Brand Blotters

by William MacLeod Raine

  CHAPTER V

  THE TENDERFOOT TAKES UP A CLAIM

  Mr. Diller, alias Morse, alias Bellamy, did not long remain at the BarDouble G as a rider. It developed that he had money, and, tenderfootthough he was, the man showed a shrewd judgment in his investments. Hebought sheep and put them on the government forest reserve, much to theannoyance of the cattlemen of the district.

  Morse, as he now called himself, was not the first man who had broughtsheep into the border country. Far up in the hills were several camps ofthem. But hitherto these had been there on sufferance, and it had beenunderstood that they were to be kept far from the cattle range. Theextension of the government reserves changed the equation. A good slice ofthe range was cut off and thrown open to sheep. When Morse leased this andput five thousand bleaters upon the feeding ground the sentiment againsthim grew very bitter.

  Lee had been spokesman of a committee appointed to remonstrate with him.Morse had met them pleasantly but firmly. This part of the reserve hadbeen set aside for sheep. If it were not leased by him it would be bysomebody else. Therefore, he declined to withdraw his flocks. Champ losthis temper and swore that he for one would never submit to yield therange. Sharp bitter words were passed. Next week masked men drove a smallflock belonging to Morse over a precipice.

  The tenderfoot retaliated by jumping a mining claim staked out by Lee uponwhich the assessment work had not been kept up. The cattleman contestedthis in the courts, lost the decision, and promptly appealed. Meanwhile,he countered by leasing from the forest supervisor part of the runpreviously held by his opponent and putting sheep of his own upon it.

  "I reckon I'll play Mr. Morse's own game and see how he likes it," theangry cattleman told his friends.

  But the luck was all with Morse. Before he had been working his new claima month the Monte Cristo (he had changed the name from its original one ofMelissy) proved a bonanza. His men ran into a rich streak of dirt thatstarted a stampede for the vicinity.

  Champ indulged in choice profanity. From his point of view he had beenrobbed, and he announced the fact freely to such acquaintances as droppedinto the Bar Double G store.

  "Dad gum it, I was aimin' to do that assessment work and couldn't jestlay my hands on the time. I'd been a millionaire three years and didn'tknow it. Then this damned Morse butts in and euchres me out of the claim.Some day him and me'll have a settlement. If the law don't right me, Ireckon I'm most man enough to 'tend to Mr. Morse."

  It was his daughter who had hitherto succeeded in keeping the peace. Whenthe news of the relocation had reached Lee he had at once started tosettle the matter with a Winchester, but Melissy, getting news of hisintention, had caught up a horse and ridden bareback after him in time toavert by her entreaties a tragedy. For six months after this the men hadnot chanced to meet.

  Why the tenderfoot had first come West--to hide what wounds in the greatbaked desert--no man knew or asked. Melissy had guessed, but she did notbreathe to a soul her knowledge. It was a first article of Arizona's creedthat a man's past belonged to him alone, was a blotted book if he chose tohave it so. No doubt many had private reasons for their untrumpetedmigration to that kindly Southwest which buries identity, but no wisecitizen busied himself with questions about antecedents. The presentserved to sift one, and by the way a man met it his neighbors judged him.

  And T. L. Morse met it competently. In every emergency with which he hadto cope the man "stood the acid." Arizona approved him a man, withoutaccording him any popularity. He was too dogmatic to win liking, but hehad a genius for success. Everything he touched turned to gold.

  The Bar Double G lies half way between Mammoth and Mesa. Its positionmakes it a central point for ranchers within a radius of fifteen miles.Out of the logical need for it was born the store which Beauchamp Lee ranto supply his neighbors with canned goods, coffee, tobacco, and otherindispensables; also the eating house for stage passengers passing to andfrom the towns. Young as she was, Melissy was the competent manager ofboth of these.

  It was one afternoon during the hour the stage stopped to let thepassengers dine that Melissy's wandering eye fell upon Morse seated at oneof the tables. Anger mounted within her at the cool impudence of the man.She had half a mind to order him out, but saw he was nearly through dinnerand did not want to make a scene. Unfortunately Beauchamp Lee happened tocome into the store just as his enemy strolled out from the dining-room.

  The ranchman stiffened. "What you been doing in there, seh?" he demandedsharply.

  "I've been eating a very good dinner in a public cafe. Any objections?"

  "Plenty of 'em, seh. I don't aim to keep open house for Mr. Morse."

  "I understand this is a business proposition. I expect to pay seventy-fivecents for my meal."

  The eyes of the older man gleamed wrathfully. "As for yo' six bits, if youoffer it to me I'll take it as an insult. At the Bar Double G we're notdoing friendly business with claim jumpers. Don't you evah set yo' legsunder my table again, seh."

  Morse shrugged, turned away to the public desk, and addressed an envelope,the while Lee glared at him from under his heavy beetling brows. Melissysaw that her father was still of half a mind to throw out the intruder andshe called him to her.

