by Harold Titus
CHAPTER VI
OUTCASTS
At sunset a girl rider descended from the uplands into the shadows ofDevil's Hole. The big brown which carried her picked his way slowlydown the treacherous trail, nose low, ears forward, selecting hisfooting with care.
The girl sat braced back in her saddle. Her face was dark, eyes filledwith a brooding, but the mouth though sternly set showed a rueful droopat the corners.
Her mind was not on her progress. She was lost in a very definiteconsideration, something which stirred resentment, it was evident fromher face. Finally she drew a sharp deep breath of impatience.
"Oh, get along, you dromedary!" she muttered and rowelled her horsesharply.
The big beast sprang forward with a grunt and went down the trail inlong, shaking bounds, even more intent on his footing than before andwhen they reached the level he crashed through the brush at a highlope, leaping little washes with great lunges and bearing his lightrider swiftly toward the cabin from which a whisp of smoke curled.
The discouraged looking man stood before the doorway watching her comeand as the girl swung down, before the horse was well halted, sheflashed a quick smile at him.
"I heerd you comin', daughter, away back thar. I shore thought thedevil himself might 've been after you!"
He smiled wanly.
"I seen her again," the girl said as she dragged her saddle off.
The man pulled languidly at his mustache.
"She see you?"
"No. I set under a juniper and watched 'em ... her an' that Beck man."
"Mebby if you was to talk to her an' get friendly--"
"I don't want to be no friends with her! I hate her already!"
She spat out the words and her face was a storm of dislike.
"What I meant ... mebby 't would be easier for us if you played likeyou was friends. Then she mightn't suspect."
She rolled her saddle to its side and spread the blanket over it.
"No. I can't do things that-a way, Alf,"--with a slow shake of herhead. "Mebby 't would get us more ... but there's somethin' in me, inhere,"--a palm to her breast--"that won't let me. I can steal her blindan' only be glad about it, but I couldn't make up like I was her friendwhile I done it."
"Mebby ... mebby you would sure enough like her," he persisted. "Youain't never had no friends--"
"I'd never like her, not while we're this way,"--with a gesture toinclude the litter about the cabin. "She's got all that I want. She'shad all the things I've never had. She's got clothes, lots of prettyclothes; she's lived in towns an's always had things easy. She's gotfriends and folks to respect her. You can tell that by lookin' ather....
"What makes me that way, Alf? What makes me hate folks that have gotthe things I want?"
He pulled on his mustache again and scanned the scarlet sky which roseabove the purple heights to the westward. He shook his head ratherhelplessly and then looked at the girl who stood before him, theeagerness of her query showing in her eyes with an intensity that wasalmost desperate.
"Mebby you get it from me. I've had it ... always. That's all I havehad ... that an' hard luck."
"But I don't like it!" she said and in the tone was something of thespirit of a bewildered little girl. "I'd like to be like other girls.I'd like to have friends ... girl friends, but the more I want 'em, themore I hate those that have 'em!
"What's the matter with me, Alf?"
"The same thing that's the matter with me, daughter: hard luck. I'vewanted things so bad that not hevin' 'em has soured me. I've watchedother outfits grow big an' rich an' nothin' like that has ever come myway. The bigger the rest got, the harder 't was for me to get along ...an' the worse I hated 'em!"
There was no iron in his voice; just the whine of a weakling,dispirited to a point where his resentment at ill fortune, even, was apassive thing.
"Why, she's got a fine house to live in, an' I'll bet she always had.She's never knowed what it was to set out a norther in a wagon. She'snever lived on buckskin an' frozen spuds all winter. She's never beenchased from one place to another....
"Folks respect her for what she's got. Why don't folks get respectedfor just what they are?"
There was pathos in that query.
The man answered:
"It ain't what you are that matters, daughter. It's what you own."
"You've always said that, ever since I can remember. Mebby if youhadn't said it so much, Alf, I wouldn't feel like I do."
He shifted his footing uneasily and looked again at the flaring sky.
"Well, it's so," he whined. "You'd have found it out yourself. I'vebrung you up the best I knowed how."
"Oh, Alf! I didn't mean I was finding fault! Damned if you _ain't_brought me up good! Why, you're the only friend I got Alf! What'd I dowithout you? You're the only one I've ever knowed ... real well. You'rethe only one who's ever been good to me!" She put her hands on hisshoulders and looked into his face with a smile of genuine affection."Good old Alf! We've been pals, ain't we?"
He nodded, and said:
"An' if you stick to me a little mite longer, you'll have enough.
"You're brighter'n I be, daughter. You got a longer head. Now's yourchanct to use it!" He looked about, somewhat nervously, as if theymight be overheard. "Sometimes I get afeerd. Lately, since we've comehere, I've been afeerd. It's the only time I ever let anybody else knowwhat my plans was an' it makes me feel creepy to think somebody else_knows!_"
"'Fraid of what, Alf?" she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Gettin' caught again, an'--"
"Oh, but you won't! You can't. Alf, you can't get caught an' sent tojail an' leave me alone again!"
She spoke in a whisper and gripped her fist for emphasis.
"I shore don't want to leave you, daughter. I shore don't want to getcatched. That's where you come in ... helpin' me scheme! I ain't afeerdof havin' 'em come up on me an' git me red-handed so much as I am ofhavin' somebody else know what's goin' on."
"But he sent for us. He told us the outfit was goin' to be owned by atenderfoot. He's as much in danger as we, ain't he?"
Her father nodded slowly.
"You're right ... in a way, but if it ever come to a show-down, I'd bethe one to hold th' bag, wouldn't I? That's what we got to watch outfor. 'Course, it's easy pickin', with this gal tryin' to run thingsherself, an' what with her brand workin' over into ourn so easy, thereain't many chances.... Except havin' somebody else to know."
"If anybody ever was to double cross you, Alf, I'd get 'em if it wasthe last thing I done!"
That threat carried conviction and her father looked at her with a rarebrand of admiration in his eyes.
"Lord, daughter, sometimes I think you was meant to be a man ... an' ahard man! Sometimes you almost scare me, th' way you say things!"
She made no reply and he said:
"All we got to do is go slow. A brandin' iron has built many a fortune,an' nobody ever had it any easier 'n us."
"Do you think we'll ever get rich enough, Alf, to have a regular house?An' be respected by folks?"
"Luck's bound to change sometime," he muttered. "Ours has been bad along time ... a long, long time."
He gathered an arm load of wood and entered the cabin. The girl stoodalone a long time, watching the brilliant flowering of the sky sinkslowly into the west, drawing steely night to cover its garden. A sharpstar bored its way through the failing light and stood half way betweenearth and heaven. A vagrant breeze slid down the creek, bringing withit the breath of sage, and afar off somewhere a cow bawled plaintively.
"She has 'em," she muttered to herself. "Friends ... an' respect ...an' everything I want....
"I wonder what makes me hate folks so...."