by Zane Grey
When the cattle had rested, without waiting for full day Howard was forced to start them on and to make a wide swerve out of his intended direction to come soon to feed and water. Otherwise the drive would become a tremendous misfortune and loss. His cattle would lose weight rapidly under privation; they would when delivered in San Juan only vaguely resemble the choice herd he had promised; scrawny and jaded, under weight and wretched, their price would drop from the top to the bottom of the scale. He would make for the San Doran place; Doran, though no friend, would at least sell him hay; the figure would be high, since Doran, no man better, knew when the other man was down and in a ditch. But water and food must be had.
Howard, toward noon, rode ahead to Doran’s house. Doran was out in front of his barn, breaking a team of colts, working one at the time with a steady old mare, and in a hot and unpleasant mood. He saw Howard and behind him the dust-clouds of an advancing herd.
‘Got any hay?’ demanded Howard.
‘Two barns full,’ said Doran.
‘Sell me enough to take care of my cows? Sunderberg’s pastures were burned out; I’m up against it for feed.’
‘Can’t,’ said Doran. ‘Guess I’m sold out already for all I can let go.’
Howard wondered who was buying up hay at this time and by the big barnful.
‘A fellow came by here yesterday,’ explained Doran, and took an option on my whole lot.’ His shrewd eyes gleamed. ‘And at my own figure, too! Which was four dollars the ton higher’n the market! That’s going a few, ain’t it?’
‘Who was the man?’ asked Howard.
‘Fellow named Devine. Know him?’
Howard pondered swiftly. Then he demanded: ‘Just an option? Mind saying how much cash you got, Doran?’
‘Why, no. He said he was short of cash, but he slipped me twenty bucks to tie the option. I’m expecting him back to-morrow or next day to close the deal.’
Howard sought swiftly to explain what Devine’s play was; it was his suspicion that the twenty dollars would be forfeited and that Doran’s hay would remain in his barns a thousand years if he waited for Devine to come back for it. But Doran, though he seemed to reflect, was stubborn. He hadn’t a bale to sell, and that was all there was of it. He even grinned behind Howard’s departing back.
The drive continued. Slowly the panting brutes were urged on; at every water-hole and every trail-side pasture they were rested. In the afternoon Howard found a rancher who could spare half a dozen bales of hay; they were promptly purchased, opened and thrown to the herd; to disappear instantly. That night camp was made on the upper courses of the Morales Creek. It was less than satisfactory; it was better than nothing.
Thus the journey into San Juan required twice the time Howard had counted upon. And when at last he and his men urged his lagging cattle to the fringes of the village, he knew that the herd was in no condition for an immediate delivery. He rode ahead and saw Engle at the bank; from Engle he rented the best pasture to be had at hand and bought hay; then, impatient at the enforced delay, he pitched camp and strove in a week to bring back his stock to something of its former condition.
Alone, he rode that night into San Juan, his eyes showing the rage which day after day had grown in his heart. His revolver loose in its holster he visited first the Casa Blanca, Crook Galloway’s old place of sinister reputation. Some day he must meet Jim Courtot; might not that time have arrived? God knew he had waited long enough. But Jim Courtot was not to be found here; nor anywhere in San Juan, though Howard sought him out everywhere. No, men told him; they had not laid eyes upon Courtot since Howard had last sought him here.
Finally the delivery was made at the local stock pens; the cattle crowded through the narrow defile, were counted and weighed and paid for. The purchasing agent looked at Howard curiously.
‘You had higher grade stuff last time,’ he said. ‘This bunch isn’t in the same class with the other shipment.’
‘Don’t I know it?’ Howard flared out at him, grown irritable here of late.
He took his cheque, banked it and left town, advancing his men a little money and telling them to cut their holiday short. Then he saddled his best horse and headed back for Desert Valley the shortest way. His expenses had been far heavier than they should have been; his receipts lower. He knew that look he would see in Sanchia’s eyes when again they met; he prayed that the time might come when he could come close enough to Jim Courtot to read and answer his look. He thought of Kish Taka, and for the first time with anger; Kish Taka should keep his hands off.
