by Zane Grey
“Here is the trail,” said Stewart, at length.
Not far from that point Madeline swayed, and but for Stewart’s support would have fallen from the saddle. She heard him swear under his breath.
“Here, this won’t do,” he said. “Throw your leg over the pommel. The other one—there.”
Then, mounting, he slipped behind her and lifted and turned her, and then held her with his left arm so that she lay across the saddle and his knees, her head against his shoulder.
As the horse started into a rapid walk Madeline gradually lost all pain and discomfort when she relaxed her muscles. Presently she let herself go and lay inert, greatly to her relief. For a little while she seemed to be half drunk with the gentle swaying of a hammock. Her mind became at once dreamy and active, as if it thoughtfully recorded the slow, soft impressions pouring in from all her senses.
A red glow faded in the west. She could see out over the foothills, where twilight was settling gray on the crests, dark in the hollows. Cedar and piñon trees lined the trail, and there were no more firs. At intervals huge drab-colored rocks loomed over her. The sky was clear and steely. A faint star twinkled. And lastly, close to her, she saw Stewart’s face, once more dark and impassive, with the inscrutable eyes fixed on the trail.
His arm, like a band of iron, held her, yet it was flexible and yielded her to the motion of the horse. One instant she felt the brawn, the bone, heavy and powerful; the next the stretch and ripple, the elasticity of muscles. He held her as easily as if she were a child. The roughness of his flannel shirt rubbed her cheek, and beneath that she felt the dampness of the scarf he had used to bathe her arm, and deeper still the regular pound of his heart. Against her ear, filling it with strong, vibrant beat, his heart seemed a mighty engine deep within a great cavern. Her head had never before rested on a man’s breast, and she had no liking for it there; but she felt more than the physical·contact. The position was mysterious and fascinating, and something natural in it made her think of life. Then as the cool wind blew down from the heights, loosening her tumbled hair, she was compelled to see strands of it curl softly into Stewart’s face, before his eyes, across his lips. She was unable to reach it with her free hand, and therefore could not refasten it. And when she shut her eyes she felt those loosened strands playing against his cheeks.
In the keener press of such sensations she caught the smell of dust and a faint, wild, sweet tang on the air. There was a low, rustling sigh of wind in the brush along the trail. Suddenly the silence ripped apart to the sharp bark of a coyote, and then, from far away, came a long wail. And then Majesty’s metal-rimmed hoof rang on a stone.
These later things lent probability to that ride for Madeline. Otherwise it would have seemed like a dream. Even so it was hard to believe. Again she wondered if this woman who had begun to think and feel so much was Madeline Hammond. Nothing had ever happened to her. And here, playing about her like her hair played about Stewart’s face, was adventure, perhaps death, and surely life. She could not believe the evidence of the day’s happenings. Would any of her people, her friends, ever believe it? Could she tell it? How impossible to think that a cunning Mexican might have used her to further the interests of a forlorn revolution! She remembered the ghoulish visages of those starved rebels, and marveled at her blessed fortune in escaping them. She was safe, and now self-preservation had some meaning for her. Stewart’s arrival in the glade, the courage with which he had faced the outlawed men, grew as real to her now as the iron arm that clasped her. Had it been an instinct which had importuned her to save this man when he lay ill and hopeless in the shack at Chiricahua? In helping him had she hedged round her forces that had just operated to save her life, or if not that, more than life was to her? She believed so.
Madeline opened her eyes after a while and found that night had fallen. The sky was a dark, velvety blue blazing with white stars. The cool wind tugged at her hair, and through waving strands she saw Stewart’s profile, bold and sharp against the sky.
Then, as her mind succumbed to her bodily fatigue, again her situation became unreal and wild. A heavy languor, like a blanket, began to steal upon her. She wavered and drifted. With the last half-conscious sense of a muffled throb at her ear, a something intangibly sweet, deep-toned, and strange, like a distant calling bell she fell asleep with her head on Stewart’s breast.
