CHAPTER 13. THE TWO COUSINS
The sheepman lay at his ease, the strong supple lines of him stretchedlazily on the lounge. Helen was sitting beside him in an easy chair, andhe watched the play of her face in the lamplight as she read from "TheLittle White Bird." She was very good to see, so vitally alive and fullof a sweet charm that half revealed and half concealed her personality.The imagination with which she threw herself into a discussion of thechild fancies portrayed by the Scotch writer captured his fancy. Itdelighted him to tempt her into discussions that told him by suggestionsomething of what she thought and was.
They were in animated debate when the door opened to admit somebodyelse. He had stepped in so quietly that he stood there a little whilewithout being observed, smiling down at them with triumphant malicebehind the mask he wore. Perhaps it was the black visor that wasresponsible for the Mephisto effect, since it hid all the face but theleering eyes. These, narrowed to slits, swept the room and came back toits occupants. He was a tall man and well-knit, dressed incongruously inup-to-date riding breeches and boots, in combination with the usual grayshirt, knotted kerchief and wide-brimmed felt hat of the horseman of theplains. The dust of the desert lay thick on him, without in the leastobscuring a certain ribald elegance, a distinction of wickednessthat rested upon him as his due. To this result his debonair mannercontributed, though it carried with it no suggestion of weakness. To thegirl who looked up and found him there he looked indescribably sinister.
She half rose to her feet, dilated eyes fixed on him.
"Good evenin'. I came to make sure y'u got safe home, Miss Messiter," hesaid.
The eyes of the two men clashed, the sheepman's stern and unyielding,his cousin's lit with the devil of triumph. But out of the faces of bothmen looked the inevitable conflict, the declaration of war that neverends till death.
"I've been a heap anxious about y'u--couldn't sleep for worrying. So Isaddled up and rode in to find out if y'u were all right and to inquirehow Cousin Ned was getting along."
The sheepman, not deigning to move an inch from his position, looked insilence his steady contempt.
"This conversation sounds a whole lot like a monologue up to date," hecontinued. "Now, maybe y'u don't know y'u have the honor of entertainingthe King of the Bighorn." The man's brown hand brushed the mask from hiseyes and he bowed with mocking deference. "Miss Messiter, allow me tointroduce myself again--Ned Bannister, train robber, rustler, kidnapperand general bad man. But I ain't told y'u the worst yet. I'm cousin to asheepherder' and that's the lowest thing that walks."
He limped forward a few steps and sat down. "Thank you, I believe I willstay a while since y'u both ask me so urgent. It isn't often I meet witha welcome so hearty and straight from the heart."
It was not hard to see how the likeness between them contributed tothe mistake that had been current concerning them. Side by side, noman could have mistaken one for the other. The color of their eyes,the shade of hair, even the cut of their features, were different. Butbeneath all distinctions in detail ran a family resemblance not to bedenied. This man looked like his cousin, the sheepman, as the lattermight have done if all his life he had given a free rein to evilpassions.
The height, the build, the elastic tread of each, made furthercontributions to this effect of similarity.
"What are you doing here?" They were the first words spoken by the manon the lounge and they rang with a curt challenge.
"Come to inquire after the health of my dear cousin," came the promptsilken answer.
"You villain!"
"My dear cousin, y'u speak with such conviction that y'u almost persuademe. But of course if I'm a villain I've got to live up to my reputation.Haven't I, Miss Messiter?"
"Wouldn't it be better to live it down?" she asked with a quietnessthat belied her terror. For there had been in his manner a threat,not against her but against the man whom her heart acknowledged as herlover.
He laughed. "Y'u're still hoping to make a Sunday school superintendentout of me, I see. Y'u haven't forgot all your schoolmarm ways yet, butI'll teach y'u to forget them."
The other cousin watched him with a cool, quiet glance that neverwavered. The outlaw was heavily armed, but his weapons were sheathed,and, though there was a wary glitter behind the vindictive exultationin his eyes, his capable hands betrayed no knowledge of the existence ofhis revolvers. It was, he knew, to be a moral victory, if one at all.
