by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER X
In Which the Demon Opens an Eye and Yawns
A storm held the Double Cross wagons in a sheltered place in the hills,ten miles from the little town where Ford had spent a night on his wayto the ranch a month before. Mason, taking the inaction as an excuse,rode home to his family and left Ford to his own devices with nocompunctions whatever. He should, perhaps, have known better; but he wasacting upon his belief that nothing so braces a man as the absoluteconfidence of his friends, and to have stayed in camp on Ford's accountwould, according to Mason's code, have been an affront to Ford'smanifest determination to "make good."
It is true that neither had mentioned the matter since the day of Ford'sarrival at the ranch; men do not, as a rule, harp upon the deeper issueswithin their lives. For that month, it had been as though the subjectof intemperance concerned them as little as the political unrest of ahot-tempered people beyond the equator. They had argued the matter to amore or less satisfactory conclusion, and had let it rest there.
Ford had ridden with him a part of the way, and when they came to acertain fork in the trail, he had sent a whimsically solemn message toBuddy, had pulled the collar of his coat closer together under his chin,and had faced the wind with a clean conscience, and with bowed head andhat pulled low over his brows. There were at least three perfectly validreasons why Ford should ride into town that day. He wanted heavier socksand a new pair of gloves; he was almost out of tobacco, and wanted tosee if he could "pick up" another man so that the hours ofnight-guarding might not fall so heavily upon the crew. Ford had beenstanding the last guard himself, for the last week, to relieve theburden a little, and Mason had been urgent on the subject of anotherman--or two, he suggested, would be better. Ford did his simpleshopping, therefore, and then rode up to the first saloon on the onelittle street, and dismounted with a mind at ease. If idle men were tobe found in that town, he would have to look for them in a saloon; afact which every one took for granted, like the shortening of the daysas winter approached.
Perhaps he over-estimated his powers of endurance, or under-estimatedthe strength of his enemy. Certain it is that he had no intention ofdrinking whisky when he closed the door upon the chill wind; and yet, heinvoluntarily walked straight up to the bar. There he stuck. Thebartender waited expectantly. When Ford, with a sudden lift of his head,turned away to the stove, the man looked after him curiously.
At the stove Ford debated with himself while he drew off his gloves andheld his fingers to the welcome heat which emanated from a red glowwhere the fire burned hottest within. He had not made any promise tohimself or any one else, he remembered. He had simply resolved that hewould make good, if it were humanly possible to do so. That, he toldhimself, did not necessarily mean that he should turn a teetotaler outand out. Taking a drink, when a man was cold and felt the need of it,was not--
At that point in the argument two of his own men entered, stampingnoisily upon the threshold. They were laughing, from pure animalsatisfaction over the comforts within, rather than at any tangible causefor mirth, and they called to Ford with easy comradeship. DickThomas--the Dick whom Buddy had mentioned in connection withJosephine--waved his hand hospitably toward the bar.
"Come on, Campbell," he invited. He may have seen the hesitancy inFord's face, for he laughed. "I believe in starting on the inside anddriving the frost out," he said.
The two poured generously from the bottle which the bartender pushedwithin easy reach, and Ford watched them. There was a peculiar lift toDick's upper lip--the lift which comes when scorn is the lever. Ford'seyes hardened a little; he walked over and stood beside Dick, and hetook a drink as unemotionally as if it had been water. He orderedanother round, threw a coin upon the bar, and walked out. He had ratherliked Dick, in an impersonal sort of way, but that half-sneer clungdisagreeably to his memory. A man likes to be held the master--be theslave circumstance, danger, an opposing human, or his own appetite; andalthough Ford was not the type of man who troubles himself much aboutthe opinions of his fellows, it irked him much that Dick or any otherman should sneer at him for a weakling.
He went to another saloon, found and hired a cow-puncher strayed up fromValley County, and when Dick came in, a half-hour later, Ford went tothe bar and deliberately "called up the house." He had been minded tochoose a mineral water then, but he caught Dick's mocking eye upon him,and instead took whisky straight, and stared challengingly at the otherover the glass tilted against his lips.
