Desert Conquest Part 36

"I tell you I would," he protested. "You don't know."

"Bos.h.!.+ We're not so fascinating as that."

Now Farwell was of the battle-axe type. He was accustomed to take what he wanted, to smash through opposition. He looked at the girl facing him in the fading light, and a great desire swelled within him. Her words gave the needed spur to his courage, and he went to the point as he would have gone in to quell a riot in a camp.

"'We,'" he said. "Who's talking of 'we'? I'm not. I come to see _you_.

You ought to know that. Of course you know it. I didn't think I'd ever fall in love, but I _have_. You might as well know it now. I don't know whether you think anything of me or not; it would be just my luck if you didn't. Anyway, that's how I feel, and I'm not going to give up seeing you just because some people have set a crazy yarn going."

The words boiled out of him like steam from a hot spring. He scowled at her ferociously, his eyes hot and angry. It would have been difficult to imagine a more unloverlike att.i.tude. And yet she had no doubt of his sincerity. She would have been less than woman if she had not suspected his feelings before. But she had not expected this outbreak.

"I'm sorry you said that," she told him quietly. "It's quite impossible. I can tell you now what I couldn't tell you before. People say that I have promised to marry you in exchange for your promise that we shall have water for the ranch."

"If you'll tell me the name of a man who utters an infernal lie like that I'll wring his neck," he growled.

"I believe you would. But what good would it do? You can't fight rumours and gossip in that way. That's the trouble with you--you depend on force alone. Can't you see the position this puts us in--puts _me_ in? You can't come here any more."

"I don't see that at all," he objected. "I'll blow up your dam myself if you think it will help, but as for not seeing you--why, it's out of the question. I've got to see you. I'm going to see you. I can't help it. I tell you I think of you all the time. Why, hang it, Sheila, I think of you when I ought to be thinking of my work."

She would have laughed if she had not seen that he was in deadly earnest. His work was a fetish, all-absorbing, demanding and receiving the tribute of his entire attention and energy. That thought of a woman should come between him and it was proof positive of devotion extraordinary.

"You must not do that," she said, gently.

"But I can't help it," he reiterated. "It's new to me, this. I can't concentrate on my work. I keep thinking of you. If that isn't being in love, what in thunder is? I'm talking to you as straight as I'd talk to a man. I believe I love you as much as any woman was ever loved. You don't know much about me, but I'm considered a good man in my profession. From a material point of view I'm all right."

"If I cared for you that would be the last thing I'd think of."

"Why can't you care for me?" he demanded. "I don't expect much. We'd get along."

"No," she said decidedly. "No. It's impossible. We're comparatively strangers. I think you're going to be a big man some day. I rather admire you in some ways. But that is all."

"Well, anyway, I'm not going to quit," he announced doggedly. "I never gave up anything yet. You talk as if it didn't matter! Maybe it doesn't to you, but it does to me. You don't know how much I care. I can't tell you, either. This talk isn't my line. Look here, though. About ten years ago, down in the desert of the Southwest, my horse broke his leg, and I was set afoot. I nearly died of thirst before I got out. All those blistering days, while I stumbled along in that baking h.e.l.l, I kept thinking of a cool spring we had on our place when I was a boy. It bubbled up in moss at the foot of a big cedar, and I used to lie flat and drink till I couldn't hold any more. It was the sweetest water in the world. All those days I tortured myself by thinking of it. I'd have given my soul, if I have one, to satisfy my thirst at that spring. And that's how I feel about you. I want your love as I wanted that water."

"I'm very sorry," she said. "It's out of the question."

"But why?" he demanded. "Give me a chance. I'm not a monster. Or do you mean that you care for somebody else? Is that it? Do you care anything for that Dunne? A fellow that's in love with another woman!"

Even in the dying light he could see the dark flush that surged over cheek and brow. She rose to the full height of her lithe figure, facing him.

"No, I don't!" she flamed. "But if I did what business would it be of yours? Casey Dunne is my friend--a gentleman--which is more than you seem to be, Mr. Farwell."

She took a step toward him in her indignation. Suddenly, with a sweep of his arm, he clipped her to him, kissing her on forehead and cheek.

She struck him in the face with her clenched fist driven by muscles as hard as an athlete's.

"You great brute!" she panted.

With the blow and the words, Farwell's moment of madness pa.s.sed. He held her from him at arm's length.

"A brute!" he said. "You're right. I didn't know it before. Now, I do.

How can I put myself right with you?"

"Let me go!" she cried.

As he released her she heard the quick pad of running feet. Out of the dusk behind her bounded young Sandy McCrae. He came like a young wolf to its first kill, his lips lifted in a snarl. In his right hand lay a long-barrelled, black Colt's.

"Sheila!" he cried. "What's the matter? Who's this? What in--ah!"

The gun leaped up. Instinctively she threw out her hand, striking it as he pulled the trigger. A thin stream of flame blazed almost into Farwell's face, and the sharp report split the evening silence into fragments. Something like a questing finger of death ran through his hair, and his hat twitched from his head, to flutter down softly ten feet away. But he was unhurt.

Sheila locked both arms around her brother's, dragging it down.

"No, no, no!" she cried. "I tell you no, Sandy! Don't shoot again. It's a mistake."

He wrenched furiously to free his hand. "Mistake!" he shouted. "He was holding you! I saw him. I heard you. Let go. I'll blow his heart out!"

But she clung to his arm. "It's a mistake, Sandy, I tell you! Can't you understand me? Don't use that gun. I won't let you. Give it to me!"

He ceased his attempts to free his arm. "All right, Sheila. I won't shoot--this time. You, Farwell, what have you got to say for yourself?"

"Mighty little," Farwell replied. "I asked your sister to marry me, and she refused. I kissed her against her will. That's all--and plenty. If you want my opinion, I think I ought to be shot."

Sandy glared at him, taken aback by this frank admission.

"If she hadn't jolted my hand you sure would have been," he said grimly. "You're mighty lucky to be alive right now. After this if I see you----"

"Shut up, Sandy!" Sheila interrupted authoritatively, with sisterly directness. "I'm quite able to look after my own affairs. Mr. Farwell is sorry. You be white enough to let it go that way."

"It's up to you, if you want it," Sandy replied. "If you can stand for a thing like that once I can. But not twice."

"There won't be any twice. Shall we go to the house, Mr. Farwell?"

Farwell, amazed, fell into step with her. He had expected to be overwhelmed with reproaches, to face a storm of feminine anger. Still, he could not think that she was palliating his offence; and he was quite aware that she had saved his life. Young McCrae, in offended dignity, stalked in front.

"I want you to know," said Farwell, "that I'm utterly ashamed of myself. To prove it I'm going to do the best I can. I'm going to wire in my resignation, and I'm going away."

"Don't."

"What?" he exclaimed incredulously.

"Don't. You are sorry, and that's the main thing. We won't mention it again. And neither will Sandy. But for a while you must not come here."

"I'll do anything," he said. "I think you are the best girl on earth."

Sheila did not reply; but she did not reprove him.

Mrs. McCrae, looking somewhat anxious, met them at the house.

"I heard a shot," she said. "Was it you, Sandy?"