by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER XI
WAS IT THE DOG?
"That old dame down there thinks a lot of you, William." Ward hadclosed the gate and was preparing to remount.
"Well, is there any reason why she shouldn't?" The tone of BillyLouise was not far from petulant.
"Not a reason. What's molla, Bill?"
"Nothing that I know of." Billy Louise lifted her eyes to the rockcabbages on the cliff above them and tried to speak convincingly.
"Yes, there is. Something's gone wrong. Can't you tell a pal,Wilhemina?"
There was no resisting that tone. Billy Louise looked at him, andthough she still frowned, her eyes lightened a little.
"No, I can't tell a pal--or anybody else. I don't know. Something'sdifferent, down there. I don't know what it is, and I don't like it."She thought a minute and then smiled with that little twist of the lipsWard liked so much. "Maybe it's the dog," she guessed. "I never seehis ugly mug that I don't feel like taking a shot at him. I like dogs,too, as a general thing. He's got a wicked heart! I know he has.He'd like nothing better than to take a chunk out of me."
"I'll go back and kill him; shall I, Bill Loo?"
"No. Some day maybe I'll get a chance at him myself. I've warnedMarthy, so--"
"Are you dead sure it's the dog?" Ward looked at her with thatkeenness of glance which was hard to meet if one wanted to keep asecret from him.
"Why?" Billy Louise's tone did not invite further questioning.
"Oh, nothing! I just wondered."
"You don't like Charlie; anybody can see that."
"Yes? Foxy's a real nice young man."
"But you don't like him. You never do like anybody--"
"No?" Ward's smile dared her to persist in the accusation. "In thatcase I've no business to be fooling around here when there's work to bedone. That Cove down there has roused a heap of brand-new wants in me,Wilhemina. Gotta have an orchard up on Mill Creek, lady-fair. Gottahave a flower garden and things that climb all over the house and smellnice. Gotta have four times as much meadow as I've got now, and ahouse full of books and pictures and things, and more cattle andhorses, and a yellow canary in a yellow cage singing his head off outon the porch. Gotta work like one son-of-a-gun, Wilhemina, to get allthose things and get 'em quick, so I can stand some show of--gettingwhat I really do want."
"Well, am I keeping you?" Billy Louise was certainly in a villainousmood.
"You are," Ward affirmed quite calmly. "Only for you, I'd be hustlinglike the mischief right this minute along the get-rich trail. Say,Bill, I don't believe it's the dog!" He looked at her with the smilehiding just behind his lips and his eyes. And behind the smile, ifone's insight were keen enough to see it, was a troubled anxiety. Heshifted the pail of currants to the other arm and spoke again:
"What is it, Wilhemina? Something's bothering you. Can't you tell afellow what it is?"
"No, I can't." Billy Louise spoke crossly. "I've got a headache.I've been riding ever since this morning, and I should think that'sreason enough. I wish to goodness you'd let me alone. Go on back towork, if you're so crazy about working; I'm sure I don't want to hinderyou in any of your get-rich-quick schemes!" She shut her teethtogether with a click, jerked Blue angrily into the trail when he hadmerely stepped out of it to avoid a rock, and managed to make him asconscious of her mood as was Ward.
Ward eyed her unobtrusively with his face set straight ahead. Heglanced down at the pail of currants, which was heavy, and at thetrail, which was long and lonely. He twisted his lips in briefsarcasm--for he had a temper of his own--and rode on with his neck setvery stiff and his eyes a trifle harder than they had ever been beforewhen Billy Louise rode alongside. He did not turn off at the ford--andBilly Louise betrayed by a quick glance at him that she had halfexpected him to desert her there--but crossed it beside her and rode onup the hill.
He had made up his mind that he would not speak to her again until shewiped out, by apology or a change of manner, that last offensive remarkof hers. He hoped she realized that he was only going with her tocarry the currants, and he hoped she realized also that, if she hadbeen any other person who had spoken to him like that, he would havedumped the currants on the ground and ridden off and left her to herown devices.
He did not once speak to Billy Louise on the way to the Wolverine; buthis silence changed gradually from stubbornness to pure abstraction, asthey rode leisurely along the dusty trail with the sunset glowingbefore them. He almost forgot the actual presence of Billy Louise, andhe did actually forget her mood. He was planning just how and where heshould plant his orchard, and he was mentally building an addition tothe cabin and screening a porch wide enough to hang a hammock inside,and he was seeing Billy Louise luxuriously swinging in that hammockwhile he sat close, and smoked and teased and gloried in his possessionof her companionship.
