told him.

A few minutes later Carrington was seated opposite Judge Littlefield, with a table between them, in the front room of the judge’s residence.

“My name is Carrington – James J.,” was Carrington’s introduction of himself. “I have just left the governor, and he gave me these, to hand over to you.” He shoved over the papers the governor had given him, smiling slightly at the other.

The judge answered the smile with a beaming smirk.

“I’ve heard of you,” he said; “the governor has often spoken of you.” He glanced hastily over the papers, and his smirk widened. “The good people of Dawes will be rather shocked over this decision, I suppose. But laymen will confuse things – won’t they? Now, if Norton and his friends had come to me before they decided to enter Taylor’s name, this thing would not have happened.”

“I’m glad it did happen,” laughed Carrington. “The chances are that even Norton would have beaten Danforth, and then the governor could not have interfered.”

Carrington’s gaze became grim as he looked at the judge. “You are prepared to go the limit in this case, I suppose?” he interrogated. “There is a chance that Taylor and his friends will attempt to make trouble. But any trouble is to be handled firmly, you understand. There is to be no monkey business. If they accept the law’s mandates, as all law-abiding citizens should accept it, all well and good. And if they don’t – and they want trouble, we’ll give them that! Understand?”

“Perfectly,” smiled the judge. “The law is not to be assailed.”

Smilingly he bowed Carrington out.

Carrington took a turn down the street, walking until his cigar burned itself out; then he entered the hotel and sat for a time in the lobby. Then he went to bed, satisfied that he had done a good week’s work, and conscious that he had launched a heavy blow at the man for whom he had conceived a great and bitter hatred.

CHAPTER XI – “NO FUN FOOLING HER”

Accompanied by Martha, who rode one of the horses Parsons had bought, Marion Harlan began her trip to the Arrow shortly after dawn.

The girl had said nothing to Parsons regarding her meeting with Taylor the previous day, nor of her intention to pass the day at the Arrow. For she feared that Parsons might make some objection – and she wanted to go.

That she feared her uncle’s deterrent influence argued that she was aware that she was doing wrong in going to the Arrow – even with Martha as chaperon; but that was, perhaps, the very reason the thought of going engaged her interest.

She wondered many times, as she rode, with the negro woman trailing her, if there was not inherent in her some of those undesirable traits concerning which the good people of Westwood had entertained fears.

The thought crimsoned her cheeks and brightened her eyes; but she knew she had no vicious thoughts – that she was going to the Arrow, not because she wanted to see Taylor again, but because she wanted to sit in the room that had been occupied by her father. She wanted to look again at his belongings, to feel his former presence – as she had felt it while gazing out over the vast level beyond the river, where he had ridden many times.

She looked in on Mrs. Mullarky as they passed the Mullarky cabin, and when the good woman learned of her proposed visit to the Arrow, she gave her entire approval.

“I don’t blame you, darlin’,” declared Mrs. Mullarky. “Let the world jabber – if it wants to. If it was me father that had been over there, I’d stay there, takin’ Squint Taylor at his word – an’ divvle a bit I’d care what the world would say about it!”

So Marion rode on, slightly relieved. But the crimson stain was still on her cheeks when she and Martha dismounted at the porch, and she looked fearfully around, half-expecting that Taylor would appear from somewhere, having tricked her.

But Taylor was nowhere in sight. A fat man appeared from somewhere in the vicinity of the stable, doffed his hat politely, informed her that he was the “stable boss” and would care for the horses; he having been delegated by Taylor to perform whatever service Miss Harlan desired; and ambled off, leading the horses, leaving the girl and Martha standing near the edge of the porch.

Marion entered the house with a strange feeling of guilt and shame. Standing in the open doorway – where she had seen Taylor standing when she had dismounted the day before – she was afflicted with regret and mortification over her coming. It wasn’t right for a girl to do as she was doing; and for an instant she hesitated on the verge of flight.

But Martha’s voice directly behind her, reassured her.

“They ain’t a soul here, honey – not a soul. You’ve got the whole house to yo’self. This am a lark – shuah enough. He, he, he!”

It was the voice of the temptress – and Marion heeded it. With a defiant toss of her head she entered the room, took off her hat, laid it on a convenient table, calmly telling Martha to do the same. Then she went boldly from one room to another, finally coming to a halt in the doorway of the room that had been occupied by her father.

For her that room seemed to hallow the place. It was as though her father were here with her; as though there were no need of Martha being here with her. The thought of it removed any stigma that might have been attached to her coming; it made her heedless of the opinion of the world and its gossip-mongers.

She forgot the world in her interest, and for more than an hour, with Martha sitting in a chair sympathetically watching her, she reveled in the visible proofs of her father’s occupancy of the room.

Later she and Martha went out on the porch, where, seated in rocking-chairs – that had not been on the porch the day before – she filled her mental vision with pictures of her father’s life at the Arrow. Those pictures were imaginary, but they were intensely satisfying to the girl who had loved her father, for she could almost see him moving about her.

