Part 16 (1/2)
”You're right ... in a way, but if it ever come to a show-down, I'd be the one to hold th' bag, wouldn't I? That's what we got to watch out for. 'Course, it's easy pickin', with this gal tryin' to run things herself, an' what with her brand workin' over into ourn so easy, there ain't many chances.... Except havin' somebody else to know.”
”If anybody ever was to double cross you, Alf, I'd get 'em if it was the last thing I done!”
That threat carried conviction and her father looked at her with a rare brand of admiration in his eyes.
”Lord, daughter, sometimes I think you was meant to be a man ... an' a hard man! Sometimes you almost scare me, th' way you say things!”
She made no reply and he said:
”All we got to do is go slow. A brandin' iron has built many a fortune, an' n.o.body ever had it any easier 'n us.”
”Do you think we'll ever get rich enough, Alf, to have a regular house?
An' be respected by folks?”
”Luck's bound to change sometime,” he muttered. ”Ours has been bad a long time ... a long, long time.”
He gathered an arm load of wood and entered the cabin. The girl stood alone a long time, watching the brilliant flowering of the sky sink slowly into the west, drawing steely night to cover its garden. A sharp star bored its way through the failing light and stood half way between earth and heaven. A vagrant breeze slid down the creek, bringing with it the breath of sage, and afar off somewhere a cow bawled plaintively.
”She has 'em,” she muttered to herself. ”Friends ... an' respect ...
an' everything I want....
”I wonder what makes me hate folks so....”
CHAPTER VII
THE CATAMOUNT
Three weeks after her arrival Jane made her first trip to town and Beck drove the pair of strong bays which swirled their buckboard over the road at a spanking trot.
Events had arisen to prevent their being together in the days immediately following the frank discussion of their att.i.tudes toward one another and Jane thought that she detected a feeling of curiosity in him, as though he wondered just how she would go about forcing him to like her. Shrewdly, she avoided personalities and talked much of the ranch.
When they broke over the divide and began the long drop into town, he said:
”Since you asked advice from me, I keep thinkin' up more, ma'am.”
”That's nice. I need it. What now?”
”I s'pose Dad mentioned that water in Devil's Hole?”
”Why, I don't recall it. We've talked so much and about so many things that perhaps it's slipped my mind.”
”Maybe. He said he had.”
She questioned him further but he said it might be well for her to mention it to Hepburn. ”He's foreman, you know.”
They swung into the one street of Ute Crossing and stopped before the bank. As Beck stepped down to tie the team a girl came out of a store across the way and vaulted into the saddle on a big brown horse with graceful ease. It was the nester's daughter.