by Zane Grey
“Mr. Hyslip always has been senseless. He was born that way,” said Ernest tartly.
“You’re dodging my question.”
“Dodging nothing! . . . Anne Hepford, do you mean I’m to deny a baseless accusation like that? To you! I wouldn’t stoop to it Believe what you like about me,” returned Ernest passionately, “even the foolishness this Texas ranger tells you!”
Hepford stepped down off the porch to confront Selby.
“Howard, you’re takin’ rather a high hand heah on my ranch. You may be a bully an’ then again you may be only a wild tenderfoot. But if you want to clear yourself of somethin’ pretty raw you’d better talk.”
“Clear myself of what, sir?” demanded Ernest.
“Well, first off this charge Hyslip has brought against you.”
“That’s a dirty lie,” flashed Selby, dismounting stiffly from his horse. “Let Hyslip come down here. He’s not drunk or asleep now. I’d only be too glad to repeat the same treatment I handed out to him on two previous occasions.”
Hyslip stirred uneasily, jingling his spurs. His eyes held a hateful light. “I’m no pugilist,” he protested. “An’ next time I fight you it’ll be with a gun.”
“Bah! You’re only a bluff. You shot at me once when I didn’t have a gun. You’d do it again. You’re a coward, Hyslip. I think you’re yellow clear through,” rasped the Iowan.
At this juncture Hawk Siebert stepped out of the pines through which he had come unnoticed, and came forward. It was hardly possible that he had not heard Selby’s accusation.
“What’s comin’ off heah?” he queried in a cool easy voice that steadied Ernest. He did not need to be told that Siebert was his friend.
“It seems I’m on trial,” he replied, struggling to control his voice.
Hepford turned and repeated the charge Hyslip had made and intimated that he could handle the situation without any interference from his foreman.
“Wal, so long as I’m runnin’ this outfit–” spoke up Siebert testily.
“You’re not runnin’ this outfit any more,” interrupted Hepford “Mebbe thet’s news to you.”
“Reckon it is.”
“Hyslip is foreman now. I appointed him yesterday, in town.”
“Without notice to me?” demanded Siebert, his dark face turning beet-red.
“You were not present when I made up my mind. Besides, thet didn’t matter.”
“Thanks, Hepford,” drawled Siebert, stepping closer to fix his scornful eyes upon the rancher. “I’m glad to be free, even if my discharge ain’t regular. As to thet, Hepford, there’s a lot thet doesn’t matter to you. An’ I’m tellin’ you straight to your face. You always was a queer sort of cattleman an’ lately I’ve my own private idee aboot you and your shady deals with Anderson. An’ I reckon I know why you want Hyslip in my place.”
Hepford turned livid. It was Anne who broke the blank silence.
“Dad! Can you let him–or any man speak so to you?” she cried.
“Hepford,” went on Siebert, “I cain’t see if you’ve got a gun on you. But if you have don’t try to throw it. I’d shoot your arm off. You’ll hev to swaller what I said. An’ some more. Your outfit is split. An’ you owe thet to your dude cowboy foreman. He’d split any outfit. An’ if you have an idee of hangin’ on heah at Red Rock, with Hyslip handlin’ cattle an’ men–why you’re crazy. But I’ll gamble you’ve no such idee. Thet’s aboot all I want to say. You’re welcome to what little wages is comin’ to me. I recommend you spend it fer a real ledger to keep cattle accounts in. Haw! Haw!”
Siebert ended with a snort of derision. Then he backed into the shrubbery, his hand still at his hip, and disappeared.
For a long moment there was deep silence. Then the issue seemed to shift to Anne and her father. It was evident that he was making a powerful and successful effort to overcome his angry shock. The natural color was returning to his livid face. When he faced his horrified daughter he was apparently master of the situation.
“There, you see,” he said, with a deprecatory gesture. Ernest’s keen eye saw his hand tremble. “My outfit is indeed split. But Siebert is to blame, not Hyslip. There’s been friction for a long time. Siebert never liked my way of ranchin’. He wanted control. An’ now when I discharged him he showed his true color with those ugly hints aboot me.”
“You should have shot him,” declared Anne, her eyes flashing green fire.
Hepford laughed mirthlessly. “Siebert has had more to do with guns than I.”
