This did not suit her at all. "Is it far to the Lazy D?" she inquired anxiously.
"Every inch of forty miles. There's a creek not more than two hundred yards from here. We'll stay there till morning," he made answer in a matter of course voice, leading the way to the place he had mentioned.
She followed, protesting. Yet though it was not in accord with her civilized sense of fitness, she knew that what he proposed was the common sense solution. She was tired and worn out, and she could see that his broncho had traveled far.
Having reached the bank of the creek, he unsaddled, watered his horse and picketed it, and started a fire. Uneasily she watched him.
"I don't like to sleep out. Isn't there a ranchhouse near?"
"Y'u wouldn't call it near by the time we had reached it. What's to hinder your sleeping here? Isn't this room airy enough? And don't y'u like the system of lighting? 'Twas patented I forget how many million years ago. Y'u ain't going to play parlor girl now after getting the reputation y'u've got for gameness, are y'u?"
But he knew well enough that it was no silly schoolgirl fear she had, but some deep instinct in her that distrusted him and warned her to beware. So, lightly he took up the burden of the talk while he gathered cottonwood branches for the fire.
"Now if I'd only thought to bring a load of lumber and some carpenters—and a chaperon," he chided himself in burlesque, his bold eyes closely on the girl's face to gloat on the color that flew to her cheeks at his suggestion.
She hastened to disclaim lightly the feeling he had unmasked in her. "It is a pity, but it can't be helped now. I suppose I am cross and don't seem very grateful. I'm tired out and nervous, but I am sure that I'll enjoy sleeping out. If I don't I shall not be so ungenerous as to blame you."
He soon had a cup of steaming coffee ready for her, and the heat of it made a new woman of her. She sat in the warm fire glow, and began to feel stealing over her a delightful reaction of languor. She told herself severely it was ridiculous to have been so foolishly prim about the inevitable.
"Since you know my name, isn't it fair that I should know yours?" she smilingly asked, more amiably than she had yet spoken to him.
"Well, since I have found the lamb that was lost, y'u may call me a shepherd of the desert."
"Then, Mr. Shepherd, I'm very glad to meet you. I don't remember when I ever was more glad to meet a stranger." And she added with a little laugh: "It's a pity I'm too sleepy to do my duty by you in a social way."
"We'll let that wait till to-morrow. Y'u'll entertain me plenty then. I'll make your bunk up right away."
She was presently lying with her feet to the fire, snugly rolled in his saddle blankets. But though her eyes were heavy, her brain was still too active to permit her to sleep immediately. The excitement of her adventure was too near, the emotions of the day too poignantly vivid, to lose their hold on her at once. For the first time in her life she lay lapped in the illimitable velvet night, countless unwinking stars lighting the blue-black dream in which she floated. The enchantment of the night's loveliness swept through her sensitive pulses and thrilled her with the mystery of the great life of which she was an atom. Awe held her a willing captive.
She thought of many things, of her past life and its incongruity with the present, of the man who lay wounded at the Lazy D, of this other wide-shouldered vagabond who was just now in the shadows beyond the firelight, pacing up and down with long, light even strides as he looked to his horse and fed the fire. She watched him make an end of the things he found to do and then take his place opposite her. Who and what was he, this fascinating scamp who one moment flooded the moonlit desert with inspired snatches from the opera sung in the voice of an angel, and the next lashed at his horse like a devil incarnate? How reconcile the outstanding inconsistencies in him? For his every inflection, every motion, proclaimed the strain of good blood gone wrong and trampled under foot of set, sardonic purpose, indicated him a man of culture in a hell of his own choosing. Lounging on his elbow in the flickering shadows, so carelessly insouciant in every picturesque inch of him, he seemed to radiate the melodrama of the untamed frontier, just as her guest of tarnished reputation now at the ranch seemed to breathe forth its romance.
"Sleep well, little partner. Don't be afraid; nothing can harm you," this man had told her.