CHAPTER 12
FRIENDS FROM THE EAST
Three days after her return to the ranch Madeline could not discover any physical discomfort as a reminder of her adventurous experiences. This surprised her, but not nearly so much as the fact that after a few weeks she found she scarcely remembered the adventures at all. If it had not been for the quiet and persistent guardianship of her cowboys she might almost have forgotten Don Carlos and the raiders. Madeline was assured of the splendid physical fitness to which this ranch life had developed her, and that she was assimilating something of the Western disregard of danger. A hard ride, an accident, a day in the sun and dust, an adventure with outlaws—these might once have been matters of large import, but now for Madeline they were in order with all the rest of her changed life.
There was never a day that something interesting was not brought to her notice. Stillwell, who had ceaselessly reproached himself for riding away the morning Madeline was captured, grew more like an anxious parent than a faithful superintendent. He was never at ease regarding her unless he was near the ranch or had left Stewart there, or else Nels and Nick Steele. Naturally, he trusted more to Stewart than to any one else.
“Miss Majesty, it’s sure amazin’ strange about Gene,” said the old cattleman, as he tramped into Madeline’s office.
“What’s the matter now?” she inquired.
“Wal, Gene has rustled off into the mountains again.”
“Again? I did not know he had gone. I gave him money for that band of guerrillas. Perhaps he went to take it to them.”
“No. He took that a day or so after he fetched you back home. Then in about a week he went a second time. An’ he packed some stuff with him. Now he’s sneaked off, an’ Nels, who was down to the lower trail, saw him meet somebody that looked like Padre Marcos. Wal, I went down to the church, and, sure enough, Padre Marcos is gone. What do you think of that, Miss Majesty?”
“Maybe Stewart is getting religious,” laughed Madeline. “You told me so once.”
Stillwell puffed and wiped his red face.
“If you’d heerd him cuss Monty this mawnin’ you’d never guess it was religion. Monty an’ Nels hev been givin’ Gene a lot of trouble lately. They’re both sore an’ in fightin’ mood ever since Don Carlos hed you kidnapped. Sure they’re goin’ to break soon, an’ then we’ll hev a couple of wild Texas steers ridin’ the range. I’ve a heap to worry me.”
“Let Stewart take his·mysterious trips into the mountains. Here, Stillwell, I have news for you that may give you reason for worry. I have letters from home. And my sister, with a party of friends, is coming out to visit me. They are society folk, and one of them is an English lord.”
“Wal, Miss Majesty, I reckon we’ll all be glad to see them,” said Stillwell. “Onless they pack you off back East.”
“That isn’t likely,” replied Madeline, thoughtfully. “I must go back sometime, though. Well, let me read you a few extracts from my mail.”
Madeline took up her sister’s letter with a strange sensation of how easily sight of a crested monogram and scent of delicately perfumed paper could recall the brilliant life she had given up. She scanned the pages of beautiful handwriting. Helen’s letter was in turn gay and brilliant and lazy, just as she was herself; but Madeline detected more of curiosity in it than of real longing to see the sister and brother in the Far West. Much of what Helen wrote was enthusiastic anticipation of the fun she expected to have with bashful cowboys. Helen seldom wrote letters, and she never read anything, not even popular novels of the day. She was as absolutely ignorant of the West as the Englishman who, she said, expected t
o hunt buffalo and fight Indians. Moreover, there was a satiric note in the letter that Madeline did not like, and which roused her spirit. Manifestly, Helen was reveling in the prospect of new sensation.
When she finished reading aloud a few paragraphs the old cattleman snorted, and his face grew redder.
“Did your sister write that?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Wal, I—I beg pawdin, Miss Majesty. But it doesn’t seem like you. Does she think we’re a lot of wild men from Borneo?”
