Part 35 (1/2)

He sat down on the bed, and through his mind drifted pictures of his youthful excellence, of the hards.h.i.+ps he had endured over other men, of the Indians and dogs he had run off their legs in the heart-breaking days and nights on the Alaskan trail, of the feats of strength that had made him king over a husky race of frontiersmen.

And this was age. Then there drifted across the field of vision of his mind's eye the old man he had encountered at Glen Ellen, corning up the hillside through the fires of sunset, white-headed and white-bearded, eighty-four, in his hand the pail of foaming milk and in his face all the warm glow and content of the pa.s.sing summer day. That had been age. ”Yes siree, eighty-four, and spryer than most,” he could hear the old man say. ”And I ain't loafed none. I walked across the Plains with an ox-team and fit Injuns in '51, and I was a family man then with seven youngsters.”

Next he remembered the old woman of the chaparral, pressing grapes in her mountain clearing; and Ferguson, the little man who had scuttled into the road like a rabbit, the one-time managing editor of a great newspaper, who was content to live in the chaparral along with his spring of mountain water and his hand-reared and manicured fruit trees.

Ferguson had solved a problem. A weakling and an alcoholic, he had run away from the doctors and the chicken-coop of a city, and soaked up health like a thirsty sponge. Well, Daylight pondered, if a sick man whom the doctors had given up could develop into a healthy farm laborer, what couldn't a merely stout man like himself do under similar circ.u.mstances? He caught a vision of his body with all its youthful excellence returned, and thought of Dede, and sat down suddenly on the bed, startled by the greatness of the idea that had come to him.

He did not sit long. His mind, working in its customary way, like a steel trap, canva.s.sed the idea in all its bearings. It was big--bigger than anything he had faced before. And he faced it squarely, picked it up in his two hands and turned it over and around and looked at it.

The simplicity of it delighted him. He chuckled over it, reached his decision, and began to dress. Midway in the dressing he stopped in order to use the telephone.

Dede was the first he called up.

”Don't come to the office this morning,” he said. ”I'm coming out to see you for a moment.” He called up others. He ordered his motor-car.

To Jones he gave instructions for the forwarding of Bob and Wolf to Glen Ellen. Hegan he surprised by asking him to look up the deed of the Glen Ellen ranch and make out a new one in Dede Mason's name.

”Who?” Hegan demanded. ”Dede Mason,” Daylight replied imperturbably the 'phone must be indistinct this morning. ”D-e-d-e M-a-s o-n. Got it?”

Half an hour later he was flying out to Berkeley. And for the first time the big red car halted directly before the house. Dede offered to receive him in the parlor, but he shook his head and nodded toward her rooms.

”In there,” he said. ”No other place would suit.”

As the door closed, his arms went out and around her. Then he stood with his hands on her shoulders and looking down into her face.

”Dede, if I tell you, flat and straight, that I'm going up to live on that ranch at Glen Ellen, that I ain't taking a cent with me, that I'm going to scratch for every bite I eat, and that I ain't going to play ary a card at the business game again, will you come along with me?”

She gave a glad little cry, and he nestled her in closely. But the next moment she had thrust herself out from him to the old position at arm's length.

”I--I don't understand,” she said breathlessly.

”And you ain't answered my proposition, though I guess no answer is necessary. We're just going to get married right away and start. I've sent Bob and Wolf along already. When will you be ready?”

Dede could not forbear to smile. ”My, what a hurricane of a man it is.

I'm quite blown away. And you haven't explained a word to me.”

Daylight smiled responsively.

”Look here, Dede, this is what card-sharps call a show-down. No more philandering and frills and long-distance sparring between you and me.

We're just going to talk straight out in meeting--the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Now you answer some questions for me, and then I'll answer yours.”

He paused. ”Well, I've got only one question after all: Do you love me enough to marry me?”

”But--” she began.

”No buts,” he broke in sharply. ”This is a show-down. When I say marry, I mean what I told you at first, that we'd go up and live on the ranch. Do you love me enough for that?”

She looked at him for a moment, then her lids dropped, and all of her seemed to advertise consent.

”Come on, then, let's start.” The muscles of his legs tensed involuntarily as if he were about to lead her to the door. ”My auto's waiting outside. There's nothing to delay excepting getting on your hat.”

He bent over her. ”I reckon it's allowable,” he said, as he kissed her.

It was a long embrace, and she was the first to speak.