"Hope I'm not disturbing any happy family circle," he remarked, and,taking two limping steps forward, he lifted the book from the girl'sunresisting hands. "H'm! Barrie. I don't go much on him. He's toosissy for me. But I could have guessed the other Ned Bannister wouldbe reading something like that," he concluded, a flicker of sneeringcontempt crossing his face.
"Perhaps y'u'll learn some time to attend to your own business," saidthe man on the couch quietly.
Hatred gleamed in the narrowed slits from which the soul of the othercousin looked down at him. "I'm a philanthropist, and my business isattending to other people's. They raise sheep, for instance, and Imarket them."
The girl hastily interrupted. She had not feared for herself, but sheknew fear for the indomitable man she had nursed back to life. "Won'tyou sit down, Mr. Bannister? Since you don't approve our literature,perhaps we can find some other diversion more to your taste." She smiledfaintly.
The man turned in smiling divination of her purpose, and sat down toplay with her as a cat does with a mouse.
"Thank y'u, Miss Messiter, I believe I will. I called to thank y'u foryour kindness to my cousin as well as to inquire about you. The wordgoes that y'u pulled my dear cousin back when death was reaching mightystrong for him. Of course I feel grateful to y'u. How is he gettingalong now?"
"He's doing very well, I think."
"That's ce'tainly good hearing," was his ironical response. "How come heto get hurt, did y'u say?"
His sleek smile was a thing hateful to see.
"A hound bit me," explained the sheepman.
"Y'u don't say! I reckon y'u oughtn't to have got in its way. Did y'ukill it?"
"Not yet."
"That was surely a mistake, for it's liable to bite again."
The girl felt a sudden sickness at his honeyed cruelty, but immediatelypulled herself together. For whatever fiendish intention might be in hismind she meant to frustrate it.
"I hear you are of a musical turn, Mr. Bannister. Won't you play forus?"
She had by chance found his weak spot. Instantly his eyes lit up. Hestepped across to the piano and began to look over the music, though notso intently that he forgot to keep under his eye the man on the lounge.
"H'm! Mozart, Grieg, Chopin, Raff, Beethoven. Y'u ce'tainly have themusic here; I wonder if y'u have the musician." He looked her over witha bold, unscrupulous gaze. "It's an old trick to have classical music onthe rack and ragtime in your soul. Can y'u play these?"
"You will have to be the judge of that," she said.
He selected two of Grieg's songs and invited her to the piano. He knewinstantly that the Norwegian's delicate fancy and lyrical feeling hadfound in her no inadequate medium of expression. The peculiar emotionalquality of the song "I Love Thee" seemed to fill the room as she played.When she swung round on the stool at its conclusion it was to meet ashining-eyed, musical enthusiast instead of the villain she had leftfive minutes earlier.
"Y'u CAN play," was all he said, but the manner of it spoke volumes.
For nearly an hour he kept her at the piano, and when at last he let herstop playing he seemed a man transformed.
"You have given me a great pleasure, a very great pleasure, MissMessiter," he thanked her warmly, his Western idiom sloughed with hisvillainy for the moment. "It has been a good many months since I haveheard any decent music. With your permission I shall come again."
Her hesitation was imperceptible. "Surely, if you wish." She felt itwould be worse than idle to deny the permission she might not be able torefuse.
With perfect grace
he bowed, and as he wheeled away met with a littleshock of remembrance the gaze of his cousin. For a long moment theireyes bored into each other. Neither yielded the beat of an eyelid, butit was the outlaw that spoke.
"I had forgotten y'u. That's strange, too because it was for y'u I came.I'm going to take y'u home with me.
"Alive or dead?" asked the other serenely.
"Alive, dear Ned."
"Same old traits cropping out again. There was always something felineabout y'u. I remember when y'u were a boy y'u liked to torment wildanimals y'u had trapped."
"I play with larger game now--and find it more interesting."
