by Zane Grey
McAdam arrived early, in a light buggy, drawn by a team of spirited horses. Their heaving, dust-lathered flanks attested to the manner in which they had been driven. One of the cowboys unhitched the horses, while the stylishly groomed young man strolled, whip in hand, toward the cabin, where her father was breaking his Sunday rule by working. Ina saw distinctly from her hammock, and precisely what she expected happened. McAdam at once came out of the cabin and headed toward the grove. Ina watched him coming with mingled contempt and disgust. Even Less Setter struck her as being more of a man. At least she could feel fear of him.
When McAdam had approached within a few rods Ina pretended to be asleep, in the hope that he might show something of the instinct of a gentleman. But as he drew near he began to tiptoe, and he came so softly that Ina could scarcely hear him. She regretted her pretence, but she meant to stick it out as long as possible. Suddenly she felt him close — caught the odour of liquor. And she opened her eyes and violently swerved in the hammock just in time to avoid being kissed. Then she sat up. Anger would have consumed her, but for the flashing thought that at last he had given her real offence. She was almost glad to see him.
“How do, Ina! Thought you were asleep,” he greeted her, in no wise discomfited.
“I’m quite well, thank you, Mr. McAdam,” replied Ina, pertly. “But I wasn’t asleep.”
“What’d you lay that way for?” he demanded, his eyes losing their smile. His face was slightly heated, but he did not appear under the influence of drink.
“I wanted to see what you’d do if I had been asleep. I found out.”
“Well, I was only going to kiss you. What of that?”
“You insulting cad!” retorted Ina, rising to her feet. Even on the moment she was struck by something in McAdam very similar to what she had noted in Setter. These men had returned to the Blaine environment with singular suppositions.
“It’s no insult for a fellow to try to kiss his girl, is it?” he asked, with the most amazing effrontery.
“I’m not your girl,” returned Ina, icily.
“Well, if you’re honest about it, and you’re not, then my dad and me are getting a rotten deal,” he said, bluntly. But he doubted her honesty. The half-smile on his smug face attested to his half-won conquest.
“Mr. McAdam, you amaze me. If you and your father are getting a rotten deal, or any kind of a deal, it is absolutely without my knowledge. I’ve been perfectly honest with you. I never liked you. I despise you now. You never struck me as particularly bright. Besides, your enormous conceit makes you blind to the truth. But do you understand me now? If not—”
“Yes, that’s enough, Ina Blaine,” he returned, hoarsely, his face growing darkly red, and he shook a gloved fist in her face. “Your father let us think you were as good as engaged to me. On the strength of that my dad went thousands of dollars into cattle and ranch deals. And more — he got all balled up with that damned slick, Less Setter. You—”
Ina silenced him with a raised hand. She felt her face growing white.
“I won’t hear any more,” she said, ringingly. “I know nothing of the deals you mention. If my father really did what you claim — it — it was doing me a terrible wrong. Now all that remains for me to say is this. I wouldn’t marry you to save my father from ruin — or even my own life.”
“You’ve changed some since I last saw you, Ina Blaine,” declared McAdam, with the studious bitter acumen of jealousy. “I haven’t forgotten the way you greeted Ben Ide that day in Hammell. If I have to lay this throw-down to that lousy wild-horse hunter it’ll be bad for him.”
Ina checked on the tips of her opening lips a flippant retort that he was precisely right in his suspicions.
“You wouldn’t dare say that to Ben Ide’s face,” she blazed, instead.
“Now I’ve got you straight,” he hissed. “I see it in your face. You pretty, lying cat! Coming home with all your education and style to take up with that horse thief!”
There were, it seemed, limits to Ina’s endurance. She gave McAdam a stinging slap across his sneering mouth. The blow brought the blood.
“I’ll tell Ben Ide what you’ve said,” she cried, passionately. “And I hope I’m around when he meets you. That, Mr. McAdam, is the last word I’ll ever speak to you.”
Whereupon Ina went into her tent, shut and hooked the screen door, and pulled down the blind. She heard McAdam stride away, cursing, striking the junipers with his whip. Then she sank into a chair, suddenly limp and weak.
“Whew? All in a minute! Something’s got into me, surely.
... But he was insufferably rude. I’m glad it happened just that way.... Now for dad! He’ll come like a mad bull.... Well, I’ll just settle him, too.”
