Part 43 (2/2)

”No. Her letters come addressed 'Miss Helen McLaren.' What that means I can't say. But the old man spoke of her as his daughter.”

”I don't take much stock in that daughter's business,” said one of the loafers. ”There's a mouse in the meal somewhere.”

Thereafter this drab and silent female, by her very wish to be left alone, became each day a more absorbing topic of conversation. She was not what she seemed--this was the verdict. As for Kauffman, he was considered a man who would bear watching, and when finally, being pressed to it, he volunteered the information that he was in the hills for his daughter's health, many sneered.

”Came away between two days, I'll bet,” said Watson. ”And as fer the woman, why should her mail come under another name from his? Does that look like she was his daughter?”

”She may be a stepdaughter,” suggested the postmaster.

”More likely she's another man's wife,” retorted Watson.

During the early autumn Kauffman published the fact that he had registered a brand, and from time to time those who happened to ride up the valley brought back a report that he owned a small but growing herd of cattle. Watson did not hesitate to say that he had never been able to find where the new-comer bought his stock--and in those days no man was quite free from the necessity of exhibiting a bill of sale.

However, the people of the town paid small attention to this slur, for Watson himself was not entirely above suspicion. He was considered a dangerous character. Once or twice he had been forced, at the mouth of a rifle, to surrender calves that had, as he explained, ”got mixed” with his herd. In truth, he was nearly always in controversy with some one.

”Kauffman don't look to me like an 'enterprising roper,'” Hanscom reported to his supervisor. ”And as for his wife, or daughter, or whatever she is, I've never seen anything out of the way about her. She attends strictly to her own affairs. Furthermore,” he added, ”Watson, as you know, is under 'wool-foot surveillance' right now by the Cattle Raisers' Syndicate, and I wouldn't take his word under oath.”

The supervisor shared the ranger's view, and smiled at ”the pot calling the kettle black.” And so matters drifted along till in one way or another the Kitsongs had set the whole upper valley against the hermits and Watson (in his cups) repeatedly said: ”That fellow has no business in there. That's my gra.s.s. He stole it from me.”

His resentment grew with repet.i.tion of his fancied grievance, and at last he made threats. ”He's an outlaw, that's what he is--and as for that woman, well, I'm going up there some fine day and s.n.a.t.c.h the bunnit off her and see what she really looks like!”

”Better go slow,” urged one of his friends. ”That chap looks to me like one of the old guard. _He_ may have something to say about your doings with his daughter.”

Watson only grinned. ”He ain't in no position to object if she don't--and I guess I can manage her,” he ended with drunken swagger.

Occasionally Hanscom met the woman on the trail or in the town, and always spoke in friendly greeting. The first time he spoke she lifted her head like a scared animal, but after that she responded with a low, ”Howdy, sir?” and her voice (coming from the shadow of her ugly headgear) was unexpectedly clear and sweet. Although he was never able to see her face, something in her bearing and especially in her accent pleased and stirred him.

Without any special basis for it, he felt sorry for her and resolved to help her, and when one day he met her on the street and asked, in friendly fas.h.i.+on, ”How are you to-day?” she looked up at him and replied, ”Very well, thank you, sir,” and he caught a glimpse of a lovely chin and a sad and sensitive mouth.

”She's had more than her share of trouble, that girl has,” he thought as he pa.s.sed on.

Thereafter a growing desire to see her eyes, to hear her voice, troubled him.

Kauffman stopped him on the road next day and said: ”I am Bavarian, and in my country we respect the laws of the forest. I honor your office, and shall regard all your regulations. I have a few cattle which will naturally graze in the forest. I wish to take out a permit for them.”

To this Hanscom cordially replied: ”Sure thing. That's what I'm here for. And if you want any timber for your corrals just let me know and I'll fix you out.”

Kauffman thanked him and rode on.

As the weeks pa.s.sed Hanscom became more and more conscious of the strange woman's presence in the valley. He gave, in truth, a great deal of thought to her, and twice deliberately rode around that way in the hope of catching sight of her. He could not rid himself of a feeling of pity. The vision of her delicately modeled chin and the sorrowful droop in the line of her lips never left him. He wished--and the desire was more than curiosity--to meet her eyes, to get the full view of her face.

Gradually she came to the exchange of a few words with him, and always he felt her dark eyes glowing in the shadow of her head-dress, and they seemed quite as sad as her lips. She no longer appeared afraid of him, and yet she did not express a willingness for closer contact. That she was very lonely he was sure, for she had few acquaintances in the town and no visitors at all. No one had ever been able to penetrate to the interior of the cabin in which she secluded herself, but it was reported that she spent her time in the garden and that she had many strange flowers and plants growing there. But of this Hanscom had only the most diffused hearsay.

Watson's thought concerning the lonely woman was not merely dishonoring--it was ruthless; and when he met her, as he occasionally did, he called to her in a voice which contained something at once savage and familiar. But he could never arrest her hurrying step. Once when he planted himself directly in her way she bent her head and slipped around him, like a partridge, feeling in him the enmity that knows no pity and no remorse.

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