The Uphill Climb

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER XV

  The Climb

  Into its groove of routine slipped life at the Double Cross, but it didnot move quite as smoothly as before. It was as if the "hill" which Fordwas climbing suffered small landslides here and there, which threatenedto block the trail below. Sometimes--still keeping to the simile--it wasbut a pebble or two kicked loose by Ford's heel; sometimes a bowlderwhich one must dodge.

  Dick, for instance, must have likened Mose to a real landslide when hecame at him the next day, with a roar of rage and the rolling-pin. Mosehad sobered to the point where he wondered how it had all happened, andwanted to get his hands in the wool of the "nigger" said to lurk inwoodpiles. He asked Jim, with various embellishments of speech, what itwas all about, and Jim told him and told him truly.

  "He was trying to queer you with the outfit, Mose, and that's a fact,"he finished; which was the only exaggeration Jim was guilty of, for Dickhad probably thought very little of Mose and his ultimate standing withthe Double Cross. "And he was trying to queer Ford--but you can searchme for the reason why he didn't make good, there."

  Mose, like many of us, was a self-centered individual. He wasted aminute, perhaps, thinking of the trick upon Ford; but he spent all ofthat forenoon and well into the afternoon in deep meditation upon theaffair as it concerned himself. And the first time Dick entered thepresence of the cook, he got the result of Mose's reasoning.

  "Tried to git me in bad, did yuh? Thought you'd git me fired, hey?" heshouted, as a sort of punctuation to the belaboring.

  A rolling pin is considered a more or less fearsome weapon in the handsof a woman, I believe; when wielded by an incensed man who stands closeto six feet and weighs a solid two hundred pounds, and who has theheadache which follows inevitably in the wake of three pints of whiskyadministered internally in the short space of three hours or so, arolling-pin should justly be classed with deadly weapons.

  Jim said afterward that he never had believed it possible to act out therough stuff of the silly supplements in the Sunday papers, but afterseeing Mose perform with that rolling-pin, he was willing to call everyedition of the "funny papers" realistic to a degree. Since it was Jimwho helped pull Mose off, naturally he felt qualified to judge. Jim toldFord about the affair with sober face and eyes that laughed.

  "And where's Dick?" Ford asked him, without committing himself upon thejustice of the chastisement.

  "Gone to bed, I believe. He didn't come out with anything worse thanbumps, I guess--but what I saw of them are sure peaches; or maybeItalian prunes would hit them off closer; they're a fine purple shade. Iladled Three H all over him."

  "I thought Dick was a fighter from Fighterville," grinned Ford, tryinghard to remain non-committal and making a poor job of it.

  "Well, he is, when he can stand up and box according to rule, or hit aman when he isn't looking. But my, oh! This wasn't a fight, Ford; thiswas like the pictures you see of an old woman lambasting her son-in-lawwith an umbrella. Dick never got a chance to begin. Whee-ee! Mose surecan handle a rolling-pin some!"

  Ford laughed and went up to the house to his supper, and to theconstrained atmosphere which was telling on his nerves more severelythan did the gallon jug in his closet, and the moral effort it cost tokeep that jug full to the neck.

  He went in quietly, threw his hat on the bed, and sat down with an airof discouragement. It was not yet six o'clock, and he knew that Mrs.Kate would not have supper ready; but he wanted a quiet place in whichto think, and he was closer to Josephine; though he would never haveadmitted to himself that her nearness was any comfort to him. He didadmit, however, that the jug with the brown neck and handle pulled himto the room many times in spite of himself. He would take it from thecorner of the closet and let his fingers close over the cork, but so farhe had never yielded beyond that point. Always he had been able to setthe jug back unopened.

  He was getting circles under his eyes, two new creases had appeared oneach side of his whimsical lips, and a permanent line was formingbetween his eyebrows; but he had not opened the jug, and it had been inhis possession thirty-six hours. Thirty-six hours is not long, to besure, when life runs smoothly with slight incidents to emphasize thefigures on the dial, but it may seem long to the poor devil on the rack.

