Judith of Blue Lake Ranch

by Jackson Gregory

  XIV

  SPRINGTIME AND A VISION

  Hampton's captive, known to them only as Shorty, a heavy, surly manwhose small, close-set eyes burned evilly under his pale brows, rodethat night between Hampton and Judith down to the ranch-house. Hemaintained a stubborn silence after the first outburst of rage. Hishands tied behind his back, a rope run round his waist and down on eachside through a cinch-ring, he sat idly humped forward, making noprotest.

  Burkitt and Lee, despite Judith's objections because of Lee's woundedleg, remained at the cabin with Bill Crowdy. Crowdy had lost a deal ofblood, and though he complained of little pain, was clearly in soreneed of medical attention. Judith, coming to the bunk-side just beforeshe left, assured him very gently that she would send Doc Tripp to himimmediately and, further, that she would telephone into Rocky Bend fora physician. Crowdy, like Shorty, refused to talk.

  "Aw, hell," he grunted as Lee demanded what influence had brought himwith Shorty and Quinnion into this mad project, "let me alone, can'tyou?"

  And Lee let him alone. He and Burkitt sat and smoked and so passed theremaining hours of a long night. The folly of seeking Quinnion in thisthick darkness was so obvious that they gave no thought to it,impatiently awaiting the dawn and the coming of the men whom Judithwould send.

  The events of the rest of the night and of the morrow may be brieflytold: Shorty's modest request of a glass of whiskey was granted him.Then, his hands still bound securely by Carson, he was put in the smallgrain-house, a windowless, ten-by-ten house of logs. An admirable jailthis, with its heavy padlock snapped into a deeply embedded staple andthe great hasp in place. The key safely in Judith's possession, Shortywas left to his own thoughts while Judith, and Hampton went to thehouse.

  In answer to Judith's call, Doc Tripp came without delay, left brief,disconcerting word that without the shadow of a doubt the hogs werestricken with cholera, and went on with his little bag to see what hisskill could do for Bill Crowdy.

  "Ought to give him sulphur fumes," grunted Tripp. But his hands werevery gentle with the wounded man for all that.

  Pollock Hampton had no thought of sleep that night; didn't so much asgo to bed. He lay on a couch in the living-room and Marcia Langworthy,tremendously moved at the recital Judith gave of Hampton's heroism,fluttered about him, playing nurse to her heart's delight. The majorsuggested that Hampton have something and Hampton was glad to accept.Mrs. Langworthy complacently looked into the future and to the maturityof her own plans. In truth, good had come out of evil, and Marcia andHampton held hands quite unblushingly.

  Before daylight Carson, with half a dozen men, had breakfasted, saddledand was ready to ride to the Upper End to begin the search forQuinnion. But before he rode, Carson made the discovery that duringthe night the staple and hasp on the grain-house door had been wrenchedaway and that Shorty was gone, leaving behind him no sign of the way ofhis going. Carson's face was a dull, brick red. Not yet had hebrought himself to accept the full significance of events. A hold-up,such as Charlie Miller had experienced, is one thing; a continuedseries of incidents like these happening upon the confines of the BlueLake Ranch, was quite another. Hampton, knowing nothing of conditionsin the mountains, had been quick to imagine the predicament in which hehad found Judith and Bud Lee. To Carson that had been a thing not tobe thought of. Now, only too plainly he realized that Shorty had hadan accomplice at the ranch headquarters who had come to his assistance.

  Carson blamed himself for the escape. And yet, he growled to himself,in a mingling of shame and anger, it would have looked like plumbfoolishness to sit out in front of that heavy door all night, when hehimself had tied Shorty's hands.

  "Quinnion might have let him loose," he mused as he went slowly to thehouse to tell Judith what had happened. "An' then he mightn't. If he,didn't, then who the devil did?"

  Judith received the news sleepily and much more quietly than Carson hadexpected.

