“I reckoned as much, Miss, knowin’ you as I do. Scenery an’ the gift o’ gab ain’t everything, but sometimes they fool wimmen folks — even the brightest of ‘em.”
“He was awfully good company,” she admitted.
“When they warn’t no Injuns around,” Bull completed the sentence for her. “The old feller seemed all het up over somethin’ about the time I happened along. I heered him say he was set on gettin’ this property. Is that what they come over fer?”
“Yes. He offered me a quarter of what he’d offered Dad for it, and his offer to Dad was only about twenty per cent of what it’s worth. You see, Bull, what they want is the mine. They are just using the range and the cattle as an excuse to get hold of the mine because they think we don’t know the real value of the diggings; but Dad did know. There’s another vein there that has never been tapped that is richer than the old one. Dad knew about it, and somehow Wainright learned of it too.”
“The old skunk!” muttered Bull.
The Wainrights were driving out of the ranch yard and heading toward Hendersville. The older man was still breathing hard and swearing to himself. The younger was silent and glum. They were going to town for dinner before starting on the long drive back to their ranch. Approaching them along the trail at a little distance ahead was a horseman. Young Wainright recognized the rider first.
“That’s Colby,” he said. “He hasn’t any use for that fellow Bull. They are both stuck on the girl. It might not be a bad plan to cultivate him — if you want to get even with Bull.”
As they came nearer it appeared evident that Colby was going by them with nothing more than a nod. He did not like either of them — especially the younger; but when they drew rein and the older man called to him he turned about and rode up to the side of the vehicle.
“You’re still foreman here, ain’t ye?” asked Wainright senior.
Colby nodded. “Why?” he inquired.
“Well, I jest wanted to tell ye that some of your men ain’t got a very pleasant way of treatin’ neighbors.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, I was jest a-leavin’ after a social call when one of yer men starts shootin’ at me. Thet ain’t no way to treat friends an’ neighbors. Suppose we was to shoot up your men when they came over our way?”
“Who was it?” demanded Colby.
“Bull,” said the younger Wainright. “I suppose he was drunk again, though. They say he always goes to shooting whenever he gets drunk. When we left he was up at the house making love to Miss Henders,” he added. “I shouldn’t think she’d feel safe with a fellow like that around.”
Colby scowled. “Thanks fer tellin’ me,” he said. “I reckon I’ll have to fix that feller. He’s gettin’ too damn fresh.”
“Well, I thought ye’d orter know,” said Wainright senior. “Well, so long, an’ if ye ever git over our way drop in.”
“Giddap!” said Jefferson Wainright, Jr., and the two rolled away through the deep dust of the parched road.
Colby rode on at a brisk gallop and as he swung from his saddle cast a glance in the direction of the house where he saw Bull just descending the steps from the veranda where Diana Henders stood. Colby bit his lip and the frown on his face became deeper.
Dragging saddle and bridle from his pony he turned the animal into the corral with a final slap on the rump — a none too gentle slap which reflected the state of his feelings — then he headed straight for the bunk-house which he reached just in time to intercept Bull at the entrance.
“Look here, Bull,” said Colby without any preamble, “this business of drinkin’ an’ shootin’ things up has gone about far enough. I ain’t a-goin’ to have it around here no more. I reckon you’d better ask fer your time.”
“All right,” said Bull, “you go an’ git it fer me while I’m packin’ my war-bag.”
Colby, rather surprised and at the same time relieved that Bull took the matter so philosophically, started for the office, while the latter entered the bunk-house, where Shorty, Texas Pete and a couple of others who had overhead the conversation outside the door looked up questioningly.
“By gollies!” exclaimed Texas Pete, “I’m a-goin’ to quit. I’m a-goin’ after my time right now, pronto,” and he arose and started for the doorway.
“Wait a minute, old hoss,” advised Bull. “I ain’t went yet.
“But didn’t Colby jest let you out?” inquired Pete.
“He might change his mind,” explained Bull.
Up at the house Colby was entering the office. “Hello, Di!” he cried. “Got your check-book handy?”
“Yes, why?”
“Bull’s quittin’.”
