THE TRAIL OF CONFLICT - EMILIE BAKER LORING (ereader for comics TXT) 📗

"Yes, Steve, but Beechy was out of the hold-up for good when he found that it was government money they were after. He was prepared to take what was coming to him for quitting; he knew mighty well that a man couldn't double-cross Ranlett and--and live, that is, not if the Skunk knew it. He knows now that Denbigh saved him. Beechy isn't bad at heart. He and a lot of others like him are suffering from an acute attack of disillusionment, that's all. They'd been fed up on 'Hail-to-the-conquering-hero' stuff and when the shouting was over and they spent weary months in hospital forgotten by the world at large, and in particular by that female portion of it that had fed them, written to them, married them during the war, do you wonder that they were ready for any deviltry that was afoot? I don't. But you see, in spite of his loud talk, when Beechy came slam up against the proposition of defrauding his government, ungrateful government that he thought it, there was nothing doing. He couldn't get away with it. He'll never be able to do much hard work, but there must be a place for him."

"A place for him! If he ever escapes my clutches again he's more slippery than I think him."

"Go to it, Steve! Even you and I salaam when he speaks in that tone, don't we, Mrs. Jerry?"

The sun had dropped behind the mountains; fields and foot-hills lay luminous and still as Courtlandt drove the roadster past the corral at the Double O. A bunch of horses was being turned into the pastures for the night feed. They nipped, they kicked, they rolled. The riders who were driving them out tolerated their antics patiently, with an occasional admonitory "Hi-yew!" Jerry turned to look after them.

"I wish Peg could have seen that. In this light, in their broad-brimmed hats, their colored neckerchiefs, their gloves, their costumes are picturesque. They would have satisfied even her craving for local color."

Courtlandt drove on to the ranch-house without answering. It had been a silent ride home. Jerry had been tensely apprehensive of what might be coming when they started, but as the man beside her drove steadily with only an occasional inquiry as to her comfort, she had relaxed and allowed her thoughts to drift.

Steve followed her into the living-room. As she opened the door of her boudoir he spoke from where he stood under his mother's portrait.

"Come here, Jerry! Please----" he added with a smile as she hesitated.

"I must dress for dinner. I----"

"There is plenty of time. I want to talk to you. Come here!" As a safe and sane compromise she took refuge behind the back of the wing-chair.

"Well?" she queried defensively.

With startling suddenness he caught her hands and drew her to the hearth beside him.

"That's better! I can't talk to you when you are so far away." His grip on her hands tightened. "Jerry, do you remember that day at the Manor when Uncle Nick's will was read? You----"

"The--the day we decided to make the detour? It--it has proved an adventure, hasn't it?" she interrupted in a breathless attempt to gain time. Courtlandt ignored the question.

"You asked me if I wanted his fortune. Do you also remember my answer?" Then as with downcast cast eyes she nodded assent, he repeated, "'More I ever wanted anything, except one, in my life.' You thought that that one thing was Felice and I--I let you think so. I meant you, Jerry. No, you can't go, you've got to listen now. We've been playing at cross purposes long enough. I wanted Uncle Nick's money because I wanted to be rid of the humiliating load of obligation we Courtlandts had shouldered. I wanted to meet you on equal terms. I loved you the first time I saw you in your shimmering orchid gown with the great fan which you wielded with the air of an empress. Who was I to tell you so? You wouldn't have believed me, you would have despised me as a hypocrite. I had no money, nothing but debts to offer you. But if I hadn't loved you nothing could have forced me, nothing could have tempted me to ask you to marry me. On the way in to meet you that first night, I promised Sir Peter that if in any way you were repellent to me, I would let your father take possession of our property. I--I--well, I had to bluff some to my father going home to cover my bowled-over condition. I don't ask for anything now, I only want a promise that you won't close your heart against me--that you will--oh, what's the use--you must love me!"

The girl looked down upon the head pressed against her hands then up at the tender eyes of the woman above the mantel. Were they misted or were there tears in her own eyes? She choked back a sound that was half laugh, half sob as she observed with tantalizing charm:

"Of course when you say 'must,' O Abdul the Great----" Before she could finish the sentence Steve had her crushed in his arms.

"It's your own fault, Mr. Tommy Benson. I told you that I shouldn't----"

It was Peggy's voice at the door. In breathless haste Jerry freed herself from Courtlandt's arms. He caught her hands and drew her back. His voice was tenderly exultant, his eyes disconcertingly possessive as he reminded huskily:

"About that honeymoon I promised to show you, Mrs. Courtlandt----Can I interest you in a silver mine?"