After that, the liquor itself waged relentless war against his goodresolutions, so that it did not need the urge of Dick's fanciedderision to send him down the trail which the past had made familiar. Hesat in to a poker game that was creating a small zone of subduedexcitement at the far end of the room, and while he was arranging hisstacks of red, white, and blue chips neatly before him, he wasunpleasantly conscious of Dick's supercilious smile. Never mind--he wasnot the first foreman who ever played poker; they all did, when the moodseized them. Ford straightened his shoulders instinctively, in defianceof certain inner misgivings, and pushed forward his ante of two whitechips.
Jim Felton came up and stood at his shoulder, watching the game insilence; and although he did not once open his lips except to let anoccasional thin ribbon of cigarette smoke drift out and away to minglewith the blue cloud which hung under the ceiling, Ford sensed a certaingood-will in his nearness, just as intangibly and yet as surely as hesensed Dick's sardonic amusement at his apparent lapse.
With every bet he made and won he felt that silent approbation behindhim; insensibly it steadied Ford and sharpened his instinct for readingthe faces of the other players, so that the miniature towers of redchips and blue grew higher until they threatened to topple--whereuponother little towers began to grow up around them. And the men in thesaloon began to feel the fascination of his success, so that theygrouped themselves about his chair and peered down over his shoulder atthe game.
Ford gave them no thought, except a vague satisfaction, now and then,that Jim Felton stuck to his post. Later, when he caught the dealer, aslit-eyed, sallow-skinned fellow with fingers all too nimble, slipping acard from the bottom of the deck, and gave him a resounding slap whichsent him and his cards sprawling all over that locality, he should havebeen more than ever glad that Jim was present.
Jim kept back the gambler's partner and the crowd and gave Fordelbow-room and some moral support, which did its part, in that itprevented any interference with the chastisement Ford was administering.
It was not a fight, properly speaking. The gambler, once Ford hadfinished cuffing him and stating his opinion of cheating the while,backed away and muttered vague threats and maledictions. Ford gatheredtogether what chips he felt certain were his, and cashed them in with acertain grim insistence of manner which brooked no argument. After thathe left the saloon, with Jim close behind him.
"If you're going back to camp now, I reckon I'll ride along," said Jim,at his elbow. "There's just nice time to get there for supper--and Isure don't want to miss flopping my lip over Mose's beefsteak; thatyearling we beefed this morning is going to make some fine eating, ifyou ask me." His tone was absolutely devoid of anything approachingpersuasion; it simply took a certain improbable thing as a commonplacefact, and it tilted the balance of Ford's intentions.
He did not go on to the next saloon, as he had started to do, butinstead he followed Jim to the livery stable and got his horse, withoutrealizing that Jim had anything to do with the change of impulse. SoFord went to camp, instead of spending the night riotously in town as hewould otherwise have done, and contented himself with cursing the game,the gambler who would have given a "crooked deal," the town, and all itcontained. A mile out, he would have returned for a bottle of whisky;but Jim said he had enough for two, and put his horse into a lope. Ford,swayed by a blind instinct to stay with the man who seemed friendly,followed the pace he set and so was unconsciously led out of the way offurther temptation. And so artfully was he led, that he never oncesuspected that he did not go of hi
s own accord.
Neither did he suspect that Jim's stumbling and immediate spasm ofregretful profanity at the bed-wagon where they unsaddled, was theresult of two miles of deep cogitation, and calculated to accountplausibly for not being able to produce a full flask upon demand. Jimswore volubly and said he had "busted the bottle" by falling against thewagon wheel; and Ford, for a wonder, believed and did not ask for proof.He muddled around camp for a few indecisive minutes, then rolledhimself up like a giant cocoon in his blankets, and slept heavilythrough the night.
He awoke at daylight, found himself fully clothed and with a craving forwhisky which he knew of old, and tried to remember just what hadoccurred the night before; when he could not recall anything verydistinctly, he felt the first twinge of fear that he had known foryears.
"Lordy me! I wonder what kinda fool I made of myself, anyway!" hethought distressfully. Later, when he discovered more money in hispockets than his salary would account for, and remembered playing poker,and having an argument of some sort with some one, his distress grewupon him. In reality he had not done anything disgraceful, according tothe easy judgment of his fellows; but Ford did not know that, and heflayed himself unmercifully for a spineless, drunken idiot whom no mancould respect or trust. It seemed to him that the men eyed him askance;though they were merely envious over his winnings and inclined to admirethe manner in which he had shown his disapproval of the dealer'sattempt at cheating.
