For two days Bo was confined to her bed, suffering considerable pain, and subject to fever, during which she talked irrationally. Some of this talk afforded Helen as vast an amusement as she was certain it would have lifted Tom Carmichael to a seventh heaven.
The third day, however, Bo was better, and, refusing to remain in bed, she hobbled to the sitting-room, where she divided her time between staring out of the window toward the corrals and pestering Helen with questions she tried to make appear casual. But Helen saw through her case and was in a state of glee. What she hoped most for was that Carmichael would suddenly develop a little less inclination for Bo. It was that kind of treatment the young lady needed. And now was the great opportunity. Helen almost felt tempted to give the cowboy a hint.
Neither this day, nor the next, however, did he put in an appearance at the house, though Helen saw him twice on her rounds. He was busy, as usual, and greeted her as if nothing particular had happened.
Roy called twice, once in the afternoon, and again during the evening. He grew more likable upon longer acquaintance. This last visit he rendered Bo speechless by teasing her about another girl Carmichael was going to take to a dance. Bo's face showed that her vanity could not believe this statement, but that her intelligence of young men credited it with being possible. Roy evidently was as penetrating as he was kind. He made a dry, casual little remark about the snow never melting on the mountains during the latter part of March; and the look with which he accompanied this remark brought a blush to Helen's cheek.
After Roy had departed Bo said to Helen: “Confound that fellow! He sees right through me.”
“My dear, you're rather transparent these days,” murmured Helen.
“You needn't talk. He gave you a dig,” retorted Bo. “He just knows you're dying to see the snow melt.”
“Gracious! I hope I'm not so bad as that. Of course I want the snow melted and spring to come, and flowers--”
“Hal Ha! Ha!” taunted Bo. “Nell Rayner, do you see any green in my eyes? Spring to come! Yes, the poet said in the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. But that poet meant a young woman.”
Helen gazed out of the window at the white stars.
“Nell, have you seen him--since I was hurt?” continued Bo, with an effort.
“Him? Who?”
“Oh, whom do you suppose? I mean Tom!” she responded, and the last word came with a burst.
“Tom? Who's he? Ah, you mean Las Vegas. Yes, I've seen him.”
“Well, did he ask a-about me?”
“I believe he did ask how you were--something like that.”
“Humph! Nell, I don't always trust you.” After that she relapsed into silence, read awhile, and dreamed awhile, looking into the fire, and then she limped over to kiss Helen good night and left the room.
Next day she was rather quiet, seeming upon the verge of one of the dispirited spells she got infrequently. Early in the evening, just after the lights had been lit and she had joined Helen in the sitting-room, a familiar step sounded on the loose boards of the porch.
Helen went to the door to admit Carmichael. He was clean-shaven, dressed in his dark suit, which presented such marked contrast from his riding-garb, and he wore a flower in his buttonhole. Nevertheless, despite all this style, he seemed more than usually the cool, easy, careless cowboy.
“Evenin', Miss Helen,” he said, as he stalked in. “Evenin', Miss Bo. How are you-all?”
Helen returned his greeting with a welcoming smile.
“Good evening--TOM,” said Bo, demurely.
That assuredly was the first time she had ever called him Tom. As she spoke she looked distractingly pretty and tantalizing. But if she had calculated to floor Carmichael with the initial, half-promising, wholly mocking use of his name she had reckoned without cause. The cowboy received that greeting as if he had heard her use it a thousand times or had not heard it at all. Helen decided if he was acting a part he was certainly a clever actor. He puzzled her somewhat, but she liked his look, and his easy manner, and the something about him that must have been his unconscious sense of pride. He had gone far enough, perhaps too far, in his overtures to Bo.
“How are you feelin'?” he asked.
“I'm better to-day,” she replied, with downcast eyes. “But I'm lame yet.”
“Reckon that bronc piled you up. Miss Helen said there shore wasn't any joke about the cut on your knee. Now, a fellar's knee is a bad place to hurt, if he has to keep on ridin'.”
“Oh, I'll be well soon. How's Sam? I hope he wasn't crippled.”
“Thet Sam--why, he's so tough he never knowed he had a fall.”
“Tom--I--I want to thank you for giving Riggs what he deserved.”
