The Uphill Climb

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER XVI

  To Find and Free a Wife

  Ford spent the rest of that day and all of the night that followed, inthinking what would be the best and the easiest method of gaining thepoint he wished to reach. All along he had been uncomfortably aware ofhis matrimonial entanglement and had meant, as soon as he convenientlycould, to try and discover who was his wife, and how best to freehimself and her. He had half expected that she herself would dosomething to clear the mystery. She had precipitated the marriage, heconstantly reminded himself, and it was reasonable to expect that shewould do something; though what, Ford could only conjecture.

  When he faced Josephine across the breakfast table the next morning, andcaught the shy glance she gave him when Mrs. Kate was not looking, aplan he had half formed crystallized into a determination. He would nottell her anything about it until he knew just what he was up against,and how long it was going to take him to free himself. And since hecould not do anything about it while he rode and planned and gave ordersat the Double Cross, he swallowed his breakfast rather hurriedly andwent out to find Jim Felton.

  "Say, Jim," he began, when he ran that individual to earth in thestable, where, with a pair of sheep shears, he was roaching the mane ofa shaggy old cow pony to please Buddy, who wanted to make him look likea circus horse, even if there was no hope of his ever acting like one."I'm going to hand you the lines and let you drive, for a few days. I'vegot to scout around on business of my own, and I don't know just howlong it's going to take me. I'm going right away--to-day."

  "Yeah?" Jim poised the shears in air and regarded him quizzically overthe pony's neck. "Going to pass me foreman's privilege--to hire andfire?" he grinned. "Because I may as well tell you that if you do, Dickwon't be far behind you on the trail."

  "Oh, darn Dick. I'll fire him myself, maybe, before I leave. Yes," headded, thinking swiftly of Josephine as the object of Dick's desires,"that's what I'll do. Maybe it'll save a lot of trouble while I'm gone.He's a tricky son-of-a-gun."

  "You're dead right; he is," Jim agreed. And then, dryly: "Grandmotherjust died?"

  "Oh, shut up. This ain't an excuse--it's business. I've just got to go,and that's all there is to it. I'll fix things with the missus, and tellher you're in charge. Anyway, I won't be gone any longer than I canhelp."

  "I believe that, too," said Jim softly, and busied himself with theshears.

  Ford looked at him sharply, in doubt as to just how much or how littleJim meant by that. He finally shrugged his shoulders and went away totell Mrs. Kate, and found that a matter which required more diplomacythan he ever suspected he possessed. But he did tell her, and he hopedthat she believed the reason he gave for going, and also had some faithin his assurance that he would be back, probably, in a couple ofdays--or as soon afterwards as might be.

  "There's nothing but chores to do now around the ranch, and Jack willride fence," he explained unnecessarily, to cover his discomfort at hercoldness. "Jim can look after things just as well as I can. There won'tbe any need to start feeding the calves, unless it storms; and if itdoes, Jim and Jack will go ahead, all right. I'm going to let Dick andCurly go. We don't need more than two men besides Walt, from now on."

  "I wish Chester was here," said Mrs. Kate ambiguously.

  Ford did not ask her why she wished that. He told her good-by as hastilyas if he had to run to catch a train, and left her. He hoped he would belucky enough to see Josephine--and then he hoped quite as sincerely thathe would not see her, after all. It would be easier to go without herclear eyes asking him why.

  What he meant to do first was to find Rock, and see if he had beensober enough that night in Sunset to remember what happened at themarriage ceremony, and could give him some clue as to the woman'sidentity and whereabouts. If he failed there, he intended to hunt up thepreacher. That, also, presented certain difficulties, but Ford was inthe mood to overcome obstacles. Once he discovered who the woman was, itseemed to him that there should be no great amount of trouble in gettingfree. As he understood it, he was not the man she had intended to marry;and not being the man she wanted, she certainly could not beover-anxious to cling to him.

  While he galloped down the trail to town, he went over the whole thingagain in his mind, to see if there might be some simpler plan than theone he had formed in the night.

  "No, sir--it's Rock I've got to see first," he concluded. "But Lord onlyknows where I'll find him; Rock never does camp twice in the same place.Never knew him to stay more than a month with one outfit. But I'll findhim, all right!"

  And by one of those odd twists of circumstances which sets men towondering if there is such a thing as telepathy and a specificallyguiding hand and the like, it was Rock and none other whom he met fairlyin the trail before he had gone another mile.

  "Well, I'll be gol darned!" Ford whispered incredulously to himself, andpulled up short in the trail to wait for him.

  Rock came loping up with elbows flapping loosely, as was his ungainlyhabit. His grin was wide and golden as of yore, his hat at the sameangle over his right eyebrow.

  "Gawd bless you, brother! May peace ride behind your cantle!" hedeclaimed unctuously, for Rock was a character, in his way, and in hisspeech was not in the least like other men. "Whither wendest thou?"