  "Dad, Jose wants you to look at the hoof of one of his wheelers. He askedif you would come as soon as you could."

  Beauchamp still frowned at Morse, rasping his unshaven chin with his hand."Ce'tainly, honey. Glad to look at it."

  "Dad! Please."

  The ranchman went out, grumbling. Five minutes later Morse took his seaton the stage beside the driver, having first left seventy-five cents onthe counter.

  The stage had scarce gone when the girl looked up from her bookkeeping tosee the man with the Chihuahua hat.

  "_Buenos tardes, senorita_," he gave her with a flash of white teeth.

  "_Buenos_," she nodded coolly.

  But the dancing eyes of her could not deny their pleasure at sight of him.They had rested upon men as handsome, but upon none who stirred her bloodso much.

  He was in the leather chaps of a cowpuncher, gray-shirted, and a polka dotkerchief circled the brown throat. Life rippled gloriously from everymotion of him. Hermes himself might have envied the perfect grace of theman.

  She supplied his wants while they chatted.

  "Jogged off your range quite a bit, haven't you?" she suggested.

  "Some. I'll take two bits' worth of that smokin', _nina_."

  She shook her head. "I'm no little girl. Don't you know I'm now half pasteighteen?"

  "My--my. That ad didn't do a mite of good, did it?"

  "Not a bit."

  "And you growing older every day."

  "Does my age show?" she wanted to know anxiously.

  The scarce veiled admiration of his smoldering eyes drew the blood to herdusky cheeks. Something vigilant lay crouched panther-like behind thelaughter of his surface badinage.

  "You're standing it well, honey."

  The color beat into her face, less at the word than at the purring caressin his voice. A year ago she had been a child. But in the Southlandflowers ripen fast. Adolescence steals hard upon the heels of infancy,and, though the girl had never wakened to love, Nature was pushing herrelentlessly toward a womanhood for which her unschooled impulses butscantily safeguarded her.

  She turned toward the shelves. "How many air-tights did you say?"

  "I didn't say." He leaned forward across the counter. "What's the hurry,little girl?"

  "My name is Melissy Lee," she told him over her shoulder.

  "Mine is Phil Norris. Glad to give it to you, Melissy Lee," the manretorted glibly.

  "Can't use it, thank you," came her swift saucy answer.

  "Or to lend it to you--say, for a week or two."

  She flashed a look at him and passed quickly from behind the counter. Herfather was just coming into the store.

  "Will you wait on Mr. Norris, dad? Hop wants to see me in the kitchen."

  Norris swore softly under his
breath. The last thing he had wanted was todrive her away. It had been nearly a year since he had seen her last, butthe picture of her had been in the coals of many a night camp fire.

  The cattle detective stayed to dinner and to supper. He and her father hadtheir heads together for hours, their voices pitched to a murmur. Melissywondered what business could have brought him, whether it could haveanything to do with the renewed rustling that had of late annoyed theneighborhood. This brought her thoughts to Jack Flatray. He, too, hadalmost dropped from her world, though she heard of him now and again. Notonce had he been to see her since the night she had sprained her ankle.

  Later, when Melissy was watering the roses beside the porch, she heard thename of Morse mentioned by the stock detective. He seemed to be urgingupon her father some course of action at which the latter demurred. Thegirl knew a vague unrest. Lee did not need his anger against Morseincensed. For months she had been trying to allay rather than increasethis. If Philip Norris had come to stir up smoldering fires, she wouldgive him a piece of her mind.

  The men were still together when Melissy told her father good-night. Ifshe had known that a whisky bottle passed back and forth a good many timesin the course of the evening, the fears of the girl would not have beenlightened. She knew that in the somber moods following a drinking bout thelawlessness of Beauchamp Lee was most likely to crop out.

  As for the girl, now night had fallen--that wondrous velvet night ofArizona, which blots out garish day with a cloak of violet, purple-edgedwhere the hills rise vaguely in the distance, and softens magically allharsh details beneath the starry vault--she slipped out to the summit ofthe ridge in the big pasture, climbing lightly, with the springy easeborn of the vigor her nineteen outdoor years had stored in the strongyoung body. She wanted to be alone, to puzzle out what the coming of thisman meant to her. Had he intended anything by that last drawling remark ofhis in the store? Why was it that his careless, half insulting familiarityset the blood leaping through her like wine? He lured her to the sex duel,then trampled down her reserves roughshod. His bold assurance stung her toanger, but there was a something deeper than anger that left her flushedand tingling.

  Both men slept late, but Norris was down first. He found Melissysuperintending a drive of sheep which old Antonio, the herder, was aboutto make to the trading-post at Three Pines. She was on her pony near theentrance to the corral, her slender, lithe figure sitting in a boy'ssaddle with a businesslike air he could not help but admire. The gate barshad been lifted and the dog was winding its way among the bleating graymass, which began to stir uncertainly at its presence. The sheep dribbledfrom the corral by ones and twos until the procession swelled to a swollenstream that poured forth in a torrent. Behind them came Antonio in hissombrero and blanket, who smiled at his mistress, shouted an "_Adios,senorita_," and disappeared into the yellow dust cloud which the herd leftin its wake.

