Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

  “I’ll wait, Dad,” said Madge, lightly. “No need to walk home when you can ride.... Bonita! — Buenas tardes. How are you?”

  “Buenas tardes, Miss Stewart,” returned Bonita, shy and flushed. “I am so happy to see you. Welcome home to Majesty’s Rancho!”

  “Thanks, Bonita. I’m glad to see you. Introduce me to your boy friend.... Oh, it’s Mr. Sidway. I thought I knew that horse. How’d you like him?”

  “Not so much. He’s cranky, contrary. Spoiled by girls, I expect,” replied Sidway, coolly.

  “That’s fine. I’d rather you didn’t ride him.”

  Gene spoke up: “Bonita, please call your father.” And as the girl flashed toward the house, Gene turned with interest to Madge and the cowboy. She was quietly lighting a cigarette. But Gene had never seen her eyes as magnificent as now. Sidway, however, had stepped away from the gate to bend eagle eyes down upon the sage.

  “Boss, look at that car,” he said quickly. “Hitting only the high spots!”

  Gene espied a speeding black car appearing to run away from a long trail of dust.

  “He’s sure coming,” agreed Gene, puzzled. Drivers did not race on that rough road for nothing.

  “Hope it’s my mail,” spoke up Madge. “I left orders for it to be sent out.”

  At that juncture Danny Mains came out, his homely weatherbeaten face wrinkled in a huge smile. Gene called his attention to the car. Mains took one look and then said: “Darn fool’ll break his neck, ridin’ like thet.”

  Then he greeted Madge and the cowboy. Bonita, bright-eyed and self-conscious, came out to join her father and gaze down the slope.

  “Ren Starr!” she cried.

  Gene was quick to detect a note of fear stronger than the surprise in her exclamation. Sidway must have caught it too, for he turned a narrowed gaze upon the girl. Then the group watched the racing car until it passed out of sight under the slope. Bonita, with troubled face, left them to enter the house. Gene, attending to Danny’s speculation about Starr still had an ear for a byplay between Sidway and Madge.

  “Awful pretty girl — this Bonita,” the cowboy was saying.

  “Swell kid. On the make, too. But am I telling you?” retorted Madge.

  “You appear to be. I didn’t get that about her.”

  “And you such a fast worker — Well!”

  “I — I like your horse,” went on Lance, evidently no match for her at repartee. Her voice had a cutting edge.

  “But you said Range was cranky.”

  “Sure. Can’t a fellow like cranky horses — and girls, too, for that matter?”

  “I don’t know anything about such fellows.”

  “Yeah? I’ll bet what you don’t know wouldn’t fill a book.... When is your college crowd coming?”

  “Oh, you are interested? My sorority sisters, I suppose?”

  “No.... Just the crowd. When? The time?”

  “That can hardly concern you, Mr. Sidway. But they arrive on the twentieth.”

  “Thank you. I wanted to know because I’d like to help your father a little. Then I’ll beat it.”

  “Oh! — I get you. Dad thought you had taken to him and the ranch.”

  “I had. You see, I just left Hollywood. I was fed up on a lot of glamour gals and pretty boys. And I’m leery of a college outfit.”

  “Indeed. Mine would not embarrass you, Mr. Sidway. Certainly my girl friends do not aspire to collect cowboys.”

  “Yeah! Too slow, I suppose. Prefer gangsters, eh?”

  “What?... You insulting...”

  “You can’t kid me, Miss Majesty Stewart.... Listen, let me tell you something while I’ve a chance. Your dad is swell. A grand guy. And if you were a credit to him you’d not have this crowd of yours out here now.”

  “Oh! — And — why?” gasped Madge, as if stifled.

  “Because he’s in trouble — deep — without your fast crowd to make it worse.”

  At that moment the humming car sped over the brow of the slope to draw swiftly up to the waiting group. The driver was Ren Starr. As he stopped, Gene espied the tip of a rifle barrel sticking above the door, and in the back seat a pile of duffel, topped with a saddle and bedroll.

  “Howdy, folks,” he said, laconically. “Heah we all air.”

  “Wal, Ren, you look like bizness,” returned Danny Mains, soberly.

  “Glad to see you, Starr,” added Gene.