“You shuah does look soft an’ dreamy, honey,” Martha told her once. “You looks jes’ like a delicate ghost. A while ago, lookin’ at you, I shuah was scared you was goin’ to blow away!”

But Marion was not the ethereal wraith that Martha thought her. She proved that a little later, when, with the negro woman abetting her, she went into the house and prepared dinner. For she ate so heartily that Martha was forced to amend her former statement.

“For a ghost you shuah does eat plenty, honey,” she said.

Later they were out on the porch again. The big level on the other side of the river was flooded with a slumberous sunshine, with the glowing, rose haze of early afternoon enveloping it, and the girl was enjoying it when there came an interruption.

A cowboy emerged from a building down near the corral – Marion learned later that the building was the bunkhouse, which meant that it was used as sleeping-quarters for the Arrow outfit – and walked, with the rolling stride so peculiar to his kind, toward the porch.

He was a tall young man, red of face, and just now affected with a mighty embarrassment, which was revealed in the awkward manner in which he removed his hat and shuffled his feet as he came to a halt within a few feet of Marion.

“The boss wants to know how you are gettin’ along, ma’am, an’ if there’s anything you’re wantin’?”

“We are enjoying ourselves immensely, thank you; and there is nothing we want – particularly.”

The puncher had turned to go before the girl thought of the significance of the “boss.”

Her face was a trifle pale as she called to the puncher.

“Who is your boss – if you please?” she asked.

The puncher wheeled, a slow grin on his face.

“Why, Squint Taylor, ma’am.”

She sat erect. “Do you mean that Mr. Taylor is here?”

“He’s in the bunkhouse, ma’am.”

She got up, and, holding her head very erect, began to walk toward the room in which she had left her hat.

But half-way across the porch the puncher’s voice halted her:

“Squint was sayin’ you didn’t expect him to be here, an’ that I’d have to do the explainin’. He couldn’t come, you see.”

“Ashamed, I suppose,” she said coldly.

She was facing the puncher now, and she saw him grin.

“Why, no, ma’am; I don’t reckon he’s a heap ashamed. But it’d be mighty inconvenient for him. You see, ma’am, this mornin’, when he was gittin’ ready to ride to the south line, his cayuse got an ornery streak an’ throwed him, sprainin’ Squint’s ankle.”

The girl’s emotions suddenly reacted; the resentment she had yielded to became self-reproach. For she had judged hastily, and she had always felt that one had no right to judge hastily.

And Taylor had been remarkably considerate; for he had not even permitted her to know of the accident until after noon. That indicated that he had no intention of forcing himself on her.

She hesitated, saw Martha grinning into a hand, looked at the puncher’s expressionless face, and felt that she had been rather prudish. Her cheeks flushed with color.

Taylor had actually been a martyr on a small scale in confining himself to the bunkhouse, when he could have enjoyed the comforts and spaciousness of the ranchhouse if it had not been for her own presence.

“Is – is his ankle badly sprained?” she hesitatingly asked the now sober-faced puncher.

“Kind of bad, ma’am; he ain’t been able to do no walkin’ on it. Been hobblin’ an’ swearin’, mostly, ma’am. It’s sure a trial to be near him.”

“And it is warm here; it must be terribly hot in that little place!”

She was at the edge of the porch now, her face radiating sympathy.

“I am not surprised that he should swear!” she told the puncher, who grinned and muttered:

“He’s sure first class at it, ma’am.”

“Why,” she said, paying no attention to the puncher’s compliment of his employer, “he is hurt, and I have been depriving him of his house. You tell him to come right out of that stuffy place! Help him to come here!”

And without waiting to watch the puncher depart, she darted into the house, pulled a big rocker out on the porch, got a pillow and arranged it so that it would form a resting-place for the injured man’s head – providing he decided to occupy the chair, which she doubted – and then stood on the edge of the porch, awaiting his appearance.

Inside the bunkhouse the puncher was grinning at Taylor, who, with his right foot swathed in bandages, was sitting on a bench, anxiously awaiting the delivery of the puncher’s message.

“Well, talk, you damned grinning inquisitor!” was Taylor’s greeting to the puncher. “What did she say?”

“At first she didn’t seem to be a heap overjoyed to know that you was in this country,” said the other; “but when she heard you’d been hurt she sort of stampeded, invitin’ you to come an’ set on the porch with her.”

Taylor got up and started for the door, the bandaged foot dragging clumsily.

“Shucks,” drawled the puncher; “if you go to runnin’ to her she’ll have suspicions. Accordin’ to my notion, she expects you to come a hobblin’, same as though your leg was broke. ‘Help him to come,’ she told me. An’ you’re goin’ that way – you hear me! I’ll bust your ankle with a club before I’ll have her think I’m a liar!”

“Maybe I was a little eager,” grinned Taylor.

An instant later he stepped out of the bunkhouse door, leaning heavily on the puncher’s shoulder.