The Man of the Forest by Zane Grey (read me like a book txt) 📗

“thet blue mustang will be yours, an' you can ride him—when you're MRS. TOM CARMICHAEL!”

Never had he spoken a softer, more drawling speech, nor gazed at Bo more mildly. Roy seemed thunderstruck. Helen endeavored heroically to restrain her delicious, bursting glee. Bo's wide eyes stared at her lover—darkened—dilated. Suddenly she left the mustang to confront the cowboy where he lounged on the porch steps.

“Do you mean that?” she cried.

“Shore do.”

“Bah! It's only a magnificent bluff,” she retorted. “You're only in fun. It's your—your darned nerve!”

“Why, Bo,” began Las Vegas, reproachfully. “You shore know I'm not the four-flusher kind. Never got away with a bluff in my life! An' I'm jest in daid earnest aboot this heah.”

All the same, signs were not wanting in his mobile face that he was almost unable to restrain his mirth.

Helen realized then that Bo saw through the cowboy—that the ultimatum was only one of his tricks.

“It IS a bluff and I CALL you!” declared Bo, ringingly.

Las Vegas suddenly awoke to consequences. He essayed to speak, but she was so wonderful then, so white and blazing-eyed, that he was stricken mute.

“I'll ride Blue-Bo this afternoon,” deliberately stated the girl.

Las Vegas had wit enough to grasp her meaning, and he seemed about to collapse.

“Very well, you can make me Mrs. Tom Carmichael to-day—this morning—just before dinner.... Go get a preacher to marry us—and make yourself look a more presentable bridegroom—UNLESS IT WAS ONLY A BLUFF!”

Her imperiousness changed as the tremendous portent of her words seemed to make Las Vegas a blank, stone image of a man. With a wild-rose color suffusing her face, she swiftly bent over him, kissed him, and flashed away into the house. Her laugh pealed back, and it thrilled Helen, so deep and strange was it for the wilful sister, so wild and merry and full of joy.

It was then that Roy Beeman recovered from his paralysis, to let out such a roar of mirth as to frighten the horses. Helen was laughing, and crying, too, but laughing mostly. Las Vegas Carmichael was a sight for the gods to behold. Bo's kiss had unclamped what had bound him. The sudden truth, undeniable, insupportable, glorious, made him a madman.

“Bluff—she called me—ride Blue-Bo saf'ternoon!” he raved, reaching wildly for Helen. “Mrs.—Tom—Carmichael—before dinner—preacher—presentable bridegroom!... Aw! I'm drunk again! I—who swore off forever!”

“No, Tom, you're just happy,” said Helen.

Between her and Roy the cowboy was at length persuaded to accept the situation and to see his wonderful opportunity.

“Now—now, Miss Helen—what'd Bo mean by pre—presentable bridegroom?... Presents? Lord, I'm clean busted flat!”

“She meant you must dress up in your best, of course,” replied Helen.

“Where 'n earth will I get a preacher?... Show Down's forty miles.... Can't ride there in time.... Roy, I've gotta have a preacher.... Life or death deal fer me.”

“Wal, old man, if you'll brace up I'll marry you to Bo,” said Roy, with his glad grin.

“Aw!” gasped Las Vegas, as if at the coming of a sudden beautiful hope.

“Tom, I'm a preacher,” replied Roy, now earnestly. “You didn't know thet, but I am. An' I can marry you an' Bo as good as any one, an' tighter 'n most.”

Las Vegas reached for his friend as a drowning man might have reached for solid rock.

“Roy, can you really marry them—with my Bible—and the service of my church?” asked Helen, a happy hope flushing her face.

“Wal, indeed I can. I've married more 'n one couple whose religion wasn't mine.”

“B-b-before—d-d-din-ner!” burst out Las Vegas, like a stuttering idiot.

“I reckon. Come on, now, an' make yourself pre-senttible,” said Roy. “Miss Helen, you tell Bo thet it's all settled.”

He picked up the halter on the blue mustang and turned away toward the corrals. Las Vegas put the bridle of his horse over his arm, and seemed to be following in a trance, with his dazed, rapt face held high.

“Bring Dale,” called Helen, softly after them.

So it came about as naturally as it was wonderful that Bo rode the blue mustang before the afternoon ended.

Las Vegas disobeyed his first orders from Mrs. Tom Carmichael and rode out after her toward the green-rising range. Helen seemed impelled to follow. She did not need to ask Dale the second time. They rode swiftly, but never caught up with Bo and Las Vegas, whose riding resembled their happiness.

Dale read Helen's mind, or else his own thoughts were in harmony with hers, for he always seemed to speak what she was thinking. And as they rode homeward he asked her in his quiet way if they could not spare a few days to visit his old camp.

“And take Bo—and Tom? Oh, of all things I'd like to'” she replied.

“Yes—an' Roy, too,” added Dale, significantly.

“Of course,” said Helen, lightly, as if she had not caught his meaning. But she turned her eyes away, while her heart thumped disgracefully and all her body was aglow. “Will Tom and Bo go?”

“It was Tom who got me to ask you,” replied Dale. “John an' Hal can look after the men while we're gone.”

“Oh—so Tom put it in your head? I guess—maybe—I won't go.”

“It is always in my mind, Nell,” he said, with his slow seriousness. “I'm goin' to work all my life for you. But I'll want to an' need to go back to the woods often.... An' if you ever stoop to marry me—an' make me the richest of men—you'll have to marry me up there where I fell in love with you.”

“Ah! Did Las Vegas Tom Carmichael say that, too?” inquired Helen, softly.

“Nell, do you want to know what Las Vegas said?”

“By all means.”

“He said this—an' not an hour ago. 'Milt, old hoss, let me give you a hunch. I'm a man of family now—an' I've been a devil with the wimmen in my day. I can see through 'em. Don't marry Nell Rayner in or near the house where I killed Beasley. She'd remember. An' don't let her remember thet day. Go off into the woods. Paradise Park! Bo an' me will go with you.”

Helen gave him her hand, while they walked the horses homeward in the long sunset shadows. In the fullness of that happy hour she had time for a grateful wonder at the keen penetration of the cowboy Carmichael. Dale had saved her life, but it was Las Vegas who had saved her happiness.