The Last Straw Part 48

"Your man?"--looking at the girl and then at Beck in bewilderment.

"Your--"

"Yes, my man! Oh, don't think I don't know. I saw it all. I saw one of your hands take him to your home last night. I followed him, I watched through your window. I seen you beg with him and plead with him. I know what you want....

"Why, he's told me everything, from th' first! You got him to follow you out here, you got mad at him and threw him out of your house once.

Now you want him back. You want him back. I suppose while he,"--tilting her head toward Tom--"is away on round-up! You want him back when you've got everything you want and he's all I got, all I ever had!"

Tears sprang into her eyes and her voice came trembling through trembling lips. Jane, swept by confusion, sought words and found none.

It was preposterous! And yet the very accusation degraded her. Drawn into a quarrel over a man, and such a man!

"You'd take this claim, if you could, when you've got more land than anybody around here. You'd take my man when you've got lots of others yourself. You _must_ have lots like you got lots of other things.

Maybe you think that by takin' him you can drive me out and get the claim that way. Maybe that's your reason, you ... you...." She seemed to search in vain for an expletive that would convey her contempt.

"But you misunderstand! You're all wrong."

"Wrong, am I? Wrong, when you put your arms around his neck and put your face close to his an' make him look at you an' beg him to do things for your sake. I watched through your window last night. I heard those words, 'For my sake.' You said 'em. I suppose that's wrong, is it? I--"

"But it wasn't that! It wasn't what you think it--"

"I s'pose you thought he wouldn't tell me, but he did. He won't come back to you. You couldn't get him away from me!"--in triumph.

Her manner was so a.s.sured, she was so convinced of the truth of Hilton's version of last night's encounter that Jane Hunter was at a loss for argument. Impulsively she turned to look at Beck, as for suggestion, and what she saw there stripped her of ability to fight back. His face was as devoid of expression as a countenance can be, but his eyes challenged, accused, bore down upon her, demanding that she explain!

He _demanded_ that she explain!

He suspected her! He gave credence to Bobby's accusation. He could do that!

A word, even a gesture, would have cleared the situation but his look struck her inarticulate, immobile. She had been so confident of herself, of his trust; and now he had grasped upon this monstrous charge and held her to answer.

"You with your fine notions, your money, your city ways!" the other taunted. "You, with all you've got, would take the only thing I've got, the only thing I've ever had!

"An' now you come, askin' favors. Favors from me! Why, all I'll do for you is to run you out of this country. I've heard what they call me here: the catamount. I'll show you how the catamount can scratch and bite!"

It swept over Jane that she must reply, that she must say some word in her defense, that she must say it now ... _now_ ... that in this second of time her fate swung in balance, that bitter though explanation might be she must make it, for Beck was listening, Beck was watching, Beck was doubting!

And, as she would have spoken, lamely, but with enough clarity to absolve her from suspicion, Bobby stepped closer.

"You take your men an' light out!" she snapped. "You keep your men out of here an' your cattle away from this fence. Th' first steer that breaks through 'll get shot down, th' first man that tries to help 'em through will find that he needs help himself. I hate you!" she cried.

"I hate you worse 'n I hate a snake an' I'll treat you like a snake from now on.

"You carry that idea home with you an' you carry this ... as first payment, to bind the bargain!"

With a quick, sharp swing of her arm, she whipped her quirt through the air and it wrapped about Jane's soft throat with a vicious snap.

She stepped back with a choking cry, hiding her face. She heard Beck's short, "That'll do!" in a strange, unnatural voice, as though his throat were dry. She heard the Catamount's contemptuous sniff and her hard, "Clear out!"

She found herself in her saddle again, riding beside Beck as they moved toward the other HC riders, who, dismounted and seated on the ground, had not witnessed the dramatic parley and its humiliating climax. She was confronted by a situation which clearly spelled disaster for her ranch unless solved and solved quickly but that did not matter now.

She had been whipped, as the man who had insulted Bobby Cole had been whipped. Had been drawn into a brawl! And, far worse, she had found that the man toward whom she had toiled from the Jane Hunter that had been to the Jane Hunter she had one day dreamed she might be, had doubted her!

He was talking haltingly, something about bringing more men to shove the cattle up into the Coyote Creek country, but even through her confusion she realized that his thoughts were not finding words, that he was forcing himself to talk of those things. Her heart wanted to cry out, to tell him that he had misunderstood, that her encounter with Hilton was not occasioned by the motive Bobby Cole had suspected. The old Jane Hunter would have done so, but with her new strength had come another thing, until that hour hidden: it was pride, a pride which was as n.o.ble as her love, which would permit no cavail, which would not stoop to conquer!