  Just now Ford was trying to forget that a gallon of whisky stood in theright-hand corner of his closet, behind a pair of half-worn riding-bootsthat pinched his instep so that he seldom wore them, and that he hadonly to take the jug out from behind the boots, pull the cork, and liftthe jug to his lips--

  He caught himself leaning forward and staring at the closet door untilhis eyes ached with the strain. He drew back and passed his hand overhis forehead; it ached, and he wanted to think about what he ought to dowith Dick. He did not like to discharge him without first consultingMrs. Kate, for he knew that Ches Mason was in the habit of talkingthings over with her, and since Mason was gone, she had assumed an airof latent authority. But Mrs. Kate had looked at him with suchreproachful eyes, that day at dinner, and her voice had sounded sosqueezed and unnatural, that he had felt too far removed from her forany discussion whatever to take place between them.

  Besides, he knew he could prove absolutely nothing against Dick, if Dickwere disposed toward flat denial. He might suspect--but the facts showedFord the aggressor, and Mose also. What if Mrs. Kate declined to believethat Dick had put that jug of whisky in the kitchen, and had afterwardgiven it to Ford? Ford had no means of knowing just what tale Dick hadtold her, but he did know that Mrs. Kate eyed him doubtfully, and thather conversation was forced and her manner constrained.

  And Josephine was worse. Josephine had not spoken to him all that day.At breakfast she had not been present, and at dinner she had kept hereyes upon her plate and had nothing to say to any one.

  He wished Mason was home, so that he could leave. It wouldn't matterthen, he tried to believe, what he did. He even dwelt upon the desire ofMason's return to the extent of calculating, with his eyes upon thefancy calendar on the wall opposite, the exact time of his absence. Tendays--there was no hope of release for another month, at least, and Fordsighed unconsciously when he thought of it; for although a month is notlong, there was Josephine refusing to look at him, and there wasDick--and there was the jug in the closet.

  As to Josephine, there was no help for it; he could not avoid herwithout making the avoidance plain to all observers, and Ford was proud.As to Dick, he would not send him off without some proof that he hadbroken an unwritten law of the Double Cross and brought whisky to theranch; and of that he had no proof. As to his suspicions--well, heconsidered that Dick had almost paid the penalty for having roused them,and the matter would have to rest where it was; for Ford was just. As tothe jug, he could empty it upon the ground and be done with thatparticular form of torture. But he felt sure that Josephine was secretly"keeping cases" on the jug; and Ford was stubborn.

  That night Ford did not respond to the tinkle of the tea bell. His headached abominably, and he did not want to see Josephine's averted faceopposite him at the table. He lay still upon the bed where he hadfinally thrown himself, and let the bell tinkle until it was tired.

  They sent Buddy in to see why he did not come. Buddy looked at him withthe round, curious eyes of precocious childhood and went back andreported that Ford wasn't asleep, but was just lying there mad. Fordheard the shrill little voice innocently maligning him, and swore tohimself; but, he did not move for all that. He lay thinking and fightingdiscouragement and thirst, while little table sounds came through thepartition and made a clicking accompaniment to his thoughts.

  If he were free, he was wondering between spells of temptation, would itdo any good? Would Josephine care? There was no answer to that, or ifthere was he did not know what it was.

  After awhile the two women began talking; he judged that Buddy had leftthem, because it was sheer madness to speak so freely before him. Atfirst he paid no attention to what they were saying, beyond a grudgingjoy in the sound of Josephine's voice. It had come
to that, with Ford!But when he heard his name spoken, and by her, he lifted shamelessly toan elbow and listened, glad that the walls were so thin, and that thosewho dwell in thin-partitioned houses are prone to forget that the otherrooms may not be quite empty. They two spent most of their waking hoursalone together, and habit breeds carelessness always.

  "Do you suppose he's drunk?" Mrs. Kate asked, and her voice was full ofuneasiness. "Chester says he's terrible when he gets started. I was surehe was perfectly safe! I just can't stand it to have him like this.Dick told me he's drinking a little all the time, and there's no tellingwhen he'll break out, and--Oh, I think it's perfectly terrible!"

  "Hsh-sh," warned Josephine.

