Part 30 (1/2)
”Never, Nan.”
”Don't be so sure. I know him better than you do, and when he comes for anybody, he comes all at once. Why, it's funny, Henry. Now that I'm picking up courage, you're losing it!”
He shook his head. ”I don't like the way things are going.”
”Dearie,” she urged, ”should I be any safer at home if I were your wife, than I am as your sweetheart. I don't want to start a horrible family war by running away, and that is just what I certainly should do.”
De Spain was unconvinced. But apprehension is short-lived in young hearts. The sun shone, the sky spread a speckless blue over desert and mountain, the day was for them together. They did not promise all of it to themselves at once--they filched its sweetness bit by bit, moment by moment, and hour by hour, declaring to each other they must part, and dulling the pain of parting with the anodyne of procrastination. Thus, the whole day went to their castles and dreams. In a retired corner of the cool dining-room at the Mountain House, they lingered together over a long-drawn-out dinner. The better-informed guests by asides indicated their presence to others.
They described them as the hardy couple who had first met in a stiff Frontier Day rifle match, which the girl had won. Her defeated rival--the man now most regarded and feared in the mountain country--was the man with the reticent mouth, mild eyes, curious birthmark, and with the two little, perplexed wrinkles visible most of the time just between his dark eyebrows, the man listening intently to every syllable that fell from the lips of the trimly bloused, active girl opposite him, leaning forward in her eagerness to tell him things. Her jacket hung over the back of her chair, and she herself was referred to by the more fanciful as queen of the outlaw camp at Music Mountain.
They two were seen together that day about town by many, for the story of their courts.h.i.+p was still veiled in mystery and afforded ground for the widest speculation, while that of their difficulties, and such particulars as de Spain's fruitless efforts to conciliate Duke Morgan and Duke's open threats against de Spain's life were widely known. All these details made the movement and the fate of the young couple the object of keenly curious comment.
In the late afternoon the two rode almost the whole length of Main Street together on their way to the river bridge. Every one knew the horseflesh they bestrode--none cleaner-limbed, hardier, or faster in the high country. Those that watched them amble slowly past, laughing and talking, intent only on each other, erect, poised, and motionless, as if moulded to their saddles, often spoke of having seen Nan and her lover that day. It was a long time before they were seen riding down Main Street together again.
CHAPTER XXIII
DE SPAIN WORRIES
They parted that evening under the shadow of Music Mountain. Nan believed she could at least win her Uncle Duke over from any effort of Gale's to coerce her. Her influence over her uncle had never yet failed, and she was firm in the conviction she could gain him to her side, since he had everything to win and nothing to lose by siding against Gale, whom he disliked and distrusted, anyway.
For de Spain there was manifestly nothing to do but doubtfully to let Nan try out her influence. They agreed to meet in Calabasas just as soon as Nan could get away. She hoped, she told him, to bring good news. De Spain arranged his business to wait at Calabasas for her, and was there, after two days, doing little but waiting and listening to McAlpin's stories about the fire and surmises as to strange men that lurked in and about the place. But de Spain, knowing Jeffries was making an independent investigation into the affair, gave no heed to McAlpin's suspicions.
To get away from the barn boss, de Spain took refuge in riding. The season was drawing on toward winter, and rain clouds drifting at intervals down from the mountains made the saddle a less dependable escape from the monotony of Calabasas. Several days pa.s.sed with no sight of Nan and no word from her. De Spain, as the hours and days went by, scanned the horizon with increasing solicitude. When he woke on the sixth morning, he was resolved to send a scout into the Gap to learn what he could of the situation. The long silence, de Spain knew, portended nothing good. And the vexing feature of his predicament was that he had at hand no trustworthy spy to despatch for information; to secure one would be a matter of delay. He was schooled, however, to making use of such material as he had at hand, and when he had made up his mind, he sent to the stable for Bull Page.
The shambling barn man, summoned gruffly by McAlpin, hesitated as he appeared at the office door and seemed to regard the situation with suspicion. He looked at de Spain tentatively, as if ready either for the discharge with which he was daily threatened or for a renewal of his earlier, friendly relations with the man who had been queer enough to make a place for him. De Spain set Bull down before him in the stuffy little office.
”Bull,” he began with apparent frankness, ”I want to know how you like your job.”
Wiping his mouth guardedly with his hand to play for time and as an introduction to a carefully worded reply, Bull parried. ”Mr. de Spain, I want to ask you just one fair question.”
”Go ahead, Bull.”
Bull plunged promptly into the suspicion uppermost in his mind. ”Has that slat-eyed, flat-headed, sun-sapped sneak of a Scotchman been complaining of my work? _That_, Mr. de Spain,” emphasized Bull, leaning forward, ”is what I want to know first--is it a fair question?”
”Bull,” returned de Spain with corresponding and ceremonial emphasis, ”it is a fair question between man and man. I admit it; it is a fair question. And I answer, no, Bull. McAlpin has had nothing on the face of the desert to do with my sending for you. And I add this because I know you want to hear it: he says he couldn't complain of your work, because you never do any.”
”That man,” persisted Bull, reinforced by the hearty tone and not clearly catching the drift of the very last words, ”drinks more liquor than I do.”
”He must be some tank, Bull.”
”And I don't hide it, Mr. de Spain.”
”You'd have to crawl under Music Mountain to do that. What I want to know is, do you like your job?”
On this point it was impossible to get an expression from Bull. He felt convinced that de Spain was pressing for an answer only as a preliminary to his discharge. ”No matter,” interposed the latter, cutting Bull's ramblings short, ”drop it, Bull. I want you to do something for me, and I'll pay for it.”
Bull, with a palsied smile and a deep, quavering note of grat.i.tude, put up his shaky hand. ”Say what. That's all. I've been paid.”
”You know you're a sot, Bull.”