  "My wending is all over for the present," said Ford, wheeling his horseshort around, that he might ride alongside the other. "I started out tohunt you up, you old devil. How are you, anyway?"

  "It is well with me, and well with my soul--what little I've got--but itain't so well with my winter grub-stake. I'm just as tickled to see youas you ever dare be to meet up with me, and that's no lie. I heardyou've got a stand-in with the Double Cross, and seeing they ain't on tomy little peculiarities, I thought I'd ride out and see if I couldn'twork you for a soft snap. Got any ducks out there you want led towater?"

  "Maybe--I dunno. I just canned two men this morning, before I left."Ford was debating with himself how best to approach the subject to himmost important.

  "Good ee-nough! I can take the place of those two men; eat their shareof grub, do their share of snoring, and shirk their share of work, anddrink their share of booze--oh, lovely! But, in the words of the dead,immortal Shakespeare, 'What's eating you?' You look to me as if youhadn't enjoyed the delights of a good, stiff jag since--" He waved ahand vaguely. "Ain't a scar on you, so help me!" He regarded Ford withfrank curiosity.

  "Oh, yes there is. I've got the hide peeled off two knuckles, and one ofmy thumbs is just getting so it will move without being greased," Fordassured him, and then went straight at what was on his mind.

  "Say, Rock, I was told that you had a hand in my getting married, backin Sunset that night."

  Rock made his horse back until it nearly fell over a rock; his faceshowed exaggerated symptoms of terror.

  "I couldn't help it," he wailed. "Spare muh--for muh poor mother's sake,oh spare muh life!" Whereat Ford laughed, just as Rock meant that heshould do. "You licked Bill twice for that, they tell me," Rock went on,quitting his foolery and coming up close again. "And you licked thepreacher that night, and--so the tale runneth--like to have put thewhole town on the jinks. Is there anything in particular you'd like todo to me?"

  "I just want you to tell me who I married--if you can." Ford reddened asthe other stared, but he did not stop. "I was so darned full that nightI let the whole business ooze out of my memory, and I haven't been ableto--"

  Rock was leaning over the saddle horn, howling and watery-eyed. Fordlooked at him with a dawning suspicion.

  "It did strike me, once or twice," he said grimly, "that the whole thingwas a put-up job. If you fellows rigged up a josh like that, and let itgo as far as this, may the Lord have mercy on your souls, for I won't!"

  But Rock could only wave him off weakly; so Ford waited until he hadrecovered. Even then, it took some talking to convince Rock that theaffair was truly serious and not to be treated any longer as a joke.

  "Why, damn it, man, I'm in love with a girl and I want to ma
rry her if Ican get rid of this other darned, mysterious, Tom-fool of a woman," Fordgritted at last, in sheer desperation. "Or if it's just a josh, by thisand by that I mean to find it out."

  Rock sobered then. "It ain't any josh," he said, with convincingearnestness. "You got married, all right enough. And if it's as you say,Ford, I sure am sorry for it. I don't know the girl's name. I'd knowher quick enough if I should see her, but I can't tell you who she was."

  Ford swore, of course. And Rock listened sympathetically until he wasdone.

  "That's the stuff; get it out of your system, Ford, and then you'll feelbetter. Then we can put our heads together and see if there isn't someway to beat this combination."

  "Could you spot the preacher, do you reckon?" asked Ford more calmly.

  "I could--if he didn't see us coming," Rock admitted guardedly. "Name ofSanderson, I believe. I've seen him around Garbin. He could tell--hemust have some record of it; but would he?"

  "Don't you know, even, why she came and glommed onto me like that?"Ford's face was as anxious as his tone.

  "Only what you told me, confidentially, in a corner afterwards," saidRock regretfully. "Maybe you told it straight, and maybe you didn't;there's no banking on a man's imagination when he's soused. But the wayyou told it to me was this:

  "You said the girl told you that she was working for some queer oldparty--an old lady with lots of dough; and she made her will and giveher money all to some institution--hospital or some darned thing, Iforget just what, or else you didn't say. Only, if this girl would marryher son within a certain time, he could have the wad. Seems the son wassomething of a high-roller, and the old lady knew he'd blow it in, if itwas turned over to him without any ballast, like; and the girl wassupposed to be the ballast, to hold him steady. So the old lady, or elseit was the girl, writes to this fellow, and he agrees to hook up withthe lady and take the money and behave himself. Near as I could make itout, the time was just about up before the girl took matters into herown hand, and come out on a hunt for this Frank Cameron. How shehappened to sink her rope on you instead, and take her turns before shefound out her mistake, you'll have to ask her--if you ever see heragain.

