WHEREIN AN OLD LOVE AWAKENS, PELL REVEALS HIS TRUE COLORS, A MORTGAGE IS ABOUT TO BE FORECLOSED, THE CONTENTS OF A SATCHEL ARE MADE KNOWN, UNCLE HENRY SPRINGS A SENSATION, AND PELL TAKES AN OPTION
Lucia's eyes were following Uncle Henry's heaving chair; for the yard was full of little stones, and the invalid bumped along, not always able to keep on a smooth track. She smiled as she watched him.
"What was he talking about?" Gilbert asked, kneeling on the floor, and folding one rug that had slipped away.
"Oh, nothing," Lucia Pell answered. "You know how old people babble on sometimes about nothing." She turned and looked at him. Still the same handsome Gilbert! "What are you doing?"
"Nothing. You know how young people go on doing nothing. I'm just rolling up these rugs and blankets. I'm going to send them away."
Lucia saw the beautiful pattern of one Navajo as Gilbert held it, unfolded, from the floor. She came over to him.
"You're sending them away—when they're so exquisite?" she asked. "This flaming one—" she picked it up and draped it around her. "Why, it's like the sunset. And you do have such beautiful sunsets here, Gil."
"I got them up especially, in honor of your visit," Jones said; and then he remembered how many times a remark like that must have been made, by many a lover, as if it were quite original, as if no one had ever thought of it before!
But Lucia took him seriously, dropped the wonderful blanket and went over to the door again. "I never grow tired of this view, Gil. It's almost as if God were an artist and had spilt the colors from His palette. And yet not that, quite. The colors are more like jewels. The morning's opals; the noon's pearls; the evening wears rubies in her hair. There's a sort of beauty that makes one ache. It seems to me sometimes as if I couldn't stand it—just the way the Grand Canyon got hold of me. Doesn't it affect you that way—you who have so much poetry in you?"
"Indeed it does, Lucia. I've often watched that sky until I've forgotten all about my cattle—both of them!" He laughed, and reached for the twine. He was always turning their serious moments into a jest. As long as she had been here with her husband, he kept at a distance.
Lucia saw his hand go out. "The string?" she said. "I'll get it." She left the door, and handed him the twine which he had put on the table.
"Thank you," said Gilbert. "Do you mind putting your finger—there? Never mind. I think I can do it, after all."
"Oh, do let me help you," she said. "I'd like to." And she leaned down, knelt beside him, and held her white forefinger on the cord.
How it happened, neither of them ever knew. But a sudden electric thrill ran through their veins. Something hammered in their brains. For a brief instant, their hearts beat as though the whole world must hear. He had touched her finger, and, before he was aware of it, he had dared to lean over and kiss it. Not a word was said—there was no time for words. They did not need speech to understand. It was the old, but ever new experience of the ages: two who loved each other had found out in the twinkling of an eye—and she belonged to another. There was a moment of terrible silence. Then,
"I'm sorry," was all Gilbert could get out.
"But you touched my hand many a time, in the old days," Lucia said.
"That was different. You're married now. Oh, there is a vast change since then. I could not—Forgive me, my dear." He turned away his face. He did not want her to read what was in his eyes. "Shall I send them, or would you rather take them with you?" he asked, hiding behind that commonplace question the emotion he felt. His voice held a note of pain.
Lucia rose. "You mean you want to give these wonderful rugs and blankets to me?—these priceless things."
"More than that. I want you to have them—to remind you—sometimes of—" He broke off, like a frightened lad.
"As though I should ever need reminding! How dull you men can be! But I don't want to take them from you, Gil."
"I'm giving up this ranch," he told her, "I shan't want them any more. Please take them, for my sake." He made a gesture, as though they were the last of his poor possessions.
"I thought you loved it here?" she said.
"I do—in a way."
"Then why are you giving it up?" was the natural question.
He hesitated, not knowing what to answer. "I thought I'd try something else for awhile. I hate to have to tell you this, Lucia; but the fact is, I—I've got to leave to-day. I was going to tell you before, only I was hoping that something might turn up at the last minute, and—well, it hasn't. That's all."
There was nothing she could say; and they stood looking at each other in silence—a silence that was far more eloquent than speech. Gilbert went over and sat on the case, and Lucia finally said:
"Then we won't see each other again?"
He nodded, sorrowfully. Lucia Pell went over to the door and looked out once more. He watched her, covertly—her every gesture held a new meaning for him now. The silence continued. At length she turned back and faced him. He could not stand it, and bent quickly over the rugs and blankets.
"I don't know what to say, Gil." She moved closer to him. "I've had a wonderful time—you know that. I want to thank you for it. You've been awfully kind to us."
"Having you here is all the thanks I want," he answered. He had everything snugly packed now.
"I'm glad we happened to meet again. Though it does seem strange, doesn't it, that we should run across each other after all these years!"
He stood up straight. "All these years! You talk as if you were a hundred!" And he tried to smile.
"I am—nearly," she laughed. "I'm twenty-four, you know."
"Really? It doesn't seem possible!"
"I was eighteen when you went away. And that's nearly six years ago. Time flies, doesn't it?" She smiled at her bromidic remark, and sat down; but he did not reply, "Gil," she said at last. He looked up. "Why didn't you come to see me before I went away?"
"I don't know. I suppose—"
"You went away from Maine without my knowing—without even coming to say good-bye. Was that fair, was that the thing for a man like you to do?"
How he wished she had not brought up these burning memories!
"I was broke, and I—" he managed to explain.
Lucia knew what he must be feeling now. She got up and went over to his side; she did not dare place her hand in his. Never must there be again that electric current between them. "But you're all right now, aren't you, Gil?"
He seemed abstracted, suddenly lost in another world. "Huh?" he uttered. Then, as if coming to himself, "Oh, my, yes! I'm doing splendidly now, Lucia!"
"I'm so glad, Gil. But you haven't answered my question yet."
"About my not coming to say good-bye?"
She nodded.
"It was pride, I suppose," he went on.
"Very foolish pride. And life is so short. You hurt me a great deal."
"I'm sorry. What more can one say? If I—"
"I thought I had done something to offend you," she said, standing very still, and looking far beyond him now, as though viewing their whole unhappy past. "And it's worried me even until this very day. I didn't do anything to offend you, did I, Gil?"
"You? You, Lucia?" he cried. "You couldn't do anything to offend me. Surely you must know that." He said it as a man says such things to the one woman he loves.
"It was only pride?" she was anxious to know again. "Because you were poor! Gil! Did you think so little of me as that?" There was a half-sob in her voice.
"I hoped to pick a fortune off a tree somewhere, and come back and surprise you with it. I was going to buy an automobile—one of those low ones as long as a Pullman car—and fill it with roses, and come dashing up to your front door and take you for a ride through the hills. It was to be autumn. I had even that fixed," he laughed. "Oh, I had everything thought out! And you were going to be so proud of me!... But I couldn't find a fortune-tree anywhere...." He looked away, embarrassed. He hadn't meant to tell her this.
"Gil!" she cried.
"I guess they don't grow any more. At least, not in this part of the country." He rose, a bit wearily, and walked over to the mantel-piece.
"What did you do, Gil?" she asked, her eyes following him.
"Well, I was a time-keeper on a railroad and weigh-boss in a coal mine. After that I punched cows until I got uncle to come here. Then the war started, and—that's all."
Then she asked what a woman always asks.
"Why didn't you ever write to me, Gil?"
"I was waiting for some good news to tell you. I felt you would consider me a failure—a rank failure. I couldn't have stood that. Women don't know how proud men are about that."
"Maybe we don't—and maybe we do, Gil." She went closer to him. "Why don't you marry?" she dared to inquire.
He was startled. "Marry?" he repeated.
"Yes; you need someone to take care of you—someone to look after your daily needs—every man does."
"I guess there's no doubt about that. But it ought to be a guardian in my case; or maybe a keeper." She could see that he was stalling for time, and trying to laugh off a topic that was serious indeed to him.
"We're such old friends, Gil," she said, looking at his handsome face. "I don't like to go—to think of you always, like this—alone."
"I still have uncle," he reminded her.
"Oh, don't joke, Gil! You need a woman—a wife—someone to mother you."
"All those?"
Why couldn't he be serious for a moment? She asked him that.
"I don't dare to, Lucia." His voice was low.
She was a bit puzzled. "Why?"
"Because the minute you begin to take life seriously, it takes you that way, and then—"
"But don't you see what it would mean to you, dear Gil? To have someone always here; to kiss you when you go; to greet you when you come back; to laugh with you when you are glad; and comfort you when things go wrong. To give you the sympathy, the understanding that a man finds only in a woman's heart. Don't you see, Gil?"
"Yes, of course I see," he said, his head bowed a little.
"Then why don't you, Gil? She'd make you very happy—a woman like that. I want you to understand."
"Don't you suppose I do? Don't you suppose I've always understood, ever since—"
"Ever since when, Gil? Then you have known such a woman?"
He moved his head.
"You have!... And you cared for her?"
He nodded again.
"You loved her?" she hurried on.
His voice was hoarse. "Yes." The monosyllable got out somehow.
"You still love her. I know it, I can see it. Who is she, Gil? I want to know."
"Don't you know?" he asked, and looked her straight in the eyes.
Before she could answer, there were footsteps outside, and Pell could be heard whistling. He rushed in now, the bag still clutched in his hand. At once he sensed something strange in their attitude, and he eyed both of them shrewdly, covertly, briefly. Not a word was uttered. He threw the bag on the table, as though he had noticed nothing, and in the most matter-of-fact tone said,
"Say, how about dinner?"
"It isn't ready yet," Gilbert informed him. Lucia took advantage of her husband's question to move over toward the door.
"Why, good God, man, it's nearly three o'clock! We're not on a hunger strike, are we?" And he laughed at his own dull witticism.
"I'll see about it now," Jones promised.
"Haven't got a drink, have you, while we're waiting? Not that I need an appetizer! And it's damned hot, I know, to guzzle whiskey."
"There's nothing good in the place. But I think the cook has some tequila."
"Tequila? What's that, Jones?"
"It's a Mexican drink."
"Has it got a kick in it?" the other wanted to know.
"I never heard anybody complain," Gilbert smiled. "After two or three of 'em, I never saw anybody able to complain!"
He started toward the kitchen.
"What does it taste like?" said Pell, detaining him.
"Oh, sort of like gasoline with bichloride of mercury in it," Jones answered his eager questioner.
"No wood alcohol?" suspiciously. Pell was always looking out for himself.
"Oh, it's safe enough, I assure you. Would you like to try some of it?" Gilbert suggested.
Pell thought a moment—but only a moment. "I'll try anything once, and anything to drink more than once—if I'm alive the second time."
His host smiled. "I'll get you some if there's any left," and went to the kitchen to see. He couldn't help wondering why a man like Morgan Pell, with so many responsibilities, should wish to drink tequila.
Left alone, there was that strange silence between Lucia and her husband which so often occurred nowadays. A barrier was between them, none the less real because it was invisible. She knew his moods so well, and she dreaded the things he might say, all his inhibitions gone, if he drank any of this deadly Mexican stuff. She would have halted Gilbert had she dared; but she knew that any such action on her part would have aroused Pell the more, inflamed him to anger; and, like most women of fine breeding, she dreaded a scene more than anything in the world. All that she said now was merely,
"I wish you wouldn't do that."
"Do what?" Pell asked, jerking out the two words in a high staccato. He hated to be questioned, particularly by his wife. His hands reached for the satchel he had brought in.
"Order a man around in his own house."
"And why not, I'd like to know?" Pell inquired. "Who's he, anyhow, and what difference does it make?"
Lucia remained perfectly calm. "Well, if you can't see, of course—"
"There's no use your trying to tell me. Is that what you were going to say?" His face showed his rage.
She did not answer. That infuriated him all the more.
"I see what you mean! But I don't agree," Pell pursued. "This Jones person is nothing in my life. And why I should be deprived of my liquor and forced to eat burnt beans three times a day, I can't see." He emitted a sound that might have been designated a laugh.
"But—while we—" Lucia started to argue, and then thought better of it.
"Why doesn't he set his liquor out and see that the meals are right, himself? Then there wouldn't be any need of my saying anything." His tone was brutally frank. He really disliked Jones, and would be glad when they could get back to New York. There was nothing here worth his consideration. Sturgis had been stupid to think so.
"But when we are enjoying his hospitality—"
"Enjoying? Ha! Suffering, I guess you mean!" And Pell's head went back and he gave out a guffaw.
Lucia waited for his false mirth to vanish. Then, "But you seemed very anxious to come here."
"Yes; because I thought he lived in a house, not a—"
The sentence was not completed; for Gilbert came back with a bottle of the deadly tequila in his hand.
"I'm terribly sorry," he apologized, "to have to tell you that dinner will be late."
"You mean later, don't you?" Pell edited the remark.
Gilbert handed him the bottle. "Maybe this will atone for the postponed banquet," he smiled. He got the water-bottle hanging on the peg by the fireplace, and brought that to Pell also. He tried to be as gracious as he could to anyone under his roof.
Pell took a swig out of the bottle—a long one. "Good God!" he exclaimed, his face almost purple, his brow puckered like a dwarf's.
"What's the matter?" Gilbert said. And he handed him the water-bottle.
"It's poison!" Pell cried. And as if he really believed it, and as though water were an antidote, he grabbed the water-bottle and drank from it swiftly and loudly. It was horrible the way he guzzled the liquid down. An animal would have done better.
"The Mexicans like their liquor strong," young Jones explained. "That's what's the matter with the cook."
Lucia was puzzled. "What do you mean?" she asked.
"Simply that he's been imbibing again. That's why dinner is so late. But we're getting used to it. There is nothing to do but stand it."
"Drunk?" Pell asked.
"Quite," answered Gilbert.
"Well, I don't know as you can blame him," Pell excused. "I'd be drunk too if I had to live here. What are you going to do about it?" He hung the water-bottle in its place on the peg.
"Red's trying to sober him up," Gilbert said.
They had had enough of the cook, Pell decided within himself. Dinner was inevitably late, and that was all there was about it. So he changed the subject abruptly.
"This ranch belongs to you, doesn't it?" he put the question direct to Jones.
"What's that?"
"I asked you," went on Pell, a little disconcerted at having to repeat his question, "if you own this ranch."
"I—er—yes. Why?" Gilbert said.
Pell was quick to notice the other's discomfiture. "I have a friend who thinks he wants to go into the cattle business. He asked me to look him up a place. It's his own money, of course."
"Then I'd advise him not to buy here," said Gilbert, much to Pell's amazement.
"Why?"
"It's too near the border," Jones answered. "The bandits come over and steal all your cattle. It's a rotten situation. I'm sorry I ever came down here."
"That makes it all the better," Pell was shrewd enough to say. "Then he'd lose his money quick, and be satisfied." And he laughed at what he thought a witticism.
Uncle Henry's wheel chair crossed the sill at that moment. His face was full of news. "Hardy's coming!" he informed those in the room.
"A man to see me on a matter of business," Gilbert remembered. "Will you excuse me?" He turned to Pell.
"But I want to talk to you myself," the latter reminded him.
But young Jones had gone to the door. "I'm sorry. This is imperative, and I must see him." He turned definitely as if to go.
"But I was here first," Morgan Pell argued. He hated to be beaten by this stripling.
"I regret that I must insist," Gilbert said. And there was a duel of eyes, as well as of wits, before Jones turned away, easily the victor. After all, it was his own house, his own ranch. His visitor was wise enough to realize that. He walked over to the table and took the tequila bottle up again. "I'll have another drink, if you don't mind," he said, to Gilbert's back.
"Drink?" yelled Uncle Henry from his chair, frantic at the thought of any more of their precious liquor being consumed. It was hard enough to get, even when one had plenty of money.
"Help yourself," said Gilbert, not a little ashamed of the protest in Uncle Henry's voice.
"While I'm waiting," Pell laughed; and, taking the bottle, he went out.
Uncle Henry could scarcely control himself. He switched his chair in his nephew's direction. "Say," he wanted to know, "have you been holding out on me?"
"It's only tequila," Gilbert tried to pacify him.
"I don't care if it's only varnish!" cried Uncle Henry, his voice rising high and shrill. "And you let him go and take the whole bottle!" He pounded the arm of his chair, always his last resort.
Gilbert paid no attention to him. He went over to the table, as though he hadn't said a word, and began looking for a letter in one of the drawers. Almost immediately he laid his hand on it, and, turning to Lucia, said:
"If you'll excuse me?"
"Certainly. I must go and pack anyway." And she started toward the steps that led upstairs.
Gilbert went through the alcove; and no sooner had his broad shoulders disappeared than Uncle Henry turned to Lucia Pell and cried:
"Hey! Wait a minute."
Lucia was astonished. She had one foot on the step, and she turned about to see if Uncle Henry was actually addressing her. There was, obviously, no one else to address; but she thought the cook must have come in when her back was turned. She glared at the invalid, and said nothing.
"Did you ask him?" Uncle Henry went on, paying not the slightest heed to her surprised glance.
"Ask who what?" Lucia asked. She was not a little interested now. She came back into the room.
"Ask him about marryin'—you know. I gotter find out because Hardy's comin'." No speech could have been plainer and balder. "Did you?"
Lucia was nonplussed at the old man's crude directness. "Yes—I mean no. I don't remember."
"Don't remember!" Uncle Henry yelled. "But that's what I left you here for! We had it all framed up! Why didn't you?"
Lucia's head drooped a bit. "We were talking about something else."
The crabbed man was inflamed by this reply. "What was you talkin' about that was so gol darned important that you forgot the only important thing there was to talk about?... Well?" he cried, when she said nothing. "By gollies! I remember now! You was the gal he wouldn't ask to marry him because he didn't have no money!" He did not notice that his nephew had come back from the other room just in time to hear this last remark. He went on relentlessly to Lucia: "And me like a poor boob forgettin' all about it until now!" He suddenly saw Gilbert, and, not a whit abashed, turned on him. "So that's why you won't marry Hardy's daughter! I see it all now! I've been as blind as a hoot-owl!"
There came the sound of a Ford stopping outside, and footsteps approached up the path that led to the adobe.
"It's all right, Lucia," Gilbert said, and she went upstairs, almost weeping. Then he whirled about and glared at his uncle. "It's a good thing—no, I don't know what I'm saying. You're an invalid, or I'd strike you, despite your years, Uncle Henry. For heaven's sake, can't you learn to mind your own business?"
"I ain't got any. You robbed me of it!" the old man flamed back. "Now I'll mind yours for a change. Make a monkey out o' me, will you, gol darn you!"
As he was starting for the door, he bumped directly into Jasper Hardy and his daughter Angela and the ubiquitous "Red." The trio had come over in the Ford.
Hardy, tall and thin, wore a funereal black coat, despite the heat, and a somber dark Stetson hat. He must have been fifty or more. His skin looked bloodless, and his eyes still had that hard, pale look. It was difficult to trust eyes like those. He ambled, rather than walked, and his lean, lanky legs would have made him a fortune on the stage. It was difficult to believe, as everyone always said, that the lovely little Angela, with her bright black eyes and her rose-red cheeks, was the daughter of this sinister man. She was as attractive as a rose;—a typical frontier maiden, romantic, emotional, peppery when occasion demanded—just the kind to take the fancy of an honest soul like "Red." His eyes followed her wherever she went, as ever. She could not sit down or stand up or open her delicate lips but that he stared at her, hoping he could be of some service to her. Sometimes he prayed that some slight accident would befall her in order that he might prove his devotion. If she would only be sent to jail, that he could bring her soup and pass it through the bars of her cell! He dreamed this once, and awakened in a cold perspiration; for Angela (in the dream) realized his worth then; and the Governor pardoned her, and they were married at once and lived happily ever afterward. A Freudian lapse, maybe, and a dream a little too sane, according to the psychologists, to mean anything much; but rich in hidden meanings for poor "Red." Oh, that it would come true! She had been so kind and sweet to him this morning.
Hardy ambled into the room, and looked around in the most casual way. His eye lit upon Uncle Henry first of all, naturally; for he had all but bumped into him.
"How are you, Smith?" he said. "Evenin'."
And Angela piped up, to both uncle and nephew: "Good evening."
Gilbert bowed. "How do you do? Won't you sit down?" And he pulled out a chair for Angela.
"No, thanks," Hardy said; but
"Yes, thanks!" his daughter decided, and popped into a seat. "Red" loved her for it.
Hardy turned to young Jones. "Well?" was all he said. He referred to his state of health—not that he cared how Gilbert felt.
"Anything but," the latter answered.
Jasper Hardy always went right to the point. He disliked equivocation; so he rasped out immediately:
"Have you got the money?"
"No."
Angela, who was tender-hearted, tried to intercede.
"Now, father!" she pleaded. She hated this business.
But Hardy paid not the slightest heed to her. He was a man of action, and women shouldn't interfere—particularly young and pretty girls.
"Then I reckon I'll have to foreclose," he went on relentlessly. "There's nothing else to do." His hands closed tightly, and his hard eyes looked even harder.
"I'm afraid you're right," Gilbert said. "I was afraid it would be inevitable. I couldn't have hoped for anything else."
"I'm sorry," Jasper Hardy announced; but did not mean it.
Gilbert told him so. "Moreover, I know how you got your money," the young man was not afraid to say.
"I know how he got mine, gol darn it!" Uncle Henry cried. Hardy glared at him, seemed to smite him with his eyes.
"I'm not in business for my health," he said coldly.
"Nor for anybody else's," Uncle Henry, unabashed, told him.
Angela feared there was going to be trouble. "Now, daddy, you mustn't—you really mustn't—I feel—"
But her father did not hear her.
"The time's up at eight o'clock," was all he said, and looked sternly at Gilbert, much as a judge who is pronouncing sentence looks at the prisoner at the bar.
"I know it," said Gilbert.
"Now, daddy—" Angela began again.
Hardy was angry at her repeated solicitation. "Will you let me alone? This is my business," he said to her in a firm voice, "Remember that, and don't attempt to put your finger in the pie. This is my business, I tell you."
"Yes, I know daddy; but you needn't be so mean about it."
"I'm a plain man, and I don't believe in beating about the bush. Get that through your head—every one of you, I mean."
"But you might at least be—" his daughter began once more.
"Won't you please keep still?" His rage was mounting; and his brow darkened.
"I only want you to be nice about it, daddy," Angela persisted, sweetly.
"How can anybody be nice about a thing like this?" said the man of iron.
"I know I could be," Angela informed him.
Her father looked at her. "Well, what would you do?"
"Give him his ranch back, of course!"
Jasper Hardy couldn't believe what he had heard, and from his own child. "Well, for the love of heaven!" he cried, and almost burst out laughing.
"We've more ranches now than we know what to do with. Everybody is aware of that."
Here was Uncle Henry's chance. "That's the idea!" he cried. "What do you want it for, anyhow?" But no one paid any attention to him.
"Oh, will you, daddy—for my sake?" Angela pleaded.
Hardy was adamant. "Certainly not! What a stupid request. How did such ideas come into your head?"
"But I don't see why—" the unremitting Angela started to say.
Her father was furious now, and tired of her prattle. He turned to "Red." "Take her out doors, will you?" as though she were a child.
"Red's" face gleamed as if a lantern had been lighted behind it. He turned eagerly to Angela. "Will I!" he cried.
But Angela was scornful. How foolish of "Red" to think her father could dismiss her in this way! She proceeded as though no such suggestion had been made, and addressed her father once more, not in the least perturbed:
"Of course, if you're going to be nasty about it—" Then, sweetly, to Gilbert she continued: "Please don't think too badly of us, Mr. Jones. Father doesn't really mean any harm."
"No more'n a rattlesnake," Uncle Henry leaned out of his chair to whisper in a voice that could be heard by everyone.
"It's just that he doesn't know any better," Angela went on to Gilbert. "He's really very neighborly when he wants to be."
She rose, and "Red" offered her his arm; but she haughtily rejected it, and went out the door, unaware that the devoted and humble "Red" followed her.
Jasper Hardy was glad she had gone. He could speak freely now. He addressed Jones.
"Packed up yet?" he inquired, sarcastically, as though he meant to intimate that his coming journey would be a pleasant one.
Gilbert could have struck him; but he replied quietly: "I'll just put on my hat and I'll be ready."
But the literal-minded Hardy remarked:
"Them crockery, and the rugs?" pointing to the articles significantly.
"The rugs I'm presenting to a friend of mine. The crockery goes to the cook. He has a family, you know." His irony was lost on the imperturbable Hardy, who merely asked:
"And you ain't got anything more to say, Jones?" He watched him closely.
"Nothing of general interest."
But Uncle Henry wasn't going to let matters end here.
"I've got something to say," he announced like an oracle. "Your daughter wants to marry him!" He imagined this would prove a thunderbolt; but Hardy calmly asked:
"How do you know that?"
"Because she told me, that's how! And if only the gol darn fool would do it like I want him to—" He addressed himself suddenly to his nephew, who now stood on the other side of the table: "Aw, come on. Be a good feller, won't you?"
Again this outlandish interfering on the part of Uncle Henry! Was the old fellow losing his reason? There was no privacy in their affairs—everything was an open book to anyone who came to the adobe. It was getting to be unbearable. Gilbert had controlled himself long enough in the presence of others. He was sick and tired of the old man's meddling.
"Keep still!" he warned him, and shook his finger in his face, "Keep still, I say!" His cheeks were scarlet with rage. The blood pounded in his veins.
The invalid never lost his courage. "You won't marry her?" was what he said.
"How can I, you—you—" Gilbert could scarcely stand it any longer.
"Gol darn, the gol darn—" cried Uncle Henry; and then he swerved on Jasper Hardy: "Maybe you can persuade him," he suggested.
"Persuade him to what?"
"To marry her," Smith brazenly said.
"I don't want him to marry her," the father was honest enough to say.
This had never occurred to Uncle Henry. "What's the matter with him?" he asked, his eyes opening wide in amazement.
"It would take too long to tell you." Hardy considered the argument closed; but Uncle Henry came right back again:
"But he's my nevyer!"
"That's one of my main reasons," Hardy cruelly announced; and the only come-back poor Uncle Henry had was an exasperated, "Oh, is that so!" drawled out peevishly, weakly.
"I want his ranch, not him," Hardy went on. He might have been discussing someone not in the room.
"But he's a fine young feller, if I do say so!" Uncle Henry came to Gilbert's rescue, after the manner of all relatives when an outsider steps in with criticism.
"Only a minute ago I heard you call him a gol darn fool!" Hardy triumphantly reminded him.
"There you are," said Gilbert, addressing his uncle. "That's what you get—"
"Do you think I want my darter to marry a gol darn fool?" Hardy fired back at the old man.
Uncle Henry was flabbergasted, completely done for, for the moment. "Well, what the—" But he could get no farther.
Jasper Hardy looked at Gilbert, "Well, now that's settled."
Uncle Henry butted in once more. "You won't let her?"
"Let her what?" A pair of steely eyes were fixed on the questioner.
"Marry him. Won't you?"
"Of course not. What are you talking about, you old fool?"
Uncle Henry was not to be outdone. He whisked around, facing the door, and called at the top of his voice:
"Angely! Angely!"
From the yard came back, "Yes, I'm coming!" and Hardy's daughter ran in, with "Red" at her heels.
"Did you call me?" she wanted to know, looking at all three.
"Yes; I did," said Uncle Henry. "I wanted to tell you that it ain't no use. They won't neither of 'em do nothin'."
"Who won't?" asked Angela, mystified. She hadn't an idea what the old man was talking about.
"The poor stiffs!" said Uncle Henry.
"Do what?" Angela pursued.
"I asked 'em!" the invalid whined.
The girl grew impatient. "For goodness' sake, asked them what?"
"To marry you, of course!"
Angela thought she must be dreaming.
"You—asked him—to marry me?" She looked about her, bewildered.
"Yes; and he turned you down!"
Surely now this must be a dream! "Red," too, was in a daze, suffering vicariously for his adored one.
"Oh!" cried Angela, when a full realization of what Uncle Henry meant came over her.
Uncle Henry went on: "Like your own payrent—the stony-hearted old reptile!"
"Oh, Gil—" began Angela in tears.
"Go on—you ask 'em!" suggested Uncle Henry.
"Gil—" the girl got out the first syllable of his name, and no more; for her little handkerchief was at her pretty nose.
"I'm sorry," said Gilbert, gallantly, going to her. "Please don't feel badly about it."
"Don't—don't speak to me!" Angela sniffed, and stamped her dainty foot. "Don't look at me! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you all!" Blinded with rage and tears, she crossed the room, and stumbled directly into Uncle Henry's chair, and all but tipped him over. "Red" followed her, solicitously.
"Now, Angela—" he said, and tried to grasp her arm. "Remember, I'm here!"
But all the thanks he got was a wild, "Get out of my way!" and he found himself pushed aside, into a corner. Another of her unsuspected tantrums!
"My God!" ejaculated Uncle Henry, furious at Angela's accident, which so directly concerned himself, "but everybody's unreasonable to-day!" He turned harshly on his nephew. "You make me sick, you! Here am I doing my gol darndest to save the mess you've made, and you won't even—" He broke off, unable, in his wrath, to continue. His eye lit on Hardy. "Look here," he cried, in desperation, "ain't there no way out of this thing? It was my money that bought this ranch, you know. And everybody knows it! The last ten thousand dollars I had in the world!" There was a sob in his voice on the last words.
Hardy looked at him, but with no pity in his gaze. "That's your lookout, Smith. Everybody for himself—that's my motto."
"And you'd throw me, old and sick, a invalid, out into the streets?" Uncle Henry whined. No one could get more pathos into his tones than Uncle Henry when he wanted to do so.
"No; I'd let you wheel yourself out," Jasper Hardy, again the literal-minded Hardy, said. It was one of the meanest remarks that even he had ever made.
"Say, ain't you got no heart at all?" Uncle Henry wanted to know.
"I used to have; but it cost me too much money," was Hardy's explanation and vindication. "Sentiment? Bosh!" And he made a gesture of deep disgust.
Uncle Henry wanted to put a curse on him! "Well, all I hope is that some day you'll go broke and they'll bounce you out into Main Street!" He chuckled in his chair.
"The line forms on the left," the imperturbable Hardy said. "You're the fifth that's had that hope this year. I don't care a rap what you think, old feller! Remember that!"
A shadow appeared on the doorsill; and Morgan Pell came in. His face was harder than ever. It was obvious that he had not thrown away the bottle of tequila until he had consumed the contents. His eye lit on Hardy at once, but he said nothing to him. Instead, he meandered toward Gilbert and observed, insolently enough:
"Look here, you've kept me waiting too long. What does this mean, eh?"
"I'm sorry," Gilbert returned. "I forgot all about you for the moment. Oh," he suddenly remembered that Hardy and Pell were unacquainted, "you two gentlemen ought to know each other. Mr. Pell, shake hands with Mr. Hardy."
Pell gave the other a curt nod. "How are you?" was all he could bring himself to say.
"Pleased to meet you," answered Hardy, and turned away, "Red" and Angela, interested spectators of this foolish proceeding, sat together on the little settee by the window near the door, and smiled at the shillyshallying of two grown men who should have known better. Civilization! A mockery, surely, when two men couldn't be amenable in the presence of others—two men who apparently had no reason for treating each other this way.
Pell suddenly addressed Jones. "I forgot to tell you that we're going this afternoon."
"I'm sorry," said his host.
"And before I go," Pell went on, "there's a matter of business I want to talk over with you. So if this gentleman is through—" he indicated Hardy with his thumb.
"Oh, I'll be through, all right—at eight o'clock to-night!" Jasper Hardy announced, and drew several silver dollars out of his trousers pocket and rattled them about in his hand, significantly.
"What do you mean, eight o'clock?" Pell wondered.
Hardy's eyes pierced him through and through. "When I foreclose the mortgage I hold on this ranch. Understand now?"
"When you foreclose...." Pell repeated the words as if he had not quite comprehended. Then he said to young Jones: "You said this ranch belongs to you?" What was the matter with him? Was his mind clouding? The stuff he had drunk? He put his hand to his forehead.
"It does," Gilbert explained. "You see, it isn't eight o'clock yet." A faint smile came to his lips.
Hardy failed to see the humor of the situation. "It's as good as eight o'clock, as far as he's concerned." And he rattled the silver coins again.
"Oh, is that so?" said Pell, beginning to see daylight. To young Jones he said: "How far is it to town?"
"Twenty miles, I should say."
Pell thought a second, "Is that flivver of yours working, Jones?"
"In a way."
Pell thought harder. "We've got plenty of time," he said, as if to himself. "Five hours! Get your hat," turning to the young man.
Gilbert was confused. "What's the idea?"
"We're going to pay the mortgage, of course. How much is it?"
"Shouldn't you have asked that first—as a good business man?"
"Answer me: how much is it?"
"Ten thousand dollars," came the quick response.
"And your equity?" Pell pursued, businesslike enough now.
"Another ten thousand."
He thought Morgan Pell would be stunned. Instead, he merely said, "I'll give you twenty thousand. That'll pay the mortgage and give you your ten back. You can give me an option while I'm arranging payment. Get me? That'll save time."
"You mean you'll give me twenty thousand dollars for this ranch?" Gilbert said, unable to understand.
"Exactly. Will you take it?"
"You bet your life he'll take it!" cried Uncle Henry, whom everyone had forgotten in the excitement of the moment. He rolled his chair expertly to the table, and peered into his nephew's face, fearing he would make a fool of himself once more. He was trembling with excitement.
"Then that's settled," Pell announced.
Unnoticed, Lucia had come to the top of the stairway, and stood listening to every word. And Hardy, who had been trying his best to get a word in edgewise, finally managed to cry out:
"Wait a minute!"
No one paid any attention to him. Gilbert was in deep meditation. He turned to Pell. "But I don't want to be under any obligation to you," he said.
"You won't," the other affirmed, and anxiety was in his voice. "Well, is it a go?"
"A go?" yelled Uncle Henry, unable to restrain himself. "It's gone!"
Hardy stepped in between Pell and Jones.
"Hold on, there! You can't do this."
Pell looked him squarely in the face, "Why not, I'd like to know."
"You mean you'd do me out of this property at the last minute?" Jasper Hardy asked.
Pell smiled. "That's my specialty!"
Indignation was in every fiber of Hardy's gaunt frame. He was losing his temper, and he was wise enough to know that that would never do. The unforgivable sin was to lose control of oneself. He must hold on to his voice, his movements; but a nest of hornets, under attack, could not have been angrier. "I protest!" he said, as calmly as he could. "Here I been settin' around waitin' for this place for five years! You can't come here an' take it away from me like this! No, sir, I won't have it!"
"Look here," Gilbert stepped in and said. "You're getting your money! What are you boiling about?"
