The Western Romance MEGAPACK ®: 20 Classic Tales

by Zane Grey

  ‘The fault in what has occurred is less his than mine. Knowing the sort Sanchia Murray is, I should not have given her the opportunity that day of a long talk alone with him. But,’ his meaning was plain as he caught and held her eye, ‘I was in the mood to forget Sanchia Murray and Professor Longstreet and every one else but the girl I was with.’

  Helen laughed lightly, again passing the remark by as a mere compliment of the negligible order.

  ‘Don’t do that, Helen,’ he said gravely. She saw that a new sort of sternness had entered into his manner. ‘I have been working, working hard not alone for myself but for you. Desert Valley has always been to me the one spot in the world; you saw it and loved it, and since then there is no money that would buy it from me. If it were really mine! And I have been working night and day to make it mine. So that some day——’

  She was not ready for this, and, though her colour warmed, she interrupted swiftly:

  ‘You speak as though there were danger of losing it.’

  He explained, plunging into those matters which had absorbed his mind during so many hard hours, telling her how he had paid Carr twelve thousand and five hundred dollars when he had expected to pay only ten thousand, how he had been obliged to ride to San Juan for money, of his success with Engle, of his plans for sales, of cutting down his force of men; all that he had done and all that he hoped to do. She caught something of the spirit of the endeavour and leaned forward tense and listening.

  ‘But surely Mr. Carr, being your best friend, would not have driven you like this?’

  Howard did not answer directly. This hesitation, being unusual in him, caught Helen’s attention.

  ‘I imagine John needed the money,’ he said quietly. ‘I didn’t say anything to him about being short of cash. By the way, while in San Juan I got this for you. I thought you’d like it.’

  He unwrapped the bundle. In it were a beautiful Spanish bit, richly silvered and with headstall and reins of cunningly plaited rawhide, and a pair of dainty spurs which winked gaily in the sunshine. Helen’s eyes sparkled as she put out her hand for them. Her rush of thanks he turned aside by saying hastily:

  ‘I’ve got the little horse to go with them. I’d like mighty well to give him to you. I don’t know whether you can accept yet, but I’m rounding up a lot of horses and when we get a rope on Danny I’m going to lend him to you. To keep indefinitely, as long as you’ll have him.’

  Long ago Helen’s fancies had been ensnared by the big picturesque ranch; long ago her heart had gone out to a fine saddle horse. No longer did she seek to hold her interest in check; she asked him quick questions about everything that he had overlooked telling her and exclaimed with delighted anticipation when he suggested that she and her father ride down and watch at the round-up. He’d have Danny ready for her and would have ridden him enough to remind him that his long frisky vacation was at an end.

  They were very close together and very happy just then, when a laughing voice broke in upon their dreamings.

  ‘Isn’t he the most adorable lover in the world? But look out for him, my dear child. He nearly broke my heart once. Hello, Al! Sorry I couldn’t come up with you. But, you see, I followed as dose as I could!’

  They had not heard Sanchia’s horse, and Sanchia had drawn her own deduction from the fact. Helen stiffened perceptibly, drawing slowly back. Howard’s face reddened to his anger.

  CHAPTER XXII

  The Professor Dictates

  Sanchia was cool and bright and merry. She sat flicking at her gleaming boot with her whip, and laughing. Helen, who had stood very close to a great happiness, now shivered as though the day had turned cloudy and cold. But she was still Helen Longstreet, her pride an essential portion of the fibre of her being. Because she was hurt, because suddenly she hated Sanchia Murray with a hatred which seemed to sear her heart like a hot iron, she commanded her smile and hid all traces of agitation and spoke with serene indifference.

  ‘Mr. Howard was telling me of the work on the ranch. Isn’t it interesting?’

  ‘So interesting,’ laughed Sanchia, ‘that no doubt the heartless vagabond forgot to mention that he had just left me and that I had sent word by him that I was coming?’