  “Boss, you got another new cowboy. Right heah an’ now.... Ah, Miss Majesty, I shore am glad to see you back home. Hope it’s fer good.... An’ heah’s my new pard, Lance Sidway.”

  “Darn glad to see you, Starr,” rejoined Sidway, eager and puzzled.

  “Gather around, Gene and Danny. You’ll get an earful,” announced the newcomer, and as the three leaned over his car he whispered, directly to Sidway: “Pard, yore trucks rolled in no more’n a couple of hours ago. Stopped at the big garage acrost the street. I got most damn curious. An’ when the six drivers mosied into the lunchroom I went round aboot to peep into the trucks. Empty!... Graves, the new hired hand at the garage, was pilin’ up, gas, oil, water, air. And he give it away thet the trucks was stayin’ over, mebbe all night. Like hell they will! Pard, these air yore canvas-covered cattle-rustlin’ trucks. Them drivers air timed fer tonight. Gene, they’re gonna make one of them two-bit raids on yore cattle. An’ I’ll tell the world they’re gonna get a helluva jar.”

  Gene swore under his breath, and feeling a handclasp on his arm, he turned to see Madge, pale, with dilating eyes of purple fire, close behind him.

  “Wal, you gasoline hound!” declared Danny Mains. “Back on the job.”

  “Starr, you’ve more hunch than that. Spill it,” said Sidway.

  “Shore. I seen a rider — stranger — who’d been hangin’ aboot all day — go into thet lunchroom. He was the go-between. An’ then I beat it fer heah.”

  CHAPTER V

  MADGE’S UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER with Uhl at the parking place, where she had failed to find Sidway, made her abruptly conscious of the fact that her indiscreet affair with the gangster had lost its interest for her. She admitted this to herself while concealing her annoyance from Uhl. Her impulses were quick and she gave in to them daringly, up to a certain point. But she was just as keen to divine when a new one had superseded the old. She did not even have to see Uhl to realize that the man she expected to meet had effaced the fascination of the strange, cold-eyed and masterful gangster. Looking at Uhl, listening to him, Madge felt relief that this was so. She regretted her short flirtation with him. And presently it occurred to her that the thing to do was to get him away, drop him somewhere, and then come back.

  “Jump in, Honey Bee,” she said, brightly. “I’m too late for my date here and must rush back to campus. Where can I drop you?”

  “But, baby, you can’t flag me that way,” retorted Uhl, getting in beside her. “I know where there’s a speak close. Let’s have a drink — and a chin.”

  “Indeed, I’m sorry, but I simply haven’t the time. I can’t even run you downtown. I’ll have to drop you at the first streetcar corner.”

  “Me ride on streetcars? That’s a kick.... What’s the dope on this newspaper stuff about you this morning?”

  “Damn tough break! I wasn’t to blame for that campus riot. But I’ll tell you.... Say, Thursday. Give me a ring, and I’ll meet you,” said Madge, and she slowed up and halted on a corner.

  Uhl left the car ungraciously, plainly against his will. That steely something about him which had appealed to Madge did not affect her again.

  “Yeah? I’ve called you twice and nothing doing. That doesn’t go with me, sweetheart. I don’t wait on no girl.”

  “Perhaps you’ve found me a new species, as I you,” returned Madge. “Sorry. Bye. I’ll be seeing you.”

  “She’d better be,” Madge heard, and then she had flashed across the intersection. The dumb cluck! Whatever had possessed her to let him sit down beside her that day at André’s? Madge reflected she
was not so much to blame as Dixie Cune. But before she had circled several blocks to get back to the parking place she had forgotten Uhl. Then, half an hour late, she drove to the rendezvous, and did an unprecedented thing — she waited half an hour longer for this Oregon boy who loved his sister and his horse Umpqua. Not until Madge thought of how long she had waited, how much she wanted to see him again, did she realize that her weakness for new faces, new adventures, had in this instance established an extraordinary parallel. How nice he was! How different! And evidently he had not felt that way about her. Madge suffered a new sensation akin to pique, and that melted into disappointment. Here was one fellow who would not call her up to make a date. He did not even know her name. Why had she not told him and the phone number of the house? Nevertheless on the way back to campus her injured feelings were assuaged by an inexplicable premonition that she would meet him again.

