The Last Straw

by Harold Titus

  CHAPTER VII

  THE CATAMOUNT

  Three weeks after her arrival Jane made her first trip to town and Beckdrove the pair of strong bays which swirled their buckboard over theroad at a spanking trot.

  Events had arisen to prevent their being together in the daysimmediately following the frank discussion of their attitudes towardone another and Jane thought that she detected a feeling of curiosityin him, as though he wondered just how she would go about forcing himto like her. Shrewdly, she avoided personalities and talked much of theranch.

  When they broke over the divide and began the long drop into town, hesaid:

  "Since you asked advice from me, I keep thinkin' up more, ma'am."

  "That's nice. I need it. What now?"

  "I s'pose Dad mentioned that water in Devil's Hole?"

  "Why, I don't recall it. We've talked so much and about so many thingsthat perhaps it's slipped my mind."

  "Maybe. He said he had."

  She questioned him further but he said it might be well for her tomention it to Hepburn. "He's foreman, you know."

  They swung into the one street of Ute Crossing and stopped before thebank. As Beck stepped down to tie the team a girl came out of a storeacross the way and vaulted into the saddle on a big brown horse withgraceful ease. It was the nester's daughter.

  Two men came from the saloon just as she reined her horse about. Theyeyed her insolently with that stare of a type of loafer which iseloquent of all that is despicable and one of them, a short, stodgyman, smiled brazenly.

  The girl gave them one stare, hostility in her brown eyes, and thenlooked away, her lips moving in an unheard word, surely of contempt.

  Then the man spoke. It is not well to repeat. His words were few, butthey were ugly. The girl had touched her horse with a spur and heleaped forward. Just that one bound. As he made it the man spoke andwith a wrench she set the brown back on his haunches and whirled himabout. Her face was suddenly white, her lips in a tight, red line, andher eyes blazed.

  She rode back to the men, who had continued on their way, holding herhorse to a mincing trot, for he seemed to have caught the tensity ofher mood.

  "Did I hear you right?" she said to the man who had spoken.

  He stood still and looked up with the rude leer.

  "That depends on your ears, likely. All I said was that you--"

  She did not give him time to repeat. Her right arm flashed up and thequirt, slung to its wrist, hissed angrily as it cut back and with astinging crack wound its thong about the man's face.

  "Take that!" she cried. "And that ... and that!"

  At the first blow the man ducked and turned, throwing up his hands toguard, and as other slashes, relentless, rapid, of scourging vigor,fell upon his head and face and neck, he doubled over and ran for theshelter of a store. But the girl's wrath was not satisfied. She sentthe big horse from street to sidewalk where his hoofs thundered on theplanks, crowded in between her quarry and the building fronts, cuttingoff his flight, striking faster, harder, teeth showing now between herdrawn lips.

  The man fled into the street again, but she followed, guiding her horsewithout conscious thought, surely, for no woman roused as her faceshowed she was roused could have had thought for other than thethrashing she administered. Endangered by the excited hoofs which wereall about him as he ducked and dodged in vain to escape, the man ranwith hands and arms close about his head, moving them with each blowthat fell in futile attempts to save other parts from the cut and smartof that rawhide.

  The girl uttered no word. All the rancor, all the rage he had roused byhis insult, found vent in the whipping. Her whole lithe torso movedwith each stroke as she put into the downward swing all the strengthshe could command, and across the man's cheek rose broad red welts,contrasting with his pallor of fright, until his face looked like afancy berry pie.

  Scuttling, dodging, doubling, the man worked across the street, turnedback time and again but persisting until, with a cry of pain anddesperation, he threw out one hand, caught the bridle and in theinstant's respite the move gave him stumbled to the other sidewalk,across it and sprawled through the swinging doors of the saloon he hadleft moments before.

  The horse came to a halt with a slam against the flimsy front of thebuilding. The girl drew back her quirt as for a final blow, but theman, regaining his feet, fled through the bar room and disappeared. Shedropped her hand to the top of the door, pushed it open and held it so,peering darkly into the room.

  People had come into the street to watch. There had been excited shoutsand a scream or two, but as the girl sat looking into the place a quicksilence shut down and when she spoke her voice, trembling with emotionbut scarcely raised above its normal pitch, was easily heard.

  "I've took a lot from men," she said, "ever since I was a kid. When Icome into this country I thought maybe I'd get a little respect ... forbein' just a girl. I didn't get it ... I've got to take it.

  "If that man's a sample of the kind you've got here, you're a nest ofskunks. And you talk easy hereafter, every one of you, because so longas I've got a quirt and an arm, I'll hide you till you're raw if youmake any breaks like he did. Keep that in mind!"

  She released her hold on the door; it swung outward smartly and as itstruck the horse he sprang sideways, wheeled, and clearing the shallowgutter with a lunge, swung down the street at a gallop.

  When she passed Jane Hunter, who stood amazed in her buckboard, tearsshowed in the girl's eyes, but her back was as erect, her shoulders astrimly set as though no great emotion was surging in her heart.

  "She's quite a catamount, I'll guess," said Tom Beck as he gave theknot in the tie rope a securing tug and turned to face Jane.

  His eyes were fired with admiration.

  "But a girl--"

  "She was magnificent!"

  It was Dick Hilton who had interrupted with the words. Beck looked athim and the enthusiasm which had been in his face faded. He eyed theEasterner briefly and turned to adjust a buckle on the harness.

  "And only a girl!" exclaimed Jane under her breath. "Dick, did you seeit all?"