“Evidently she does. I rather think she is in for a surprise. Now, Stillwell, you are clever, and you can see the situation. I want my guests to enjoy their stay here, but I do not want that to be at the expense of the feelings of all of us, or even any one. Helen will bring a lively crowd. They’ll crave excitement—the unusual. Let us see that they are not disappointed. You take the boys into your confidence. Tell them what to expect, and tell them how to meet it. I shall help you in that. I want the boys to be on dress-parade when they are off duty. I want them to be on their most elegant behavior. I do not care what they do, what measures they take to protect themselves, what tricks they contrive, so long as they do not overstep the limit of kindness and courtesy. I want them to play their parts seriously, naturally, as if they had lived no other way. My guests expect to have fun. Let us meet them with fun. Now, what do you say?”
Stillwell rose, his great bulk towering, his huge face beaming.
“Wal, I say it’s the most amazin’ fine idee I ever heerd in my life.”
“Indeed, I am glad you like it,” went on Madeline. “Come to me again, Stillwell, after you have spoken to the boys. But, now that I have suggested it, I am a little afraid. You know what cowboy fun is. Perhaps—”
“Don’t you go back on that idee,” interrupted Stillwell. He was assuring and bland, but his hurry to convince Madeline betrayed him. “Leave the boys to me. Why, don’t they all swear by you, same as the Mexicans do to the Virgin? They won’t disgrace you, Miss Majesty. They’ll be simply immense. It’ll beat any show you ever seen.”
“I believe it will,” replied Madeline. She was still doubtful of her plan, but the enthusiasm of the old cattleman was infectious and irresistible. “Very well, we will consider it settled. My guests will arrive on May ninth. Meanwhile let us get Her Majesty’s Rancho in shape for this invasion.”
* * *
On the afternoon of the ninth of May, perhaps half an hour after Madeline had received a telephone message from Link Stevens announcing the arrival of her guests at El Cajon, Florence called her out upon the porch. Stillwell was there with his face wrinkled by his wonderful smile and his eagle eyes riveted upon the distant valley. Far away, perhaps twenty miles, a thin streak of white dust rose from the valley floor and slanted skyward.
“Look!” said Florence, excitedly.
“What is that?” asked Madeline.
“Link Stevens and the automobile!”
“Oh no! Why it’s only a few minutes since he telephoned saying the party had just arrived.”
“Take a look with the glasses,” said Florence.
One glance through the powerful binoculars convinced Madeline that Florence was right. And another glance at Stillwell told her that he was speechless with delight. She remembered a little conversation she had had with Link Stevens a short while previous.
“Stevens, I hope the car is in good shape,” she had said.
“Now, Miss Hammond, she’s as right as the best-trained hoss I ever rode,” he had replied.
“The valley road is perfect,” she had gone on, musingly. “I never saw such a beautiful road, even in France. No fences, no ditches, no rocks, no vehicles. Just a lonely road on the desert.”
“Shore, it’s lonely,” Stevens had answered, with slowly brightening eyes. “An’ safe, Miss Hammond.”
“My sister used to like fast riding. If I remember correctly, all of my guests were a little afflicted with the speed mania. It is a common disease with New-Yorkers. I hope, Stevens, that you will not give them reason to think we are altogether steeped in the slow, dreamy mañana languor of the Southwest.”
Link doubtfully eyed her, and then his bronze face changed its dark aspect and seemed to shine.
“Beggin’ your pardon, Miss Hammond, thet’s shore tall talk fer Link Stevens to savvy. You mean—as long as I drive careful an’ safe I can run away from my dust, so to say, an’ get here in somethin’ less than the Greaser’s to-morrow?”
Madeline had laughed her assent. And now, as she watched the thin streak of dust, at that distance moving with snail pace, she reproached herself. She trusted Stevens; she had never known so skilful, daring, and iron-nerved a driver as he was. If she had been in the car herself she would have had no anxiety. But, imagining what Stevens would do on forty miles and more of that desert road, Madeline suffered a prick of conscience.
“Oh, Stillwell!” she exclaimed. “I am afraid I will go back on my wonderful idea. What made me do it?”
“Your sister wanted the real thing, didn’t she? Said they all wanted it. Wal, I reckon they’ve begun gettin’ it,” replied Stillwell.