His thoughts shuttled to his little mine, though he seldom dignified itby that title. He speculated upon the amount of gold he might yet hopeto wash out of that gravel streak, though he had held himself sternlyback from such mental indulgence all the spring. He felt that he wasgoing to need every grain of gold he could glean. He wanted hiswife--he glowed at the mere thinking of that name--to have the nicestlittle home in the country. He decided that it would be pleasanterthan the Cove, all things considered; he had a fine view of the ruggedhills from his cabin, and he imagined the Cove must be pretty hotduring the days, with that high rock wall shutting off the wind andreflecting the sun. His own place was sheltered, but still it was notset down in the bottom of a well. She had liked it. She had said...
They rode over the crest of the bluff and down the steep trail into theWolverine. However cloudy the atmosphere between the two, the ride hadseemed short--so short that Ward felt the jar of surprise when helooked down and saw the cabin below them. He glanced at Billy Louise,guessed from her somber face that the villainous mood still held her,and sighed a little. He was not deeply concerned by her mood. Heunderstood her too well to descend into any slough of despondencebecause she was cross. Then he remembered the reason she hadgiven--the reason he had not believed at the time. They were down bythe gate, then.
"Head still ache, William?" he asked, in the tone which he could make afair substitute for a caress.
"Yes," said Billy Louise, and did not look at him.
Ward was inwardly skeptical, but he did not tell her so. He swung offhis horse, set down the pail of currants, and took Blue by the bridle.
"You go on in. I'll unsaddle," he commanded her quietly. And BillyLouise, after a perceptible hesitation, obeyed him without looking athim or speaking a word.
If Ward resented her manner, which was unreasonably uppish, he couldnot have chosen a more effective revenge. He talked with Mrs.MacDonald all through supper and paid no attention to Billy Louise.After supper he spied a fairly fresh Boise paper, and underneath thatlay the _Butte Miner_. That discovery settled the evening, so far ashe was concerned. If he and Billy Louise had been on the best ofterms, it is doubtful if she could have dragged his attention fromthose papers.
Several times Billy Louise looked at him as though she meditated goingover and snatching them away from him, but she resisted the temptationand continued to behave as a nice young woman should behave toward aguest. She left him sitting inside by the lamp, which her mother hadlighted for his especial convenience, and went out and sat on thedoorstep and stared at the dusky line of hills and at the Big Dipper.She was trying to think out the tangle of tiny, threadlike mysteriesthat had enmeshed her thoughts and tightened her nerves until she couldnot speak a decent word to anyone.
She felt that the lives of those around her were weavingpuzzle-patterns, and that she must guess the puzzles. And she felt asthough part of the patterns had been left out, so that there wereragged points thrusting themselves upon her notice--points that did notpoint to anything.
She sat with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her cupped palms,and scowled at the B
ig Dipper as if it held the answer away up therebeyond her reach. Where did Ward get the money to do all the things hehad done, this spring and summer? If he expected her to believe thatwolf story--!
What became of the cattle that had disappeared, by twos and threes andsometimes more, in the last few months? Was there a gang of thievesoperating in the country, and where did they stay?
Why had Ward hinted that she did not like Charlie Fox, and why didn'the himself like Charlie? Why had she felt that weight of depressioncreep over her when they were leaving the Cove? Why? Why?
Billy Louise tried to bring her cold, common sense to the front. Shehad found it a most effective remedy for most moods. Now it assuredher impatiently that every question--save one--had been born in her ownsuper-sensitive self. That one definite question was the first one shehad tried to answer. It kept asking itself, over and over, until indesperation Billy Louise went to bed and tried to forget it in sleep.
Somewhere about midnight--she had heard the clock strike eleven a longwhile ago--she scared her mother by sitting up suddenly in bed andexclaiming relievedly: "Oh, I know; it's some new poison! He poisonsthem!"
"Wake up! For the land's sake, what are you dreaming about?" Hermother shook her agitatedly by the arm. "Billy Louise! Wake up!"