Suddenly Anne appeared to remember Ernest’s presence. She turned and fastened cold, accusing eyes upon him.
“I am taking Hyslip’s word,” she said.
The Iowan bowed. “That’s natural–for a girl like you.”
“And what’s that?”
“You’re a vain, shallow girl, and the Dude is more likely your style. That was obvious to me from the beginning.”
“Shore I was–in your case,” she returned, her head lifting. Her eyes were proud, dark, fierce. “What did you expect?”
“I was a fool, of course. I believed you were honest, sincere, good, but against my better judgment. I should have believed the gossip of the range.”
She shrank at that and could no longer meet his gaze.
Here Hyslip spoke up and Selby could see that he swaggered a little.
“Mr. Hepford, this fellow Howard is a slick talker. He’s got around Anne, same as he did with Dais Brooks.”
Ernest jumped forward as if he had been stung. But Hepford barred his way. He stood there, a prey to helpless rage and misery. What had happened seemed as unreal as it was unjust. After a moment, he was able to call upon some reservoir of strength and dignity. He regained control of his emotions enough, at least, for him to conceal his identity and not on the instant treat these people as they deserved. The greater his repression now, the greater his wrath when the time was ripe to strike!
“Mr. Hepford,” he said quietly, “I accept my dismissal gladly, just as Siebert did his. I wish to say that under no circumstances would I work for a man like you.”
His words, or perhaps the tone in which they were spoken, or the way he looked, had a striking effect upon both Hepford and his daughter. It was as if the young Iowan had suddenly become another person. He shot a pitying glance at Anne, then turned proudly away, leading his horse.
But once out of sight Ernest stumbled almost blindly along the path, his eyes unseeing, his hands clenched in the bridle, his throat dry. The reaction to the harrowing scene had left him numb and lower in spirit than any time in all his life.
Siebert was waiting for him at the bunkhouse, and as the Iowan slouched up he said: “Ahuh. I reckoned you’d get yours, too. An’ thet shore means Nebraskie. . . . Say, boy, you’re pale clean to your gills.”
“I feel pale, Hawk. I’m licked. I’m sick. I’m so mad I could kill–”
“Don’t holler. Somebody might heah you. Set down an’ ease up. I’ll look after your hoss.”
Ernest flung himself down on the porch. It was indeed a sickening, hopeless moment. He felt that everything that mattered had gone from his life. All his recent hopes and plans had centered around Anne Hepford. In spite of all his former doubts of this girl, he had shut his eyes and opened his heart to her. Now when he had silenced all his doubts and lowered all his defenses, she had betrayed him. Only an hour ago she had yielded to him! Only an hour ago! Her rapt face, her closed eyelids, her upturned open red lips, sweet, alluring. And now–! What had possessed her, all in a moment, to change so completely, to champion that sneering, lying, cowardly Hyslip before her father and those hard-eyed cowboys? What had possessed her unless the sheer abandon of a vicious nature? How bitterly he reproached himself for ever having allowed himself to live even for a moment in his fool’s paradise!
Siebert returned. “Say, Howard, it’s more than losin’ the job thet’s diggin’ you, ain’t it?”
“Job! What do I care for that?”
�
��Ahuh. You’re sweet on Hepford’s girl–honest an’ true, and she’s played hell with you?”
“Yes. They were right–those damned, grinning cowpunchers,” admitted Ernest. “They said I was riding to a fall–that a sucker was born every minute! They knew the girl they were talking about.”
“Wal, I don’t know. But they had your case figgered. Anne’s bad medicine. Yet I’m shore she’s not rotten clean through. You’ve got to shoulder a lot of blame yourself. Now you’ve jest got to stand it.”
Ernest sat up. His battered spirits lifted a bit at the faint praise given Anne by this old Westerner. While he despised himself for still loving her so wildly that he could forgive her, he felt the shame that should have been hers for her betrayal.
“Ioway, we may as well pack an’ borrow hosses, an’ hit the trail,” said Siebert. “We can stop at Brooks’ tonight. I reckon Nebraskie is there right now. No use fer him to wait to be fired. . . . An’ then–wal, we can all talk it over with Sam, if he’s sober. But good jobs air scarce on the range right now.”