  Fraternity Row appeared to be more than usually crowded with cars. All the houses had several parked out in front. Madge pulled into the driveway and ran into the living room. All her senior sorority sisters, except Maramee, were there, with two boys from the Tau Phi house. The circle did not, as was its wont, let out a whoop as she entered. They all looked pretty glum and their greetings were forced. Madge now prepared for the worst.

  “That sharp-voiced boy friend of yours just called up, Madge. Uhl’s the name. Has he a string on you?”

  “I was foolish enough to let him think so,” rejoined Madge. “You all look like death’s-heads. What’s the worst? I can take it?”

  “Majesty, I just came from campus,” replied Rollie Stevens. “They’ve called a meeting for tomorrow morning. Looks like curtains for you.”

  “I met the Dean just now,” said Pequita Nelson, reluctantly. “She is afraid — because you already were on probation.”

  “Madge, if you hadn’t pulled so many stunts this semester!” exclaimed her roommate and her closest friend, Allie Leland. “They’ll hate to expel you — at this late date — graduation right at hand — and you an honor student. But ever since you were elected in your junior year you’ve — —”

  “Don’t heap it on, Allie.... I’ve been a damn fool. But I had a lot of fun. For myself I wouldn’t care — much — only it’ll reflect on the house. And if Dad and Mom see the papers — Oh, that’ll hurt.... After all, I didn’t egg on the students to throw that party.”

  “I can vouch for that, Majesty,” admitted Rollie gloomily. “I did. I collected some of the boys and we went to the President. He was swell. But...”

  “Rollie, that was darling of you. I’m obliged. If it were up to him I’d come through. Mad Everett, however, has it in for me.... How about a bull session this time tomorrow? About my ranch party.... Rollie, be sure my boy friends come.”

  “Humph! In that case we’ll have to hold your session in the chapel. You couldn’t park them here.”

  “Rollie Stevens, I said my boy friends,” retorted Madge.

  “Am I one — or just a messenger boy?”

  “You’re number one, when you’re nice.”

  “It was never obvious to me, Majesty.... Then I’m to page Barg — Dawson — Nate — Brand? — Here my judgment, not my imagination, halts shrinkingly.”

  “You left out Snake!” protested Madge.

  “That muscle man? — Majesty!”

  “Yeah? I get you. But I like him. I wonder if I have a horse that can hold him up.”

  “It’d take an elephant,” chimed in Allie.

  “But, Majesty,” importuned Pequita, eloquently. “Will footballer and cowboy mix?”

  “We’ve got to have something beside drinks and dances,” averred Madge, and then she thought of her champion. “If I had only had a chance to ask him!”

  Rollie threw up his hands and departed, and presently Madge and her roommate were upstairs on the third floor, in their light colorful room.

  “Who’s him?” asked Allie.

  “Him! — Why the wonderful fellow who slugged the cop and saved me from being pinched.”

  “Hadn’t heard of him. Madge, you can dig up more romance and more trouble than any girl on campus.”

  “Rather a doubtful distinction, Allie, darling. If they expel me I’ll have to think about myself at long last.”

  “They won’t. Why, they’d be afraid the senior class would walk out on them!”

  Dinner that night was not the usual merry gathering. Madge seemed the only cheerful girl in the house. She felt a thickening atmosphere of disaster. Her friends knew, perhaps, what she could only anticipate, and they were stricken. Soon after supper Madge phoned to break an engagement and went to her room and presently to bed. When Allie came in and crept into Madge’s bed and into her arms to weep unrestrainedly — then Madge made certain of the worst. She did not sleep well until late. At breakfast she missed the girls. Summoned to the office on campus she went with her chin up and her face tranquil, but inwardly she felt a little sick. She had an interview with the Vice-President, and it was short. The directors of the college had expelled her. They had to take into account the fact of her former derelictions and that she had been on probation. To overlook this last escapade would be establishing a precedent that would have a very bad effect. Madge accepted the decree gracefully, without a word of self-defense, and left the embarrassed official to go out, and cross the campus for the last time.

  For her own sake Madge did not care particularly. She was tired of college, and traditions, such as graduating and receiving a degree, had never held any significance for her. She felt she had absorbed everything that this university could give her that would ever have any meaning in her life. When she crossed the row she did not look back at the campus, and knew that she never would again.