Promptly she had answered, "I'm not afraid, thank you, in the least"; and after a moment had added, not to seem hostile, "Good night, big partner."
But despite her calm assurance she knew she did not feel so entirely safe as if it had been one of her own ranch boys on the other side of the fire, or even that other vagabond who had made so direct an appeal to her heart. If she were not afraid, at least she knew some vague hint of anxiety.
She was still thinking of him when she fell asleep, and when she awakened the first sound that fell on her ears was his tuneful whistle. Indeed she had an indistinct memory of him in the night, wrapping the blankets closer about her when the chill air had half stirred her from her slumber. The day was still very young, but the abundant desert light dismissed sleep summarily. She shook and brushed the wrinkles out of her clothes and went down to the creek to wash her face with the inadequate facilities at hand. After redressing her hair she returned to the fire, upon which a coffee pot was already simmering.
She came up noiselessly behind him, but his trained senses were apprised of her approach.
"Good mo'ning! How did y'u find your bedroom?" he asked, without turning from the bacon he was broiling on the end of a stick.
"Quite up to the specifications. With all Wyoming for a floor and the sky for a ceiling, I never had a room I liked better. But have you eyes in the back of your head?"
He laughed grimly. "I have to be all eyes and ears in my business."
"Is your business of a nature so sensitive?"
"As much so as stocks on Wall Street. And we haven't any ticker to warn us to get under cover. Do you take cream in your coffee, Miss Messiter?"
She looked round in surprise. "Cream?"
"We're in tin-can land, you know, and live on air-tights. I milk my cow with a can-opener. Let me recommend this quail on toast." He handed her a battered tin plate, and prepared to help her from the frying-pan.
"I suppose that is another name for pork?"
"No, really. I happened to bag a couple of hooters before you wakened."
"You're a missionary of the good-foods movement. I shall name your mission St. Sherry's-in-the-Wilderness."
"Ah, Sherry's! That's since my time. I don't suppose I should know my way about in little old New York now."
She found him eager to pick up again the broken strands that had connected him with the big world from which he had once come. It had been long since she had enjoyed a talk more, for he expressed himself with wit and dexterity. But through her enjoyment ran a note of apprehension. He was for the moment a resurrected gentleman. But what would he be next? She had an insistent memory of a heavenly flood of music broken by a horrible discord of raucous oaths.
It was he that lingered over their breakfast, loath to make the first move to bring him back into realities; and it was she that had to suggest the need of setting out. But once on his feet, he saddled and packed swiftly, with a deftness born of experience.
"We'll have to ask Two-step to carry double to-day," he said, as he helped her to a place behind him.
Two-step had evidently made an end of the bronco spree upon which he had been the evening before, for he submitted sedately to his unusual burden. The first hilltop they reached had its surprise to offer the girl. In a little valley below them, scarce a mile away, nestled a ranch with its corrals and buildings.
"Look!" she exclaimed; and then swiftly, "Didn't you know it was there?"
"Yes, that's the Hilke place," he answered with composure. "It hasn't been occupied for years."
"Isn't that some one crossing to the corral now?"
"No. A stray cow, I reckon."
They dropped into a h
ollow between the hills and left the ranch on their left. She was not satisfied, and yet she had not grounds enough upon which to base a suspicion. For surely the figure she had seen had been that of a man.
CHAPTER 12. MISTRESS AND MAID
Now that it was safely concluded, Helen thought the adventure almost worthwhile for the spontaneous expressions of good will it had drawn forth from her adherents. Mrs. Winslow and Nora had taken her to their arms and wept and laughed over her in turn, and in their silent undemonstrative way she had felt herself hedged in by unusual solicitude on the part of her riders. It was good—none but she knew how good—to be back among her own, to bask in a friendliness she could not doubt. It was best of all to sit opposite Ned Bannister again with no weight on her heart from the consciousness of his unworthiness.
