CHAPTER III
CHAD HARRISON
As soon as Steve stepped into the dining-room he knew that the story ofhis fight with Harrison had preceded him. His battered face became animmediate focus of curious veiled glances. These exhibited an animatedinterest rather than surprise.
Mrs. Seymour introduced him in turn to each of the other boarders, andthe furtive looks stared for a moment their frank questions at him. Ashe drew in his chair beside a slender, tanned young woman, he knew withsome amusement that his arrival had interrupted a conversation of whichhe had been the theme.
The film actress seated beside Yeager must have been in her very earlytwenties, but her pretty face, finely modeled, had the provocativeeffrontery that is the note of twentieth-century young womanhood. Itsaudacity, which was the quintessence of worldliness, held an alertbeen-through-it-all expression.
"I hope you like Los Robles, Mr. Yeager. Some of us don't, you know,"she suggested.
"Like it fine, Miss Ellington," he answered with enthusiasm, acceptingfrom Ruth Seymour a platter of veal croquettes.
Daisy Ellington slanted mischievous eyes toward him. "Not much doinghere. It's a dead little hole. You'll be bored to death--if you haven'tbeen already."
"Me! I've found it right lively," retorted Steve, his eyes twinkling."Had all the excitement I could stand for one day. You see I come fromway back in the cow country, ma'am."
"And I came from New York," she sighed. "When it comes to little oldBroadway I'm there with bells on. What d'you mean, cow country? Ain'tthis far enough off the map? Say, were you ever in New York?"
"Oncet. With a load of steers my boss was shipping to England. Lemmesee. It was three years ago come next October."
"Three years ago. Why, that was when I was in the pony ballet with'Adam, Eve, and the Apple.' Did you see the show?"
"Bet I did."
Her eyes sparkled. "I was in the first row, third from the left in the'Good-Night' chorus. Some kick to that song, wasn't there?"
"I should say yes. We're old friends, then, aren't we?" exclaimed Yeagerpromptly. He buried her little hand in his big brown paw, a friendlysmile beaming through the disfigurements of his bruised face.
"He didn't do a thing to you, did he?" she commented, looking him overfrankly.
"Not a thing--except run me through a sausage-grinder, drop me out ofone of these aeroplanes, hammer my haid with a pile-driver, and jounceme up and down on a big pile of sharp rocks. Outside of trifles likethat I had it all my own way."
"I don't see any alfalfa in _your_ hair," she laughed. Then, loweringher voice discreetly, she added: "Harrison's a brute. I'll tell youabout him some time when Ruth isn't round."
"Ruth!" Steve glanced at the young girl who moved about the room withsuch rhythmic grace helping the Chinese waiter serve her mother'sguests. "What has she got to do with Harrison?"
"Engaged to him--that's all. See that sparkler on her finger? Wouldn'tit give you a jolt that a nice little girl like her would take up with astiff like Harrison?"
"What's her mother thinking about?" asked the cowpuncher under cover ofthe conversation that was humming briskly all around the tables.
Daisy lifted her shoulders in a careless little shrug. "Oh, her mother!What's she got to do with it? Harrison has hypnotized the kid, I guess.He throws a big chest, and at that he ain't bad-looking. He's one mantoo, if he is a rotten bad lot."
The young woman breezed on to another subject in the light, inconsequentfashion she had, and presently deserted Yeager to meet the badinage ofan extra sitting at an adjoining table.
After dinner Steve went to his new quarters to get a cigar he had lefton the table. It was one Farrar had given him. He was cherishing itbecause his financial assets had become reduced to twenty cents and hedid not happen to know when pay-day was.
Yeager climbed the barn stairs humming a range song:--
"Black Jack Davy came a-riding along, Singing a song so gayly, He laughed and sang till the merry woods rang And he charmed the heart of a lady, And he charmed--"
Abruptly he pulled up in his stride and in his song. Ruth Seymour was inthe room putting new sheets and pillow-cases on the bed.
"I haven't had time before. I didn't think you would be through dinnerso soon," she explained in a voice soft and low.
"That's all right. I only dropped up to get a cigar I left on the table.Don't let me disturb you."
Her troubled eyes rested on the strong, lean face that went so well withthe strong, lean body. One eye was swollen and almost shut. Red bruisesglistened on the forehead and the cheeks. A bit of plaster stretcheddiagonally above the right cheekbone where the prizefighter's knuckleshad cut a deep gash. Little ridges covered his countenance as if it hadbeen a contour map of a mountainous country. But through all the havocthat had been wrought flashed his white teeth in a cheerful smile.
The girl's lip trembled. "I'm sorry you--were hurt."
He flashed a quick look at her. "Sho! Forget it, Miss Seymour. I wasn'thurt any--none to speak of. It don't do a big husky like me any harm tobe handed a licking."
"You--hit him first, didn't you?"
"Yes, ma'am,--knocked him out cold before he knew where he was at. Hewas entitled to a come-back. I'm noways hos-tile to him because he's abetter man than I am."
She stood with the pillow in her hands, shy as a fawn, but with acertain resolution, too, the trouble of her soul still reflected on thesweet face.
"Why do men--do such things?" she asked with a catch of her breath.
He scratched his curly head in apologetic perplexity. "Search me. Ireckon the cave man is lurking around in most of us. We hadn't ought to.That's a fact."
"It was all a mistake, Miss Ellington says. You thought he was hurtingMiss Winters. Why didn't you tell him you were sorry? Then it would havebeen all right."
The cowpuncher did not bat an eye at this innocent suggestion.
"That's right. Why didn't I think of that? Then of course he would havelaid off o' me."
"He--Mr. Harrison--is quick-tempered. I suppose all brave men are. Buthe's generous, too. If you had explained--"
"I reckon you're right. He sure is generous, even in the whalings hegives. But don't worry about me. I'm all right, and much obliged foryour kindness in asking."
Steve found his cigar and retired. He carried with him in memory apicture of a troubled young creature with soft, tender eyes gleamingstarlike from beneath waves of dark hair.
Yeager met Harrison swaggering up the gravel walk toward the house. Amalevolent gleam lit in the cold black eyes of the bully.
"How you feeling, young fella?"
"A hundred and eighty years old," answered the cowpuncher promptly witha grin. "Every time I open my mouth my face cracks. You ce'tainly didgive me a proper trimming. I don't know sic-'em about this scientificfight game."
Harrison scowled. "There's more at the same address any time you needit."
"Not if I see you coming in time to make a getaway," retorted Steve witha laugh.
As the range-rider passed lightly down the walk there drifted back tothe prizefighter the words of a cowboy song:--
"Oh, bury me out on the lone prairee, In a narrow grave just six by three, Where the wild coyotes will howl o'er me-- Oh, bury me out on the lone prairee."
Harrison ripped out an oath. There was a note of gentle irony about theminor strain of the song that he resented. He had given this youth thethrashing of his life, but he had apparently left his spirit quiteuncrushed. What he liked was to have men walk in fear of him.
The song presently died on the lips of Steve. Harrison was on his way tocall on Ruth. The man had somehow won her promise to marry him. It wasimpossible for Yeager to believe that the child knew what she was doing.To think of her as the future wife of Chad Harrison moved him toresentment at life's satiric paradoxes. To give this sweet younginnocent to such a man was to mate a lamb with a tiger or a wolf. Theoutrage of it cried to Heaven. What could her mother be t
hinking of toallow such a wanton sacrifice?
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