CHAPTER XXIV
The Shadow
There was something awaiting Alan Howard at his ranch house that for a little at least made him forget Sanchia and Courtot and hard climbs ahead in the road he must travel. Tired as he was and dispirited when he got home late that night he went to bed glowing with content. At dawn he was in the saddle. The Longstreets, early risers as they had grown to be, had only finished breakfast when he came racing into Bear Valley, waving his hat to them and calling cheerily. A first frown came when he saw that Sanchia Murray was breakfasting with them, but the frown did not linger.
‘Good morning, everybody,’ he greeted them. Helen, sitting in the sun on the doorstep, got to her feet; her father came smiling out to shake hands; even Sanchia, pushing her plate back, rose. She looked at him searchingly, appearing to note and wonder at his gay mood.
‘No, I won’t light down and have coffee with you,’ he laughed at the invitation. ‘And I won’t stop to eat, having devoured a day’s rations before I hit the saddle. No, there’s nothing you can do for me, Mr. Longstreet; there’s nothing in the world I want.’ Helen had given him her hand; he held it a little before he would let it free and looked straight down into her eyes and kept on laughing gaily as he declared with certain unmistakable boldness: ‘Right now I’ve got every blessed thing in the wide world I want.’
Sanchia said sharply: ‘You must have been unusually successful in your latest deal?’
‘It’s the next deal I’m thinking of,’ he told her lightly, letting her have the words to ponder on if she liked. But he had scant time for Sanchia and his eyes came back to Helen. ‘I’ve got to ride into the new camp to see Roberts,’ he told her. ‘He’s seen my mules and is buying. How would an early ride suit you? And I’ll show you how easy it is to collect six hundred dollars before most folks have had breakfast!’
‘My, what a lot of money,’ laughed Helen. ‘Of course I’ll come. You know where I keep Danny. If you’ll saddle for me I’ll get ready and be out in two minutes.’
When they rode away down the trail together, Longstreet was smiling, and Sanchia frowning after them.
‘She even eats with you?’ queried Howard.
‘I just thank Heaven she hasn’t brought her bed in yet,’ answered Helen. ‘She is as transparent as a piece of glass, and yet dear old pops lets her pile the wool over his eyes as thick as she pleases. I’m just giving her plenty of rope,’ she added philosophically. ‘Do that, and people always get tangled up first and then hang themselves next, don’t they?’
‘Give me plenty of rope!’ he said eagerly. ‘I’ll just tie myself up, hand and foot, and give you the end of the rope to hold.’
She laughed at him, touched Danny with her new spurs and shot ahead.
‘You’re nearly dying to tell me some good news,’ she said when he had come up with her again. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘I want to show you a letter I got when I came in last night. But I’d just as soon think of handing it over to a whirlwind as to you at the rate you are going.’
They drew their horses down to a walk. From his pocket Howard took an envelope; from the envelope brought forth a long blue slip of paper, torn in two, and with a few words penned across the fragments in a big running scrawl. He held the two pieces together for her to read; by now
the horses had stopped and, being old friends, were rubbing noses. Helen read:
‘Dear old Al: It took me a few days to see straight. Instead of blocking your game, let me help whenever I can. Don’t need this now; won’t have it. Take your time, Al. Good luck and so long.
JOHN.’
‘Turn it over!’ cried Howard.
Helen obeyed, only then fully understanding. It was a cheque for twelve thousand five hundred dollars, signed by Alan Howard and payable to the order of John Carr. Again she looked at the brief note; it was dated, and the date was eight days old. Her face flushed suddenly; the colour deepened.
‘He wrote that the day after I sent my telegram to him!’ she cried breathlessly.
‘Telegram?’
