The Duke Of Chimney Butte Part 19

What a pretty figure she made in the saddle, riding away from him in that slow canter; how well she sat, how she swayed at the waist as her nimble animal cut in and out among the clumps of sage. A mighty pretty girl, and as good as they grew them anywhere. It would be a calamity to have her sick. From the shoulder of the slope he looked back again.

Pretty as any woman a man ever pictured in his dreams.

She pa.s.sed out of sight without looking back, and there rose a picture in his thoughts to take her place, a picture of dark, defiant eyes, of telltale hair falling in betrayal of her disguise, as if discovering her secret to him who had a right to know.

The fancy pleased him; as he worked to repair the damage she had wrought, he smiled. How well his memory retained her, in her transition from anger to scorn, scorn to uneasy amazement, amazement to relief.

Then she had smiled, and the recognition not owned in words but spoken in her eyes, had come.

Yes, she knew him; she recalled her challenge, his acceptance and victory. Even as she rode swiftly to obey him out of that mad encounter in the valley over there, she had owned in her quick act that she knew him, and trusted him as she sped away.

When he came to the place where she had ridden through, he pieced the wire and hooked the ends together, as he had told her he would do. He handled even the stubborn wire tenderly, as a man might the appurtenances to a rite. Perhaps he was linking their destinies in that simple act, he thought, sentimentally unreasonable; it might be that this spot would mark the second altar of his romance, even as the little station of Misery was lifted up in his heart as the shrine of its beginning.

There was blood on his knuckles where the vicious wire had torn him. He dashed it to the ground as a libation, smiling like one moonstruck, a flood of soft fancies making that bleak spot dear.

CHAPTER XIV

NOTICE IS SERVED

Taterleg was finding things easier on his side of the ranch. Nick Hargus was lying still, no hostile acts had been committed. This may have been due to the fierce and bristling appearance of Taterleg, as he humorously declared, or because Hargus was waiting reenforcements from the penal inst.i.tutions of his own and surrounding states.

Taterleg had a good many nights to himself, as a consequence of the security which his grisly exterior had brought. These he spent at Glendora, mainly on the porch of the hotel in company of Alta Wood, chewing gum together as if they wove a fabric to bind their lives in adhesive amity to the end.

Lambert had a feeling of security for his line of fence, also, as he rode home on the evening of his adventurous day. He had left a note on the pieced wire reminding Grace Kerr of his request that she ease her spite by unhooking it there instead of cutting it in a new place. He also added the information that he would be there on a certain date to see how well she carried out his wish.

He wondered whether she would read his hope that she would be there at the same hour, or whether she might be afraid to risk Vesta Philbrook's fury again. There was an eagerness in him for the hastening of the intervening time, a joyous lightness which tuned him to such harmony with the world that he sang as he rode.

Taterleg was going to Glendora that night. He pressed Lambert to join him.

"A man's got to take a day off sometimes to rest his face and hands," he argued. "Them fellers can't run off any stock tonight, and if they do they can't git very far away with 'em before we'd be on their necks.

They know that; they're as safe as if we had 'em where they belong."

"I guess you're right on that, Taterleg. I've got to go to town to buy me a pair of clothes, anyhow, so I'll go you."

Taterleg was as happy as a cricket, humming a tune as he went along. He had made liberal application of perfume to his handkerchief and mustache, and of barber's pomatum to his hair. He had fixed his hat on carefully, for the protection of the cowlick that came down over his left eyebrow, and he could not be stirred beyond a trot all the way to Glendora for fear of damage that might result.

"I had a run-in with that feller the other night," he said.

"What feller do you mean?"

"Jedlick, dern him."

"You did? I didn't notice any of your ears bit off."

"No, we didn't come to licks. He tried to horn in while me and Alta was out on the porch."

"What did you do?"

"I didn't have a show to do anything but hand him a few words. Alta she got me by the arm and drug me in the parlor and slammed the door. No use tryin' to break away from that girl; she could pull a elephant away from his hay if she took a notion."

"Didn't Jedlick try to hang on?"

"No, he stood out in the office rumblin' to the old man, but that didn't bother me no more than the north wind when you're in bed under four blankets. Alta she played me some tunes on her git-tar and sung me some songs. I tell you, Duke, I just laid back and shut my eyes. I felt as easy as if I owned the railroad from here to Omaha."

"How long are you going to keep it up?"

"Which up, Duke?"

"Courtin' Alta. You'll have to show off your tricks pretty regular, I think, if you want to hold your own in that ranch."

Taterleg rode along considering it.

"Ye-es, I guess a feller'll have to act if he wants to hold Alta. She's young, and the young like change. 'Specially the girls. A man to keep Alta on the line'll have to marry her and set her to raisin' children.

You know, Duke, there's something new to a girl in every man she sees.

She likes to have him around till she leans ag'in' him and rubs the paint off, then she's out shootin' eyes at another one."

"Are there others besides Jedlick?"

"That bartender boards there at the _ho_-tel. He's got four gold teeth, and he picks 'em with a quill. Sounds like somebody slappin' the crick with a fis.h.i.+n'-pole. But them teeth give him a standin' in society; they look like money in the bank. Nothing to his business, though, Duke; no sentiment or romance or anything."

"Not much. Who else is there sitting in this Alta game?"

"Young feller with a neck like a bottle, off of a ranch somewhere back in the hills."

Taterleg mentioned him as with consideration. Lambert concluded that he was a rival to be reckoned with, but gave Taterleg his own way of coming to that.

"That feller's got a watch with a music box in the back of it, Duke.

Ever see one of 'em?"

"No, I never did."

"Well, he's got one of 'em, all right. He starts that thing up about the time he hits the steps, and comes in playin' 'Sweet Vilelets' like he just couldn't help bustin' out in music the minute he comes in sight of Alta. That feller gives me a pain!"

The Duke smiled. To every man his own affair is romance; every other man's a folly or a diverting comedy, indeed.

"She's a little too keen on that feller to suit me, Duke. She sets out there with him, and winds that fool watch and plays them two tunes over till you begin to sag, leanin' her elbow on his shoulder like she had him paid for and didn't care whether he broke or not."

"What is the other tune?"

"It's that one that goes:

_A heel an' a toe and a po'ky-o_, _A heel an' a toe and a po'ky-o_

--you know that one."

"I've heard it. She'll get tired of that watch after a while, Taterleg."