by Zane Grey
She transfixed him with eyes of awe and reproach, almost horror.
“Curly, I — I ought to shudder at sight of you,” she said, very low. “But I — I don’t.”
“There! That’ll be about all for you,” interrupted Jim, and he shoved the shy and stricken cowboy out of the room, to follow on his heels.
“What’d she mean, Jim?” Curly asked, huskily.
“I don’t know, but I imagine it’s a lot — from Gloriana Traft.”
Curly stalked downstairs and out into the open, like a man who did not see where he stepped. He remained absent until sunset. At supper, which was a silent meal, in deference to the sleeping girls upstairs, he ate but little, and that with a preoccupied air. Later he sought out Jim.
“Boss, I been thinkin’ a heap aboot Molly’s yarn,” he said, ponderingly. “An’ it’s shore a queer one. The idee of Jed Stone bein’ lost!...Heah’s what I make of it — if you swear on your knees you’ll never squeal on me.”
“I promise, pard,” returned Jim, feelingly.
“Wal, you remember how crazy Glory was to heah aboot desperadoes. Now she took Jed fer one, an’ I’ll bet he was cute enough not to disappoint her. Jed must have hatched up some deal with Molly, to fool Glory, to scare her, to find out if she had any real stuff in her. Thet an’ thet only can account fer Jed’s queer doin’s an’ Molly’s queer story.”
“But, Curly, was that motive enough?” asked Jim, incredulously.
“No, I reckon it wasn’t,” admitted the cowboy. “They had to have a deeper one. Now, Jed knew Molly when she was a baby, always was fond of her. Molly is shore Arizona, Jim. So is Jed. But you cain’t savvy thet because you’re an Easterner. An’ to boil it down I reckon Jed scared Glory an’ starved her an’ drove her jest fer Molly’s sake. An’ in the end Glory took the brim off their cup by meanin’ to give herself up to save Molly’s honour. Glory was plumb fooled, an’ clean honest an’ as big as life. It was great, Jim. An’ if I hadn’t been in love with her before, I shore would be now.”
“If that’s true, Molly is an awful little liar,” said Jim, dubiously.
“Wal, yes an’ no. It depends on how you see it. Molly worships Glory, an’ she couldn’t have meant anythin’ but good. An’ good it shore was an’ is. Thet gurl is changed.”
“Ahuh. I begin to savvy, maybe. I believe I did notice some little difference, which I put down to her joy at being safe again with us.”
“Shore it was thet. But more. If I don’t miss my guess, Gloriana will never see through Jed an’ Molly. An’ thet’s jest as well. I hope the lesson wasn’t too raw. But thet sister of yours has guts...When she gets rested she’ll appreciate things as they are out heah.”
Next day Molly showed up downstairs, in changed garb, merry and shy by turns; and she surely was beleaguered by the cowboys. Eventually Jim contrived to get her away from Bud, and to walk out to look over Yellow Jacket. She was enraptured.
“Molly, the end of the Hash-Knife makes a vast difference,” Jim was saying as he halted with her on the log bridge across the amber stream. “We can actually live down here, eventually. But not till next year, and then you must have frequent visits to Flag...You haven’t forgotten your promise to marry me this fall, have you?”
“Oh, did I promise, Jim?” she asked, in shy pretence of surprise.
“You sure did.”
“Wal, then, say late November.”
“But that’s winter!”
“November? Oh, no, thet’s the last of fall.”
“Gosh! how long to wait!...But I love you so and you’re such a wonderful girl — I guess I can wait.”
“Maybe — the middle of November,” she whispered, whereupon Jim, with a glad shout, snatched her into his arms, to the imminent peril of their falling off the log that bridged the brook.
Next morning late a lovely and languid Gloriana trailed shakily down the winding stairs into the living-room. Dark shadows enhanced the depth and hue of her eyes. She wore white, and to Bud and Curly, at least, she might have been an angel. But to Jim she appeared spent and shaken, completely warped out of her old orbit. She was made much of by the cowboys, except Curly, who worshipped and glowered by turns, from afar. Bud took advantage of Gloriana’s pledge of the day before and held her to it, after which he held her hand. At length Curly lunged out of the room, as if he meant to destroy himself, and then almost immediately he lunged back again. Jim understood his pangs, and when Curly gravitated to him, as always happened when he was cast down, Jim whispered:
“Pard, it doesn’t mean anything!”