"All right, mommie." Billy Louise lay down and snuggled the lightblanket over her shoulders. She had been awake and thinking, thinkingtill she thought she never could stop, but she did not tell mommiethat. She went to sleep and dreamed about poisoned wolves till it is awonder she did not have a real nightmare. The question was answered,and for the time being the answer satisfied her.
Ward was surely an unusual type of young man. He did not seem toremember, the next morning, that there had been any outbreak of bottledemotions on his part the day before, or any ill-temper on the part ofBilly Louise, or anything at all out of the ordinary. Billy Louise hadprepared herself to apologize--in some roundabout manner which wouldeffect a reconciliation without hurting her pride too much--and she wasrather chagrined to discover that Ward seemed neither to expect or towant any apology.
"Sorry I gotta go, William," he volunteered whimsically soon afterbreakfast. "But I gotta dig. Say, Wilhemina, if I stay away longenough, will you come after me again?"
"A wise man," said Billy Louise evasively, "may do a foolish thingonce, but only a fool does it twice."
"I don't believe it's the dog." Ward shook his head at her in mockmeditation. "It wouldn't last overnight, if it was just the dog." Helooked at her with the hidden smile. "Are you sure--"
"I'm sure you know how to pester a person!" The lips of Billy Louisetwisted humorously. "Lots of things bother me, and you ought to helpme out instead of making it worse." She walked beside him down to thecorral where Rattler was waiting, saddled and bridled for the homewardjourney.
"Well, tell a fellow what they are. Of course, if it's the dog--"
"Ward Warren, you're awful! It isn't the dog. Well, it is, but thereare heaps of other things I want to know, that I don't know. And youdon't seem to care about any single one of them."
Ward leaned up against the fence and tilted his hat to shade his eyesfrom the sun. "Name a few of them, William Louisa. Not even a braveyoung buckaroo can be expected to mind-read a girl. If he could--"
"Well, is it poison you use?" Billy Louise thought it best to changeWard's trend of thought immediately. "Last night it just came to meall at once that you must have found some poison besides strychnine--"
"Eh? Oh, I see!" He managed a rather provoking slur on the last word."No, William." His eyes twinkled at her. "It isn't poison. What'sthe other thing you want to know?"
Billy Louise frowned, hesitated, and, accepting the rebuff, went on tothe next question:
"What went with Seabeck's cattle, and Marthy and Charlie's, and all theothers that have disappeared? You don't seem to care at all that thereseems to be rustling going on around here."
Ward gave her a quick look. His tone changed a bit:
"I don't know that there is any. I never yet lived in a cow-countrywhere there wasn't more or less talk of--rustling. You don't want totake gossip like that too seriously. Anything more?"
Billy Louise glanced at him surreptitiously and looked away again.Then she tried to go on as casually as she had begun.
"Well, there's something about the Cove. I don't believe Marthy'shappy. I couldn't quite get hold of the thing yesterday that gave methe blues--but it's Marthy. She's grieving, or something. She'sdifferent. She's changed more since last winter than she's changedsince I can remember. You noticed something--at least you spoke abouther coming up the gorge--"
"I said she thinks a lot of you, Wilhemina." Ward's tone and mannerwere natural again. "I noticed her looking at you when you didn't knowit. She thinks a heap of you, I should say, and she's worrying aboutsomething. Maybe she'd rather have you in the Cove than Miss GertrudeM. Shannon. Don't you reckon an old lady that has had her own way allher life kind of dreads the advent of a brand-new bride in her domain?"
"Why, of course! Poor old thing! I never thought of that. And hereyou hit the nail on the head just with a chance thought. That showswhat it means to be a brave young buckaroo, with heaps and piles ofbrains!" She laughed at him, but behind her bantering was a newrespect for Ward's astuteness. "Go on. Tell me why you don't likeCharlie Fox, or why you refuse to admit how nice and kind he is and--"
"But I don't refuse--"
"Well, I put it stupidly, of course, but you know what I mean. Tell meyour candid opinion of him."
