by Zane Grey
“Humph! Say, my girl, that name Chase makes me see red. If you must tease me hit on some other way. Sabe, señorita?”
“Si, si, Dad.”
“Nell, you may as well tell him and have it over,” said Mrs. Belding, quietly.
“You promised me once, Dad, that you’d not go packing a gun off down there, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I remember,” replied Belding; but he did not answer her smile.
“Will you promise again?” she asked, lightly. Here was Nell with arch eyes, yet not the old arch eyes, so full of fun and mischief. Her lips were tremulous; her cheeks seemed less round.
“Yes,” rejoined Belding; and he knew why his voice was a little thick.
“Well, if you weren’t such a good old blind Dad you’d have seen long ago the way Mr. Radford Chase ran round after me. At first it was only annoying, and I did not want to add to your worries. But these two weeks you’ve been gone I’ve been more than annoyed. After that time I struck Mr. Chase with my quirt he made all possible efforts to meet me. He did meet me wherever I went. He sent me letters till I got tired of sending them back.
“When you left home on your trips I don’t know that he grew bolder, but he had more opportunity. I couldn’t stay in the house all the time. There were mama’s errands and sick people and my Sunday school, and what not. Mr. Chase waylaid me every time I went out. If he works any more I don’t know when, unless it’s when I’m asleep. He followed me until it was less embarassing for me to let him walk with me and talk his head off. He made love to me. He begged me to marry him. I told him I was already in love and engaged to be married. He said that didn’t make any difference. Then I called him a fool.
“Next time he saw me he said he must explain. He meant I was being true to a man who, everybody on the border knew, had been lost in the desert. That—that hurt. Maybe—maybe it’s true. Sometimes it seems terribly true. Since then, of course, I have stayed in the house to avoid being hurt again.
“But, Dad, a little thing like a girl sticking close to her mother and room doesn’t stop Mr. Chase. I think he’s crazy. Anyway, he’s a most persistent fool. I want to be charitable, because the man swears he loves me, and maybe he does, but he is making me nervous. I don’t sleep. I’m afraid to be in my room at night. I’ve gone to mother’s room. He’s always hanging round. Bold! Why, that isn’t the thing to call Mr. Chase. He’s absolutely without a sense of decency. He bribes our servants. He comes into our patio. Think of that! He makes the most ridiculous excuses. He bothers mother to death. I feel like a poor little rabbit holed by a hound. And I daren’t peep out.”
Somehow the thing struck Belding as funny, and he laughed. He had not had a laugh for so long that it made him feel good. He stopped only at sight of Nell’s surprise and pain. Then he put his arms round her.
“Never mind, dear. I’m an old bear. But it tickled me, I guess. I sure hope Mr. Radford Chase has got it bad… Nell, it’s only the old story. The fellows fall in love with you. It’s your good looks, Nell. What a price women like you and Mercedes have to pay for beauty! I’d a damned good deal rather be ugly as a mud fence.”
“So would I, Dad, if—if Dick would still love me.”
“He wouldn’t, you can gamble on that, as Laddy says.… Well, the first time I catch this locoed Romeo sneaking round here I’ll—I’ll—”
“Dad, you promised.”
“Confound it, Nell, I promised not to pack a gun. That’s all. I’ll only shoo this fellow off the place, gently, mind you, gently. I’ll leave the rest for Dick Gale!”
“Oh, Dad!” cried Nell; and she clung to him wistful, frightened, yet something more.
“Don’t mistake me, Nell. You have your own way, generally. You pull the wool over mother’s eyes, and you wind me round your little finger. But you can’t do either with Dick Gale. You’re tender-hearted; you overlook the doings of this hound, Chase. But when Dick comes back, you just make up your mind to a little hell in the Chase camp. Oh, he’ll find it out. And I sure want to be round when Dick hands Mr. Radford the same as he handed Rojas!”
Belding kept a sharp lookout for young Chase, and then, a few days later, learned that both son and father had gone off upon one of their frequent trips to Casa Grandes, near where their mines were situated.
