The Collected Westerns of William MacLeod Raine: 21 Novels in One Volume

by Unknown

  The girl felt a warm current of life prickling swiftly through her. "I love to hear you talk so generously of him."

  "Of my rival?" he said, smiling. "How else can I talk? The scoundrel has been heaping on me those coals of fire we read about. I haven't told you half of it--how he nursed me like a woman and looked after me so that I wouldn't take cold, how he used to tuck me up in the sled with a hot stone at my feet and make short days' runs in order not to wear out my strength. By Jove, it was a deucedly unfair advantage he took of me."

  "Is he your rival?" she asked.

  "Isn't he?"

  "In business?"

  "How demure Miss McRae is," he commented. "Observe those long eyelashes flutter down to the soft cheeks."

  "In what book did you read that?" she wanted to know.

  "In that book of suffering known as experience," he sighed, eyes dancing.

  "If you're trying to tell me that you're in love with some girl--"

  "Haven't I been trying to tell you for a year?"

  Her eyes flashed a challenge at him. "Take care, sir. First thing you know you'll be on thin ice. You might break through."

  "And if I did--"

  "Of course I'd snap you up before you could bat an eye. Is there a girl living that wouldn't? And I'm almost an old maid. Don't forget that. I'm to gather rosebuds while I may, because time's flying so fast, some poet says."

  "Time stands still for you, my dear," he bowed, with a gay imitation of the grand manner.

  "Thank you." Her smile mocked him. She had flirted a good deal with this young man and understood him very well. He had no intention whatever of giving up the gay hazards of life for any adventure so enduring as matrimony. Moreover, he knew she knew it. "But let's stick to the subject. While you're proposing--"

  "How you help a fellow along!" he laughed. "Am I proposing?"

  "Of course you are. But I haven't found out yet whether it's for yourself or Mr. Morse."

  "A good suggestion--novel, too. For us both, let's say. You take your choice." He flung out a hand in a gay debonair gesture.

  "You've told his merits, but I don't think I ever heard yours mentioned," she countered. "If you'd recite them, please."

  "It's a subject I can do only slight justice." He bowed again. "Sergeant Beresford, at your service, of the North-West Mounted."

  "Sergeant! Since when?"

  "Since yesterday. Promoted for meritorious conduct in the line of duty. My pay is increased to one dollar and a quarter a day. In case happily your choice falls on me, don't squander it on silks and satins, on trips to Paris and London--"

  "If I choose you, it won't be for your wealth," she assured him.

  "Reassured, fair lady. I proceed with the inventory of Sergeant Beresford's equipment as a future husband. Fond, but, alas! fickle. A family black sheep, or if not black, at least striped. Likely not to plague you long, if he's sent on many more jobs like the last. Said to be good-tempered, but not docile. Kind, as men go, but a ne'er-do-well, a prodigal, a waster. Something whispers in my ear that he'll make a better friend than a husband."

  "A twin fairy is whispering the same in my ear," the girl nodded. "At least a better friend to Jessie McRae. But I think he has a poor advocate in you. The description is not a flattering one. I don't even recognize the portrait."

  "But Tom Morse--"

  "Exactly, Tom Morse. Haven't you rather taken the poor fellow for granted?" She felt an unexpected blush burn into her cheek. It stained the soft flesh to her throat. For she was discovering that the nonsense begun so lightly was embarrassing. She did not want to talk about the feelings of Tom Morse toward her. "It's all very well to joke, but--"

  "Shall I ask him?" he teased.

  She flew into a mild near-panic. "If you dare, Win Beresford!" The flash in her eyes was no longer mirth. "We'll talk about something else. I don't think it's very nice of us to--to--"

  "Tom retired from conversational circulation," he announced. "Shall we talk of cats or kings?"

  "Tell me your plans, now you've been promoted."

  "Plans? Better men make 'em. I touch my hat, say, 'Yes, sir,' and help work 'em out. Coming back to Tom for a minute, have you heard that the Colonel has written him a letter of thanks for the distinguished service rendered by him to the Mounted and suggesting that a permanent place of importance can be found for him on the Force if he'll take it?"

  "No. Did he? Isn't that just fine?" The soft glow had danced into her eyes again. "He won't take it, will he?"

  "What do you think?" His eyes challenged hers coolly. He was willing, if he could, to discover whether Jessie was in love with his friend.

  "Oh, I don't think he should," she said quickly. "He has a good business. It's getting better all the time. He's a coming man. And of course he'd get hard jobs in the Mounted, the way you do."

  "That's a compliment, if it's true," he grinned.

  "I dare say, but that doesn't make it any safer."