  "A typical Western girl, I should say," he replied. "Your.... Yourneighbor and associate? Your companion, Jane?" he asked. "The sort youwant to cast your lot with?"

  "And a moment ago you thought her magnificent!" she taunted as shestepped down and offered him her hand.

  "I'll meet you in, say, two hours, ma'am," Beck said.

  "Very well; right here," she replied, and he left her as she turned tomeet Hilton's unpleasant smile.

  * * * * *

  They began the return trip shortly after noon. Hilton had been withJane when Tom returned and he stood beside the buckboard talking someminutes after Beck had picked up the reins and was ready to commencethe drive. Occasionally Dick's eyes wandered from Jane to the otherman's face but Tom sat, knees crossed, idly toying with the whip, asindifferent to what was being said as if the others were out of sightand hearing. Hilton made an obvious effort to exclude the Westerner butBeck's disregard of him was as genuine as it was evident. He satpatiently, with an easy sense of superiority and the contrast was notlost on Jane Hunter.

  The town was far behind and below them, a mere cluster of miniaturebuildings, before either spoke. Then it was Jane.

  "That girl.... There was something splendid about her, wasn't there?"

  "There was," he agreed. "She sure expressed her opinion of men ingeneral!"

  "A newcomer, evidently."

  Beck nodded. "Came in soon after you did, with her father, it lookedlike."

  "And she wins the respect of strange men by blows!" she said.

  "He deserved all he got, didn't he?" Beck asked, smiling. "I like tosee a bad _hombre_ like that get set down by a woman. There'ssomething humiliating about it that counts a lot more than the whippin'she gave him."

  "But wouldn't it have spoken more for the chivalry of the country ifsome man had done it for her?"

  "That's likely. But ther
e ain't much chivalry here, ma'am."

  "And am I so fortunate as to have enjoyed the protection of what littlethere is?"

  He looked at her blankly.

  "I had to come clear to Ute Crossing to learn how one man defended mefrom the insult of another."

  He stirred uneasily on the seat.

  "That was nothin'," he growled. "I'd been waiting for a chance to landon Webb for a long time."

  He did not look at her and his manner had none of its usual bluntness;clearly he was evasive and, more, uncomfortable.

  "First, I want to thank you," Jane said after she had looked at him amoment. "You don't know how a woman such as I am can feel about a thinglike that. I think it was the finest thing a man has ever done for me... and many men have been trying to do fine things for me for a longtime."

  She was deeply touched and her voice was not just steady but when Beckdid not answer, just looked straight ahead with his tell-tale flushdeepening, a delight crept into her eyes and the corners of her prettymouth quirked.

  "Besides, it was a great deal to expect of a man who has made up hismind not to like me!"

  They had topped the divide and the sorrels had been fighting the bits.As she spoke Tom gave them their heads and the team swept the buckboardforward with a banging and clatter that would have drowned wordsanyhow, but the fact that he did not reply gave Jane a feeling ofjubilation. Her thrust had pricked his reserve, showing it to be notwholly genuine!

  Dick Hilton had told her of the encounter Beck had had with Webb, toldit jeeringly as he attempted to impress her with the distasteful phasesof her environment. He had failed in that. He had impressed her onlywith the fact that Tom Beck had gone out of his way, had taken achance, to protect her standing. Others of her men had heard herinsulted, men from other ranches had been there, but of them all Beckhad been her champion.

  And it was Beck who had bullied her, had doubted her in the face of herbest efforts to convince him of fitness! He had even challenged her tomake herself his friend!

  She had believed before she came into those hills that she knew men ofall sorts but now she had found something new. Here was a man who, inher presence, would plot to humiliate her and yet when she could notsee or hear his loyalty and his belief in her were outstanding.

  And what was it, she asked herself, that made her pulse leap and herthroat tighten? It was not wholly gratitude. It was not merely becausehe resisted her efforts to win his open regard. Those things werepotent influences, surely, but there was something more fundamentalabout him, a basic quality which she had not before encountered in men;she could not analyze it but daily she had sensed its growing strength.Now she felt it ... felt, but could not identify.

  Two-Bits opened the gate for them and Tom carried her bundles into thehouse.

  At the corral, as Beck unharnessed, the homely cow puncher said:

  "Gosh, Tommy, how'd it seem, ridin' all the way to town an' back withher settin' up beside you?"

  "Just about like you was there, Two-Bits, only we didn't swear quite somuch."

  "I got lots of respect for you, Tommy, but I think you're a damnedliar."

  And Beck chuckled to himself as though, perhaps, the other had beenright.

  "Two weeks now since he wrote," Two-Bits sighed. "He shore ought to becomin'. Gosh, Tom, but he's a bright man!"

  Again that night Jane Hunter looked from a window after the lights inthe bunk house had gone out and the place was quiet, to see a tall,silent figure move slowly beneath the cottonwoods, watching the house,pausing at times as if listening. Then it went back through the shadowsmore rapidly, as though satisfied that all was well.

  Many times she had watched this but tonight it seemed of greatersignificance than ever before. He denied her his friendship; he hadmade Webb his sworn enemy by defending her (she had not told him thatpart of the tale she heard in Ute Crossing) and yet disclaimed anygreat interest in her as a motive. Still, he patrolled her dooryard atnight!

  A sudden impulse to do something that would _make_ him give herthat consideration in her presence which he gave before others came tolife. His attitude suddenly angered her beyond reason and she felt herbody shaking as tears sprang into her eyes. The great thing which shedesired was just there, just out of reach and the fact exasperated her,grew, became a fever until, on her knees at the window, hammering thesill with her fists, she cried:

  "Tom Beck you're going to love me!"