  ‘I don’t believe you did say anything about it, did you?’ Helen’s level regard was for Howard now; the red of anger still flared under his tan and looked as much like guilt as anything else. ‘Although,’ and again she glanced carelessly toward the trim form on the white mare’s back, ‘we were speaking of you only a moment ago.’

  If Sanchia understood that nothing complimentary had been spoken of her she kept the knowledge her own.

  ‘We just had a little visit together in the mining-camp,’ she said, veiling the look she bestowed upon Howard so that one might make anything he pleased of it. ‘Alan knows he’d better always run in and see me first when he’s been away for ten days at a stretch; don’t you, Boy?’

  For Howard the moment was nothing less than a section of purgatory. He was no fine hand to deal with women; he stood utterly amazed at Sanchia’s words and Sanchia’s attitude. He had not learned the trick of saying to a woman, ‘You lie.’ He had a confused sort of impression that the two girls were merely and lightly teasing him. But having eyes that were keen and a brain which, though a plain-dealing man’s, was quick, he understood that somehow there was a stern seriousness under all of this seeming banter. Single-purposed he turned to Helen; bluntly he intended to tell how he had seen Sanchia and how he had left her.

  But Helen’s quick perception grasped his purpose, and in an anger which included him as well as herself with Sanchia, she wanted no explanations. It was enough for her that he had seen Sanchia Murray first; that he had come direct from her. She left the new bridle and spurs lying on the ground, passed swiftly by him and as she walked on said carelessly:

  ‘If you both will excuse me a moment I must run into the house. I have something to do before papa comes in.’

  Sanchia’s face glowed triumphantly, and her triumph was clearly one of sheer malevolence. Howard lifted his face to hers, letting her read his blazing wrath. She only shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘I wish to God you were a man!’ was all that he said.

  ‘I don’t,’ she rejoined coolly. ‘It’s a whole lot more fun being a woman. Men are such fools.’

  She saw a tremor shake him from head to foot. He came a quick step toward her, even laid a tense hand on her horse’s mane as involuntarily his other hand was lifted; for the instant a wild fear thrilled through her. She thought that he was going to drag her from the saddle; she had driven him hard, perhaps too hard. But she saw beyond him Helen hurrying down the trail, she saw even that Helen was turning to glance back. Resourceful in a crisis had Sanchia Murray always been; resourceful now. She leaned forward, and, for Helen to see, patted the rigid hand on her horse’s neck. She laughed again as she saw that Helen was almost running now; she could fancy that she had heard a gasp catch in the girl’s throat.

  ‘You’ll keep your hands off my affairs, Mr. Alan Howard,’ she said evenly. ‘Or I’ll spoil every dream of your life.’

  He held back his answer, his throat working. He saw the forsaken spurs and bridle near the bower which John Carr had constructed; he saw the sunlight and shadow across the trail down which Helen had vanished. Then, his own spurs clanking to his long strides, he too went down the trail, his back and shoulders to Sanchia, stiff and belligerent.

  Helen was in the cabin, the door closed. He called, and she did not answer. He could hear her within, rummaging about, evidently very busy with something or other; had it not been for the little snatch of song which came out to him he could have thought that she was in the grip of a frenzy no less than that riding him. He rapped on the door and called again.

  ‘Is that you, papa?’ Helen’s song was suspended briefly.

&n
bsp; ‘No,’ answered Howard. ‘Won’t you let me have a word with you?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ she rejoined. ‘But I’m terribly busy just now. I’ll be out in a minute.’ And again he heard her humming and stirring about.

  He tried to open the door. It was locked. He turned away and sat down on the doorstep.

  ‘I’ll wait here,’ he told her. ‘I’ll wait all day and all night if I have to.’

  But there is nothing harder than an indefinite waiting. He saw that Sanchia still sat upon her white mare where he had left her, that her head was bent, and she seemed to be in a profound study. Now and then he heard Helen; she appeared to be re-arranging their scant furnishings. Ten minutes passed. He called softly:

  ‘Aren’t you coming out, Helen?’

  ‘Presently.’ By now Helen had commanded and subdued her agitation entirely to her own satisfaction. ‘I know it seems rude, but I simply must get a few things done.’