She could affect to disregard the gray eyes that followed her with such magnetized content about the living room, but beneath her cool self-containment she knew the joyous heart in her was strangely buoyant. He loved her, and she had a right to let herself love him. This was enough for the present.
"They're so plumb glad to see y'u they can't let y'u alone," laughed Bannister at the sound of a knock on the door that was about the fifth in as many minutes.
This time it proved to be Nora, come to find out what her mistress would like for supper. Helen turned to the invalid.
"What would you like, Mr. Bannister?"
"I should like a porterhouse with mushrooms," he announced promptly.
"You can't have it. You know what the doctor said." Very peremptorily she smiled this at him.
"He's an old granny, Miss Messiter."
"You may have an egg on toast."
"Make it two," he pleaded. "Excitement's just like caviar to the appetite, and seeing y'u safe—"
"Very well—two," she conceded.
They ate supper together in a renewal of the pleasant intimacy so delightful to both. He lay on the lounge, propped up with sofa cushions, the while he watched her deft fingers butter the toast and prepare his egg. It was surely worth while to be a convalescent, given so sweet a comrade for a nurse; and after he had moved over to the table he enjoyed immensely the gay firmness with which she denied him what was not good for him.
"I'll bet y'u didn't have supper like this at Robbers' Roost." he told her, enthusiastically.
"It wasn't so bad, considering everything." She was looking directly at him as she spoke. "Your cousin is rather a remarkable man in some ways. He manages to live on the best that can be got in tin-can land."
"Did he tell y'u he was my cousin?" he asked, slowly.
"Yes, and that his name was Ned Bannister, too?"
"Did that explain anything to y'u?"
"It explained a great deal, but it left some things not clear yet."
"For instance?"
"For one thing, the reason why you should bear the odium of his crimes. I suppose you don't care for him, though I can see how you might in a way."
"I don't care for him in the least, though I used to when we were boys. As to letting myself be blamed for his crimes. I did it because I couldn't help myself. We look more or less alike, and he was cunning enough to manufacture evidence against me. We were never seen together, and so very few know that there are two Bannisters. At first I used to protest, but I gave it up. There wasn't the least use. I could only wait for him to be captured or killed. In the meantime it didn't make me any more popular to be a sheepman."
"Weren't you taking a long chance of being killed first? Some one with a grudge against him might have shot you."
"They haven't yet," he smiled.
"You might at least have told me how it was," she reproached.
"I started to tell y'u that first day, but it looked so much of a fairy tale to unload that I passed it up."
"Then you ought not to blame me for thinking you what you were not."
"I don't remember blaming y'u. The fact is I thought it awful white of y'u to do your Christian duty so thorough, me being such a miscreant," he drawled.
"You gave me no chance to think well of you."
"But yet y'u did your duty from A to Z."
"We're not talking about my duty," she flashed back. "My point is that you weren't fair to me. If I thought ill of you how could I help it?"
"I expaict your Kalamazoo conscience is worryin' y'u because y'u misjudged me."
"It isn't," she denied instantly.
"I ain't of a revengeful disposition. I'll forgive y'u for doing your duty and saving my life twice," he said, with a smile of whimsical irony.
"I don't want your forgiveness."
"Well, then for thinking me a 'bad man.'"
"You ought to beg my pardon. I was a friend, at least you say I acted like one—and you didn't care enough to right yourself with me."
"Maybe I cared too much to risk trying it. I knew there would be proof some time, and I decided to lie under the suspicion until I could get it. I see now that wasn't kind or fair to you. I am sorry I didn't tell y'u all about it. May I tell y'u the story now?"
"If you wish."