Ina did not have long to wait, certainly not long enough to cool off or lose her nerve. She heard the stamp of his heavy boots.
“Ina!” he called, stridently.
She waited until he called again, louder this time. Then she answered:
“Dad, I’m in my tent.”
“Wal, come out.”
“But I’m not coming out just yet.”
“Wha-at?” he roared, stamping to the front of her tent. “I’m expecting to feel very bad — pretty soon — so I don’t want to come out. “ How cool and audacious she felt! Almost she could have laughed. But at the depths of her feeling there was a new and cold emotion, sterner than any she had ever felt.
“You come hyar an’ apologise to young McAdam,” shouted her father.
“I won’t do anything of the kind,” flashed Ina, in a voice her father had certainly never heard. Nor had she ever heard it! Still, she was frightened.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Mr. McAdam insulted me.”
“He did, now! — an’ how?”
“He tried to kiss me. Then after a few pretty plain words from me he insulted me again. So I slapped his face. And I ended by saying I’d never speak to him again.”
“But, Ina, you will? This is serious business for me,” implored her father, hoarsely.
“I’m sorry, Dad. You were wrong to encourage him,” replied Ina, softening for an instant. “For I absolutely will never look at him again.”
“Girl, who are you to cross me this way? I’ll have obedience,” he went on, in low-voiced fury. “Come out hyar, before I break down that door.”
He laid a heavy hand on the knob and shook it violently s Ina stood up to face him, and she paused before answering. This was the crucial moment. Alas! She felt sick at heart. But it was her life, her happiness at stake, and she knew he was hard, ignorant, intolerant, if not worse. Then she heard herself speaking coldly, clearly:
“Father, if you break in here and drag me out in front of that cur, I’ll go to Hammell if I have to walk — and I’ll get a job if I have to be waitress in the hotel.”
She heard his choking, husky ejaculation. Then silence ensued for a long moment. The handle of the door turned, but it was only with release. Her father’s step sounded heavily, backing away. Then her mother’s voice broke the silence: “Hart, I couldn’t help but hear. Don’t be mad at Ina.”
“Mad? Haw, haw, haw!” he rejoined, harshly. “Reckon I was mad, but she’s licked me — that college daughter of yours — she’s licked me.”
CHAPTER VIII
SHORTLY AFTER THE altercation with her father Ina had a visit from her mother.
“He’s gone, daughter, an’ I reckon I never saw him so stumped in all our years together,” she said, with unconscious satisfaction.
“I feel pretty shaky now,” replied Ina, with a queer little laugh. “But, Mother, I couldn’t stand it any longer.”
They sat on the steps of Ina’s tent porch, from which the ranch cabins could be plainly seen. Her father and McAdam were standing in plain sight. Ina could translate that interview from the deprecatory gestures of her father and the wild ones of her rejected suitor. The most amazing thing then was to see her father abruptly turn his back up
on McAdam and go into the cabin.
“Hart can be awful bullheaded when he’s mad,” muttered Mrs. Blaine, as if speaking to herself.
“Mother, it’s a wonder to me that young nincompoop didn’t make dad mad long ago,” rejoined Ina, with a giggle.
“Your father has a mighty lot of patience where money is concerned.”
“I’m afraid he has become deeply involved with the McAdams.”
“Hart Blaine has got involved with everybody, particularly this man Setter,” said Mrs. Blaine, in bitter impatience. “He’s changed. He won’t listen to me. We were poor so long that money when it came sent him crazy.”
“Then it’d be a good thing for him to lose some of it,” declared Ina.
“That’s what I told him. Land’s sake! I thought he’d knock me over.... Well, well, maybe things will come out. You needn’t tell it, daughter, but I’m glad you wouldn’t marry young McAdam. He didn’t suit me at all. I try to keep my ideas to yourself, as I don’t seem to fit well in this new world of ours. Just now I happened to be at the door of my tent when young McAdam came up to you. I thought you was asleep in the hammock. An’ when you jumped away from him I sure wanted one of the cowboys to happen along. Then when you slapped him — that tickled me. Well, I hope we’ve seen the last of McAdam an’ can have a little comfort by ourselves on Sundays.”
“Mother, bless your heart, you do understand. I feel suddenly freed.... But, oh, I forgot Mr. Setter,” exclaimed Ina, impulsively.
“What do you mean, daughter?”