  "He went out, quite a while ago. I heard him," said Mrs. Kate, with rashcertainty. "He hasn't been like himself since that day he fought Dick.He must be--"

  "But how could he?" Josephine's voice interrupted sharply. "That jughe's got is full yet."

  Ford could imagine Mrs. Kate shaking her head with the wisdom born ofmatrimony.

  "Don't you suppose he could keep putting in water?" she asked pityingly.Ford almost choked when he heard that!

  "I don't believe he would." Josephine's tone was dubious. "It doesn'tseem to me that a man would do that; he'd think he was just spoilingwhat was left. That," she declared with a flash of inspiration, "is whata woman would do. And a man always does something different!" There wasa pathetic note in the last sentence, which struck Ford oddly.

  "Don't think you know men, my dear, until you've been married to one foreight years or so," said Mrs. Kate patronizingly. "When you've been--"

  "Oh, for mercy's sake, do you think they're all alike?" Josephine'svoice was tart and impatient. "I know enough about men to know they'reall different. You can't judge one by another. And I don't believe thatFord is drinking at all. He's just--"

  "Just what?--since you know so well!" Mrs. Kate was growing ironical.

  "He's trying not to--and worrying." Her voice lowered until it took loveto hear it. Ford did hear, and his breath came fast. He did not catchMrs. Kate's reply; he was not in love with Mrs. Kate, and he was engagedin letting the words of Josephine sink into his very soul, and intelling himself over and over that she understood. It seemed to him amiracle of intuition, that she should sense the fight he was making;and since he felt that way about it, it was just as well he did not knowthat Jim Felton sensed it quite as keenly as Josephine--and with a fargreater understanding of how bitter a fight it was, and for that reasona deeper sympathy.

  "I wish Chester was here!" wailed Mrs. Kate, across the glow of hisexultant thoughts. "I'm afraid to say anything to him myself, he's somorose. It's a shame, because he's so splendid when he's--himself."

  "He's as much himself now as ever he was," Josephine defended hotly."When he's drinking he's altogether--"

  "You never saw him drunk," Mrs. Kate pointed to the weak spot inJosephine's defense of him. "Dick says--"

  "Oh, do you believe everything Dick says? A week ago you were bitteragainst Dick and all enthusiasm for Ford."

  "You were flirting with Dick then, and you'd hardly treat Ford decently.And Ford hadn't gone to drink--"

  "Will you hush?" There were tears of anger in Josephine's voice. "Heisn't, I tell you!"

  "What does he keep that jug in the closet for? And every few hours hecomes up to the house and goes into his room--and he never did thatbefore. And have you noticed his eyes? He'll scarcely talk any more, andhe just pretends to eat. At dinner to-day he scarcely touched a thing!It's a sure sign, Phenie."

  Ford was growing tired of that sort of thing. It dimmed the radiance ofJosephine's belief in him, to have Mrs. Kate so sure of his weakness. Hegot up from the bed as quietly as he could and left the house. He waseven more thoughtful, after that, but not quite so gloomy--if one caredenough for his moods to make a fine distinction.

  Have you ever observed the fact that many of life's grimmest battles anddeepest tragedies scarce ripple the surface of trivial things? We arealways rubbing elbows with the big issues and never knowing anythingabout it. Certainly no one at the Double Cross guessed what was alwaysin the mind of the foreman. Jim thought he was "sore" because of Dick.Dick thought Ford was jealous of him, and trying to think of some schemeto "play even," without coming to open war. Mrs. Kate was positive, inher purely feminine mind--which was a very good mind, understand, butsomewhat inadequate when brought to bear upon the big problems oflife--that Ford was tippling in secret. Josephine thought--just what shesaid, probably, upon the chill day when she calmly asked Ford at thebreakfast table if he would let her go with him.

  Ford had casually remarked, in answer to a diffident question from Mrs.Kate, that he was going to ride out on Long Ridge and see if any stockwas drifting back toward the ranch. He hadn't sent any one over that wayfor several days. Ford, be it said, had announced his intentiondeliberately, moved by a vague, unreasoning impulse.

  "Can I go?" teased Buddy, from sheer force of habit; no one evermentioned going anywhere, but Buddy shot that question into theconversation.