“Quitting? Why, he just promised me that he’d stay on. I don’t understand.”
“He just promised you that he’d stay on! You mean you asked him to?”
“Yes,” replied Diana. “He came up here to quit. Said he thought he wasn’t wanted any more, and I made him promise he wouldn’t leave. I tell you, Hal, we could never replace him. Are you sure he was in earnest about quitting? Send him up here and I’ll make him stay.”
“Well, like as not I was mistaken,” said Colby. “I reckon Bull was jest a-kiddin’. I’ll ask him again and if he is plumb set on leavin’ I’ll send him up.”
When he entered the bunk-house a few minutes later he nodded at Bull. “You kin stay on, if you want to,” he said; “I’ve changed my mind.”
Bull winked at Texas Pete who was vainly endeavoring to remember another verse of the seemingly endless self- glorification of the bad hombre.
“By gollies!” he exclaimed, “I believe I got another:
“He twirls two big guns an’ he shoots out a light;
The fellows a-drinkin’ there ducks out o’ sight;
He shoots through a bottle thet stands on the bar;
An shoots the ashes plumb off my seegar.
“But it seems like I’d left out somethin’ thet orter a-gone before.”
“Nobody’d git sore if you left it all out,” Shorty assured him.
“The trouble with you uneddicated cowpunchers,” Texas Pete told him, “is thet you are too all-fired ignorant to appreciate my efforts to elivate you - all by means of good poetry. It shore is hell to be the only lit’ry gent in a bunch of rough-necks.
“‘Come, set up the bottles, you gol darned galoot,’ Says he to the boss, “Fore I opens yore snoot With one o’ these yere little babies o’ mine,’ An’ shoots out the no in the no credit sign.”
8. “YOU DON’T DARE!”
The stage lurched down the steep and tortuous gradient of Hell’s Bend Pass, bumped through the rutty gap at the bottom and swung onto the left fork just beyond. The right fork was the regular stage route to Hendersville. The left hand road led to town, too, but over Bar Y property and past the home ranch.
The driver never came this way unless he had passengers, express or important messages for the ranch, though the distance was no greater and the road usually in better repair. Today he had a telegram for Diana Henders.
There was a brief pause as he drew up his sweating team in the road before the ranch house, yelled to attract the attention of a ranch-hand working about the corrals, tossed the envelope into the road and then, with a crack of his long whip, was off again at a run, leaving billowing clouds of powdery dust in his wake.
The man working in the corrals walked leisurely into the road, picked up the envelope and, after scrutinizing the superscription and deciphering it laboriously, carried the message to the office, where Diana Henders was working over the books.
“Telegram for ye, Miss,” announced the man, crossing the room to hand it to her.
She thanked him and laid the envelope on the desk beside her as she completed an interrupted footing. The arrival of telegrams was no uncommon occurrence even on that far-away ranch, and as they always pertained to business they caused Diana no flurry of excitement. Buyers often wired, while Uncle John Manill used the comparative
ly new telegraph facilities upon the slightest pretext.
The footing finally checked to her satisfaction, Diana picked up the envelope, opened it and drew forth the message. At first she glanced at it casually, then she read it over again with knit brows as though unable fully to grasp the purport of its contents. Finally she sat staring at it with wide, strained eyes, until, apparently crushed, she lowered her head upon her arms and broke into sobs, for this is what she had read:
MISS DIANA HENDERS,
BAR Y RANCH, HENDERSVILLE.
VIA ALDEA, ARIZONA. Mr. Manill died suddenly last night. Miss Manill and I leave for ranch soon as possible after funeral.
MAURICE B. CORSON.
For a long time Diana Henders sat with her face buried in her arms. Gradually her sobs subsided as she gained control of herself. Stunning though the effect of this new blow was, yet she grasped enough of what it meant to her to be ,almost crushed by it. Though she had not seen her Uncle John Manill since childhood, he had, nevertheless, constituted a very real and potent force in her existence. Her mother had adored him, her only brother, and Elias Henders had never ceased to proclaim him as the finest type of honorable gentleman that nature might produce. His eastern connections, his reputation for integrity and his fine business acumen had all been potent factors in the success of the Henders and Manill partnership.
