The Last Straw Part 50

On another flank of the herd another rider charged in and shouted and shot and swung off. There was no time; there was no room! It was less than a hundred yards to the fence and to be caught between its stout strands and those charging heads meant terrible death. Curtis' warning cry cut in above the fury of the flight as he doubled back toward safety.

Within the fence were shouts. Figures sprang to outline in the darkness. The first steer's shoulders struck the wire, the fence held, threw him back and then, driven forward again by oncoming numbers the creature went through, torn and raw, through a torn and tangled barrier. There was a creaking strain of wire for rods, a snapping of stout posts and then orange stabs out of the night.... Two ... four ...

five, and the sound of rifle shots p.r.i.c.ked through the background of heavier sounds.

A steer bawled once, its voice pitched high, and went down. Another dropped beneath mincing hoofs without a sound. From their path ran the riflemen, desperate in their fright, heedless of damage done property or rights. Over, under and through the fence went the cattle, pouring across the cleared land, crowding, snorting, gaining momentum with each stride. On across the flat, on down the steep bank of the creek, on into the water that sloshed about their knees....

And there, as quickly as it had come, their panic departed, for the need of that water dissipated their fright. Noise of the flight subsided and into the night rose the greedy sound of their guzzling as the water which Cole had fenced and sought to hold was gulped down the parched throats of HC cattle.

Curtis rode up at a gallop, drawing his horse to such a quick stop that his hoofs scattered dirt over Azariah.

"What th' h.e.l.l?" he began.

"I found it!" cried the Reverend in exultation, holding up a fountain pen. "Must have dropped out when I took off my coat--"

"But look what you've done!" cried the other. "They knocked four steers dead as the Populist party!"

Azariah looked up at him, the shrewdness in his face covered by darkness, but his voice was guile itself.

"A small investment, brother, a good investment. Perhaps a parable is writ this night.... A pillar of fire, a smiting of the rock?"

Curtis whistled lowly.

"Reverend, you planned it all out?"

"It is not given to me to plan; I am guided by the spirit of righteousness! Besides, those who lack wisdom are the only ones who divulge their innermost thoughts, brother. I found a way out of Egypt for the cattle, as 't were. Remember, brother, the way of the Lord is strength!"

They had not heard Bobby Cole running through the brush toward them but as the Reverend stopped she stepped between him and Oliver's horse.

"So that's it!" she hissed. "So you're th' one to blame! I'll tell you what I told your boss this mornin', that I'll run you out of the country if it's th' last thing I do, you Bible talkin' rat!

"This ain't th' first thing I've got against you,"--darkly. "I might 've forgot th' other because she was to blame for it, but I've heard what you just said an' I won't forget this! And don't think I'm th'

only one who'll keep it in mind!

"Why, you'll be run out of this country like a snake 'uld be chased out of a cabin! Remember that!"

For a moment she stood confronting him in the darkness and though features were not clearly distinguishable they could see by the poise of her figure that those were no idle threats. Then she went as quickly as she had come, leaving the Reverend scratching his chin and Curtis whistling softly to himself.

"A woman possessed of the devil!" said Beal softly.

"Yeah. Or three or four," commented the other.

"Yesterday I sought to save her soul and tomorrow I must seek to save my own skin!"

There was no more shooting because HC cattle were mingled with Cole's.

Curtis parlayed with the nester who made whining threats of a suit for damages. When Curtis returned to the beds for the remainder of the night the Reverend was not there.

"Dragged it for the ranch!" he chuckled.

So he thought. The Reverend had dragged it, but not for the HC or any other nearby stopping place. Though Beal did not know all that transpired to bring about the ruin of Jane Hunter he knew enough to realize that he had made one determined enemy that night, that to make one was to make many and that Bobby Cole's inference that he had plunged himself into disfavor with others was no empty warning. Azariah Beal was not a coward but he was discreet. The risk of remaining was not justified by the end he might serve and now he sought sanctuary in distance.

Tom Beck led the riders from the wagon into the Hole at dawn. Gathering and moving the refreshed cattle up the trail was a difficult task but it was accomplished without further loss, a fact which satisfied the men. They reached the ranch on their way back to the round-up camp in late afternoon.