“Wal, I’ll shore find out pronto,” replied Curly, in heroic mood. “Never do to let her get hold of herself again.”
Presently the other cowboys went out on the porch, to take up tasks, or to amuse Lonestar, who had a chair outside. This left Jim and Molly at the table. Gloriana sat on the edge of Bud’s bed, which consisted of blankets over spruce boughs, laid on the floor. Curly, who had before wandered around like a lost dog, now watched his friend and his sweetheart with flashing blue eyes. They apparently were oblivious of the others.
“Glory, you’re the beautifulest gurl,” Bud was saying.
“Silly, you’ve seen prettier ones,” she replied, but she was pleased, and she stroked his hair with her free hand.
“Nope. They don’t walk on Gawd’s green earth,” returned her champion firmly.
“Bud, I’m to be here all summer,” she said, with a smile of enchantment “Oh, it’s so heavenly here. I didn’t know...Will you be all right soon — so you can ride with me — teach me how to handle a horse? I’m so stupid — so weak. Why, that pinto bucked me off!”
“She did? Son-of-a-gun! I’ll beat her good fer thet.”
“No you won’t. I love her.”
“Love a pinto!...Is thet all?”
“Bud, I love every horse — everything — everybody in Arizona.”
“Aw, thet’s wuss.”
Jim, entranced at this by-play, suddenly felt a tug. “Look at Curly,” uttered Molly.
Curly seemed to have become transformed back to the old cool, easy cowboy, an unknown quantity, potent with some secret of imperturbable assurance. Yet Jim divined his was the grandeur of despair.
“Glory,” drawled Curly, as he sat down on the bed, opposite her, and possessed himself of Bud’s other restless hand, “we’ve been like brothers for six years...Bud an’ I...An’ I reckon this last fight I evened up an old debt. When Bud went down, thet rustler would have killed him but fer me.”
“Pard, what’s ailin’ you — thet you never told me before?” demanded Bud, his voice deep and rich.
“No call fer it, Bud.”
Gloriana looked from one to the other fascinated, and vaguely troubled. Her intuition distrusted the moment.
“Dog-gone! I had a hunch you did. Shore as hell thet’s why you missed the chance at Croak Malloy.”
“I reckon.” Then Curly looked up at the girl. “I jest wanted you both to know, in case I don’t stay on heah.”
“Stay on — heah?” faltered Gloriana, in her surprise actually imitating him. Then her eyes dilated with divining thoughts.
“Now what I want to know — seein’ Bud an’ I are the same as brothers — which of us is to call you sister?”
“Curly!” she entreated.
“Aw, pard!” burst out Bud.
“This son-of-a-gun ain’t bad hurt,” went on Curly. “I’ve seen him with more and worse gun-shot wounds. He’s only workin’ on your sympathy. Wal, thet’s all right. But it makes me declare myself right heah an’ now.”
“Please, Curly — oh, don’t.”
“You know I love you, Glory,” he continued, coolly and slowly. “Only it’s more since I told you first. An’ I asked you to marry me an’ let me be the one to help you tackle this tough Arizona...Well, thet was Christmas-time, aboot. You promised to write your answer. But you never did. An’ I reckon now I’m wantin’ to heah it .”
“But Curly �
� how unreasonable! Wait, I beg of you. I — I’m upset by this adventure. I don’t know myself.”
“Wal, you know whether you love me or not. So answer pronto, lady.”
She drooped her lustrous head a moment, then raised it, fearlessly, as one driven to the wall.
“Curly, you’re not greatly different from Jed Stone,” she said.
“I reckon thet a compliment.”
“I’m not sure yet how or what I feel toward you, Curly, except that I know I’m not worthy. But since you insist I — I say yes.” And with wistful smile she held out her free hand to him. Curly clasped it in both his and carried it to his breast, his face pale, his eyes intense.
“Whoopee!” yelled Bud in stentorian tones. “I knowed I could fetch him. All the time I knowed it — the handsome jealous geezer!”