  ‘What sort of things? Can’t I help you?’

  ‘Help?’ She laughed. ‘Men are such funny animals when it is a matter of helping indoors.

  Sanchia had just said men were such fools. Well, come right down to it, he was rather inclined to accept the statement as largely true. And women were so utterly beyond comprehension.

  ‘Anyway, can’t I just come in and watch you?’

  He wondered why she should seem so highly amused.

  ‘In this little house you always seem about seven feet tall,’ she laughed at him. ‘You’d be terribly in my way. And you haven’t waited half a day yet, let alone all night.’

  He saw that Sanchia had suddenly lifted her head and had jerked her horse about in the trail. But she was not riding this way. She had turned toward the cliffs and was waving her hand. Then he saw Longstreet, grotesque in the various bits of Western accoutrement which he had incorporated into his wardrobe, humorously militant as to swinging revolver, miner’s pick in hand, high-booted and red-shirted.

  ‘Your father is coming,’ he offered. ‘That Murray woman is going to meet him.’

  Helen had paused in her activities. But he could not guess how her expression had changed. ‘That Murray woman,’ as he spoke the words, did sound convincing. Still she did not come out. She knew that it would be a full ten minutes before Longstreet would make his way down the steep slope and come to the cabin. She resumed her occupation and remembered to accompany it with her tantalizing bit of song. Howard began to hate that air whole-heartedly.

  The longest day has its end, the longest ten minutes fall something short of an eternity. At length, walking side by side, leading the white mare and chatting gaily, Longstreet and Sanchia approached the house. Longstreet saw Howard and put out a friendly hand.

  ‘Glad to see you, my boy,’ he called warmly. ‘Helen and I have talked of you every day; we’ve missed you like the very mischief. Where is Helen, by the way?’

  ‘Inside,’ Howard told him sombrely. ‘Changing things around and making them all over.’

  Helen opened the door. Howard wondered how she had found the time to lay aside her hat, give a new effect to her hair and pin on those field flowers. Her cheeks were only delicately flushed, her eyes were filled with dancing lights.

  ‘Back again, pops?’ She appeared to see only her father, though Howard still had a foot on the step and Sanchia was fluttering close at his elbow. ‘And no new gold mine to-day!’ It was quite as though a gold mine were virtually an everyday occurrence. She patted his dusty shoulder.

  ‘No,’ said Longstreet lightly. ‘No new mine to-day, my dear. But I’m right; I’m getting all the signs I want and expected. To-morrow or maybe the next day, we’ll have it. I know right where it is. Take the trail by——’

  ‘Papa,’ said Helen hastily and a trifle impatiently, ‘can’t you ever learn, even after you have been bitten? If you do stumble on anything, I should think you would remember and not talk about it.’

  ‘But, my dear,’ he expostulated, ‘we are among friends.’

  ‘Are we?’ Helen demanded coolly. ‘We were among the same friends before.’

  Longstreet looked frankly displeased, vaguely distressed. Sanchia was listening eagerly, her eyes stony in their covetousness. Howard, staring only at Helen, had hardly heard.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Longstreet. ‘I haven’t found anything, so that’s all there is to to-day’s tale, anyway.’ He got his first view of the cabin’s interior. ‘What in the world has happened in there?’ he demanded, in amazement.

  ‘Nothing,’ answered Helen. ‘I’m just packing; that’s all.’

  ‘Packing, my dear? Packing what? And, pray, with what intention?’

  ‘Packing everything, of course. And with the intention of travelling.’

  Longstreet looked perplexed. He turned to both Howard and Sanchia as though he suspected that they must share the secret.

  ‘If you’ll come in, pops,’ Helen informed him, ‘we’ll arrange for everything. I wanted to get the worst of it done before you came, as you’re so frightfully upsetting when there’s anything like this to be done. Mr. Howard and Mrs. Murray,’ she added, explaining sweetly, ‘just ran in for a minute’s call. They are both in a hurry, and we had better not detain them.’