"I haven't any." Ward smoked imperturbably for a minute, so that BillyLouise began to think he would not tell her what she wanted to know.Ward could be absolutely, maddeningly dumb on some subjects, as she hadreason to know. But he continued, quite frankly for him:
"Has it ever struck you, William Jane, that after all Foxy is notsacrificing such a hell of a lot?" He bit his lip because of the wordhe had let slip, but since Billy Louise took no notice, he went on:"He's got a pretty good thing, down there, if you stop to think. Theold lady won't live always, and she's managed to build up a pretty fineranch. It stands Foxy in hand to be good to her, don't you think?He'll have a pretty fine stake out of it. Far as I know, he's allright. I merely fail to see where he's got a right to wear any halo onhis manly brow. He's got a good hand in the game, and he's playingit--a heap better than lots of men would. Dot's all, Wilhemina." Heturned to her as if he would dismiss the subject. "Don't run off withthe notion that I'm out after the heart's blood of our young hee-ro. Ilike him all right--far as he goes. I like him a heap better," heowned frankly, "since I glommed him devouring that letter from MissGertrude M. Shannon.
"Don't you want to ride a ways with me?" His eyes made love while hewaited for her to speak. "Don't?" (When she shook her head.) "You'rea pretty mean young person sometimes, aren't you? Wha's molla? Did Igive you more mood than I wiped off the slate?"
"I don't know. You say a sentence or two, and it's like slashing aknife into a curtain. You show all kinds of things that were nicelycovered before." Billy Louise spoke gloomily. "I'll see Marthy as apoor old lady waiting to be saddled with a boss, from now on. AndCharlie Fox just simply working for his own interests and--"
"Now, William!"
"Oh, I can see it myself, now."
"Well, what if he is? We're all of us working for our own interests,aren't we?" He saw the gloom still deep in her eyes and flung out bothhands impatiently. "All right, all right! I'll plead the cause of ouryoung hee-ro, then. What would old Marthy do without him? He's madeher more comfortable than she ever was in her life, probably. Inoticed a big difference in the cabin, yesterday. And he's doing thework, and taking the responsibility, and making the ranch morevaluable--even put a wire on the gate, that rings a bell at the house,so she'll know when company's coming, and can get the kitchen swept.He's done a lot--"
"For himself!" In her disillusionment Billy Lou
ise went too far theother way. "And the cabin is more comfortable for that girl when hebrings her there to run over Marthy!"
"Well, what of it? You don't expect him to put in his time fornothing, do you? In the last analysis we're all self-centered brutes,Wilhemina. We're thinking once for the other fellow and twice forourselves, always. I'm working and scheming day and night to get astake--so I can have what means happiness to me. Marthy's letting Foxyhave full swing in the Cove, because that gives her an easier life thanshe's ever had. If she didn't want him there, she'd mighty quick shoohim up the gorge, or I don't know the old lady. We're all selfish."
"I think it's a horrid world!" rebelled the youthful ideals of BillyLouise. "I wish you wouldn't say you're just thinking of yourself--"
"I'm human," he pointed out. "I want my happiness. So do you, forthat matter. We all want to get all we can out of life."
"And at the other fellow's expense!"
"Oh, not necessarily. Some of us want the other fellow to be just ashappy as we are." His look pointed the meaning for him.
"I don't care; I think it's mean of Charlie Fox to bring--"
"Maybe not. The chances are the young lady will take to housework likea bear-cub to a syrup keg, and old Marthy will potter around with herflowers and be perfectly happy with the two of them. Cheer up, BillLoo! Lemme have a smile, anyway, before I go. And I wish," he addedquizzically, "you'd spare me some of that sympathy you've got going towaste. I'm a poor lonesome devil working away to get a stake, and youknow why. I don't have nobody to give me a kind word, and I don't haveno fun nor nothing, nohow. Come on and ride a mile or two!"
"I have to help mommie," said Billy Louise, which was not true.
"Well, if you won't, darn it, don't!" Ward reached down, caught herhand, and squeezed it, taking a chance on being seen. "Gotta go,Wilhemina-mine. Adios. I won't stay away so long next time." Heturned away to his horse, stuck his foot in the stirrup; and went upinto the saddle without any apparent effort. Then he swung Rattlerclose to where she stood beside the gate.
"Sure you want to be just pals, Wilhemina-mine?" he asked, bendingclose to her.
"Of course I'm sure," said Billy Louise quickly--a shade too quickly.
Ward looked at her intently and shrugged his shoulders. "All right,"he said, in the tone which made plain his opinion of her decision."You're the doctor."
Billy Louise watched him up the hill and out of sight over the top.When he was gone, she caught Blue and saddled him; then, with her gunbuckled around her hips and her rope coiled beside the saddle-fork, sherode dismally up the canyon.