  "No, you can't. You can't, with that cold," his mother vetoed promptly,and Buddy, whimpering over his hot cakes, knew well the futility ofargument, when Mrs. Kate used that tone of finality.

  "Will you let me go?" Josephine asked unexpectedly, and looked straightat Ford. But though her glance was direct, it was unreadable, and Fordmentally threw up his hands after one good look at her, and tried not tobetray the fact that this was what he had wanted, but had not hoped for.

  "Sure, you can go," he said, with deceitful brevity. Josephine had notspoken to him all the day before, except to say good-morning when hecame in to his breakfast. Ford made no attempt to understand her, anymore. He was carefully giving her the lead, as he would have explainedit, and was merely following suit until he got a chance to trump; but hewas beginning to have a discouraged feeling that the game was hers, andthat he might as well lay down his hand and be done with it. Which, whenhe brought the simile back to practical affairs, meant that he wasthinking seriously of leaving the ranch and the country just as soon asMason returned.

  He was thinking of trying the Argentine Republic for awhile, if hecould sell the land which he had rashly bought while he was getting ridof his inheritance.

  She did not offer any excuse for the request, as most women would havedone. Neither did she thank him, with lips or with eyes, for his readyconsent. She seemed distrait--preoccupied, as if she, also, wereconsidering some weighty question.

  Ford pushed back his chair, watching her furtively. She rose with Kate,and glanced toward the window.

  "I suppose I shall need my heaviest sweater," she remarked practically,and as if the whole affair were too commonplace for discussion. "It doeslook threatening. How soon will you want to start?" This without lookingtoward Ford at all.

  "Right away, if that suits you." Ford was still watchful, as if he hadnot quite given up hope of reading her meaning.

  She told him she would be ready by the time he had saddled, and sheappeared in the stable door while he was cinching the saddle on thehorse he meant to ride.

  "I hope you haven't given me Dude," she said unemotionally. "He'ssupposed to be gentle--but he bucked me off that day I sprained myankle, and all the excuse he had was that a rabbit jumped out from abush almost under his nose. I've lost faith in him since. Oh--it'sHooligan, is it? I'm glad of that; Hooligan's a dear--and he has theeasiest gallop of any horse on the ranch. Have you tried him yet, Ford?"

  The heart of Ford lifted in his chest at her tone and her words, alongtoward the last. He forgot the chill of her voice in the beginning, andhe dwelt greedily upon the fact that once more she had called him Ford.But his joy died suddenly when he led his horse out and discovered thatDick and Jim Felton were coming down the path, within easy hearing ofher. Ford did not know women very well, but most men are born with arudimentary understanding of them. He suspected that her intimacy oftone was meant for Dick's benefit; and when they had ridden three orfour miles and her
share of the conversation during that time hadconsisted of "yes" twice, "no" three times, and one "indeed," he wassure of it.

  So Ford began to wonder why she came at all--unless that, also, wasmeant to discipline Dick--and his own mood became a silent one. He didnot, he told himself indignantly, much relish being used as a club tobeat some other man into good behavior.

  They rode almost to Long Ridge before Ford discovered that Josephine wasstealing glances at his face whenever she thought he was not looking,and that the glances were questioning, and might almost be called timid.He waited until he was sure he was not mistaken, and then turned hishead unexpectedly, and smiled into her startled eyes.

  "What is it?" he asked, still smiling at her. "I won't bite. Say it, whydon't you?"

  She bit her lips and looked away.

  "I wanted to ask something--ask you to do something," she said, after aminute. And then hurriedly, as if she feared her courage might ebb andleave her stranded, "I wish you'd give me that--jug!"

  Sheer surprise held Ford silent, staring at her.

  "I don't ask many favors--I wish you'd grant just that one. I wouldn'task another."

  "What do you want of it?"

  "Oh--" she stopped, then plunged on recklessly. "It's getting on mynerves so! And if you gave it to me, you wouldn't have to fight thetemptation--"

  "Why wouldn't I? There's plenty more where that came from," he remindedher.

  "But it wouldn't be right where you could get it any time the cravingcame. Won't you let me take it?" He had never before heard that tonefrom her; but he fought down the thrill of it and held himself rigidlycalm.