‘Yes.’ She hesitated, then ran on swiftly: ‘When Mr. Carr left I let him think that maybe father and I would follow soon. I don’t know that I had been exactly what you men call square with Mr. Carr. I wanted to be square with everyone. So I sent him a telegram, saying that we appreciated his generosity but that we would stay here.’
Howard studied the date on the fluttering paper and his mind ran back.
‘You sent that wire the day after I came back last time!’
‘And if I did?’ She met his look serenely.
‘You did so because you cared——’
But Helen laughed at him, and again Danny, touched with a sudden spur, shot ahead down the trail.
They clattered like runaway children into the crooked rocky street of Sanchia’s Town. Had their thoughts been less busied with themselves and with a hint of a rosy future and with the bigness of the thing which John Carr had done for them, they would have marked long ago that here something was amiss. But it was only when they were fairly in the heart of the settlement that they stopped abruptly to stare at each other. Now there was no misunderstanding what had happened! Sanchia’s Town, that had been a busy, humming human hive no longer ago than yesterday was this morning still, deserted, empty and dead. Those who had rushed hitherward seeking gold were gone; be the explanation where it might, shacks stood with doors flung wide; tents had been torn down, outworn articles discarded, dumped helter-skelter into the road. The atmosphere was like that of a circus grounds when the circus was moving on, only a few things left for the last crew to come for.
‘It feels like a graveyard,’ whispered Helen. ‘What has happened?’
‘The old story, I suppose.’ He turned sideways in the saddle, looking about him for a sign of remaining life. ‘It grew in the night; somehow it has pinched out; the bottom has dropped out of it. Nate Kemble of Quigley bought up two or three claims; I’ve a notion the rest were worthless. Anyway, like many another of its kind, Sanchia’s Town was born, has lived and died like old Solomon Gundy.’
Helen’s face was that of one in deep study.
‘Papa was saying only day before yesterday,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘that this was going to happen. He said that was why he hadn’t taken the trouble to make a fight for his rights here. He said that Kemble had bought up all of the land that was worth anything; and that he, himself, had given Kemble the right tip. It begins to look as though papa knew, doesn’t it?’
Howard nodded vigorously.
‘He knows gold mines and he knows gold signs,’ he said positively. ‘I’ve felt that all along. But——’
‘But,’ she took the words out of his mouth, speaking hastily, ‘he doesn’t know the first thing about people; about a woman like Sanchia Murray. And now that he says he is going to locate his real mine and we are leaving him with her——’
‘We mustn’t be away too long,’ he agreed.
‘Look. There’s some one down there at the lunch counter; at least there’s a little smoke from the stovepipe. Shall we see who it is?’
It was love among the ruins. Or, in other words, Yellow Barbee leaning halfway across the lunch counter, toward the roguish-eyed, plump maid who leaned slowly toward him.
‘Hello, Barbee,’ called Alan. And when Barbee greeted him without enthusiasm, he asked: ‘What’s happened to the town?’
‘Hit the slide,’ said Barbee carelessly. ‘Bottom fell through, I guess, and at the same time somebody started a scare about gold being found down toward Big Run. The fools,’ he scoffed, ‘piled out like crazy sheep. You can find the way they went by a trail of old tin cups and socks and such stuff dropped on the run.’
‘Roberts, the teamster, has gone, I suppose?’
‘He’ll be back. Pet’s old man is still packing his stuff and Roberts is going to haul it this afternoon. I’m sticking along, helping pack,’ he grinned. Pet eyed him in high mock scorn.
‘A lot of help you are,’ she told him. Barbee laughed.
Howard and Helen were reining their horses about to leave when Barbee came out into the road and put a detaining hand upon Howard’s horse’s mane.
‘Saw Jim Courtot last night, Al,’ he said quietly.
‘Here?’ asked Howard quickly. So long had Courtot seemed the embodiment of all that was elusive that it came with something of a shock of surprise that any man had seen him.