“Ha! Not for you and Nebraskie!” burst out Ernest. “And maybe even a tenderfoot like myself has a good job coming–soon as I want to grab it.”
“Wal, boy, it’s only natural you should talk kinda lighthaided,” replied Siebert philosophically. He put a kind hand on the Iowan’s shoulder. “I’ve sort of cottoned to you, Howard. An’ I reckon I’d better look after you a spell. You might shoot Hyslip or do some other crazy thing. An’ you know we three don’t stand any too well with thet Springertown sheriff.”
“Hawk, you’re my friend–honest, now?”
“Why shore I am. An’ so is Nebraskie.”
“I can trust you?”
“Me! Wal, thet’s a fool question, son.”
“If I confide in you, will you promise on your honor you won’t tell Nebraskie?”
“Shore, Ernie, anythin’ you like. But ain’t you plumb excited an’–an’–”
“I’m out of my head all right. All the same I know what I’m saying.”
“Shoot, then, cowboy,” drawled the Westerner, with his warm smile.
“Hawk, I’m Ernest Howard Selby–the owner of Red Rock Ranch!”
15
THE Iowan’s revelation of his real identity had been spoken in a voice that was little more than a whisper. If he expected to bowl Siebert over in amazement he missed his guess, completely. The foreman started to laugh, but changed to sober gravity.
“Son, you’re loco,” he said kindly.
“Hell! You’re as dumb as the rest of these Westerners,” exclaimed Ernest, scrambling up. “Come inside.”
Ernest closed the door behind Siebert and barred it; then he knelt to fish a bag out from under his bunk. This he unlocked. From the contents he selected a bunch of large imposing envelopes and stuffed them into Siebert’s hands.
“There! Any one of those ought to convince you,” he said.
Siebert opened one, glanced at it, back at Ernest, and then swiftly went back to perusing it.
“Wal, I’m a long-horned, three-legged son-of-a-gun! I’m the locoed one. You could knock me down with a tumbleweed. . . . Ernest Howard Selby!”
“Don’t talk so loud. Yes, I’m Selby. And now you know why you and Nebraskie are not so unlucky after all.”
“I reckon, if bein’ friends to you means anything–either as tenderfoot Ernie Howard or as rancher Selby! Doggone! I’m flabbergasted, Ernest. What the hell do you mean, playin’ this trick on Hepford?”
“Hawk, I was not so dead in earnest at first. But when I began to suspect him of crookedness then I set out to play my part in dead seriousness as a tenderfoot cowpuncher.”
Siebert whistled long and low. The thing began to dawn clearly on him. He began to pace the floor. Now and then he would strike a fist in the palm of the other hand. Now and then he would break out in a chuckle. After a while he sat down again.
“You’re a cute one! I always wondered aboot you. An’ now I see everything plain as day. You wanted to get proof Hepford was stealin’ your stock?”
“Yes. I have some, but not enough. We both know he’s crooked, Hawk, but you can understand why I can’t spring the trap until I have brass-bound, copper-lined, eighteen-carat proof that will stand up in a law court.”
“Wal, it’ll be hard to prove. He’s covered his crooked tracks. I never worked fer a slicker cattleman than Hepford. I reckon I can tell how he works his deals. But, out here, in court words don’t go far. His would be as strong as mine. Mebbe stronger. It’s facts you want.”
“He’ll never get another dollar of mine, you can bet on that! Or another head of stock! And that reminds me, I want my wages.”
“Shore. Go up to the house an’ hit him for them. But don’t lose your haid again, Ioway. This is a deep game now. Hepford would shoot you at the wink of an eye, ’specially if he knew who you are. An’ Hyslip–look out fer him!”
“I will. I’ll pack a gun, keep cool and watch them like a cat,” returned Selby, buckling on his belt.
“My Gawd!” suddenly ejaculated Hawk.
“What’s the matter now? I tell you I can take care of myself.”
“It wasn’t thet, son. I jest happened to think how you can get even with both Hepford an’ Anne. They shore gave you a rotten deal. It’ll be wuss fer Anne. She’s good at heart, I’d swear. An’ she always thought Red Rock was hers.”
“Well, it isn’t,” rejoined Ernest grimly.
“Wal, wal! If she really has played fast an’ loose with you, boy, she’ll deserve to be ruined.”