She spoke it earnestly, eloquently, and for once she had no sly little intonation or pert allurement, such as was her wont to use on this infatuated young man.
“Aw, you heard about that,” replied Carmichael, with a wave of his hand to make light of it. “Nothin' much. It had to be done. An' shore I was afraid of Roy. He'd been bad. An' so would any of the other boys. I'm sorta lookin' out for all of them, you know, actin' as Miss Helen's foreman now.”
Helen was unutterably tickled. The effect of his speech upon Bo was stupendous. He had disarmed her. He had, with the finesse and tact and suavity of a diplomat, removed himself from obligation, and the detachment of self, the casual thing be apparently made out of his magnificent championship, was bewildering and humiliating to Bo. She sat silent for a moment or two while Helen tried to fit easily into the conversation. It was not likely that Bo would long be at a loss for words, and also it was immensely probable that with a flash of her wonderful spirit she would turn the tables on her perverse lover in a twinkling. Anyway, plain it was that a lesson had sunk deep. She looked startled, hurt, wistful, and finally sweetly defiant.
“But--you told Riggs I was your girl!” Thus Bo unmasked her battery. And Helen could not imagine how Carmichael would ever resist that and the soft, arch glance which accompanied it.
Helen did not yet know the cowboy, any more than did Bo.
“Shore. I had to say thet. I had to make it strong before thet gang. I reckon it was presumin' of me, an' I shore apologize.”
Bo stared at him, and then, giving a little gasp, she drooped.
“Wal, I just run in to say howdy an' to inquire after you-all,” said Carmichael. “I'm goin' to the dance, an' as Flo lives out of town a ways I'd shore better rustle.... Good night, Miss Bo; I hope you'll be ridin' Sam soon. An' good night, Miss Helen.”
Bo roused to a very friendly and laconic little speech, much overdone. Carmichael strode out, and Helen, bidding him good-by, closed the door after him.
The instant he had departed Bo's transformation was tragic.
“Flo! He meant Flo Stubbs--that ugly, cross-eyed, bold, little frump!”
“Bo!” expostulated Helen. “The young lady is not beautiful, I grant, but she's very nice and pleasant. I liked her.”
“Nell Rayner, men are no good! And cowboys are the worst!” declared Bo, terribly.
“Why didn't you appreciate Tom when you had him?” asked Helen.
Bo had been growing furious, but now the allusion, in past tense, to the conquest she had suddenly and amazingly found dear quite broke her spirit. It was a very pale, unsteady, and miserable girl who avoided Helen's gaze and left the room.
Next day Bo was not approachable from any direction. Helen found her a victim to a multiplicity of moods, ranging from woe to dire, dark broodings, from them to' wistfulness, and at last to a pride that sustained her.
Late in the afternoon, at Helen's leisure hour, when she and Bo were in the sitting-room, horses tramped into the court and footsteps mounted the porch. Opening to a loud knock, Helen was surprised to see Beasley. And out in the court were several mounted horsemen. Helen's heart sank. This visit, indeed, had been foreshadowed.
“Afternoon, Miss Rayner,” said Beasley, doffing his sombrero. “I've called on a little business deal. Will you see me?”
Helen acknowledged his greeting while she thought rapidly. She might just as well see him and have that inevitable interview done with.
“Come in,” she said, and when he had entered she closed the door. “My sister, Mr. Beasley.”
“How d' you do, Miss?” said the rancher, in bluff, loud voice.
Bo acknowledged the introduction with a frigid little bow.
At close range Beasley seemed a forceful personality as well as a rather handsome man of perhaps thirty-five, heavy of build, swarthy of skin, and sloe-black of eye, like that of the Mexicans whose blood was reported to be in him. He looked crafty, confident, and self-centered. If Helen had never heard of him before that visit she would have distrusted him.
“I'd called sooner, but I was waitin' for old Jose, the Mexican who herded for me when I was pardner to your uncle,” said Beasley, and he sat down to put his huge gloved hands on his knees.
“Yes?” queried Helen, interrogatively.
“Jose rustled over from Magdalena, an' now I can back up my claim.... Miss Rayner, this hyar ranch ought to be mine an' is mine. It wasn't so big or so well stocked when Al Auchincloss beat me out of it. I reckon I'll allow for thet. I've papers, an' old Jose for witness. An' I calculate you'll pay me eighty thousand dollars, or else I'll take over the ranch.”