April grew apace, and soon gave way to May. One morning Belding was called from some garden work by the whirring of an automobile and a “Holloa!” He went forward to the front yard and there saw a car he thought resembled one he had seen in Casita. It contained a familiar-looking driver, but the three figures in gray coats and veils were strange to him. By the time he had gotten to the road he decided two were women and the other a man. At the moment their faces were emerging from dusty veils. Belding saw an elderly, sallow-faced, rather frail-appearing man who was an entire stranger to him; a handsome dark-eyed woman whose hair showed white through her veil; and a superbly built girl, whose face made Belding at once think of Dick Gale.
“Is this Mr. Tom Belding, inspector of immigration?” inquired the gentleman, courteously.
“I’m Belding, and I know who you are,” replied Belding in hearty amaze, as he stretched forth his big hand. “You’re Dick Gale’s Dad—the Governor, Dick used to say. I’m sure glad to meet you.”
“Thank you. Yes, I’m Dick’s governor, and here, Mr. Belding—Dick’s mother and his sister Elsie.”
Beaming his pleasure, Belding shook hands with the ladies, who showed their agitation clearly.
“Mr. Belding, I’ve come west to look up my lost son,” said Mr. Gale. “His sister’s letters were unanswered. We haven’t heard from him in months. Is he still here with you?”
“Well, now, sure I’m awful sorry,” began Belding, his slow mind at work. “Dick’s away just now—been away for a considerable spell. I’m expecting him back any day.… Won’t you come in? You’re all dusty and hot and tired. Come in, and let mother and Nell make you comfortable. Of course you’ll stay. We’ve a big house. You must stay till Dick comes back. Maybe that’ll be— Aw, I guess it won’t be long.… Let me handle the baggage, Mr. Gale.… Come in. I sure am glad to meet you all.”
Eager, excited, delighted, Belding went on talking as he ushered the Gales into the sitting-room, presenting them in his hearty way to the astounded Mrs. Belding and Nell. For the space of a few moments his wife and daughter were bewildered. Belding did not recollect any other occasion when a few callers had thrown them off their balance. But of course this was different. He was a little flustered himself—a circumstance that dawned upon him with surprise. When the Gales had been shown to rooms, Mrs. Belding gained the poise momentarily lost; but Nell came rushing back, wilder than a deer, in a state of excitement strange even for her.
“Oh! Dick’s mother, his sister!” whispered Nell.
Belding observed the omission of the father in Nell’s exclamation of mingled delight and alarm.
“His mother!” went on Nell. “Oh, I knew it! I always guessed it! Dick’s people are proud, rich; they’re somebody. I thought I’d faint when she looked at me. She was just curious—curious, but so cold and proud. She was wondering about me. I’m wearing his ring. It was his mother’s, he said. I won’t—I can’t take it off. And I’m scared.… But the sister—oh, she’s lovely and sweet—proud, too. I felt warm all over when she looked at me. I—I wanted to kiss her. She looks like Dick when he first came to us. But he’s changed. They’ll hardly recognize him.… To think they’ve come! And I had to be looking a fright, when of all times on earth I’d want to look my best.”
Nell, out of breath, ran away evidently to make herself presentable, according to her idea of the exigency of the case. Belding caught a glimpse of his wife’s face as she went out, and it wore a sad, strange, anxious expression. Then Belding sat alone, pondering the contracting emotions of his wife and daughter. It was beyond
his understanding. Women were creatures of feeling. Belding saw reason to be delighted to entertain Dick’s family; and for the time being no disturbing thought entered his mind.
Presently the Gales came back into the sitting-room, looking very different without the long gray cloaks and veils. Belding saw distinction and elegance. Mr. Gale seemed a grave, troubled, kindly person, ill in body and mind. Belding received the same impression of power that Ben Chase had given him, only here it was minus any harshness or hard quality. He gathered that Mr. Gale was a man of authority. Mrs. Gale rather frightened Belding, but he could not have told why. The girl was just like Dick as he used to be.
