Part 28 (2/2)
”That's about the size of it. An' Gos.h.!.+ How you hated that jug.”
”It might have--it nearly did, make me hate _you_, too.”
”'Might have,' an' 'nearly,' an' 'if,' are all words about alike--they all sort of fall short of amountin' to anythin'. It 'might have'--but, somehow, things don't work out that way. The only thing that counts is, it didn't.”
Out on the trail they met Watts riding toward town. ”Wher's Microby?”
he asked, addressing Patty.
”Microby! I haven't seen Microby since early this morning. She was riding down a coulee not far from Vil's camp.”
”Didn't yo' send for her?”
”I certainly did not!”
The man's hand fumbled at his beard. ”Bethune was along last evenin'
an' hed a talk with her, an' then he done tol' Ma yo' wanted Microby should come up to yo' place, come daylight. When I heern it, I mistrusted yo' wouldn't hev no truck with Bethune, so after I done the ch.o.r.es, I rode up ther'. They wasn't no one to hum.” The simple-minded man looked worried. ”Bethune, he could do anything he wants with her.
She thinks he's grand--but, I know different. Then I met up with Lord Clendennin' in the canyon, an' he tol' me how Bethune wus headin' fer Canady. He said, had I lost anythin'. An' I said 'no,' an' he laffed an' says he guess that's right.”
As Vil Holland listened, his eyes hardened, and at the conclusion, something very like an oath ground from his lips. Patty glanced at him in surprise--never before had she seen him out of poise.
”You go back home,” he advised Watts, in a kindly tone, ”to the wife and the kids. I'll find Microby for you!”
When the man had pa.s.sed from sight into the dip of a coulee, Vil leaned over and, drawing his wife close to his breast, kissed her lips again and again. ”It's too bad, little girl, that our honeymoon's got to be broke into this way, but you remember I told you once that if I won you'd have to be satisfied with what you got. You didn't know what I meant, then, but you know, now--an' I'm goin' to win again! I'm goin' to find that child! The poor little fool!” Patty saw that his eyes were flas.h.i.+ng, and his voice sounded hard:
”You ride back to town and tell Len to get his white goods together an' ride back with you to Watts's. There's goin' to be a funeral--or better yet, a weddin' _an'_ a funeral in it for him by this time to-morrow, or my name ain't Vil Holland!” And then, abruptly, he turned and rode into the North.
A wild impulse to overtake him and dissuade him from his purpose took possession of the girl. But the thought of Microby in the power of Bethune, and of the sorrowing face of poor Watts stayed her. She saw her husband hitch his belt forward and swiftly look to his six-gun, and as the sound of galloping hoofs grew fainter, she watched his diminis.h.i.+ng figure until it was swallowed up in the distance.
Impulsively she stretched out her arms to him: ”Good luck to you, my knight!” she called, but the words ended in a sob, and she turned her horse and, with a vast happiness in her heart, rode back toward the town.
THE END.
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