  "We'll have to keep our eyes open after this, Carson," was hercriticism. Remembering the night when she had been so certain thatthere had been some one listening to her talk with Tripp she addedthoughtfully: "We've got to keep an eye on our own men, Carson. Someone of our crowd, taking my pay, is double-crossing us. Now, get yourmen on the jump and we won't bother about the milk-spilling. If we arein luck we'll get Shorty yet. And Quinnion, Carson! Don't forgetQuinnion. And we've still got Bill Crowdy; we'll get everything out ofhim that he knows."

  The cattleman rode away in heavy silence, headed toward the cabin atthe Upper End, his men riding with him, an eager, watchful crowd. ButCarson had his doubts about getting Quinnion, his fears that it wouldbe a long time before he ever put a rope again to Shorty's thick wrists.

  During the day Emmet Sawyer, the Rocky Bend sheriff, came, and with himDoctor Brannan. Sawyer assured Judith that he would be followedshortly by a posse led by a deputy and that they would hunt through themountains until they got the outlaws. He listened to all that she hadto tell him and then looked up Bud Lee.

  "You didn't see Quinnion?" he asked. "Could you swear to him if weever bring him in? Just by his voice?"

  "Yes," answered Lee. "I can. But see if you can't get Crowdy tosqueal. We're shy Shorty's real name, too, you know."

  To all questions put him, Bill Crowdy answered with stubborn denial ofknowledge or not at all. He had been alone; he didn't know any mannamed Quinnion; he didn't know anything about Shorty. And he hadn'trobbed Miller. That canvas bag, then, with the thousand dollars in it?He had found it; picked it up in a gully.

  "I won't do any talking," he grunted in final word, "until I get alawyer to talk to. I know that much, Sawyer, if I don't know a hell ofa lot. An' you can get it out'n your head that I'm the kind to snitchon a pal--even if I had one, which I didn't."

  Crowdy, at Doctor Brannan's orders, was taken to Rocky Bend whereSawyer promised him a speedy trial, conviction and heavy sentenceunless he changed his mind and turned state's evidence. And--to bedone with Bill Crowdy for good and all--he never came to stand trial.A mad attempt at escape a week later, another bullet-hole given him inhis struggle with his jailer, and with lips still stubbornly locked, hedied without "snitching on a pal."

  Under fire in the dark cabin with life grown suddenly tense for them,Bud Lee and Judith Sanford had touched hands lingeringly. No one whoknew them guessed it; certainly one of them, perhaps both, sought toforget it. There had been that strange thrill which comes sometimeswhen a man's hand and a woman's meet. Bud Lee grunted at the memory ofit; Judith, remembering, blushed scarlet. For, at that moment of deep,sympathetic understanding touched with the romance which young lifewill draw even from a dark night fraught with danger, there had been inBud Lee's heart but an acceptance, eager as it was, of a "pardner."For the time being he thought of her--or, rather, he thought that hethought of her, as a man would think of a companion of his own sex. Heapproved of her. But he did not approve of her as a girl, as a woman.

  He had said: "There are two kinds of women." And Judith, knowing thathis ideal was an impossible but poetic She, rich in subtle femininegraces, steeped in that vague charm of her sex like a rose in its ownperfume, had accepted his friendship during a dark hour, allowingherself to forget that upon the morrow, if morrow came to them at all,he would hold her in that gentle scorn of his.

  "A narrow-minded, bigoted fool!" she cried in the seclusion of herbedroom. "I'll show you where you get off, Mr. Bud Lee! Just youwait."

  When she and Lee met, she looked him straight in the eye with markedcoolness, oddly aloof, and Lee, lifting his hat, was stiff andshort-worded.