With the death of her father the girl had felt keenly only her personal loss — for Uncle John Manill loomed as a Rock of Gibraltar to protect her in all matters of business; but now she was absolutely alone.
There was no one to whom she might turn for counsel or advice now that these two were gone. Hal Colby, she realized keenly, was at best only a good cowman — in matters requiring executive ability or large financial experience he was untried.
Of Corson, Manill’s attorney, she knew nothing, but she was reasonably sure that even though he proved honest and possessed of an excellent understanding of matters pertaining to the eastern office, he would not be competent to direct the affairs of ranch and mine at the sources of production.
That she might have carried on herself under the guidance of John Manill she had never doubted, since she could always have turned to him for advice in matters of moment where she was doubtful of her own judgment; but without him she questioned her ability to direct the destinies of this great business with all its numerous ramifications.
Suddenly she arose and replaced the books in the office safe, dabbed at her tear-dimmed eyes with her handkerchief and, putting on her sombrero, walked from the office, adjusting her wavy hair beneath the stiff band of her heavy hat. Straight toward the corrals she made her way. She would saddle Captain and ride out into the sunshine and the fresh air where, of all other places, she knew she might find surcease of sorrow and an opportunity to think out her problems more clearly. As she entered the corral Hal Colby came running up from the bunk-house. He had seen her pass and followed her.
“Ridin’, Di?” he asked.
She nodded affirmatively. She was not sure that she wanted company — not even that of Hal Colby — today when she desired to be alone with her grief.
“You weren’t goin’ alone, were you? You know it ain’t safe, Di. Your dad wouldn’t have let you an’ I certainly won’t.”
She made no reply. She knew that he was right. It was not safe for her to ride alone, but today she felt that she did not care what happened to her. Fate had been cruel — there was little more that it could do to harm her.
In a way she half resented Hal’s new air of proprietorship, and yet there was something about it that carried a suggestion of relief from responsibility. Here there was at least someone who cared — someone upon whose broad shoulders she might shift a portion of her burden, and so she did not follow her first impulse to send him back.
Together they rode from the corral, turning down the road toward town and neither spoke for several minutes, after the manner of people accustomed to being much together in the saddle. The man, as was usual with him when they rode, watched her profile as a lover of art might gloat over a beautiful portrait, and as he looked at her he realized the change that had come over her face and noted the reddened lids.
“What’s the matter, Di?” he asked presently. “You look like you’d been cryin’. What’s happened?”
“I just got a telegram from New York, Hal,” she replied. “Uncle John is dead — he died night before last. The stage just brought the message in from Aldea.”
“Shucks,” he said, at a loss for the proper words, and then, “that’s shore too bad, Di.”
“It leaves me all alone, now, Hal,” she continued, “and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“You ain’t all alone, Di. There ain’t anything I wouldn’t do for you. You know I love you, Di. Won’t you marry me? It would make it easier all around for you if we was married. There’s them that’s always tryin’ to take advantage of a girl or a woman what’s left alone, but if you got a husband you got someone to look out for you an’ your rights. I got a little money saved up.”
“I have plenty of money, Hal.”
“I know it. I wish you didn’t have none. It makes me feel like you thought that was what I was after, but it ain’t. Won’t you, Di? Together we could run the ranch just like your dad was here.”
“I don’t know, Hal. I don’t know what to do. I think I love you, but I don’t know. I don’t even know that I know what love is.”
“You’d learn to love me,” he told her, “and you wouldn’t have to worry no more. I’d look after everything. Say yes, won’t you?”
The temptation was great — greater even than the man himself realized — to have a place to lay her tired head, to have a strong man to carry the burden and the responsibilities for her, to have the arm of love about her as it had been all her life until her father had been taken away. She looked up at him with a faint smile.
“I won’t say yes — yet,” she said. “Wait a while, Hal — wait until after Mr. Corson and my cousin come and we see how things are going to turn out, and then — then I think that I shall say yes.”
He leaned toward her impulsively and put an arm about her, drawing her toward him with the evident intention of kissing her, but she pushed him away.