  "How does Champ like being in the sheep business," Norris said to thegirl.

  Melissy did not remove her eyes from the vanishing herd, but a slightfrown puckered her forehead. She chose to take this as a criticism of herfather and to resent it.

  "Why shouldn't he be?" she said quietly, answering the spirit of hisremark.

  "I didn't mean it that way," he protested, with his frank laugh.

  "Then if you didn't mean it so, I shan't take it that way;" and her smilemet his.

  "Here's how I look at this sheep business. Some ranges are better adaptedfor sheep than cattle, and you can't keep Mary's little lamb away fromthose places. No use for a man to buck against the thing that's bound tobe. Better get into the band-wagon and ride."

  "That's what father thought," the girl confessed. "He never would havebeen the man to bring sheep in, but after they got into the country he sawit was a question of whether he was going to get the government reserverange for his sheep, or another man, some new-comer like Mr. Morse, forhis. It was going to be sheep anyhow."

  "Well, I'm glad your father took the chance he saw." He addedreminiscently: "We got to be right good friends again last night before weparted."

  She took the opening directly. "If you're so good a friend of his, youmust not excite him about Mr. Morse. You know he's a Southerner, and heis likely to do something rash--something we shall all be sorry forafterward."

  "I reckon that will be all right," he said evasively.

  Her eyes swept to his. "You won't get father into trouble will you?"

  The warm, affectionate smile came back to his face, so that as he lookedat her he seemed a sun-god. But again there was something in his gaze thatwas not the frankness of a comrade, some smoldering fire that strangelystirred her blood and yet left her uneasy.

  "I'm not liable to bring trouble to those you love, girl. I stand by myfriends."

  Her pony began to move toward the house, and he strode beside, as debonairand gallant a figure as ever filled the eye and the heart of a woman. Themorning sun glow irradiated him, found its sparkling reflection in thedark curls of his bare head, in the bloom of his tanned cheeks, made a fitsetting for the graceful picture of lingering youth his slim, muscularfigure and springy stride personified. Small wonder the untaught girlbeside him found the merely physical charm of him fascinating. If herinstinct sometimes warned her to beware, her generous heart was eager topay small heed to the monition except so far as concerned her father.

  After breakfast he came into the office to see her before he left.

  "Good-by for a day or two," he said, offering his hand.

  "You're coming back again, are you?" she asked quietly, but not without adeeper dye in her cheeks.

  "Yes, I'm coming back. Will you be glad to see me?"

  "Why should I be glad? I hardly know you these days."

  "You'll know me better before we're through with each other."

  She would acknowledge no interest in him, the less because she knew it wasthere. "I may do that without liking you better."

  And suddenly his swift, winning smile flashed upon her. "But you've got tolike me. I want you to."

  "Do you get everything you want?" she smiled back.

  "If I want it enough, I usually do."

  "Then since you get so much, you'll be better able to do without myliking."

  "I'm going to have it too."

  "Don't be too sure." She had a feeling that things were moving too fast,and she hailed the appearance of her father with relief. "Good morning,dad. Did you sleep well? Mr. Norris is just leaving."

  "Wait till I git a bite o' breakfast and I'll go with you, Phil," promisedLee. "I got to ride over to Mesa anyhow some time this week."

  The girl watched them ride away, taking the road gait so characteristic ofthe Southwest. As long as they were in sight her gaze followed them, andwhen she could see nothing but a wide cloud of dust travelling across themesa she went up to her room and sat down to think it out. Something newhad come into her life. What, she did not yet know, but she tried to facethe fact with the elemental frankness that still made her more like a boythan a woman. Sitting there before the looking-glass, she played absentlywith the thick braid of heavy, blue-black hair which hung across hershoulder to the waist. It came to her for the first time to wonder if shewas pretty, whether she was going to be one of the women that men desire.Without the least vanity she studied herself, appraised the soft browncheeks framed with ebon hair, the steady, dark eyes so quick to passionand to gaiety, the bronzed throat full and rounded, the supple, flowinggrace of the unrestrained body.

  Gradually a wave of color crept into her cheeks as she sat there with herchin on her little doubled hand. It was the charm of this Apollo of theplains that had set free such strange thoughts in her head. Why should shethink of him? What did it matter whether she was good-looking? She shookherself resolutely together and went down to the business of the day.

  It was not long after midnight the next day that Champ Lee reached theranch. His daughter came out from her room in her night-dress to meethim.

  "What kept you,
Daddy?" she asked.

  But before he could answer she knew. She read the signs too clearly todoubt that he had been drinking.