Beasley spoke in an ordinary, matter-of-fact tone that certainly seemed sincere, and his manner was blunt, but perfectly natural.
“Mr. Beasley, your claim is no news to me,” responded Helen, quietly. “I've heard about it. And I questioned my uncle. He swore on his death-bed that he did not owe you a dollar. Indeed, he claimed the indebtedness was yours to him. I could find nothing in his papers, so I must repudiate your claim. I will not take it seriously.”
“Miss Rayner, I can't blame you for takin' Al's word against mine,” said Beasley. “An' your stand is natural. But you're a stranger here an' you know nothin' of stock deals in these ranges. It ain't fair to speak bad of the dead, but the truth is thet Al Auchincloss got his start by stealin' sheep an' unbranded cattle. Thet was the start of every rancher I know. It was mine. An' we none of us ever thought of it as rustlin'.”
Helen could only stare her surprise and doubt at this statement.
“Talk's cheap anywhere, an' in the West talk ain't much at all,” continued Beasley. “I'm no talker. I jest want to tell my case an' make a deal if you'll have it. I can prove more in black an' white, an' with witness, than you can. Thet's my case. The deal I'd make is this.... Let's marry an' settle a bad deal thet way.”
The man's direct assumption, absolutely without a qualifying consideration for her woman's attitude, was amazing, ignorant, and base; but Helen was so well prepared for it that she hid her disgust.
“Thank you, Mr. Beasley, but I can't accept your offer,” she replied.
“Would you take time an' consider?” he asked, spreading wide his huge gloved hands.
“Absolutely no.”
Beasley rose to his feet. He showed no disappointment or chagrin, but the bold pleasantness left his face, and, slight as that change was, it stripped him of the only redeeming quality he showed.
“Thet means I'll force you to pay me the eighty thousand or put you off,” he said.
“Mr. Beasley, even if I owed you that, how could I raise so enormous a sum? I don't owe it. And I certainly won't be put off my property. You can't put me off.”
“An' why can't I?” he demanded, with lowering, dark gaze.
“Because your claim is dishonest. And I can prove it,” declared Helen, forcibly.
“Who 're you goin' to prove it to--thet I'm dishonest?”
“To my men--to your men--to the people of Pine--to everybody. There's not a person who won't believe me.”
He seemed curious, discomfited, surlily annoyed, and yet fascinated by her statement or else by the quality and appearance of her as she spiritedly defended her cause.
“An' how 're you goin' to prove all thet?” he growled.
“Mr. Beasley, do you remember last fall when you met Snake Anson with his gang up in the woods--and hired him to make off with me?” asked Helen, in swift, ringing words.
The dark olive of Beasley's bold face shaded to a dirty white.
“Wha-at?” he jerked out, hoarsely.
“I see you remember. Well, Milt Dale was hidden in the loft of that cabin where you met Anson. He heard every word of your deal with the outlaw.”
Beasley swung his arm in sudden violence, so hard that he flung his glove to the floor. As he stooped to snatch it up he uttered a sibilant hiss. Then, stalking to the door, he jerked it open, and slammed it behind him. His loud voice, hoarse with passion, preceded the scrape and crack of hoofs.
Shortly after supper that day, when Helen was just recovering her composure, Carmichael presented himself at the open door. Bo was not there. In the dimming twilight Helen saw that the cowboy was pale, somber, grim.
“Oh, what's happened?” cried Helen.
“Roy's been shot. It come off in Turner's saloon But he ain't dead. We packed him over to Widow Cass's. An' he said for me to tell you he'd pull through.”
“Shot! Pull through!” repeated Helen, in slow, unrealizing exclamation. She was conscious of a deep internal tumult and a cold checking of blood in all her external body.
“Yes, shot,” replied Carmichael, fiercely.
“An', whatever he says, I reckon he won't pull through.”
“O Heaven, how terrible!” burst out Helen. “He was so good--such a man! What a pity! Oh, he must have met that in my behalf. Tell me, what happened? Who shot him?”
“Wal, I don't know. An' thet's what's made me hoppin' mad. I wasn't there when it come off. An' he won't tell me.”
“Why not?”