  "Oh, I don't know--the jug's doing all right, where it is," he evaded;what he wanted most was to get at her real object, and, man-like, toknow beyond doubt whether she really cared.

  "But you don't--you never touch it," she urged. "I know, because--well,because every day I look into it! I suppose you'll say I have no right,that it's spying, or something. But I don't care for that. And I can seethat it's worrying you dreadfully. And if you don't drink any of it, whywon't you let me have it?"

  "If I don't drink it; what difference does it make who has it?" hecountered.

  "I'm afraid there'll be a time when you'll yield, just because you areblue and discouraged--or something; whatever mood it is that makes thetemptation hardest to resist. I know myself that things are harder toendure some days than they are others." She stopped and looked at him inthat enigmatical way she had. "You may not know it--but I've beenstaying here just to see whether you fail or succeed. I thought Iunderstood a little of why you came, and I--I stayed." She leaned andtwisted a wisp of Hooligan's mane nervously, and Ford noticed how thecolor came and went in the cheek nearest him.

  "I--oh, it's awfully hard to say what I want to say, and not have itsound different," she began again, without looking at him. "But if youdon't understand what I mean--" Her teeth clicked suggestively.

  Ford leaned to her. "Say it anyway and take a chance," he urged, and hisvoice was like a kiss, whether he knew it or not. He did know that shecaught her breath at the words or the tone, and that the color flamed adeeper tint in her cheek and then faded to a faint glow.

  "What I mean is that I appreciate the way you have acted all along.I--it wasn't an easy situation to meet, and you have met it like aman--and a gentleman. I was afraid of you at first, and I misunderstoodyou completely. I'm ashamed to confess it, but it's true. And I want tosee you make good in this thing you have attempted; and if there'sanything on earth that I can do to help you, I want you to let me do it.You will, won't you?" She looked at him then with clear, honest eyes."It's my way of wanting to thank you for--for not taking any advantage,or trying to, of--your--position that night."

  Ford's own cheeks went hot. "I thought you knew all along that I wasn'ta cur, at least," he said harshly. "I never knew before that you had anyreason to be afraid of me, that night. If I'd known that--but I thoughtyou just didn't like me, and let it go at that. And what I said I meant.You needn't feel that you have anything to thank me for; I haven't donea thing that deserves thanks--or fear either, for that matter."

  "I thought you understood, when I left--"

  "I didn't worry much about it, one way or the other," he cut in. "Ihunted around for you, of course, and when I saw you'd pulled out forgood, I went over the hill and camped. I didn't get the note till nextmorning; and I don't know," he added, with a brief smile, "as that didmuch toward making me understand. You just said to wait till some onecame after me. Well, I didn't wait." He laughed and leaned toward heragain. "Now there seems a chance of our being--pretty good friends," hesaid, in the caressing tone he had used before, and of which he wasutterly unconscious, "we won't quarrel about that night, will we? Yougot home all right, and so did I. We'll forget all about it. Won't we?"He laid a hand on the horn of her saddle so that they rode closetogether, and tried futilely to read what was in her face, since she didnot speak.

  Josephine stared blankly at the brown slope before them. Her lips wereset firmly together, and her brows were contracted also, and her glovedfingers gripped the reins tightly. She paid not the slightest attentionto Ford's hand upon her saddle horn, nor at the steady gaze of his eyes.Later, when Ford observed the rigidity of her whole pose and sensed thatmental withdrawing which needs no speech to push one off from the moreintimate ground of companionship, he wondered a little. Without in theleast knowing why he felt rebuffed, he took away his hand, and swung hishorse slightly away from her; his own back stiffened a little inresponse to the chilled atmosphere.

  "Yes," she said at last, "we'll forget all about it, Mr. Campbell."

  "You called me Ford, a while ago," he hinted.

  "Did I? One forms the habit of picking up a man's given name, out herein the West, I find. I'm sorry--"

  "I don't want you to be sorry. I want you to do it again. All the time,"he added boldly.

  He caught the gleam of her eyes under her heavy lashes, as she glancedat him sidelong.

  "If you go looking at me out of the corner of your eyes," he threatenedrecklessly, kicking his horse closer, "I'm liable to kiss you!"