The two men were in striking contrast. Glamorgan, massive, shrewd-eyed, of big affairs and world interests and Peter Courtlandt patrician, dreamy-eyed, who dwelt largely in the realm of books and art, were smoking on the terrace of the Manor. They could look down the box-bordered paths of the garden to where stone steps led to a small landing on the shore of the river. A tender swung at its moorings. Motor-boats and steam-boats plied busily back and forth on the water which rippled into scales of gold. From a man-o'-war anchored down-stream came the sound of a ship's band. The sun was setting with lavish prodigality of color, spreading great swaths of crimson and gold and violet above the hills. One steady brilliant star shone in the west. From the garden drifted the scent of heliotrope. The light breeze stirred the awning over the terrace, gently lifted the soft rings of white hair on Peter Courtlandt's head, impertinently flicked the sheets of the letter Glamorgan held.

Courtlandt withdrew his eyes from the river and looked at his guest. The large man was smiling broadly, at his thoughts, doubtless, as his eyes were fixed unseeingly on the star. His host suddenly remembered that he had not seen the oil-king smile like that since Jerry and Steve had left the Manor; he had appeared like a man spiritually burdened. Could his furious indignation because his daughter had gone West with her husband have accounted for his gravity? Courtlandt tossed the remains of his cigar over the terrace wall and addressed his companion.

"You said that you had a letter to read to me," he suggested. Glamorgan's eyes flashed to his--was there a hint of tears in them?--the smile on his lips spread and spread until his host was reminded of the moon in all the glory of its fullness. He laughed in sympathy. "It must be amusing, if one judges by your expression." The oil-king indulged in a throaty chuckle; it sounded like the delight of a boy in some satisfactorily accomplished bit of mischief.

"It isn't the letter which is so amusing, though I'll hand it to Peg when it comes to expression that has punch, it is what I can read between the lines. Listen to what she writes and you'll understand." He settled huge horn-rimmed eye-glasses in place and began to read from the letter in his hand.

"DEAR DAD:

"By this time you must have received my letter about the near hold-up, poor Mr. Denbigh, Beechy, Tommy (Benson the Bluffer the outfit call him now) and your she's-a-hero daughter. I penned that throbbing epistle on the morning after our return from Slippy Bend when my mind was a red hot molten mass of thrills. Well, to quote Scripture (don't give me the credit of this, Tommy Benson reeled it off when I expressed amazement at what was happening and I copied it from the Bible), 'There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.' It is that last phrase which has to do with the situation here. When I first came Steve had about as much expression in his face when he looked at Jerry as has that granite civil war veteran in the park at Oil City. Jerry was as bad. They were the nearest to cold-storage newly-weds that I had ever seen. Now--ye gods!--when I look up and see Steve's eyes on Jerry my heart stampedes. I feel as though I had made the unpardonable break of opening a closed door without knocking. Jerry behaves a little better. She keeps her eyes to heel but her voice----

"'The devil hath not in all his quiver's choice an arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.' Tommy Benson again. He is a more liberal education than English 27 at College. I asked him if the lines were Shakespeare or the Bible and he said that a gentleman named Byron wrote them but that I was not to cultivate his acquaintance indiscriminately. I have sent east for all of Mr. Byron's poems. But I digress.

"To return to Steve and Jerry. They start on a camping trip to-morrow, up into the wilderness to inspect some silly old silver mine. Steve has sent Marcelle O'Neil ahead with packhorses, guns, provisions, and rods. Thank heaven they didn't ask me to go. I'm to stay at the Double O with Tommy Benson's mother, who arrived yesterday. She's a stylish-stout of about fifty with wonderful skin and teeth, eyes that make you feel you'd like to drown in them they are so like clear-blue pools; hair like dull gold and a smile--well, I walked straight into her arms when she turned it on me.

"I wrote you that Jerry seemed terribly short of money. You must do something about it. Her Tiffany flame has found an Alexandrite that she wants. When I told her the price, a miserable little two thousand dollars, you would have thought I'd mentioned the amount of the Allied war debt. Why don't you send her the ring?

"From my limited observation (there's been something doing every minute since I set foot on the Double O), I should say that ranching was a great life when the coyotes didn't steal your chickens, when the Shorthorns didn't break away, or when a disgruntled fragment of your outfit didn't shoot up the neighborhood. Jerry says that she and Steve will spend their winters at the Manor after they have been here a year, something