Next day Uncle Jim Traft drove down into Yellow Jacket.
No suggestion of the hard old cattleman! He was merry and keen, full of energy to see and hear, and somehow mysteriously buoyant. At Jim’s hurried report of the lost cattle he replied: “Pooh-pooh! Only an incident in a rancher’s life!” But he gazed sorrowfully down at the graves of those cowboys who had died for the Diamond. They had not been the first, and perhaps they would not be the last.
Curly related the story of the fight at the trapper’s cabin. Molly led him aside to tell her version of their adventure with Croak Malloy and Jed Stone. And Bud with pride rare exhibited the headpiece of carved aspen which he vowed he would place on Croak Malloy’s grave.
“Wal, wal, we have our ups and downs,” replied the old rancher, when all was said. “An’ I say you got off easy...My news is good news. Blodgett’s riders rounded up your stampeded stock. All the range knows Malloy is dead an’ the Hash-Knife no more. Spread like wildfire. Yellow Jacket will prosper now, an’, my! what a gorgeous place! An’, Jim, you won’t be lonesome, either, when you settle down with the little wife. Allen Blodgett is takin’ charge of his father’s range, an’ he’ll live there. Jack Way’s wife’s father will start him ranchin’. Miller is goin’ to move down. An’ in no time this valley will be hummin’. An’ I near forgot. The doctor come back from West Fork, reportin’ Slinger Dunn out of danger.”
That, of all news, was the best for Jim, who found his joy and gratitude in Molly’s brimming eyes.
“Rustlin’ will go on,” continued Uncle Jim, “but no more at the old Hash-Knife rate. It’ll be two-bit stealin’ an’ thet we don’t mind.”
After supper, when the old rancher had Jim, Gloriana, Molly, and Curly alone, he pulled a soiled paper from his pocket. His air was strikingly momentous.
“I’m askin’ you never to tell what I read you now. Promise?”
Surprised at his earnestness, at his fine softened face, strangely pale, they solemnly pledged themselves, whereupon Uncle Jim adjusted his eye-glasses and began to read slowly:
“TOBE’S WELL,
“DEAR JIM,
“I changed my mind about the money your rider fetched down. I appropriated it an’ am leavin’ this letter instead. You owe me thet, to make a new start in life.
“Thet niece of yours, Gloriana, offered to make a sacrifice. Same as I twenty years ago, to save my pard. For the sweet-heart we both loved an’ which he never got, after all. It sort of faced me back on the old forgotten trail. Jim, it’s never too late.
“Tell her, if she ever has a boy to call him ‘Jed.’”
THE END
The Drift Fence
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER ONE
MOLLY DUNN SAT waiting on the rickety old porch of Enoch Summers’ store in the village of West Fork. For once she was oblivious to the approach of the lean-faced, long-legged young backwoodsmen who lounged there with their elders. Molly was sixteen and on the eve of a great adventure. She had been invited to ride to Flagerstown with the Sees. She had been there once some years before and the memory had haunted her. In her pocket she had money to buy new stockings and shoes, which compensated somewhat for the fact that she carefully kept her feet and ankles hidden under the bench. She wore her good dress and bonnet, and though not satisfied with them she was not ashamed.
Andy Stoneham, a tall youth with sallow face and fuzzy beard, edged over closer and closer.
“Reckon you’re orful stuck up this mawnin’,” he drawled.
Molly looked at the bullet holes in the wall of the old store. She had seen them before, and long ago when she was ten she had stuck her finger in them and wondered about the battle that had been fought there once.
“Goin’ up to Flag, huh?”
“Do you think I’d dress up like this for West Fork?” inquired Molly, loftily.
“Wal, you used to, didn’t you? You shore look purty. But I can’t see you’ve any call to get uppish. I’ve seen you in thet rig before, haven’t I?”
“I don’t remember, Andy.”
“Then you’ve got a darn short memory,” replied Andy, bluntly. “Didn’t I take you to the last dance in thet dress?”
“Did you?”
“Wal, I shore did. An’ didn’t I hug you in it?”
“Did you?” queried Molly, flippantly.
“You bet I did.”
“I’ve forgotten. But I’ve heard it said you’re so big and awkward you have to hold on to a girl when you dance. Else you’d fall down.”