  "They couldn't give him a harder one than you did when you sent him into the Barrens to bring back West." His eyes, touched with humor and yet disconcertingly intent on information, were fixed steadily on hers.

  The girl's cheeks flew color signals. "Why do you say that? I didn't ask him to go. He volunteered."

  "Wasn't it because you wanted him to?"

  "I should think you'd be the last man to say that," she protested indignantly. "He was your friend, and he didn't want you to run so great a risk alone."

  "Then you didn't want him to go?"

  "If I did, it was for you. Maybe he blames me for it, but I don't see how you can. You've just finished telling me he saved your life a dozen times."

  "Did I say I was blaming you?" His warm, affectionate smile begged pardon if he had given offense. "I was just trying to get it straight. You wanted him to go that time, but you wouldn't want him to go again. Is that it?"

  "I wouldn't want either of you to go again. What are you driving at, Win Beresford?"

  "Oh, nothing!" He laughed. "But if you think Tom's too good to waste on the Mounted, you'd better tell him so while there's still time. He'll make up his mind within a day or two."

  "I don't see him. He never comes here."

  "I wonder why."

  Jessie sometimes wondered why herself.

  CHAPTER XLII

  THE IMPERATIVE URGE

  The reason why Tom did not go to see Jessie was that he longed to do so in every fiber of his being. His mind was never freed for a moment from the routine of the day's work that it did not automatically turn toward her. If he saw a woman coming down the street with the free light step only one person in Faraway possessed, his heart would begin to beat faster. In short, he suffered that torment known as being in love.

  He dared not go to see her for fear she might discover it. She was the sweetheart of his friend. It was as natural as the light of day that she turn to Win Beresford with the gift of her love. Nobody like him had ever come into her life. His gay courage, his debonair grace, the good manners of that outer world such a girl must crave, the affectionate touch of friendliness in his smile: how could any woman on this forsaken edge of the Arctic resist them?

  She could not, of course, let alone one so full of the passionate longing for life as Jessie McRae.

  If Tom could have looked on her unmoved, if he could have subdued or concealed the ardent fire inside him, he would have gone to call occasionally as though casually. But he could not trust himself. He was like a volcano ready for eruption. Already he was arranging with his uncle to put a subordinate here and let him return to Benton. Until that could be accomplished, he tried to see her as little as possible.

  But Jessie was a child of the imperative urge. She told herself fifty times that it was none of her business if he did accept the offer of a place in the North-West Mounted. He could do as he pleased. Why should she interfere? And yet--and yet--

  She found a shadow of excuse for herself in the fact that it had been through her that he had offered
himself as a special constable. He might think she wanted him to enlist permanently. So many girls were foolish about the red coats of soldiers. She had noticed that among her school-girl friends at Winnipeg. If she had any influence with him at all, she did not want it thrown on that side of the scale.

  But of course he probably did not care what she thought. Very likely it was her vanity that whispered to her he had gone North with Win Beresford partly to please her. Still, since she was his friend, ought she not to just drop an offhand hint that he was a more useful citizen where he was than in the Mounted? He couldn't very well resent that, could he? Or think her officious? Or forward?

  She contrived little plans to meet him when he would be alone and she could talk with him, but she rejected these because she was afraid he would see through them. It had become of first importance to her that Tom Morse should not think she had any but a superficial interest in him.

  When at last she did meet him, it was by pure chance. Dusk was falling. She was passing the yard where his storehouse was. He wheeled out and came on her plumply face to face. Both were taken by surprise completely. Out of it neither could emerge instantly with casual words of greeting.

  Jessie felt her pulses throb. A queer consternation paralyzed the faculties that ought to have come alertly to her rescue. She stood, awkwardly silent, in a shy panic to her pulsing finger-tips. Later she would flog herself scornfully for her folly, but this did not help in the least now.

  "I--I was just going to Mr. Whaley's with a little dress Mother made for the baby," she said at last.

  "It's a nice baby," was the best he could do.

  "Yes. It's funny. You know Mr. Whaley didn't care anything about it before--while it was very little. But now he thinks it's wonderful. I'm so glad he does."

  She was beginning to get hold of herself, to emerge from the emotional crisis into which this meeting had plunged her. It had come to her consciousness that he was as perturbed as she, and a discovery of this nature always brings a woman composure.

  "He treats his wife a lot better too."

  "There was room for it," he said dryly.

  "She's a nice little thing."

  "Yes."

  Conversation, which had been momentarily brisk, threatened to die out for lack of fuel. Anything was better than significant silences in which she could almost hear the hammering of her heart.

  "Win Beresford told me about the offer you had to go into the Mounted," she said, plunging.

  "Yes?"