“If! My lord, Hawk, what do you want?” returned Ernest passionately. “Not a half hour–not a quarter before we rode in she–she let me kiss her. She wanted me to. And that’s not the only time. . . . A minute later then–when she ran into her father and Hyslip–she changed. She was cold and hard. She took his lying word. She treated me as though I were a leper. She betrayed me before both him and her father.”
“I was there, Ernest, hid in the pines. An I seen an’ heahed everythin’. Thet’s why I stepped out. All the same, boy, I’d go slow. You own Red Rock–an’ every hide an’ hair on the ranch. You can turn them out any day. But before you ruin him an’ disgrace her be shore she doesn’t really care fer you.”
“Hawk, you’re a fine one to urge me to go slow!” cried Ernest.
“I’m fer givin’ a woman the benefit of a doubt any time. Nobody knows why a woman does what she does. Anne might have betrayed you today because she loves you an’ didn’t want them to know.”
“She might have, only she didn’t,” rejoined Ernest bitterly. “You wait here and think it over. I’ll be back pronto.”
“Remember my advice. An’ while you’re there ask if we can borrow a couple of hosses.”
“Ha! Ha! Borrow my own horses. Sure, I’ll do it, Hawk.”
Ernest strode swiftly toward the ranch house, surer of himself and more self-possessed than he had been at any minute since he had come away from the scene in front of the porch. Still his bitterness remained. As he walked under the pines he felt a pang, like a blade in his heart. He would never be able to abide pine trees again.
The porch of the ranch house was vacant. He saw the office door open and at the same time heard voices. Boldly he mounted the steps and knocked.
“Who is it? Come in,” called Hepford.
Ernest entered the doorway. The rancher sat at his desk and Hyslip stood beside him. Both men at sight of Ernest packing a gun gave an unmistakable start.
“I came for my wages,” he announced quietly.
“Why, certainly, Howard,” replied Hepford hurriedly. “What’s comin’ to you?”
The Iowan named the sum, smiling as he did so. Hepford counted out the money and handed it over.
“Much obliged. Siebert and I would like to borrow horses to ride out, as far as Brooks’ ranch, anyway.”
“You an’ Siebert can walk,” said Hyslip, with an ugly laugh. “I’m not lendin’ any of my hosses.”
“Your horses!” Ernest quickly bit his tongue. “Hyslip, I’ll bet ten thousand dollars that if you’re not carried off this ranch inside a week you’ll walk yourself.”
Hepford laughed loudly, but he stared, too, as if this species of cowboy was something new to him.
“Ten thousand? Haw! Haw! When every dollar you got in the world is them twenty-six cartwheels we jest paid you!” sneered Hyslip, with a leer.
Selby felt the uselessness of speech with these men, at least until he could tell them what was boiling within him. But he gave Hepford a strange long look, and then a dark and meaning ful one to Hyslip. His eyes dropped to the desk, upon which lay scattered papers and money. Ernest’s pulse leaped as he caught sight of the little blue book. Then slowly he backed out of the office.
As he turned he gazed down the hall, arrested by the sound of a step. Anne stood there in the shadow. For an instant he was transfixed. Her face shone pale and out of it burned two great dark eyes which seemed to be filled with remorse. Wheeling, he rushed away, leaping clear down the steps, and he plunged through the shrubbery and into the grove.
Siebert sat on the bunk where he had left him in a brown study. “Lordy, you come ararin’.”
Ernest exhibited his wages, which he still clutched in his hand.
“Hyslip said we could walk,” he announced.
“Wal, I’m not surprised. What’d you say?”
“I offered to bet ten thousand dollars that inside of a week he’d either be carried off the ranch, or walk himself.”
“Fine. I couldn’t have done no better. Wal, I’ll go fetch my bag.”
“I’ve got two, Hawk, and you can help me carry the big one.... Wonder what Brooks will say. I’ll bet Nebraskie will cuss.”
Just before sunset the two dismissed employees of Red Rock toiled wearily up the lane that led to Brooks’ homestead.
Daisy saw them first and she waved her sun bonnet. Next moment the burly form of Brooks appeared in the doorway. He ambled forward to meet them. Then Nebraskie showed up and he let out a howl.