That statement from the cattleman allayed Madeline’s pangs of conscience. She understood just what she felt, though she could not have put it in words. She was hungry for a sight of well-remembered faces; she longed to hear the soft laughter and gay repartee of old friends; she was eager for gossipy first-hand news of her old world. Nevertheless, something in her sister’s letter, in messages from the others who were coming, had touched Madeline’s pride. In one sense the expected guests were hostile, inasmuch as they were scornful and curious about the West that had claimed her. She imagined what they would expect in a Western ranch. They would surely get the real thing, too, as Stillwell said; and in that certainty was satisfaction for a small grain of something within Madeline which approached resentment. She wistfully wondered, however, if her sister or friends would come to see the West even a little as she saw it. That, perhaps, would be hoping too much. She resolved once and for all to do her best to give them the sensation their senses craved, and equally to show them the sweetness and beauty and wholesomeness and strength of life in the Southwest.
“Wal, as Nels says, I wouldn’t be in that there ottomobile right now for a million pesos,” remarked Stillwell.
“Why? Is Stevens driving fast?”
“Good Lord! Fast? Miss Majesty, there hain’t ever been anythin’ except a streak of lightnin’ run so fast in this country. I’ll bet Link for once is in heaven. I can jest see him now, the grim, crooked-legged little devil, hunchin’ down over that wheel as if it was a hoss’s neck.”
“I told him not to let the ride be hot or dusty,” remarked Madeline.
“Haw, haw!” roared Stillwell. “Wal, I’ll be goin’. I reckon I’d like to be hyar when Link drives up, but I want to be with the boys down by the bunks. It’ll be some fun to see Nels an’ Monty when Link comes flyin’ along.”
“I wish Al had stayed to meet them,” said Madeline.
Her brother had rather hurried a shipment of cattle to California; and it was Madeline’s supposition that he had welcomed the opportunity to absent himself from the ranch.
“I am sorry he wouldn’t stay,” replied Florence. “But Al’s all business now. And he’s doing finely. It’s just as well, perhaps.”
“Surely. That was my pride speaking. I would like to have all my family and all my old friends see what a man Al has become. Well, Link Stevens is running like the wind. The car will be here before we know it. Florence, we’ve only a few moments to dress. But first I want to order many and various and exceedingly cold refreshments for that approaching party.”
Less than a half-hour later Madeline went again to the porch and found Florence there.
“Oh, you look just lovely!” exclaimed Florence, impulsively, as she gazed wide-eyed up at Madeline. “And somehow so different!”
Madeline smiled a little sadly. Perhaps when she had put on that exqu
isite white gown something had come to her of the manner which befitted the wearing of it. She could not resist the desire to look fair once more in the eyes of these hypercritical friends. The sad smile had been for the days that were gone. For she knew that what society had once been pleased to call her beauty had trebled since it had last been seen in a drawing-room. Madeline wore no jewels, but at her waist she had pinned two great crimson roses. Against the dead-white they had the life and fire and redness of the desert.
“Link’s hit the old round-up trail,” said Florence, “and, oh, isn’t he riding that car!”
With Florence, as with most of the cowboys, the car was never driven, but ridden.
A white spot with a long trail of dust showed low down in the valley. It was now headed almost straight for the ranch. Madeline watched it growing larger moment by moment, and her pleasurable emotion grew accordingly. Then the rapid beat of a horse’s hoofs caused her to turn.
Stewart was riding in on his black horse. He had been absent on an important mission, and his duty had taken him to the international boundary line. His presence home long before he was expected was particularly gratifying to Madeline, for it meant that his mission had been brought to a successful issue. Once more, for the hundredth time, the man’s reliability struck Madeline. He was a doer of things. The black horse halted wearily without the usual pound of hoofs on the gravel, and the dusty rider dismounted wearily. Both horse and rider showed the heat and dust and wind of many miles.
Madeline advanced to the porch steps. And Stewart, after taking a parcel of papers from a saddle-bag, turned toward her.
“Stewart, you are the best of couriers,” she said. “I am pleased.”