He dreaded Mason's return, and yet he was anxious to see him and tellhim, once for all, that he was not to be trusted. He held aloof from Jimand he was scantily civil to Dick Thomas, whose friendship rang false.He pushed the work ahead while the air was still alive with swirls ofmote-like snowflakes, and himself bore the brunt of it just to dull thatgnawing self-disgust which made his waking hours a mental torment.
Before, when disgust had seized upon him in Sunset, it had been anabstract rebellion against the futility of life as he was living it.This was different: This was a definite, concrete sense of failure tokeep faith with himself and with Mason; the sickening consciousness of aswinish return to the wallow; a distrust of himself that was beyond anyemotion he had ever felt in his life.
So, for a week of hard work and harder thinking. Mason sent word by amigratory cowboy, who had stopped all night at the ranch and whom he hadhired and sent on to camp, that he would not return to the round-up,and that Ford was to go ahead as they had planned. That balked Ford'sdetermination to turn the work over to Mason and leave the country, and,after the first day of inner rebellion, he settled down insensibly tothe task before him and let his own peculiar moral problem wait upon hisleisure. He did not dream that the cowboy had witnessed his chastisementof the gambler and had gleefully, and in perfect innocence, recountedthe incident at the Double Cross ranch, and that Mason had deliberatelythrown Ford upon his own resources in obedience to his theory thatnothing so braces a man as responsibility.
Ford went about his business with grim industry and a sureness ofjudgment born of his thorough knowledge of range work. There was thewinnowing process which left the bigger, stronger calves in charge oftwo men, at a line camp known locally as Ten Mile, and took the youngerones on to the home ranch, where hay and shelter were more plentiful andthe loss would be correspondingly less.
Not until the last cow of the herd was safe inside the big corralbeyond the stables, did Ford relax his vigilance and ride over to whereChes Mason and Buddy were standing in the shelter of the stable, waitingto greet him.
"Good boy!" cried Mason, when Ford dismounted and flung the stirrup upover the saddle, that he might loosen the latigo and free his steaminghorse of its burden. "I didn't look for you before to-morrow night, atthe earliest. But I'm mighty glad you're here, let me tell you. Thatleaves me free to hit the trail to-morrow. I've got to make a trip home;the old man's down with inflammatory rheumatism, and they want me togo--haven't been home for six years, so I guess they've got a license toput in a bid for a month or two of my time, huh? I didn't want to pullout, though, till you showed up. I'm kinda leery about leaving the womenalone, with just a couple of sow-egians on the ranch. Bud, you go get apan of oats for old Schley. Supper's about ready, Ford. Have the boysshovel some hay into the corral, and we'll leave the bunch there tillmorning. Say, the wagons didn't beat you much; they never pulled intill after three. Mose says the going's bad, on them dobe patches."
Not much of an opening, that, for saying what Ford felt he was in dutybound to say. He was constrained to wait until a better opportunitypresented itself--and, as is the way with opportunity, it did not seemas if it would ever come of its own accord. There was Buddy, full ofexciting anecdotes about Rambler, and how he had rubbed the liniment on,all alone, and Rambler never kicked or did a thing; and how he andJosephine rode clear over to Jenson's and got caught in the storm andalmost got lost--only Buddy's horse knew the way home. And, later, therewas Mrs. Kate's excellent supper and gracious welcome, and an eveningdevoted to four-handed cribbage--with Josephine and Mason as implacableadversaries--and a steady undercurrent of latent hostility between himand the girl, which prevented his thinking much about himself and hisduty to Mason. There was everything, in fact, to thwart a man'sresolution to discharge honorably a disagreeable duty, and to distracthis attention.
Ford went to bed with the baffled sense of being placed in a falseposition against his will; and, man-like, he speedily gave over thinkingof that, and permitted his thoughts to dwell upon a certain face whichowned a perfectly amazing pair of lashes, and upon a mannertantalizingly aloof, with glimpses now and then of fascinatingpossibilities in the way of comradeship, when the girl inadvertentlylowered her guard in the excitement of close playing.