  In the long, quiet hours which came during the few days following theend of a fruitless search for Quinnion and Shorty, he had ample time toanalyze his own emotion. He liked her; from the bottom of his heart heliked her. But she was not the lady of his dreams. She rode like aman, she shot like a man, she gave her orders like a man. She wasefficient. She was as square as a die; under fire she was a pardnerfor any ma
n. But she was not a little lady to be thought ofsentimentally. He wondered what she would look like if she shed bootsand broad hat and riding-habit and appeared before a man in an eveninggown--"all lacy and ribbony, you know." He couldn't picture her thatway; he couldn't imagine her dallying, as the lady of his dreamsdallied, in an atmosphere of rose-leaves, perhaps a volume of Tennysonon her knee.

  "Shucks!" he grinned to himself, a trifle shame-facedly. "It's justthe springtime in the air."

  In such a mood there appeared to Bud Lee a vision. Nothing less. Hewas in the little meadow hidden from the ranch-house by gentle hillsstill green with young June. He had been working Lovelady, a newlybroken saddle-mare. Standing with his back to a tree, a cigarette inthe making in his hands, his black hat far back upon his head, hesmilingly watched Lovelady as with regained freedom she galloped backacross the meadow to her herd. Then a shadow on the grass drew Lee'seyes swiftly away from the mare and to the vision.

  Over the verdant flooring of the meadow, stepping daintily in and outamong the big golden buttercups, came one who might well have been thatlady of his dreams. A milk-white hand held up a pale-pink skirt,disclosing the lacy flounce of a fine underskirt, pale-pink stockingsand mincing little slippers; a pink parasol cast the most delicate oftints upon a pretty face from which big blue eyes looked out a littletimorously upon the tall horse foreman.

  He knew that this was Marcia Langworthy. He had never known until nowjust how pretty she was, how like a flower.

  Marcia paused, seemed to hesitate, dodged suddenly as a noisy bumblebeesailed down the air. Then the bee buzzed on and Marcia smiled. Stillstepping daintily she came on until, with her parasol twirling over hershoulder, she stood in the shade with Lee.

  "You're Mr. Lee, aren't you?" asked Marcia. She was still smiling andlooked cool and fresh and very alluring.

  Lee dropped the makings of his cigarette, ground the paper into the sodwith his heel and removed his hat with a gallantry little short ofreverence.

  "Yes," he answered, his gravity touched with the hint of a responsivesmile. "Is there something I can do for you, Miss Langworthy?"

  "Oh!" cried Marcia. "So you know who I am? Yet I have never seen you,I think."

  "The star doesn't always see the moth, you know," offered Lee, a littleintoxicated by the first "vision" of this kind he had seen in manyyears.

  "Oh!" cried Marcia again, and then stopped, looking at him, franklypuzzled. She knew little first-hand of horse foremen. But she hadseen Carson, even talked with him. And she had seen other workmen.She would, until now, have summed them all up as illiterate, awkward,and impossibly backward and shy. A second long, curious glance at Leefailed to show that he was embarrassed, though in truth he had had timeto be a bit ashamed of that moth-and-star observation of his. Instead,he appeared quite self-possessed. And he was good-looking, remarkablygood-looking. And he didn't seem illiterate; quite the contrary,Marcia thought. In an instant she catalogued this tall, dark,calm-eyed man as interesting.

  She twirled her parasol at him and laughed softly. A strand of blondhair that was very becoming where it was, against her delicate cheek,she tucked back where it evidently belonged, since there it looked evenmore becoming.

  "Mr. Hampton isn't here, is he?" she asked.

  "No. Come to think of it, he did say this morning that he would be outright after lunch to help me break Lovelady. But I haven't seen him."

  "He wanted me to stroll out here with him," Marcia explained. "And Iwouldn't. It was too hot. Didn't you find it terribly hot about anhour ago, Mr. Lee?"

  As a matter of fact Bud Lee had been altogether too busy an hour agowith the capers of Lovelady to note whether it was hot or cold. But hecourteously agreed with Miss Langworthy.