  "Will you accept?"

  He looked at her, surprised. "Didn't Win tell you? I said right away I couldn't accept. He knew that."

  "Oh! I don't believe he did tell me. Perhaps you hadn't decided then." Privately she was determining to settle some day with Winthrop Beresford for leading her into this. He had purposely kept silent, she knew now, in the hope that she would talk to Tom Morse about it. "But I'm glad you've decided against going in."

  "Why?"

  "It's dangerous, and I don't think it has much future."

  "Win likes it."

  "Yes, Win does. He'll get a commission one of these days."

  "He deserves one. I--I hope you'll both be very happy."

  He was walking beside her. Quickly her glance flashed up at him. Was that the reason he had held himself so aloof from her?

  "I think we shall, very likely, if you mean Win and I. He's always happy, isn't he? And I try to be. I'm sorry he's leaving this part of the country. Writing-on-Stone is a long way from here. He may never get back. I'll miss him a good deal. Of course you will too."

  This was plain enough, but Tom could not accept it at face value. Perhaps she meant that she would miss him until Win got ready to send for her. An idea lodged firmly in the mind cannot be ejected at an instant's notice.

  "Yes, I'll miss him. He's a splendid fellow. I've never met one like him, so staunch and cheerful and game. Sometime I'd like to tell you about that trip we took. You'd be proud of him."

  "I'm sure all his friends are," she said, smiling a queer little smile that was lost in the darkness.

  "He was a very sick man, in a great deal of pain, and we had a rather dreadful time of it. Of course it hit him far harder than it did either West or me. But never a whimper out of him from first to last. Always cheerful, always hopeful, with a little joke or a snatch of a song, even when it looked as though we couldn't go on another day. He's one out of ten thousand."

  "I heard him say that about another man--only I think he said one in fifty thousand," she made comment, almost in a murmur.

  "Any girl would be lucky to have such a man for a husband," he added fatuously.

  "Yes. I hope he'll find some nice one who will appreciate him."

  This left no room for misunderstanding. Tom's brain whirled. "You--you and he haven't had any--quarrel?"

  "No. What made you think so?"

  "I don't know. I suppose I'm an idiot. But I thought--"

  He stopped. She took up his unfinished sentence.

  "You thought wrong."

  * * *

  Contents

  THE FIGHTING EDGE

  By WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE

  CHAPTER I

  PETE'S GIRL

  She stood in the doorway, a patched and ragged Cinderella of the desert. Upon her slim, ill-poised figure the descending sun slanted a shaft of glory. It caught in a spotlight the cheap, dingy gown, the coarse stockings through the holes of which white flesh peeped, the heavy, broken brogans that disfigured the feet. It beat upon a small head with a mass of black, wild-flying hair, on red lips curved with discontent, into dark eyes passionate and resentful at what fate had made of her young life. A silent, sullen lass, one might have guessed, and the judgment would have been true as most first impressions.

  The girl watched her father drive half a dozen dogies into the mountain corral perched precariously on the hillside. Soon now it would be dusk. She went back into the cabin and began to prepare supper.

  In the rickety stove she made a fire of cottonwood. There was a business-like efficiency in the way she peeled potatoes, prepared the venison for the frying-pan, and mixed the biscuit dough.

  June Tolliver and her father lived alone on Piceance[1] Creek. Their nearest neighbor was a trapper on Eighteen-Mile Hill. From one month's end to another she did not see a woman. The still repression in the girl's face was due not wholly to loneliness. She lived on the edge of a secret she intuitively felt was shameful. It colored her thoughts and feelings, set her apart from the rest of the world. Her physical reactions were dominated by it. Yet what this secret was she could only guess at.

  A knock sounded on the door.

  June brushed back a rebellious lock of hair from her eyes with the wrist above a flour-whitened hand. "Come in."

  A big dark man stood on the threshold. His glance swept the girl, searched the room, and came back to her.

  "Pete Tolliver live here?"

  "Yes. He's lookin' after the stock. Be in soon, likely."

  The man closed the door. June dragged a chair from a corner and returned to her cooking.

  From his seat the man watched her. His regard was disturbing. It had a quality of insistence. His eyes were cold yet devouring. They were possessive, not clear but opaque. They did not look at her as other eyes did. She felt the blood burning in her cheeks.

  Presently, as she passed from the table to the stove to look at the sputtering venison, she flashed a resentful glance at him. It did not touch his effrontery.

  "You Pete's girl?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "You've grown. Knew you when you was learnin' to crawl."

  "In Brown's Park?" The words were out before she could stop them.

  "You done said it." He smiled, not pleasantly, she thought. "I'm a real old friend of yore father."