“I don't know thet, either. I reckoned first it was because he wanted to get even. But, after thinkin' it over, I guess he doesn't want me lookin' up any one right now for fear I might get hurt. An' you're goin' to need your friends. Thet's all I can make of Roy.”
Then Helen hurriedly related the event of Beasley's call on her that afternoon and all that had occurred.
“Wal, the half-breed son-of-a-greaser!” ejaculated Carmichael, in utter confoundment. “He wanted you to marry him!”
“He certainly did. I must say it was a--a rather abrupt proposal.”
Carmichael appeared to be laboring with speech that had to be smothered behind his teeth. At last he let out an explosive breath.
“Miss Nell, I've shore felt in my bones thet I'm the boy slated to brand thet big bull.”
“Oh, he must have shot Roy. He left here in a rage.”
“I reckon you can coax it out of Roy. Fact is, all I could learn was thet Roy come in the saloon alone. Beasley was there, an' Riggs--”
“Riggs!” interrupted Helen.
“Shore, Riggs. He come back again. But he'd better keep out of my way.... An' Jeff Mulvey with his outfit. Turner told me he heard an argument an' then a shot. The gang cleared out, leavin' Roy on the floor. I come in a little later. Roy was still layin' there. Nobody was doin' anythin' for him. An' nobody had. I hold that against Turner. Wal, I got help an' packed Roy over to Widow Cass's. Roy seemed all right. But he was too bright an' talky to suit me. The bullet hit his lung, thet's shore. An' he lost a sight of blood before we stopped it. Thet skunk Turner might have lent a hand. An' if Roy croaks I reckon I'll--”
“Tom, why must you always be reckoning to kill somebody?” demanded Helen, angrily.
“'Cause somebody's got to be killed 'round here. Thet's why!” he snapped back.
“Even so--should you risk leaving Bo and me without a friend?” asked Helen, reproachfully.
At that Carmichael wavered and lost something of his sullen deadliness.
“Aw, Miss Nell, I'm only mad. If you'll just be patient with me--an' mebbe coax me.... But I can't see no other way out.”
“Let's hope and pray,” said Helen, earnestly. “You spoke of my coaxing Roy to tell who shot him. When can I see him?”
“To-morrow, I reckon. I'll come for you. Fetch Bo along with you. We've got to play safe from now on. An' what do you say to me an' Hal sleepin' here at the ranch-house?”
“Indeed I'd feel safer,” she replied. “There are rooms. Please come.”
“Allright. An' now I'll be goin' to fetch Hal. Shore wish I hadn't made you pale an' scared like this.”
About ten o'clock next morning Carmichael drove Helen and Bo into Pine, and tied up the team before Widow Cass's cottage.
The peach and apple-trees were mingling blossoms of pink and white; a drowsy hum of bees filled the fragrant air; rich, dark-green alfalfa covered the small orchard flat; a wood fire sent up a lazy column of blue smoke; and birds were singing sweetly.
Helen could scarcely believe that amid all this tranquillity a man lay perhaps fatally injured. Assuredly Carmichael had been somber and reticent enough to rouse the gravest fears.
Widow Cass appeared on the little porch, a gray, bent, worn, but cheerful old woman whom Helen had come to know as her friend.
“My land! I'm thet glad to see you, Miss Helen,” she said. “An' you've fetched the little lass as I've not got acquainted with yet.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Cass. How--how is Roy?” replied Helen, anxiously scanning the wrinkled face.
“Roy? Now don't you look so scared. Roy's 'most ready to git on his hoss an' ride home, if I let him. He knowed you was a-comin'. An' he made me hold a lookin'-glass for him to shave. How's thet fer a man with a bullet-hole through him! You can't kill them Mormons, nohow.”
She led them into a little sitting-room, where on a couch underneath a window Roy Beeman lay. He was wide awake and smiling, but haggard. He lay partly covered with a blanket. His gray shirt was open at the neck, disclosing bandages.
“Mornin'--girls,” he drawled. “Shore is good of you, now, comin' down.”
Helen stood beside him, bent over him, in her earnestness, as she greeted him. She saw a shade of pain in his eyes and his immobility struck her, but he did not seem badly off. Bo was pale, round-eyed, and apparently too agitated to speak. Carmichael placed chairs beside the couch for the girls.