  Nevertheless, up in her room alone Madge shed some bitter hot tears. She had loved that room, and to realize its intimacies, its joys and sorrows, its plans and stunts, were over forever struck her with her first deep grief. But in an hour Madge, to all appearances, was her old self again, and had turned her facile mind upon the problem ahead of her.

  There was trouble out in her Arizona home. Long ago she had sensed that. And it was high time she returned there to take up the burden, whatever it was, for her beloved parents. Madge knew she was going home to stay. A trip now and then to the coast, and perhaps an occasional one East, would suffice her. Before she had come to college the lonely range, the stately Spanish ranch house, the horses, and her lovely soft-spoken, stately mother, and her stalwart father, had filled her life with action and excitement and love. Now that she was a woman, they would be all the more to her. And somewhere there was a man like her Dad... but she dismissed that disturbing thought.

  Allie came in at the lunch hour to disrupt Madge’s concentration on a long-considered task, that of making a list of things to select and order for the ranch. Once given up to that occupation, Madge found it absorbing. “Honey,” she begged of Allie, “fetch me up some food. Anything.”

  A long while seemed to have elapsed when at four o’clock Madge tripped downstairs, in a new and striking gown, to meet the bull session. Rollie had them all there, even to the hulking Snake Elwell, whose rosy cherub-like visage for once wore an intelligent expression. As Madge stood in the wide door the faces of her friends flashed expectantly and tragically at her.

  “Friends, Romans, Countrymen — don’t look like that!” she cried, gayly. “It’s over. And I can take it!... I’ve asked you all here to talk over my cherished dream — to have you out to the ranch. Do I need to sell the idea to any one of you?”

  “No!” came the concerted reply.

  “Okay then. Here’s the dirt. I want you to arrive on the twentieth or as near that date as possible. There are eleven of us. Allie will come in my little car, Nate driving; unless darling, you’d prefer Brand?”

  “Ow! Ow!” squealed Nate. “That is a hot one. Majesty, damn your honest tongue!”

  “I’ll match you for that honor,” spoke up Brand.

  “Yo
u’re on — if you got a nickel to toss.”

  When that dire contingency was settled in Nate’s favor Madge went on, consulting her notes.

  “The rest of you can come in two cars, that is, by expressing most of your baggage. Jot this down... Bolton, Arizona. And ship your baggage three days ahead, so it will be there.... Rollie’s big car for one. Dawson has one. And Snake, whose big bus is it I’ve seen you in — with a red-headed girl?”

  “Madge, it belongs to Bu — and I can’t get it unless I bring her along,” said Elwell, awkwardly.

  “Ha! Ha! Snake’s on the spot,” shouted Rollie.

  “Well, he can’t wiggle like a snake through this field,” declared Madge, laughing. “Bu who?”

  “Aw, never mind.”

  “Madge, it’s Beulah Allen,” declared one of the boys, sotto voce.

  “That number!” ejaculated Rollie, aghast. “Swell kid, Majesty — but I’m afraid she would disrupt the sweet tenor of our Tau Phi constancy.”

  “You telling me?” retorted Madge. “I know Beulah. Snake, it’s up to you. Do you want her, for herself and not for her car?”

  “Go into a huddle, Snake,” taunted someone.

  “Madge, do you like Bu?” countered the athlete, earnestness stronger than his confusion.

  “Certainly I like her, or I wouldn’t consider her. But, Snake, if you’re crazy about her.... Cowboys and vaqueros are even more susceptible than students.”

  “I’ll take a chance, and Madge, you’re a peach,” declared Elwell, in red relief.

  “That’s that,” said Madge, when the roar subsided, and she checked her list. “You can fight among yourselves who’s going to ride with whom.”

  “Madge, sweetest, get down to it — Clothes! — What’ll we need to wear?” burst out Maramee Joyce.

  “Your ruling passion, Maramee, for once will be foiled.... We’re on a ranch you know — grand place to wear out all your old clothes. Mostly outdoor stuff, both heavy and light; your riding togs and don’t forget a bathing suit. In fact, girls, I want you — if you have to come without a stitch to your backs,” declared Madge, warmly.