It was a long story, but the main points can be told in a paragraph. The grandfather of the two cousins, General Edward Bannister, had worn the Confederate gray for four years, and had lost an arm in the service of the flag with the stars and bars. After the war he returned to his home in Virginia to find it in ruins, his slaves freed and his fields mortgaged. He had pulled himself together for another start, and had practiced law in the little town where his family had lived for generations. Of his two sons, one was a ne'er-do-well. He was one of those brilliant fellows of whom much is expected that never develops. He had a taste for low company, married beneath him, and, after a career that was a continual mortification and humiliation to his father, was killed in a drunken brawl under disgraceful circumstances, leaving behind a son named for the general. The second son of General Bannister also died young, but not before he had proved his devotion to his father by an exemplary life. He, too, was married and left an only son, also named for the old soldier. The boys were about of an age and were well matched in physical and mental equipment. But the general, who had taken them both to live with him, soon discovered that their characters were as dissimilar as the poles. One grandson was frank, generous, open as the light; the other was of a nature almost degenerate. In fact, each had inherited the qualities of his father. Tales began to come to the old general's ears that at first he refused to credit. But eventually it was made plain to him that one of the boys was a rake of the most objectionable type.
There were many stormy scenes between the general and his grandson, but the boy continued to go from bad to worse. After a peculiarly flagrant case, involving the character of a respectable young girl, young Ned Bannister was forbidden his ancestral home. It had been by means of his cousin that this last iniquity of his had been unearthed, and the boy had taken it to his grandfather in hot indignation as the last hope of protecting the reputation of the injured girl. From that hour the evil hatred of his cousin, always dormant in the heart, flamed into active heat. The disowned youth swore to be revenged. A short time later the general died, leaving what little property he had entirely to the one grandson. This stirred again the bitter rage of the other. He set fire to the house that had been willed his cousin, and took a train that night for Wyoming. By a strange irony of fate they met again in the West years later, and the enmity between them was renewed, growing every month more bitter on the part of the one who called himself the King of the Bighorn Country.
She broke the silence after his story with a gentle "Thank you. I can understand why you don't like to tell the story."
"I am very glad of the chance to tell it to you," he answered.
"When you were delirious you sometimes begged some one you called Ned not to break his mother's heart. I thought then you might be speaking to yourself as ill people do. Of course I see now it was your cousin that was on your mind."
"When I was out of my head I must ha
ve talked a lot of nonsense," he suggested, in the voice of a question. "I expect I had opinions I wouldn't have been scattering around so free if I'd known what I was saying."
He was hardly prepared for the tide of color that swept her cheeks at his words nor for the momentary confusion that shuttered the shy eyes with long lashes cast down.
"Sick folks do talk foolishness, they say," he added, his gaze trained on her suspiciously.
"Do they?"
"Mrs. Winslow says I did. But when I asked her what it was I said she only laughed and told me to ask y'u. Well, I'm askin' now."
She became very busy over the teapot. "You talked about the work at your ranch—sheep dipping and such things."
"Was that all?"
"No, about lots of other things—football and your early life. I don't see what Mrs. Winslow meant. Will you have some more tea?"
"No, thank y'u. I have finished. Yes, that ce'tainly seems harmless. I didn't know but I had been telling secrets." Still his unwavering eyes rested quietly on her.
"Secrets?" She summoned her aplomb to let a question rest lightly in the face she turned toward him, though she was afraid she met his eyes hardly long enough for complete innocence "Why, yes, secrets." He measured looks with her deliberately before he changed the subject, and he knew again the delightful excitement of victory. "Are y'u going to read to me this evening?"
She took his opening so eagerly that he smiled, at which her color mounted again.
"If y'u like. What shall I read?"
"Some more of Barrie's books, if y'u don't mind. When a fellow is weak as a kitten he sorter takes to things that are about kids."
Nora came in and cleared away the supper things. She was just beginning to wash them when McWilliams and Denver dropped into the kitchen by different doors. Each seemed surprised and disappointed at the presence of the other. Nora gave each of them a smile and a dishcloth.
"Reddy, he's shavin' and Frisco's struggling with a biled shirt—I mean with a necktie," Denver hastily amended. "They'll be along right soon, I shouldn't wonder."
Wyoming-a Story of the Outdoor West Page 10