“Wal, what's ailin' you this nice mornin'?” asked Roy, eyes on the cowboy.
“Huh! Would you expect me to be wearin' the smile of a fellar goin' to be married?” retorted Carmichael.
“Shore you haven't made up with Bo yet,” returned Roy.
Bo blushed rosy red, and the cowboy's face lost something of its somber hue.
“I allow it's none of your d--darn bizness if SHE ain't made up with me,” he said.
“Las Vegas, you're a wonder with a hoss an' a rope, an' I reckon with a gun, but when it comes to girls you shore ain't there.”
“I'm no Mormon, by golly! Come, Ma Cass, let's get out of here, so they can talk.”
“Folks, I was jest a-goin' to say thet Roy's got fever an' he oughtn't t' talk too much,” said the old woman. Then she and Carmichael went into the kitchen and closed the door.
Roy looked up at Helen with his keen eyes, more kindly piercing than ever.
“My brother John was here. He'd just left when you come. He rode home to tell my folks I'm not so bad hurt, an' then he's goin' to ride a bee-line into the mountains.”
Helen's eyes asked what her lips refused to utter.
“He's goin' after Dale. I sent him. I reckoned we-all sorta needed sight of thet doggone hunter.”
Roy had averted his gaze quickly to Bo.
“Don't you agree with me, lass?”
“I sure do,” replied Bo, heartily.
All within Helen had been stilled for the moment of her realization; and then came swell and beat of heart, and inconceivable chafing of a tide at its restraint.
“Can John--fetch Dale out--when the snow's so deep?” she asked, unsteadily.
“Shore. He's takin' two hosses up to the snow-line. Then, if necessary, he'll go over the pass on snow-shoes. But I bet him Dale would ride out. Snow's about gone except on the north slopes an' on the peaks.”
“Then--when may I--we expect to see Dale?”
“Three or four days, I reckon. I wish he was here now.... Miss Helen, there's trouble afoot.”
“I realize that. I'm ready. Did Las Vegas tell you about Beasley's visit to me?”
“No. You tell me,” replied Roy.
Briefly Helen began to acquaint him with the circumstances of that visit, and before she had finished she made sure Roy was swearing to himself.
“He asked you to marry him! Jerusalem!... Thet I'd never have reckoned. The--low-down coyote of a greaser!... Wal, Miss Helen, when I met up with Senor Beasley last night he was shore spoilin' from somethin'; now I see what thet was. An' I reckon I picked out the bad time.”
“For what? Roy, what did you do?”
“Wal, I'd made up my mind awhile back to talk to Beasley the first chance I had. An' thet was it. I was in the store when I seen him go into Turner's. So I followed. It was 'most dark. Beasley an' Riggs an' Mulvey an' some more were drinkin' an' powwowin'. So I just braced him right then.”
“Roy! Oh, the way you boys court danger!”
“But, Miss Helen, thet's the only way. To be afraid MAKES more danger. Beasley 'peared civil enough first off. Him an' me kept edgin' off, an' his pards kept edgin' after us, till we got over in a corner of the saloon. I don't know all I said to him. Shore I talked a heap. I told him what my old man thought. An' Beasley knowed as well as I thet my old man's not only the oldest inhabitant hereabouts, but he's the wisest, too. An' he wouldn't tell a lie. Wal, I used all his sayin's in my argument to show Beasley thet if he didn't haul up short he'd end almost as short. Beasley's thick-headed, an' powerful conceited. Vain as a peacock! He couldn't see, an' he got mad. I told him he was rich enough without robbin' you of your ranch, an'--wal, I shore put up a big talk for your side. By this time he an' his gang had me crowded in a corner, an' from their looks I begun to get cold feet. But I was in it an' had to make the best of it. The argument worked down to his pinnin' me to my word that I'd fight for you when thet fight come off. An' I shore told him for my own sake I wished it 'd come off quick.... Then--wal--then somethin' did come off quick!”
“Roy, then he shot you!” exclaimed Helen, passionately.
“Now, Miss Helen, I didn't say who done it,” replied Roy, with his engaging smile.
“Tell me, then--who did?”