News of the saving stampede had been carried ahead and Jane realized that one difficulty had been surmounted and that the financial ruin which confronted her yesterday was no more. However, removal of that distraction allowed her mind to concentrate on the greater difficulty: the breach which separated her from Tom Beck. Only one way seemed open: to prevail upon the Reverend to explain matters, and that way was closed when a pa.s.sing cow-boy delivered her a note, written hastily on rough paper. She read:

"The call has come and my feet are turned toward a far country.

"My arm has been lifted for you; though I am no longer in your presence my prayers will continue to be lifted in your behalf.

"Respy., "A. BEAL."

Azariah had served the HC well. But for his strategy she might even then be suffering from a loss which would doom the ranch. And yet he could have served her infinitely better by staying on, by untangling the snarl which circ.u.mstances had made in her affairs.

There was just one remaining course to follow, she told herself. This was to go to Tom and explain everything. Then up rose her pride and made denial. She could not do that! If his love would not bear up under doubt, then she must keep her pride intact, for that was all she possessed. Torn between desire to fling herself upon him and sob out the whole story and to maintain her stand until he should be proven wrong and come to her contrite, she dallied with the decision until the riders had come and gone.

She watched Beck, riding at a trot down the road, looking neither to the right nor left. She could not know that a similar struggle tortured him. "Turn back!" one voice in his heart commanded. "Seek her out and question and question until you know why; if it is the worst, if she has been hiding a secret affection from you, beg her to turn from it, to come to you; offer her your all, your pride, your life if need be.

She is all that living holds for you!"

And then that other, sterner self, which said over and over: "That cannot be! If there is that in her heart which must be hidden from you, draw back now and save all that is left to you: your pride!"

So pride held the one in her house and it led the other down Coyote Creek, and each mile, each hour put between them multiplied the difficulties, wore down the chance of reconciliation. For by such simple, basic conflicts are loves ruined!

CHAPTER XXIII

BECK'S DEPARTURE

Night had come upon the round-up camp, fires near the cook wagon were dying. On the rise to the southward the night-hawk sat with an eye on the saddle stock which grazed over a wide area and in their tee-pees the men were sleeping, preparatory to the first day's riding.

Tom Beck sat alone by the glowing remnants of the cook's fire, staring stolidly into the coals, mouth set, struggling with his pride. That quiet, inner voice continued its insistence that he yield a trifle, give Jane Hunter one more chance. "What?" it asked, "will you gain by denying her this? What, indeed, will be left for you if you persist?"

But the voice was weaker than it had been early that day. The alternative it raised in his consciousness less appealing, and a determination to smother it grew steadily. He had been crossed; he had been duped!

Oh, he had been a fool! he told himself. He had thrown to the winds his caution and his reserve; he had taken the biggest chance that life, the trickster, dangles before men. He had taken it blindly, against his better judgment; it left him embittered, with nothing beyond except the position which he held among men. That was a mawkish attainment now; it was so cheap and inconsequential compared to the sense of accomplishment which had been his when Jane Hunter had thrown herself into his arms and begged that he carry her into his life! Deluded though he may have been, that moment had opened to him sensations, vistas, that he had never before imagined existed.

And now! All else that remained was gray and dead. He had been lifted up to see what might be, only to find that it was denied him; more, those moments of glory had taken the zest from the life that had been his before and that now remained.

For long he sat there and gradually the inner voice died entirely, slowly a cold, heartless desire to cling to a dead thing like his standing in the country took its place as his chief interest in life.

He had written Jane that such was all that remained to him. He had not realized as he scrawled those words what a pitiful bauble it was but now it was necessary to endow it with values that he could not truly feel. But he forced himself to believe it of consequence, for men like Tom Beck must have some one valuable thing to live for.

The tee-pees were quiet when he arose, dropped his dead cigarette into the expiring embers and sought his bed. But in one tee-pee a man looked out at the faint jingle of spurs. It was Riley who, with others from the lower country, was riding with the HC wagon to help the larger outfit and, in turn, to be helped in his branding. He was bunked with Jimmy Oliver and Oliver said:

"What's he doin'?"