Their manner of speaking also reminded Belding of Dick. They talked of the ride from Ash Fork down to the border, of the ugly and torn-up Casita, of the heat and dust and cactus along the trail. Presently Nell came in, now cool and sweet in white, with a red rose at her breast. Belding had never been so proud of her. He saw that she meant to appear well in the eyes of Dick’s people, and began to have a faint perception of what the ordeal was for her. Belding imagined the sooner the Gales were told that Dick was to marry Nell the better for all concerned, and especially for Nell. In the general conversation that ensued he sought for an opening in which to tell this important news, but he was kept so busy answering questions about his position on the border, the kind of place Forlorn River was, the reason for so many tents, etc., that he was unable to find opportunity.
“It’s very interesting, very interesting,” said Mr. Gale. “At another time I want to learn all you’ll tell me about the West. It’s new to me. I’m surprised, amazed, sir, I may say.… But, Mr. Belding, what I want to know most is about my son. I’m broken in health. I’ve worried myself ill over him. I don’t mind telling you, sir, that we quarreled. I laughed at his threats. He went away. And I’ve come to see that I didn’t know Richard. I was wrong to upbraid him. For a year we’ve known nothing of his doings, and now for almost six months we’ve not heard from him at all. Frankly, Mr. Belding, I weakened first, and I’ve come to hunt him up. My fear is that I didn’t start soon enough. The boy will have a great position some day—God knows, perhaps soon! I should not have allowed him to run over this wild country for so long. But I hoped, though I hardly believed, that he might find himself. Now I’m afraid he’s—”
Mr. Gale paused and the white hand he raised expressively shook a little.
Belding was not so thick-witted where men were concerned. He saw how the matter lay between Dick Gale and his father.
“Well, Mr. Gale, sure most young bucks from the East go to the bad out here,” he said, bluntly.
“I’ve been told that,” replied Mr. Gale; and a shade overspread his worn face.
“They blow their money, then go punching cows, take to whiskey.”
“Yes,” rejoined Mr. Gale, feebly nodding.
“Then they get to gambling, lose their jobs,” went on Belding.
Mr. Gale lifted haggard eyes.
“Then it’s bumming around, regular tramps, and to the bad generally.” Belding spread wide his big arms, and when one of them dropped round Nell, who sat beside him, she squeezed his hand tight. “Sure, it’s the regular thing,” he concluded, cheerfully.
He rather felt a little glee at Mr. Gale’s distress, and Mrs. Gale’s crushed I-told-you-so woe in no wise bothered him; but the look in the big, dark eyes of Dick’s sister was too much for Belding.
He choked off his characteristic oath when excited and blurted out, “Say, but Dick Gale never went to the bad!… Listen!”
Belding had scarcely started Dick Gale’s story when he perceived that never in his life had he such an absorbed and breathless audience. Presently they were awed, and at the conclusion of that story they sat white-faced, still, amazed beyond speech. Dick Gale’s advent in Casita, his rescue of Mercedes, his life as a border ranger certainly lost no picturesque or daring or even noble detail in Belding’s telling. He kept back nothing but the present doubt of Dick’s safety.
Dick’s sister was the first of the three to recover herself.
“Oh, father!” she cried; and there was a glorious light in her eyes. “Deep down in my heart I knew Dick was a man!”
Mr. Gale rose unsteadily from his chair. His frailty was now painfully manifest.
“Mr. Belding, do you mean my son—Richard Gale—has done all that you told us?” he asked, incredulously.
“I sure do,” replied Belding, with hearty good will.
“Martha, do you hear?” Mr. Gale turned to question his wife. She could not answer. Her face had not yet regained its natural color.
“He faced that bandit and his gang alone—he fought them?” demanded Mr. Gale, his voice stronger.
“Dick mopped up the floor with the whole outfit!”
“He rescued a Spanish girl, went into the desert without food, weapons, anything but his hands? Richard Gale, whose hands were always useless?”
Belding nodded with a grin.
“He’s a ranger now—riding, fighting, sleeping on the sand, preparing his own food?”
“Well, I should smile,” rejoined Belding.
“He cares for his horse, with his own hands?” This query seemed to be the climax of Mr. Gale’s strange hunger for truth. He had raised his head a little higher, and his eye was brighter.
Mention of a horse fired Belding’s blood.
