Channing caught sight of her face in the mirror and motioned to Hope to leave the room.
“Lillian, I know why you’re going,” he said slowly. “And it isn’t necessary, girl . . . don’t you see?”
“Yes, I see, Channing,” she said, going to the bedside. “Only you don’t see. I . . . I couldn’t stay here. I love her, Channing . . . and you’ve got it coming to you. You’re square.” There was a quaver in her voice. Then she threw back her head and laughed recklessly. “I’m going to find me a fighting devil, Channing, that stays a fighting devil all the time.”
When he started to speak again, she bent over him suddenly and kissed him. Then she went quickly out of the room.
She found Hope in the hall.
“Listen, girlie,” she said, putting her arms about her. “You’ve got yourself some man. He was dead in love with you from the time you went out to warn him that Brood was in Bandburg . . . remember? That got him. I saw it. He’ll stick to you till they’re mowing grass on the desert, and I reckon that’ll be sometime. Me? I’m going to get me a fighting devil that stays put. I’ve got no use for ’em when they tame down. Good bye.”
She kissed Hope and hurried down the stairs. But Hope knew she had not spoken the truth at the last. She ran after her with a tightening of the throat. But Lillian, laughing gaily and bantering with the men, was already in a wagon with her belongings and calling: “¡Adiós!”
Hope went back to the room where Channing lay. He called her to the bedside and took her hand. Hope was both sad and happy—almost in tears.
“Remember what I said about things not glittering being gold . . . pure gold?” he said whimsically. “Lillian’s that sort . . . only she didn’t understand, dog-gone it. She couldn’t.”
His arm stole about Hope’s shoulders and brought her lips down to his.
* * * * *
In three days, true to the doctor’s prediction, Channing was up and about. He took full charge. The cattle had been driven back to the ranch and up into Forest Reserve range, where there was plenty of feed and water. The camp below the ruined dam bustled with activity. Frank Turner, of Turner & Wescott, visited the ranch and announced that the Yellow Daisy Company would develop the potash deposit, build a huge mill, and a narrow-gauge railroad from the main line in the south.
Nathan Farman was paid a large sum for control of his water rights with the understanding that he was to have enough water for his stock and fields. Engineers came and found that Channing’s surmise regarding the outlet of the water from the cup that had been Mendicott’s rendezvous was correct, and that the water could be run into the Rancho del Encanto dam by blasting and tunneling into the ridge below the former hiding place of the outlaws. They found, too, that he had been correct in contending that the deposit in the potash lake was a seepage and that they could pump thousands of gallons of brine out of the lake daily without diminishing the supply. From this brine was to be extracted the potash and salt and borax by improved methods.
The claims of Channing and his friends and Hope and Crossley were taken over, and good-size blocks of stock in the potash company given in exchange. Channing was made assistant manager of operations. Thus Rancho del Encanto, while still preserving its beauty and individuality, became a quiet spot on the edge of a hive of industry.
There came a day in the early autumn when Nature lavished all the contents of her paint pots on the foothill landscape. The leaves of the cottonwoods were flakes of gold. The berry bushes scattered rubies in the wind. The sky was a laughing blue.
Channing and Hope rode together in the sunset to the crest of the ridge that shut off the desert. There they dismounted and stood looking into the east, across the throbbing waste of the lava hills, girdled with flowing scarves of pink and purple.
“I’ve been pretty busy lately,” said Channing, without looking at her.
“And you’ve accomplished wonderful things,” said Hope in a low voice.
“I’m going in to Kernfield in a day or two,” he said.
“Yes? You have to make so many business trips.”
“But I didn’t figure on this being a business trip.”
A covey of desert quail flew past with a musical whir of wings.
Hope didn’t speak. She looked up at him, standing close to her, the rays of the sunset striking copper fire from his hair, his eyes soft and luminous with a light that struck an answer in her own as she turned them away.
“I figured you’d go along, Hope,” he said softly, taking her hands. “Do . . . you . . . want to go?”
“Why?” she murmured. “Why, Channing?”
“Because I love you, Hope. I always knew the desert would bring me something sometime better than its gold . . . better than all its treasures. I reckon that’s you, sweetheart.”
She put her arms about his neck and raised her lips. “I never knew what the desert would bring me,” she whispered, “but I’m glad, dearest . . . I’m glad.”
The desert twilight flung over them its robes of royal purple as the sky blossomed into stars.
THE END
About the Author
Robert J. Horton was born in Coudersport, Pennsylvania. As a very young man he traveled extensively in the American West, working for newspapers. For several years he was sports editor for the Great Falls Tribune in Great Falls, Montana. He began writing Western fiction for Adventure magazine before becoming a regular contributor to Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine. By the mid-1920s Horton was one of three authors to whom Street & Smith paid 5¢ a word—the other two being Frederick Faust, perhaps better known as Max Brand, and Robert Ormond Case. Many of Horton’s serials for Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine were subsequently brought out as books by Chelsea House, Street & Smith’s book publishing company. Although virtually all of Horton’s stories appeared under his byline in the magazine, for their book editions Chelsea House published them either as by Robert J. Horton or by James Roberts. Sometimes, as was the case with Rovin’ Redden (Chelsea House, 1925) by James Roberts, a book would consist of three short novels that were editorially joined to form a “novel.” Other times the stories were serials published in book form, such as Whispering Cañon (Chelsea House, 1925) by James Roberts or The Prairie Shrine (Chelsea House, 1924) by Robert J. Horton. It may be obvious that Chelsea House, doing a number of books a year by the same author, thought it a prudent marketing strategy to give the author more than one name. Horton’s Western stories are concerned most of all with character, and it is the characters that drive the plots rather than the other way around. It is unfortunate he died at such a relatively early age. Many of his novels, after Street & Smith abandoned Chelsea House, were published only in British editions, and Robert J. Horton was not to appear at all in paperback books until quite recently.
Man of the Desert: A Western Story Page 26