“I didn’t mean to let that slip. But maybe it’s just as well. Mother, of late Setter has been — well, offensive, where McAdam was only silly. McAdam only annoyed me, but Setter has worried me, even frightened me.”
“For the land’s sake? What’s he done?” exclaimed her mother, bewildered.
“It’s enough to say, Mother, that he has neither scruples nor decency,” declared Ina, with heat. “The last few weeks before we moved over here he waylaid me in the parlour, out under the pines, on the road when I went to meet Dall, in fact, everywhere I was alone.”
“Waylaid you! What’s that word?... You don’t mean courtin’ you? Why, he’s old enough to be your father!”
“Courting is a mild way to put it. Mother,” continued Ina, gravely. “Courting implies marriage. And Mr. Less Setter has not done me the honour to hint of marriage. But he makes brazen love to me. I have to fight, even run to get away from him. There, it’s out!”
Mrs. Blaine passed from astonishment to anger. A slow dull red coloured her lined face and her usually mild eyes snapped. “You never told your father,” she asserted.
“No. Once or twice I’ve said sharp things to Mr. Setter and got a terrible scolding from dad. Then of late dad has got so thick with him that I was actually afraid. He’d get terribly angry now and he wouldn’t believe me. Then I’ve had suspicions that Setter would cheat dad sooner or later. So I just relied on my wits to avoid this gay Lothario of a cattleman.”
“Ina, I’m glad you told me,” said her mother. “I hope Hart Blaine learns a lesson. If he can’t protect his own daughter an’ lets her brothers go gallivantin’ to the city — well, it’s a great pity. If I was in your place I’d make up to some strappin’ big cowboy who would protect me from a man like Less Setter.”
“Mother!” cried Ina, incredulously.
“That’s plain talk, Ina, an’ maybe common, as young McAdam’s mother said I was. But I don’t care what it is. Wealth isn’t everythin’. I know good from bad. An’ pretty soon I’ll give your father a piece of my mind.”
Dall came noisily into sight then, dragging a puppy and a rabbit. Whereupon Mrs. Blaine left Ina and went to her tent.
“Ina, you look like the dickens,” said Dali. “Come play with us.”
“Surely, if you and your menagerie will stick close to my lookout station here,” replied Ina.
“Lookout station! You mean a forest-fire lookout?”
“Forest fire, thunder and lightning, earthquake, any kind of catastrophe,” said Ina, pointing to the juniper tree, the white tarpaulin spread over their bed, the comfortable wide hammock with its cushions, and the box table littered with books.
“I savvy,” returned Dall seriously. “You want to see when to run from dad and Mr. Klamath Falls and Mr. Blondy Popeyes.”
“Dall, despite what Marvie says, your brain seems to be growing along with your legs. You hit it right on the head. Come on; I’ll play with you. And we must not forget to read over your Sunday-school lesson.”
The rest of the morning hours passed swiftly and pleasantly.
Perhaps the most pleasant incident for Ina was to see Sewell McAdam drive away with his high-stepping horses and shiny black buggy. Marvie did not return. Mrs. Blaine served dinner outside in the shade of a juniper, but her husband failed to appear. Mother and daughters had dinner to themselves, and Ina reflected that it was the first Sunday meal for weeks at which she had felt at ease. Afterward she and Dall helped their mother wash and dry the dishes. “Your father forgot this was Sunday,” said Mrs. Blaine, complacently. “We always have Sunday dinner at noon. He’ll miss his an’ have to eat with the cowboys.”
Ina spent most of the afternoon in her hammock, reading, dreaming, both wide-eyed and asleep. In truth, her sleeping dreams were disturbed by a very abashed and respectful cowboy who brought a message from her father, requiring her presence at his office at once. Ina, somewhat upset in mind, walked over to the ranch with the cowboy, and took advantage of the few moments to make casual inquiries.
One of the cabins had been fitted up to serve as a living-room and office for Mr. Blaine. It did not look very tidy, but it was a pleasant, light room, an improvement on the one used for the same purpose at Tule Lake Ranch.