  And he did, before she could draw away.

  "I've been kinda thinking maybe I'm in love with you, Josephine," hemurmured, holding her close. "And now I'm dead sure of it. And if youwon't love me back why--there'll be something doing, that's all!"

  "Yes? And what would you do, please?" Her tone was icy, but he somehowfelt that the ice was very, very thin, and that her heart beat warmbeneath. She drew herself free, and he let her go.

  "I dunno," he confessed whimsically. "But Lordy me! I'd sure dosomething!"

  "Look for comfort in that jug, I suppose you mean?"

  "No, I don't mean that." He stopped and considered, his forehead creasedas if he were half angry at the imputation. "I'm pretty sure of where Istand, on that subject. I've done a lot of thinking, since I hit theDouble Cross--and I've cut out whisky for good.

  "I know what you thought, and what Mrs. Kate thinks yet; and I'll admitit was mighty tough scratching for a couple of days after I got hold ofthat jug. But I found out which was master--and it wasn't the booze!" Helooked at her with eyes that shone. "Josie, girl, I took a longchance--but I put it up to myself this way, when the jug seemed to be ontop. I told myself it was whisky or you; not that exactly, either. It'shard to say just what I do mean. Not you, maybe--but what you stand for.What I could get out of life, if I was straight and lived clean, and hada little woman like you. It may not be you at all; that's as you--"

  He stopped as if some one had laid a hand over his mouth. It was not asshe said. It might have been, only for that drunken marriage of his.Never before had he hated whisky as bitterly as he did then, when heremembered what it had done for him that night in Sunset, and what itwas doing now. It closed his lips upon what he would have given much tobe able to say; for he was a man with all the instincts of chivalry andhonor--and he loved the girl. It was, he realized bitterly, just becausehe did love her so well,
that he could not say more. He had said toomuch already; but her nearness had gone to his head, and he hadforgotten that he was not free to say what he felt.

  Perhaps Josephine mistook his sudden silence for trepidation, orhumility. At any rate she reined impulsively close, and reached out andcaught the hand hanging idly at his side.

  "Ford, I'm no coquette," she said straightforwardly, with a blush formaiden-modesty's sake. "I believe you; absolutely and utterly I believeyou. If you had been different at first--if you had made any overtureswhatever toward--toward lovemaking, I should have despised you. Inever would have loved you in this world! But you didn't. You kept atsuch a distance that I--I couldn't help thinking about you and studyingyou. And lately--when I knew you were fighting the--the habit--I lovedyou for the way you did fight. I was afraid, too. I used to slip intoyour room every time you left it, and look--and I just ached to helpyou! But I knew I couldn't do a thing; and that was the hardest part.All I could do was stand back--clear back out of sight, and hope.And--and love you, too, Ford. I'm proud of you! I'm proud to think thatI--I love a man that is a man; that doesn't sit down and whine because afight is hard, or give up and say it's no use. I do despise a moralweakling, Ford. I don't mind what you have been; it's what you are, thatcounts with me. And you're a man, every inch of you. I'm not a bitafraid you'll weaken. Only," she added half apologetically, "I did wantyou to give me the--the jug, because I couldn't bear to see you look soworried." She gave his fingers an adorable little squeeze, and flunghis hand away from her, and laughed in a way to set his heart poundingheavily in his chest. "Now you know where I stand, Mr. Man," she criedlightly, "so let's say no more about it. I bet I can beat you acrossthis flat!" She laughed again, wrinkled her nose at him impertinently,and was off in a run.

  "Ford, I'm no coquette," she said straightforwardly.]

  If she had waited, Ford would have told her. If she had given him achance, he would have told her afterward; but she did not. She wasextremely careful not to let their talk become intimate, after that. Shelaughed, she raced Hooligan almost to the point of abuse, she chatteredabout everything under the sun that came into her mind, except their ownpersonal affairs or anything that could possibly lead up to the subject.

  Ford, for a time, watched for an opening honestly; saw at last theimpossibility of telling her--unless indeed he shouted, "Say, I'm amarried man!" to her without preface or extenuating explanation--andyielded finally to the reprieve the fates sent him.