She fought it down, striving for clarified thought, feeling for the word, the brief sentence which would explain away Beck's suspicion and leave that pride uninjured, for there must be such a way. And while she fought, blinded by tears and confused by humiliation, the moment of opportunity pa.s.sed. Beck left her.

They were with the others, who grouped about her foreman, and he said:

"I was going to send one of you men to bring a dozen of the boys from the wagon to help save this stuff, if we can, but I've changed my mind,"--with a bitter significance which they did not catch. "I'm goin'

myself. Curtis, you're in charge. Keep your head. Keep the cattle from breakin' his fence because they'll shoot 'em down an' if they start shooting cattle there'll be a lot of us get shot."

He started away at a gallop without so much as a look at Jane.

Impulsively she called his name and spurred her sorrel after him. He set his horse on his haunches, wheeled and waited for her, face white, those eyes so dark, so accusing. That look checked the words that were on her lips as effectively as a blow on the mouth and he spoke first as she halted beside him:

"You did send for him, I take it? You didn't deny that."

He was hard, cruel, brows gathered, and the storm within him stung that pride of hers further, roused it to newer life.

"Yes, I sent for him," she managed to say, "but Tom, won't--"

"That's all that's necessary then," he said, and was gone.

She sat on her horse watching him ride across the flat for the steep trail that led out of the Hole and she felt that all the sweetness, all the worth-while quality of her life was riding hard behind that straight figure. A bitterness rose in her heart, a rebellion. He would not listen to her and she had tried to speak!

Jane did not consider that this was but one evidence of the greatness of the love of such a man, of the sacredness with which he treasured it; all she saw was the distrust, unbelief, and after a time she rode slowly on, watching him become a fleck on the face of the mountain, seeing him finally disappear over the rim, out of her life, it seemed.

With leaden heart she entered her house and sat heavily in the chair before the desk. An envelope was there, addressed to her in Beck's coa.r.s.e hand. She tore it open with unsteady fingers.

The little gold locket which had been warmed first by her heart, then by Beck's, which had been her talisman for months, slipped into her palm. With tear-dimmed eyes she looked at it and then turned to the letter, reading:

"It is likely that you need your luck worse than I do so I am returning your gift. I would go away from your outfit now but if I did they would say that they drove me out as they have said they would do. My reputation is all I have left now and I would like to keep that because a man must have something.

"I did not want to love you in the first place as you may recall but I guess I was pretty weak for a man. I told you once that there were things I did not understand about you and I guess the way you think about men is one of them. I wanted to drive him out of the country and you would not let me. I waited a long time today for you to deny what the Cole girl said and you did not do it. I was pretty mad when I left you but I realize now it is all my fault. I took a chance which is not the way to do and now I am paying for it. Well, I am able to pay.

"I hope you will not answer this and will not try to talk to me again unless on business. I do not blame you. I blame myself but I do not want to talk about it. I will take good care of your cattle and your men because that is my job. I will run these men out of this country and then if I am able to resign I will.

"Respectfully, "TOM BECK."

She put down the letter, feeling queerly numb. She experienced no particular resentment because she could well see how her failure to speak at the proper moment had condemned her in Beck's eyes; her sensation was of one who has failed in a crisis. Bobby Cole had dominated her, had swept her off her feet, had given her that depressing feeling of inferiority again and before her lover's eyes; it had shaken her a.s.surance, made her question the strength of which she had been so certain in the last weeks! It was that which hurt her far more than the stinging welt about her throat where the lash had bitten her flesh.

She inquired for Two-Bits, learning that the doctor had left him with the a.s.surance that his recovery would not be unduly delayed. She ate her dinner abstractedly. In all she did she moved as one who is only partly alive; a portion of her body, even, seemed insensate, while her mind was dead. A dull ache pervaded her, an emptiness, for something vastly important was gone and she was without resource to call it back.

The Reverend came and went, taking beds on pack horses and when Jane saw him departing she laughed rather weakly to herself.

It was so simple! There was the agency which could bridge this chasm and while so doing could save the pride which was creating the conflict within her.

The Reverend knew her motive in sending for Hilton. He could and would make Beck aware of what had transpired. She even thought of writing Tom a note, something as follows: