The Bandit of Hell's Bend - Edgar Rice Burroughs (reading tree .txt) 📗

THE stage lurched down the steep and tortuous gradient of Hell’s Bend Pass, bumped through the rutty gap at the bottom and swung onto the left fork just beyond. The right fork was the regular stage route to Hendersville. The left hand road led to town, too, but over Bar Y property and past the home ranch.

The driver never came this way unless he had passengers, express or important messages for the ranch, though the distance was no greater and the road usually in better repair. Today he had a telegram for Diana Henders.

There was a brief pause as he drew up his sweating team in the road before the ranch house, yelled to attract the attention of a ranch-hand working about the corrals, tossed the envelope into the road and then, with a crack of his long whip, was off again at a run, leaving billowing clouds of powdery dust in his wake.

The man working in the corrals walked leisurely into the road, picked up the envelope and, after scrutinizing the superscription and deciphering it laboriously, carried the message to the office, where Diana Henders was working over the books.

“Telegram for ye, Miss,” announced the man, crossing the room to hand it to her.

She thanked him and laid the envelope on the desk beside her as she completed an interrupted footing. The arrival of telegrams was no uncommon occurrence even on that far-away ranch, and as they always pertained to business they caused Diana no flurry of excitement. Buyers often wired, while Uncle John Manill used the comparatively new telegraph facilities upon the slightest pretext.

The footing finally checked to her satisfaction, Diana picked up the envelope, opened it and drew forth the message. At first she glanced at it casually, then she read it over again with knit brows as though unable fully to grasp the purport of its contents. Finally she sat staring at it with wide, strained eyes, until, apparently crushed, she lowered her head upon her arms and broke into sobs, for this is what she had read:

MISS DIANA HENDERS, BAR Y RANCH, HENDERSVILLE. VIA ALDEA, ARIZONA. Mr. Manill died suddenly last night. Miss Manill and I leave for ranch soon as possible after funeral. MAURICE B. CORSON.

For a long time Diana Henders sat with her face buried in her arms. Gradually her sobs subsided as she gained control of herself. Stunning though the effect of this new blow was, yet she grasped enough of what it meant to her to be ,almost crushed by it. Though she had not seen her Uncle John Manill since childhood, he had, nevertheless, constituted a very real and potent force in her existence. Her mother had adored him, her only brother, and Elias Henders had never ceased to proclaim him as the finest type of honorable gentleman that nature might produce. His eastern connections, his reputation for integrity and his fine business acumen had all been potent factors in the success of the Henders and Manill partnership.

With the death of her father the girl had felt keenly only her personal loss-for Uncle John Manill loomed as a Rock of Gibraltar to protect her in all matters of business; but now she was absolutely alone.

There was no one to whom she might turn for counsel or advice now that these two were gone. Hal Colby, she realized keenly, was at best only a good cowman-in matters requiring executive ability or large financial experience he was untried.

Of Corson, Manill’s attorney, she knew nothing, but she was reasonably sure that even though he proved honest and possessed of an excellent understanding of matters pertaining to the eastern office, he would not be competent to direct the affairs of ranch and mine at the sources of production.

That she might have carried on herself under the guidance of John Manill she had never doubted, since she could always have turned to him for advice in matters of moment where she was doubtful of her own judgment; but without him she questioned her ability to direct the destinies of this great business with all its numerous ramifications.

Suddenly she arose and replaced the books in the office safe, dabbed at her tear-dimmed eyes with her handkerchief and, putting on her sombrero, walked from-the office, adjusting her wavy hair beneath the stiff band of her heavy hat. Straight toward the corrals she made her way. She would saddle Captain and ride out into the sunshine and the fresh air where, of all other places, she knew she might find surcease of sorrow and an opportunity to think out her problems more clearly. As she entered the corral Hal Colby came running up from the bunkhouse. He had seen her pass and followed her.

“Ridin’, Di?” he asked.

She nodded affirmatively. She was not sure that she wanted company-not even that of Hal Colby-today when she desired to be alone with her grief.

“You weren’t goin’ alone, were you? You know it ain’t safe, Di. Your dad wouldn’t have let you an’ I certainly won’t.”

She made no reply. She knew that he was right. It was not safe for her to ride alone, but today she felt that she did not care what happened to her. Fate had been cruel-there was little more that it could do to harm her.

In a way she half resented Hal’s new air of proprietorship, and yet there was something about it that carried a suggestion of relief from responsibility. Here there was at least someone who cared-someone upon whose broad shoulders she might shift a portion of her burden, and so she did not follow her first impulse to send him back.

Together they rode from the corral, turning down the road toward town and neither spoke for several minutes, after the manner of people accustomed to being much together in the saddle. The man, as was usual with him when they rode, watched her profile as a lover of art might gloat over a beautiful portrait, and as he looked at her he realized the change that had come over her face and noted the reddened lids.

“What’s the matter, Di?” he asked presently. “You look like you’d been cryin’. What’s happened?”

“I just got a telegram from New York, Hal,” she replied. “Uncle John is dead-he died night before last. The stage just brought the message in from Aldea.”

“Shucks,” he said, at a loss for the proper words, and then, “that’s shore too bad, Di.”

“It leaves me all alone, now, Hal,” she continued, “and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“You ain’t all alone, Di. There ain’t anything I wouldn’t do for you. You know I love you, Di. Won’t you marry me? It would make it easier all around for you if we was married. There’s them that’s always tryin’ to take advantage of a girl or a woman what’s left alone, but if you got a husband you got someone to look out for you an’ your rights. I got a little money saved up.”

“I have plenty of money, Hal.”

“I know it. I wish you didn’t have none. It makes me feel like you thought that was what I was after, but it ain’t. Won’t you, Di? Together we could run the ranch just like your dad was here.”

“I don’t know, Hal. I don’t know what to do. I think I love you, but I don’t know. I don’t even know that I know what love is.”

“You’d learn to love me,” he told her, “and you wouldn’t have to worry no more. I’d look after everything. Say yes, won’t you?”

The temptation was great-greater even than the man himself realized-to have a place to lay her tired head, to have a strong man to carry the burden and the responsibilities for her, to have the arm of love about her as it had been all her life until her father had been taken away. She looked up at him with a faint smile.

“I won’t say yes-yet,” she said. “Wait a while, Hal-wait until after Mr. Corson and my cousin come and we see how things are going to turn out, and then-then I think that