“Not yet, Hal,” she told him; “wait until I have said yes.”
A week later a group of boarders were lounging on the veranda of The Donovan House in Hendersville. It was almost supper time of a stage day and the stage had not yet arrived. Mack Harber, whose wound had given more trouble than the doctor had expected, was still there convalescing, and Mary Donovan was, as usual, standing in the doorway joining in the gossip and the banter.
“Bill ain’t niver late ‘less somethin’s wrong,” said Mrs. Donovan.
“Like as not he’s been held up again,” suggested Mack.
“I’d like to be sheriff o’ this yere county fer ‘bout a week,” stated Wildcat Bob.
“Sure, an’ phawt would ye be after doin’?” inquired Mary Donovan, acidly.
Wildcat Bob subsided, mumbling in his stained beard. For the moment he had forgotten that Mrs. Donovan was among those present.
“Here they come!” announced Mack.
With the clank of chain, the creaking of springs, and the rapid pounding of galloping hoofs the stage swung into the single street of Hendersville in a cloud of dust and with a final shrieking of protesting brakes pulled up before The Donovan House.
“Where’s Gum Smith?” demanded Bill Gatlin from the driver’s seat.
“Dunno. Held up agin?” asked one of the loungers.
“Yes,” snapped Gatlin.
Mack Harber had risen from his chair and advanced to the edge of the veranda.
“The Black Coyote?” he asked.
Gatlin nodded. “Where’s thet damn sheriff?” he demanded again.
“He ain’t here an’ he wouldn’t be no good if he was,” replied Wildcat Bob.
“We don’t need no sheriff fer what we oug
hter do,” announced Mack Harber, angrily.
“How’s thet?” asked Wildcat.
“You don’t need no sheriff fer a necktie party,” said Mack, grimly.
“No, but you gotta get yer man fust.”
“Thet’s plumb easy.”
“How come?” inquired Wildcat.
“We all know who The Black Coyote is,” stated Mack. “All we gotta do is get a rope an’ go get him. “ “Meanin’ get who?” insisted the little old man.
“Why, gosh all hemlock! you know as well as I do thet it’s Bull,” replied Mack.
“I dunno nothin’ o’ the kind, young feller,” said Wildcat Bob, “ner neither do you. Ef ye got proof of what ye say I’m with ye. Ef ye ain’t got proof I’m ag’in ye.”
“Don’t Bull always wear a black silk handkerchief?” demanded Mack. “Well, so does The Black Coyote, an’ they both got scars on their chins. There ain’t no doubt of it.”
“So ye want to string up Bull ‘cause he wears a black bandana and a scar, eh? Well, ye ain’t goin’ to do nothin’ o’ the kind while of Wildcat Bob can fan a gun. Git proof on him an’ I’ll be the fust to put a rope ‘round his neck, but ye got to git more proof than a black handkerchief.”
“Shure an’ fer onct yer right, ye ould blatherskite,” commended Mary Donovan. “Be after comin’ to yer suppers now the all of yese an’ fergit stringin’ up dacent young min like Bull. Shure an’ I don’t belave he iver hild up nothin’ at all, at all. He’s that nice to me whinever he’s here, wid his Mrs. Donovan, mum, this an’ his Mrs. Donovan, mum, that, an’ a-fetchin’ wood fer me, which the loikes o’ none o’ yese iver did. The viry idea ov him bein’ The Black Coyote — go on wid ye!”
“Well, we all know that Gregorio’s one of them, anyway — we might string him up,” insisted Mack.
“We don’t know that neither,” contradicted Wildcat; “but when it comes to stringin’ up Gregorio or any other greaser I’m with ye. Go out an’ git him,
Mack, an’ I’ll help ye string him up.”
A general grin ran around the table, for of all the known bad-men in the country the Mexican, Gregorio, was by far the worst. To have gone out looking for him and to have found him would have been equivalent to suicide for most men, and though there were many men in the county who would not have hesitated had necessity demanded, the fact remained that his hiding place was unknown and that that fact alone would have rendered an attempt to get him a failure.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 557