Ina’s father was not in. She glanced at the large table, covered with letters and papers, deeds and contracts, all jumbled together in hopeless confusion. She had often asked her father to let her keep his books, and file his papers for convenience, but he had scouted the idea. He did not need any book-keeper. Ina, studying that table-load of documents, wondered just why her father did not care to have her in his office. Then she heard trotting horses outside. Through the window she espied Setter and three cowboys riding in. Also her father appeared crossing the space between the cabins. Setter intercepted him, and waving the cowboys away he dismounted and walked beside him toward the office. The window was open, and Ina stood a little back from it. As her father and his partner approached she remained motionless, without compunction attending to their conversation.
“... twenty head of wild horses, half broke,” Setter was saying with enthusiasm. “Ide must have left last night. Anyway, he wasn’t home. His cabin door was nailed shut. But I pried it open. Nice place he’s got, clean as if he had a woman there. Nothin’ there but grub, which we helped ourselves to.”
“Wal, if Ben Ide wasn’t home, of course you couldn’t talk business,” said Blaine, thoughtfully.
“No, but I’ll go again an’ stay till he comes,” rejoined Setter.
“Suit yourself, but I’m advisin’ ag’in’ it.”
“I know you are,” replied the other, patiently. “But why? You don’t give me any good reason.”
“Wal, I reckon I haven’t any ‘cept I know his father, Amos Ide.”
“Hart, I don’t care a damn for Amos Ide, or his son, either,” retorted Setter, coolly. “Ben Ide has the key to this valley. Why, this place will be priceless some day! With that an’ the three ranches round Mule Deer Lake we can control all the good range clear to your holdings at Silver Meadow. Thirty miles of Forlorn River! That’s the cream of this country. How did you cattlemen fail to see it?”
“Wal, we’ve all been workin’ too hard, till lately,” responded Blaine, dryly. “But I agree with you. There’s a fortune to be made on Forlorn River.”
“Fortune? Well, I should snigger,” said Setter scornfully. “Ide’s got one spring over there that’s worth a million. Y
our cowboys said it had always been under water — under the river. If Ide knew it he sure kept his mouth shut.”
“Reckon he did know. He always was a smart boy. Perhaps he’s seen the future of this valley. Mebbe that’s why he bucked his father so hard. If so we’ll never buy him out.”
“See here, Hart, it’s only you talkin’ about buyin’ out this boy’s holdings,” returned Setter, testily. “We won’t buy him out. We’ll drive him out. Remember I told you Ben Ide is tied up with a Nevada outlaw. I know him. Their ranchin’ an’ wild-horse huntin’ are only bluffs. Blinds to hide their cattle rustlin’. It’s an old gag. I’ve seen it work in Montana, Arizona, Nevada. But it’s new here in California.”
“Strong talk again, Setter,” said Blaine, tersely.
“Yes, an’ it comes natural to me,” replied Setter, meaningly. “I’ll make these plans an’ carry them out. All you do is furnish what ready cash we need, an’ I’ll bet we can buy out Sims an’ his neighbour homesteaders for next to nothin’.”
“Poor devils! I shouldn’t wonder. I’m givin’ you a hunch that I ain’t as keen about this ranch buyin’ as I was. Some of my old friends have turned ag’in’ me for it. My wife, too, is worryin’ me.” — , “I’ve seen all that, Blaine, an’ am allowin’ for it,” rejoined Setter, suavely. “But business is business. These poor devils would be all the worse off if we didn’t buy. Let’s put this big Forlorn River deal through an’ then we’ll have about all we can handle.”
“Huh! Reckon I’ve got that now;” said Blaine, gruffly. “There was hell to pay to-day.”
“What?” queried Setter, sharply.
Ina, watching keenly, saw in this man’s swift responsiveness, in the alert, intent flash of his prominent eyes, a preparedness, a reserve force not to be accounted for by what lay behind her father’s statement. This man wore a mask. He was two men at the same time.
“Young McAdam showed up here to-day,” explained Blaine. “He got to monkeyin’ round Ina an’ she slapped his face. Then she turned him down cold. Wal, he came to me, ugly an’ mean. Reckon I didn’t savvy him. An’ I got ugly, too, an’ called him a few names on my own hook. He left swearin’ he’d have me in court. Now I’ll have to go to Klamath to-morrow an’ raise that thirty thousand old McAdam put in one of our deals. You see, I didn’t tell you he was set on his son Sewell marryin’ Ina. An’ I, like a damn fool, encouraged them. Without thinkin’ much about my girl, I’m bound to say. But I got the thirty thousand on the strength of a marriage between Sewell an’ Ina.”