  "Then," she ran on brightly, "it got cool all of a sudden. Or at leastI did. And I thought that Polly had come out here, so I walked out tosurprise him. And now, he isn't here!"

  Marcia looked up at Lee helplessly, smilingly, fascinatingly. It wasquite as though she had added: "Oh, dear! What _shall_ I do?"

  Pollock Hampton had fully meant to come. But by now he had forgottenall about Bud Lee and horses to ride and to be bucked off by. Atelegram had come from a nasty little tailor in San Francisco who haddiscovered Hampton's retreat and who was devilishly insistent upon asmall matter--oh, some suits and things, you know. The whole thingtotalled scarcely seven hundred dollars. He went to find Judith, tobeg an advance against his wages or allowance or dividends or whateveryou call it. Judith was out somewhere at the Lower End, Mrs. Simpsonthought. Hampton saddled his own horse and went to find her. All thisMarcia was to learn that evening.

  After the swift passing of a few bright minutes, Marcia and Bud Leestrolled together across the meadow to the spring. Marcia, it seemed,was interested in everything. Lee told her much of the ways of horses,of breaking them, of a score of little ranch matters, not without theircolor. Marcia noted that he spoke rather slowly, and guessed that hewas choosing his words with particular care.

  She was delighted when they came to the bank under the willows where apipe sent forth a clear, cold stream of water from a shady recess inthe hillside. Here, at Lee's solicitous suggestion, she rested afterher long walk--it was nearly a half-mile to the ranch-house--disposingher skirts fluffily about her, taking her seat upon a convenient logfrom which, with his hat, Lee had swept the loose dust.

  "I'm dreadfully improper, am I not?" said Marcia. "But I am tired, andit is hot, isn't it? Out there in the fields, I mean. Here it's justlovely. And I do so love to hear about all the things you know whichare so wonderful to me. Isn't life narrow in the cities? Don't youthink so, Mr. Lee?"

  The breeze playing gently with the ribbons of her sunshade brought tohim the faintest of violet perfumes. He lay at her feet, obeying hertardy command to have the smoke which she had interrupted. His eyeswere full of her.

  "I'd so love," went on Marcia dreamily, "to live always out-of-doors.Out here I feel so sorry for the people I know in town. Here womenmust grow up so sweet and pure and innocent; men must be so fine andmanly and strong!"

  And she meant it. It was perfectly clear that she spoke in uttersincerity. For this long, summer day, no matter how she would feelto-morrow, Marcia was in tune with the open, yearned for the life blownclean with the air of the mountains. In the morning her mood had beenone of rebellion, for her mother had said things which both hurt andshocked the girl. Her mother was so mercenary, so unromantic. Now, asa bit of reaction, the rebellious spirit had grown tender; oppositionhad been followed by listlessness; and into the mood of tenderlistlessness there had come a man. A man whom Marcia had never noteduntil now and who was an anomaly, almost a mystery.

  Fate, in the form of old Carson, turned a herd of bellowing steers outinto the fields lying between the meadow and the ranch-house thatafternoon just as Marcia, making a late concession to propriety, wasshaking her skirts and lifting her parasol. It was scarcely to bewondered at that the steers seemed to Marcia a great herd ofbloodthirsty beasts. Then there were her pink gown and sunshade. . . .

  "Oh, dear, oh, dear!" cried Marcia.

  So it was under Lee's protection that she went back through the meadowsand to the house. At first she was frightened by the strange noiseshis led horse made, little snorts which made her jump. But in the endshe put out a timid hand and stroked the velvet nose. When finally BudLee lifted his hat to her at the base of the knoll upon which the housestood Marcia thanked him for his kindness.

  "I've been terribly unconventional, haven't I?" she smiled at him."But I mustn't again. Next time we meet, Mr. Lee, I am not even goingto speak to you. Unless," relenting brightly, "you come up to thehouse and are properly introduced!"

  As she went through the lilacs Lee saw her wave her parasol to him.