“Does Dick Gale care for his horse? Say, there are not many men as well loved as that white horse of Dick’s. Blanco Sol he is, Mr. Gale. That’s Mex for White Sun. Wait till you see Blanco Sol! Bar one, the whitest, biggest, strongest, fastest, grandest horse in the Southwest!”
“So he loves a horse! I shall not know my own son.… Mr. Belding, you say Richard works for you. May I ask, at what salary?”
“He gets forty dollars, board and outfit,” replied Belding, proudly.
“Forty dollars?” echoed the father. “By the day or week?”
“The month, of course,” said Belding, somewhat taken aback.
“Forty dollars a month for a young man who spent five hundred in the same time when he was at college, and who ran it into thousands when he got out!”
Mr. Gale laughed for the first time, and it was the laugh of a man who wanted to believe what he heard yet scarcely dared to do it.
“What does he do with so much money—money earned by peril, toil, sweat, and blood? Forty dollars a month!”
“He saves it,” replied Belding.
Evidently this was too much for Dick Gale’s father, and he gazed at his wife in sheer speechless astonishment. Dick’s sister clapped her hands like a little child.
Belding saw that the moment was propitious.
“Sure he saves it. Dick’s engaged to marry Nell here. My stepdaughter, Nell Burton.”
“Oh-h, Dad!” faltered Nell; and she rose, white as her dress.
How strange it was to see Dick’s mother and sister rise, also, and turn to Nell with dark, proud, searching eyes. Belding vaguely realized some blunder he had made. Nell’s white, appealing face gave him a pang. What had he done? Surely this family of Dick’s ought to know his relation to Nell. There was a silence that positively made Belding nervous.
Then Elsie Gale stepped close to Nell.
“Miss Burton, are you really Richard’s betrothed?”
Nell’s tremulous lips framed an affirmative, but never uttered it. She held out her hand, showing the ring Dick had given her. Miss Gale’s recognition was instant, and her response was warm, sweet, gracious.
“I think I am going to be very, very glad,” she said, and kissed Nell.
“Miss Burton, we are learning wonderful things about Richard,” added Mr. Gale, in an earnest though shaken voice. “If you have had to do with making a man of him—and now I begin to see, to believe so—may God ble
ss you!… My dear girl, I have not really looked at you. Richard’s fiancee!… Mother, we have not found him yet, but I think we’ve found his secret. We believed him a lost son. But here is his sweetheart!”
It was only then that the pride and hauteur of Mrs. Gale’s face broke into an expression of mingled pain and joy. She opened her arms. Nell, uttering a strange little stifled cry, flew into them.
Belding suddenly discovered an unaccountable blur in his sight. He could not see perfectly, and that was why, when Mrs. Belding entered the sitting-room, he was not certain that her face was as sad and white as it seemed.
CHAPTER XV
BOUND IN THE DESERT
Far away from Forlorn River Dick Gale sat stunned, gazing down into the purple depths where Rojas had plunged to his death. The Yaqui stood motionless upon the steep red wall of lava from which he had cut the bandit’s hold. Mercedes lay quietly where she had fallen. From across the depths there came to Gale’s ear the Indian’s strange, wild cry.
Then silence, hollow, breathless, stony silence enveloped the great abyss and its upheaved lava walls. The sun was setting. Every instant the haze reddened and thickened.
Action on the part of the Yaqui loosened the spell which held Gale as motionless as his surroundings. The Indian was edging back toward the ledge. He did not move with his former lithe and sure freedom. He crawled, slipped, dragged himself, rested often, and went on again. He had been wounded. When at last he reached the ledge where Mercedes lay Gale jumped to his feet, strong and thrilling, spurred to meet the responsibility that now rested upon him.
Swiftly he turned to where Thorne lay. The cavalryman was just returning to consciousness. Gale ran for a canteen, bathed his face, made him drink. The look in Thorne’s eyes was hard to bear.
“Thorne! Thorne! it’s all right, it’s all right!” cried Gale, in piercing tones. “Mercedes is safe! Yaqui saved her! Rojas is done for! Yaqui jumped down the wall and drove the bandit off the ledge. Cut him loose from the wall, foot by foot, hand by hand! We’ve won the fight, Thorne.”