Ben Blair Part 26

Ben looked at the other narrowly. "Nothing to bother about, I judge?"

"No, certainly not."

Beneath the bedclothes the long body lifted, but despite anything it could do the face went pale.

"Very well, I guess I'll get up then."

Instantly Grannis was beside him, motioning him back, genuine concern upon his face.

"No, please don't. Not yet."

"But if I'm not hurt much--"

Grannis fingered his forelock in obvious discomfort.

"Well, between you and me, it's this way. They ripped a seam for you--so far," he indicated, "and it's open yet."

Turning his free left arm, Ben touched the bandage at his side, and the hand came back moist and red. Now that it occurred to him, he was ridiculously weak.

"I see. I'm liable to rip it more," he commented slowly.

The other nodded. "Yes; don't talk. I ought to have stopped you before this."

"Grannis!" There was no escaping the blue eyes this time. "Honestly, now, am I liable to be--done for, or not?"

The foreman became instantly serious. "Honest, if you keep quiet you're all right. Doc said so not an hour ago. At first he thought different, that you'd never wake up; you bled like a pig with its throat cut; but this is what he told me when he left. 'Keep him quiet. It may take a month for that gap to heal, but if you're careful he'll pull through.'"

Again the look of concern, and this time of contrition as well. "I ought to be ashamed of myself for letting you talk at all; but this is straight. Now don't say any more."

This time Ben obeyed. He couldn't well do otherwise. He had suddenly grown weak and drowsy, and almost before Grannis was through speaking he was again asleep.

The doctor was right about the time of healing. During the remainder of that month and well into the next, despite his restless protests, Ben Blair was a prisoner in that dull little room; and through it all Grannis remained with him.

"You don't have to stay with me unless you like," Ben had said more than once; but each time Grannis had displayed his own wound, at first openly, at last, carefully concealed by bandages, whimsically.

"Got to take good care of this arm of mine," he explained. "Blood poisoning's liable to set in at any minute, and that's something awful, they tell me."

The invalid made no comment.

It was the evening following the afternoon of Blair's return to the Box R ranch. In the cosey kitchen, around the new range which Rankin had imported the previous Fall, sat three people,--Grannis, Graham, and Ma Graham. The two men were smoking steadily and silently. The woman, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes glued to the floor, was breathing loudly with the difficulty of the very corpulent. Of a sudden, interrupting, the door connecting with the room adjoining opened and Ben Blair appeared.

"Grannis," he requested, "come here a moment, please."

In silence Blair closed the door behind them, motioned his companion to a seat, and took another opposite him. He was very quiet, even for his taciturn self; and, glancing at a heap of papers on a nearby table, Grannis understood. For a long minute the two men eyed each other silently. Not without result had they lived the events of the last months together. It was the younger man who first spoke.

"Grannis," he said impa.s.sively, "I'm going to ask you a question, and I want an honest answer. Whatever you may think it leads to must cut no figure. Will you give it?"

Equally impa.s.sively the elder man nodded, "Yes."

Blair selected a paper from the litter, and looked at it steadily. "What I want to know is this: have I, has anyone, no matter what the incentive may be, the right to make known after another's death things which during that person's life were carefully concealed?"

The steady gaze s.h.i.+fted to his companion, held there compellingly. "In other words, is a tragedy any less a tragedy, any more public property, because the actors are dead? Answer me honest, Grannis."

Impa.s.sively as before the overseer shook his head. "No, I think not,"

he said. "Let the dead past bury its dead."

A moment longer the other remained motionless, then, before his companion realized what he was doing, Ben had opened the door of the sheet-iron heater and tossed the paper in his fingers fair among the glowing coals.

"Thank you, Grannis," he said, "I agree with you." He stood a second looking into the suddenly kindled blaze. "As you say, to the living, life. Let the dead past bury its dead."

The flame died down until upon the coals lay a thin, curling film of carbon. Grannis s.h.i.+fted in his seat.

"Nevertheless," he commented indifferently, "you've done a foolish act."

A pause; then he went on deliberately as before. "You've destroyed the only evidence that proves you Rankin's son."

Involuntarily Blair stiffened, seeming about to speak. But he did not.

Instead, he closed the stove and resumed his former seat.

"By the way," he digressed, "I just received a letter from Scotty Baker.

I wrote him some time ago about--Mr. Rankin. He answered from England."

Grannis made no comment, and, the conversation being obviously at an end, after a bit he rose, and with a taciturn "Good-night," left the room.

Days and weeks pa.s.sed. The dead rigor of Winter gave way to traces of Spring. On the high places the earth began to turn brown, the buffalo gra.s.s to peep into view. By day the water slushed under the feet of the cattle, and ran merrily in the draws of the rolling country. By night it froze into marvellous frost-work; daintier and more intricate of pattern than any made by man. Overhead, flocks of wild ducks in irregular geometric patterns sailed north at double the speed of express trains. With their mellow "Honk--honk," sweetest sound of all to a frontiersman's ears, harbingers of Spring indeed, far above the level of the ducks, amid the very clouds themselves, the geese, in regular triangles, winged their way toward the snow-lands. At first they seemed to pa.s.s only by day; then, as the season advanced, the nights were melodious with the sound of their voices. Themselves invisible, far below on the surface of earth the swish of their migratory wings sounded so distinctly that to a listening human ear it almost seemed it were a troop of angels pa.s.sing overhead.

After them came the myriad small birds of the prairie,--the countless flocks of blackbirds, whose "fl-ee-ce," in continuous chorus filled all the daylight hours; the meadow-larks, singly or in pairs, announcing their arrival with a guttural "tuerk" and a saucy flit of the tail, or admonis.h.i.+ng "fill your tea-kettle, fill your tea-kettle" with a persistence worthy a better cause.

Ere this the earth was bare and brown. The chatter of the snow streams had ceased. In the high places, on southern slopes, there was even a suggestion of green. At last, on the sunny side of a knoll, there peeped forth the blue face of an anemone. The following day it had several companions. Within a week a very army of blue had arrived, stood erect at attention so far as the eye could reach and beyond. No longer was there a doubt of the season. Not precursors of Spring, but Spring itself had come.

Meanwhile, on the Box R ranch everything moved on as of yore. Save on that first night, Ben Blair made no man his confidant, accepted without question his place as Rankin's successor. Most silent of these silent people, he did his work and did it well, burying deep beneath an impenetrable mask his thoughts and feelings. Not until an early Summer was almost come did he make a move. Then at last a note of three sentences went eastward:

"Miss Baker: I'll be in New York in a few days, and if convenient to you will call. The prairies send greetings in advance. I saw the first wild rose of the season to-day.

"Ben Blair."

A week later, after giving directions for the day's work to Grannis one morning, Ben added some suggestions for the days to follow. As to time, they were rather indefinite, and the overseer looked a question.

"I'm going away for a bit," explained Ben, simply, in answer. Then he turned to Graham. "Hitch up the buckboard right away, please. I want you to take me to town in time to catch the afternoon train East."

CHAPTER XVII

GLITTER AND TINSEL