“Wal, I reckon I sha'n't tell you unless you promise not to tell Las Vegas. Thet cowboy is plumb off his head. He thinks he knows who shot me an' I've been lyin' somethin' scandalous. You see, if he learns--then he'll go gunnin'. An', Miss Helen, thet Texan is bad. He might get plugged as I did--an' there would be another man put off your side when the big trouble comes.”
“Roy, I promise you I will not tell Las Vegas,” replied Helen, earnestly.
“Wal, then--it was Riggs!” Roy grew still paler as he confessed this and his voice, almost a whisper, expressed shame and hate. “Thet four-flush did it. Shot me from behind Beasley! I had no chance. I couldn't even see him draw. But when I fell an' lay there an' the others dropped back, then I seen the smokin' gun in his hand. He looked powerful important. An' Beasley began to cuss him an' was cussin' him as they all run out.”
“Oh, coward! the despicable coward!” cried Helen.
“No wonder Tom wants to find out!” exclaimed Bo, low and deep. “I'll bet he suspects Riggs.”
“Shore he does, but I wouldn't give him no satisfaction.”
“Roy, you know that Riggs can't last out here.”
“Wal, I hope he lasts till I get on my feet again.”
“There you go! Hopeless, all you boys! You must spill blood!” murmured Helen, shudderingly.
“Dear Miss Helen, don't take on so. I'm like Dale--no man to hunt up trouble. But out here there's a sort of unwritten law--an eye for an eye--a tooth for a tooth. I believe in God Almighty, an' killin' is against my religion, but Riggs shot me--the same as shootin' me in the back.”
“Roy, I'm only a woman--I fear, faint-hearted and unequal to this West.”
“Wait till somethin' happens to you. 'Supposin' Beasley comes an' grabs you with his own dirty big paws an', after maulin' you some, throws you out of your home! Or supposin' Riggs chases you into a corner!”
Helen felt the start of all her physical being--a violent leap of blood. But she could only judge of her looks from the grim smile of the wounded man as he watched her with his keen, intent eyes.
“My friend, anythin' can happen,” he said. “But let's hope it won't be the worst.”
He had begun to show signs of weakness, and Helen, rising at once, said that she and Bo had better leave him then, but would come to see him the next day. At her call Carmichael entered again with Mrs. Cass, and after a few remarks the visit was terminated. Carmichael lingered in the doorway.
“Wal, Cheer up, you old Mormon!” he called.
“Cheer up yourself, you cross old bachelor!” retorted Roy, quite unnecessarily loud. “Can't you raise enough nerve to make up with Bo?”
Carmichael evacuated the doorway as if he had been spurred. He was quite red in the face while he unhitched the team, and silent during the ride up to the ranch-house. There he got down and followed the girls into the sitting room. He appeared still somber, though not sullen, and had fully regained his composure.
“Did you find out who shot Roy?” he asked, abruptly, of Helen.
“Yes. But I promised Roy I would not tell,” replied Helen, nervously. She averted her eyes from his searching gaze, intuitively fearing his next query.
“Was it thet--Riggs?”
“Las Vegas, don't ask me. I will not break my promise.”
He strode to the window and looked out a moment, and presently, when he turned toward Bo, he seemed a stronger, loftier, more impelling man, with all his emotions under control.
“Bo, will you listen to me--if I swear to speak the truth--as I know it?”
“Why, certainly,” replied Bo, with the color coming swiftly to her face.
“Roy doesn't want me to know because he wants to meet thet fellar himself. An' I want to know because I want to stop him before he can do more dirt to us or our friends. Thet's Roy's reason an' mine. An' I'm askin' YOU to tell me.”
“But, Tom--I oughtn't,” replied Bo, haltingly.
“Did you promise Roy not to tell?”
“No.”
“Or your sister?”
“No. I didn't promise either.”
“Wal, then you tell me. I want you to trust me in this here matter. But not because I love you an' once had a wild dream you might care a little for me--”
“Oh--Tom!” faltered Bo.
“Listen. I want you to trust me because I'm the one who knows what's best. I wouldn't lie an' I wouldn't say so if I didn't know shore. I swear Dale will back me up. But he can't be here for some days. An' thet gang has got to be bluffed. You ought to see this. I reckon you've been quick in savvyin' Western ways. I couldn't pay you no higher compliment, Bo Rayner.... Now will you tell me?”
“Yes, I will,” replied Bo, with the blaze leaping to her eyes.