  "But this much you told me--and I think you got it straight. The girlwas willing to marry you--or Frank Cameron--so he could get whatbelonged to him. She wasn't going to do any more, though, and you toldme"--Rock's manner became very impressive here--"that you promised her,as a man and a gentleman, that you wouldn't ever bother her, and thatshe was to travel her own trail, and she didn't want the money. She justwanted to dodge that fool will, seems like. Strikes me I'd a let thefellow go plumb to Guinea, if I was in her place, but women get queernotions of duty, and the like of that, sometimes. Looks to me like afool thing for a woman to do, anyway."

  Though they talked a good while about it, that was all the realinformation which Ford could gain. He would have to find the ministerand persuade him to show the record of the marriage, and after that hewould have to find the girl.

  Before they reached that definite conclusion, the storm which had beenbrewing for several days swooped down upon them, and drove Ford to thealternative of riding in the teeth of it to town, which was not onlyunpleasant but dangerous, if it grew any worse, or retracing his stepsto the Double Cross and waiting there until it was over. So that is whathe did, with Rock to bear him willing company.

  They met Dick and Curly on the way, and though Ford stopped them andsuggested that they turn back also, neither would do so. Curly intimatedplainly that the joys of town were calling to him from afar, and thatfacing a storm was merely calculated to make his destination morealluring by contrast. "Turn back with two months' wages burning up myinside pocket? Oh, no!" he laughed, and rode on. Dick did not say why,but he rode on also. Ford turned in the saddle and looked after them, asthey disappeared in a swirl of fine snow.

  "That's what I ought to do," he said, "but I'm not going to do it, allthe same."

  "Which only goes to prove," bantered Rock, "that the Double Cross pullsharder than all the preacher could tell you. I wonder if there isn't agirl at the Double Cross, now!"

  "There is," Ford confessed, with a grin of embarrassment. "And you shutup."

  "I just had a hunch there was," Rock permitted himself to say meekly,before he dropped the subject.

  It was ten minutes before Ford spoke again.

  "I'll take you up to the house and introduce you to her, Rock, if you'llbehave yourself," he offered then, with a shyness in his manner thatnearly set Rock off in one of his convulsions of mirth. "But the missusisn't wise--so watch out. And if you don't behave yourself," he addeddarkly, "I'll knock your block off."

  "Sure. But my block is going to remain right where it's at," Rockassured him, which was a tacit promise of as perfect behavior as hecould attain.

  They looked like snow men when they unsaddled, with the powdery snowbeaten into the very fabric of their clothing, and Ford suggested thatthey go first to the bunk-house to thaw out. "I'd sure hate to pack allthis snow into Mrs. Kate's parlor," he added whimsically. "She's thekind of housekeeper that grabs the broom the minute you're gone, tosweep your tracks off the carpet. Awful nice little woman, but--"

  "But not The One," chuckled Rock, treading close upon Ford's heels."And I'll bet fifteen cents," he offered rashly, looking up, "that theperson hitting the high places for the bunk-house is The One."

  "How do you know?" Ford demanded, while his eyes gladdened at sight ofJosephine, with a Navajo blanket flung over her head, running down thepath through the blizzard to the bunk-house kitchen.

  "'Cause she shied when she saw you coming. Came pretty near breakingback on you, too," Rock explained shrewdly.

  They reached the kitchen together, and Ford threw open the door, andheld it for her to pass.

  "I came after some of Mose's mince-meat," she explained hastily. "It's aterrible storm, isn't it? I'm glad it didn't strike yesterday. I thoughtyou were going to be gone for several days."

  Ford, with embarrassed haste to match her own, presented Rock in thesame breath with wishing that Rock was elsewhere; for Mose was not inthe kitchen, and he had not had more than a few words with her fortwenty-four hours. He was perilously close to forgetting his legalhalter when he looked at her.

  She was, he thought, about as sweet a picture of a woman as a man needever look upon, as she stood there with the red Navajo blanket fallingback from her dark hair, and with her wide, honest eyes fixed upon Rock.She was blushing, as if she, too, wished Rock elsewhere. She turnedimpulsively, set down the basin she had been holding in her arm, andpulled the blanket up so that it framed her face bewitchingly.

  "Mose can bring up the mince-meat when he comes--since he isn't here,"she said hurriedly. "We weren't looking for you back, but dinner will beready in half an hour or so, I think." She pulled open the door and wentout into the storm.

  Rock stared at the door, still quivering with the slam she had given it.Then he looked at Ford, and afterward sat down weakly upon a stool, andbegan dazedly pulling the icicles from his mustache.

  "Well--I'll--be--cremated!" he said in a whisper.

  "And what's eating you, Rock?" Ford quizzed gayly. He had seensomething in the eyes of Josephine, when he met her, that had set hisblood jumping again. "Did Miss Melby--"

  "Miss Melby my granny!" grunted Rock, in deep disgust. "That there isyour wife!"

  Ford backed up against the wall and stared at him blankly. Afterward hetook a deep breath and went out as though the place was on fire.