“Wal, how aboot kissin’ you, too? On the way to the dance an’ drivin’ home?”
“Oh, did you?” retorted Molly, her face hot. Andy’s voice carried rather far. “An’ what did I do?”
“Wal, I figger thet you kissed me back an’ then slapped my face.”
“Andy Stoneham, you’re a liar about that first.”
“Haw! Haw!...Say, Molly, there’s goin’ to be a dance next week.”
“Where at?”
“Hall’s Mill. Come on an’ go.”
“Andy, I don’t like that place,” returned Molly, regretfully. “Besides, I wouldn’t go with you, anyway.”
“Wal, you shore air gettin’ stuck up. An’ why not?”
“Because of what you said — about huggin’ an’ kissin’ me.”
“What of thet? I did an’ you liked it. Aw, you’re funny. Haven’t all the boys done the same?”
“They have not,” declared Molly. “Who ever said such a thing?”
“I heerd Sam Wise say it. An’ Bill Smith laughed, though he didn’t say nothin’.”
“So that’s the kind of fellows you are!” exclaimed Molly. “Talk about a girl behind her back?...To kiss an’ tell!”
“Wal, at thet we’re not so gabby as your cowboy admirers from Pleasant Valley. Take thet red-headed cowpuncher. Accord-in’ to his talk he’s a tall fellar with Burls. He shore had you crazy aboot him.”
“He did not,” said Molly, hotly.
“Wal, you acted orful queer then. Danced all the time with him. An’ three times walked out under the pines. Aw, I watched you. An’ come Saturday night he was drinkin’ heah, an’ accordin’ to his talk he could have had a lot more than huggin’ an’ kissin’ from you, if he only got you alone.”
“Andy Stoneham! — You let him talk that way aboot me?”
“Wal, why should I care? You’ve shore been mean to me.”
“Why should you, indeed?” replied Molly, coldly,
and turned away.
At that juncture a horseman rode up, and his advent not only nterrupted Molly’s argument with her loquacious admirer, but had a decided quieting effect upon the other occupants of the porch. He was a lean range-rider, neither young nor old, and he fitted the hard country. His horse showed the dust and strain of long travel.
“Howdy, Seth,” said old Enoch Summers, rubbing his bristled chin and stepping out. “‘Pears like you been humpin’ it along. Whar you come from?”
“Me an’ Arch Dunn just rode over from the Diamond,” replied the other.
Molly’s attention quickened to interest at the mention of her brother. Seth Haverly was his boon companion and they had been up to something.
“Wal, thar’s news stickin’ out all over you,” drawled Summers. “Reckon so.”
“Git down an’ come in. Mebbe a drink wouldn’t go bad.”
“Nope. I’m goin’ home an’ get a snack of grub.”
One by one the men on the porch joined Summers. The fact that Seth Haverly did not want a drink, as much as his arrival, interested them.
Haverly had a still brown face and intent light eyes.
“Enoch, you know thet rift fence we been hearin’ aboot for the last year?” he asked.
“Reckon I heerd the talk.”
“Wal, it’s more’n talk now.”
“You don’t say?”
“Yep. Me an’ Arch rode along it, for ten miles, I figger. Straight as a bee-line. New three-wire fence, an’ barbed at thet!”
“What you say? Barbed!”
“You bet.”
Silence greeted Seth’s nonchalant affirmative.
“Arch had a hunch aboot this fence goin’ up,” went on Haverly. “An’ in Flag we found it was a fact.”
“Wal, who’s buildin’ it?”
“Trait.”
“Ahuh. He could afford it. Wal, what’s his idee?”
“It ain’t very flatterin’ to West Fork,” drawled Seth, with a grin. “We heerd some things thet’d be hard for you old cattle-nesters to swaller, if they’re true. But me an’ Arch only had the word of some idle cowpunchers. We couldn’t get any satisfaction from Traft’s outfit. New foreman. Nephew from Missourie, we heerd. Tenderfoot, but I agree with Arch, who said he was no fool. Anyway, we asked him polite like: ‘Say, mister, what’s the idee of this drift fence?’ — An he looked me an’ Arch over an’ said, ‘What do you suppose the idee is?’”