‘Yes,’ Barbee nodded. ‘He’s trailing his luck with that Murray woman again. They’re a bad outfit, Al; better keep your eye peeled.’
Howard did not smile at Barbee’s reference to Sanchia. He hardly remarked it.
‘Tell me about Courtot,’ he commanded.
‘Something’s come over him,’ said Barbee vaguely. ‘He’s different somehow, Al; and I can’t just get him. If he ain’t half crazy he ain’t much more than half right. He’s got a funny look in his eyes; he’s as nervous as a cat; he jumps sideways if you move quick. Last night I thought he was going to break and run for cover at a little sound no man would pay any attention to,’
‘What kind of a sound?’
‘Just a fool dog barking! Well, so long, Al. I got to help Pet do her packing.’ And winking his merry eye, Barbee turned back toward the lunch counter.
Howard and Helen rode again toward the hills. Across the girl’s face a shadow had fallen. Howard wondered if it were there because the odd sadness of a forsaken town had tinged her spirit with its own weird melancholy; or if she had been disturbed by word of Jim Courtot. Barbee had spoken quietly, but Helen might have heard. They rode in silence until Sanchia’s Town was lost behind a ridge. Then Helen asked steadily:
‘Is there no way out for you and Jim Courtot but the way of violence?’
He sought to evade, saying lightly that it began to look as though he and Courtot could no more meet than could spring and autumn. But when she asked directly, ‘What would happen if you did meet?’ he answered bluntly. His mood was not quarrelsome this morning; he wanted no needless fight with any man. But if Jim Courtot stepped out into his trail and began shooting… Well, he left it to her, what would happen. Then he began to speak of Barbee and his new girl, of anything that offered itself to his mind as a lighter topic. But Helen was in no responsive mood. It seemed to her that a shadow had crept across the sky; that the warmth had gone out of the sunlight. A fear crept into her heart, and like many a baseless emotion grew into certainty, that if Alan Howard and Jim Courtot came face to face it would be Alan who fell. When she saw how straight and virile Howard sat in the saddle; when she marked how full of life and the sheer joy of life he was; when she read in his eyes something of his own dreams for the future; when then she saw the gun always bumping at his hips, she shivered as though cold. Her own senses grew sharpened; her fancies raced feverishly. From every boulder, from every bend in the trail, she feared to see the sinister face of Jim Courtot.
CHAPTER XXV
In the Open
There came that night a crisis. Half expected it had always been, and yet after the familiar fashion of supreme moments it burst upon them with the suddenness of an explosion. Howard and Helen
were sitting silent upon the cabin doorstep, watching the first stars. In Sanchia’s near-by tent a candle was burning; they could now and then see her shadow as she moved restlessly about. Longstreet had been out all day, prospecting.
The first intimation the two star-gazers had of any eventful happening was borne to them by Longstreet’s voice, calling cheerily out of the darkness below the cliffs. His words were simply ‘Hello, everybody!’ but the whoop from afar was of a joy scarcely less than delirious. Sanchia ran out of her tent, toppling over her candle; both Helen and Howard sprang up.
‘He has found it!’ cried Helen. ‘Look at that woman. She is like a spider.’
Longstreet came on down the trail jauntily. Sanchia, first to reach him, passed her arm through his and held resolutely to his side. As they came close and into the lamp-light from the cabin door their two faces hid nothing of their two emotions. Longstreet’s was one of whole-hearted triumph; Sanchia’s of shrewdness and determination.
‘Now,’ cried Longstreet ringingly, ‘who says that I didn’t know what I was talking about!’ It was a challenge of the victor, not a mere question.
Before any other reply came Sanchia’s answer.
‘Dear friend,’ she told him hurriedly, ‘I always had faith in you. When others doubted, I was sure. And now I rejoice in your happiness as——’
‘Papa!’ warned Helen. She ran forward to him. ‘Remember and be careful!’