"Just so. Miss Messiter, I shall have to borrow a pony from y'u,unless--" He broke off and turned indifferently to the bandit.
"Yes, I brought a hawss along with me for y'u," replied the other to theunvoiced question. "I thought maybe y'u might want to ride with us."
"But he can't ride. He couldn't possibly. It would kill him," the girlbroke out.
"I reckon not." The man from the Shoshones glanced at his victim as hedrew on his gauntlets. "He's a heap tougher than y'u think."
"But it will. If he should ride now, why--It would be the same asmurder," she gasped. "You wouldn't make him ride now?"
"Didn't y'u hear him order his hawss, ma'am? He's keen on this ride.Of course he don't have to go unless he wants to." The man turned hisvillainous smile on his cousin, and the latter interpreted it to meanthat if he preferred, the point of attack might be shifted to the girl.He might go or he might stay. But if he stayed the mistress of the LazyD would have to pay for his decision.
"No, I'll ride," he said at once.
Helen Messiter had missed the meaning of that Marconied message thatflashed between them. She set her jaw with decision. "Well, you'll not.It's perfectly ridiculous. I won't hear of such a thing."
"Y'u seem right welcome. Hadn't y'u better stay, Ned?" murmured theoutlaw, with smiling eyes that mocked.
"Of course he had. He couldn't ride a mile--not half a mile. The idea isutterly preposterous."
The sheepman got to his feet unsteadily. "I'll do famously."
"I won't have it. Why are you so foolish about going? He said you didn'tneed to go. You can't ride any more than a baby could chop down thatpine in the yard."
"I'm a heap stronger than y'u think."
"Yes, you are!" she derided. "It's nothing but obstinacy. Make himstay," she appealed to the outlaw.
"Am I my cousin's keeper?" he drawled. "I can advise him to stay, but Ican't make him."
"Well, I can. I'm his nurse, and I say he sha'n't stir a foot out ofthis house--not a foot."
The wounded man smiled quietly, admiring the splendid energy of her."I'm right sorry to leave y'u so unceremoniously."
"You're not going." She wheeled on the outlaw "I don't understand thisat all. But if you want him you can find him here when you come again.Put him on parole and leave him here. I'll not be a party to murder byletting him go."
"Y'u think I'm going to murder him?" he smiled.
"I think he cannot stand the riding. It would kill him."
"A haidstrong man is bound to have his way. He seems hell-bent onriding. All the docs say the outside of a hawss is good for the insideof a man. Mebbe it'll be the making of him."
"I won't have it. I'll rouse the whole countryside against you. Whydon't you parole him till he is better?"
"All right. We'll leave it that way," announced the man. "I'd hate tohurt your tender feelings after such a pleasant evening. Let him givehis parole to come to me whenever I send for him, no matter where hemay be, to quit whatever he is doing right that instant, and come on thejump. If he wants to leave it that way, we'll call it a bargain."
Again the rapier-thrust of their eyes crossed. The sheepman wassatisfied with what he saw in the face of his foe.
"All right. It's a deal," he agreed, and sank weakly back to the couch.
There are men whose looks are a profanation to any good woman. NedBannister, of the Shoshones, was one of them. He looked at his cousin,and his ribald eyes coasted back to bold scrutiny of this young woman'scharming, buoyant youth. There was Something in his face that sent aflush of shame coursing through her rich blood. No man had ever lookedat her like that before.
"Take awful good care of him," he sneered, with so plain an implicationof evil that her clean blood boiled. "But I know y'u will, and don't lethim go before he's real strong."
"No," she murmured, hating herself for the flush that bathed her.
He bowed like a Chesterfield, and went out with elastic heels, spursclicking.
Helen turned fiercely on her guest. "Why did you make me insist onyour staying? As if I want you here, as if--" She stopped, choking withanger; presently flamed out, "I hate you," and ran from the room to hideherself alone with her tears and her shame.
Wyoming: A Story of the Outdoor West Page 12