  Howard flushed. But his jaw muscles only bulged, and he did not withdraw his foot from the doorstep. Sanchia bestowed upon the girl a long searching look; it may have suggested itself to Sanchia’s open mind at that instant that Helen was likely to prove a more troublesome factor than she had counted on.

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ Howard said with slow stubbornness, ‘I’d like just a few words with you and Miss Helen. Mrs. Murray came alone, and no doubt would prefer to return alone.’

  Sanchia’s eyes flashed and she bit her lip. Then, though her words came quickly, they were smooth and quiet and had a note of bantering laughter in them.

  ‘Dear me, we must all be tired and hungry like a lot of children who have played too hard! We’ll be quarrelling in another moment. But I am not going to be so sensitive as to feel hurt and run off and cry; we are too good friends for that, as you’ve just said, Mr. Longstreet. And I did so want to ask you some questions; I sent right away for the books you told me of, and I am simply mad over them. And I got one of yours, too; the one on south-western desert formations. It is the most splendid thing I ever read. But it is so erudite, so technical in places. I was going to ask if you would explain certain parts of it to me?’

  ‘Delighted to,’ ejaculated Longstreet. His old beaming cheeriness enwrapped him like a rosy mist. ‘Come in, come in. And you, too, Alan.’

  They entered, Sanchia with a sidelong look at Helen, Howard grave and stubborn. Everything was in a state of confusion which Sanchia was quick to mark, while Howard saw nothing of it. He saw only Helen looking a far-off princess, cold and unapproachable. And only a few minutes ago she had been just a winsome girl who leaned toward him, whom he dared to hope he could gather up into his arms.

  Helen’s expression was one of set determination. She breathed quickly and deeply. Her anger rose that her two guests had overridden her expressed wish. She watched her father hand Sanchia a chair. She saw them sit down together at the table, Longstreet beginning to talk largely upon his hobby, Sanchia encouraging him with her sympathetic smile and her pertinent questions. It appeared that Sanchia had really read and understood and was interested.

  ‘Papa,’ said Helen quietly, though her voice shook a little, ‘I suppose that a time for very plain talking has come. We will never get anywhere without it. I have shown Mrs. Murray as plainly as I could that I don’t trust her and further that I do not like her. She should not come into my house. You should not ask her, if she has not enough pride to refuse your invitation. Do you want me to go? Or will you ask her to go?’

  Longstreet had not expected this, and for a moment w
as utterly at a loss. He looked at his daughter in bewilderment; he turned from her to Howard and finally to Sanchia herself as though for help. His face was puckered up; he looked ridiculously as though he were on the verge of tears. Sanchia had the effrontery to pat his arm and whisper:

  ‘Dear friend, that you should be distressed because of me.’

  But she did not offer to go. She sat still again and watched and waited.

  ‘I have begun packing for both of us,’ Helen went on. ‘You should come back home. If you refuse to go I shall have to go alone.’

  To her amazement her father appeared suddenly relieved. He had never been parted from her for forty-eight hours consecutively since she could remember; he had never seemed competent to get through the day without her countless ministrations; he had leaned on her more than she on him; and yet the stupefying certainty was that now his face cleared and he actually smiled as he accepted her threat as a sensible solution of the problem.

  ‘No doubt you are right, my dear,’ he nodded vigorously. ‘This is a wild sort of country after all; it is hard for a girl, bred as you have been. Perhaps if you went East it would be better. I could stay here; I’d find my mine very soon; I’d take some one in with me in order to raise a large sum of money immediately. And then, when I had builded a fine home and had everything ready for you, you’d come back to me!’ He was carried away with his dream. He rubbed his hands together, and had he been playing poker you would have known he held nothing less than a royal flush. ‘You always rise superior to the situation, my dear; always.’

  But Helen’s face would have indicated that the situation had mastered her. Her own eyes filled with vexation; she dashed the tears aside and her anger rose. Of all men in the world her father, with his gentle innocence, could at times be the most maddening. And, withdrawn a little behind her father, she saw Sanchia laughing into her handkerchief.