"Red" had been listening attentively. He came close to Gilbert now, and said, "He wants the place. Didn't he just say so?"
"The place?" Gilbert repeated. "What the devil does he want the place for?"
Pell was growing impatient. There was too much quibbling. "We're losing time. Come on, let's get things settled."
Jones, however, was not to be hurried. "But I want to know why he wants this place so much." His suspicions were thoroughly aroused.
No one had observed Uncle Henry, who had silently wheeled his chair about until he got to the table, where Pell had left his satchel long ago. Like a curious old woman he now picked it up, brazenly opened it, and exclaimed:
"Hey! What the Sam Hill!" and backed away; but not until he had dipped his hands into the bag.
"What's the matter?" Gilbert asked, turning.
"It's full o' dirt! Just dirt!" Uncle Henry cried, and glanced about to see the effect of his surprising information.
"Dirt?" Gilbert said, not understanding.
"Yes, look!" And the old man pointed to the bag.
"But whose bag is it?" Gilbert persisted.
Uncle Henry lifted a thin finger and directed it to Pell. "His'n!" he said.
But Gilbert was still in a daze.
"But what in the world could anybody be taking specimens of the soil around here for?" he inquired, and then began to think.
"Just to show the character of the ground, to see what will grow best," Pell hastened to explain.
"But it won't grow nothin'—not even rocks, an' you know it," the occupant of the wheel chair said. Then a new thought came to him, and he shot out, "By golly, I got it! He's an oil man, ain't he?"
Pell, furious, cried, "Oh, shut up! You old busybody!"
"He wants to buy this ranch because there's oil here!" Uncle Henry went on, not dismayed in the least at the other's insult.
"Bah!" Pell scornfully ejaculated.
Gilbert's face was a study. His eyes went from one to another in the room. "Oil?" he said. "Oil?"
"Yes, an' that's why he wants it, too!" cried Uncle Henry, pointing to Hardy this time, "The big skin!"
Pell took up the satchel—the little bag that had caused such a big sensation—and walked over to Uncle Henry's chair.
"Why, you poor old dotard, there's no oil in these specimens. You can smell 'em yourself if you want to," he said. But there was something in his manner of the lady who doth protest too much.
"No, I can't," Uncle Henry was swift to deny. "My smeller's no good." He sniffed comically—as if that proved his point.
"Let him examine them, then," suggested Pell, holding the satchel out to Gilbert, who stood on the other side of the table.
But Gilbert said nothing. It was Uncle Henry who again blurted out:
"That don't prove nothin'. Mebbe he hasn't found the oil yet. But it's here! If it ain't, why should you be fightin' so hard to get this rotten place? Tell me that, will you? Nobody else ever wanted it—except this kindly neighbor of ours!" He glared at Hardy triumphantly.
Pell was silent. Gilbert came to himself.
"Oil!" he said. "Then this ranch, instead of being worth nothing, would be worth hundreds of thousand of dollars—maybe millions!" He had taken the bag from Pell's extended hand, and now turned in dismay and confusion to the window, and put the bag on a chair. What a world it was, and how terrible that every other man seemed to be a predatory animal, ready to spring upon his neighbor and wrest anything he had away from him. What a world, indeed! No wonder young men lost their faith and courage!
"Millions!" The word caught Uncle Henry's fancy and imagination. He rolled it over on his tongue again and again. "Millions!" He babbled it, he played with it. "Millions!"
"Yes!" Gilbert said. "Think of that!" He turned and faced the others once more.
"An' we're goin' to get skinned out of millions! Oh, my Gawd!" The poor old invalid wailed it out, and rocked himself in his chair. How he wished he could rise, step out on the floor and knock Pell and Hardy down! Why didn't his strong and husky young nephew do it? What was the matter with the present generation, anyhow? Wasn't there any red blood in it? If he had only been younger, and strong, able to fight for what he knew to be his rights! But here he was, tied down in a wheel chair, trapped, helpless, impotent.
Pell was getting nervous, "This is nonsense," he said. "There's no oil here."
During all this long harangue, Lucia had quietly come down the stairs, and now stood directly behind her husband.
"And this is why you were so anxious to come here," she said, very low; yet everyone heard her statement. "To dig around, and then, if you found oil, to try to buy this place! Oh, I thought better of you than that, Morgan! What a trick—what a dishonorable trick!" She shuddered away from him. She almost hated him in this revealing moment.
"And why not?" was all her husband said. "Hadn't I a right to look for oil here? Suppose it was on the place?"
"You wouldn't have told him if you had found it! You know you wouldn't," his wife shot back at him.
Pell glared at her, fury in the look. "What do you think I am? Crazy?" he argued.
"But that isn't honest!" Lucia fearlessly said. "It's as crooked as it can be! And you know it."
"But it's legal!" Pell fired back. "And what do I care—what does anybody care—so long as it's legal! Ha! the courts would be with me! Moreover, it's the way you get the clothes you wear and the food you eat, and all those jewels that you hang on yourself when you undress and go to the opera!"
As he spoke, angrily, he went over to the chair where Gilbert had left the satchel, seized it and threw it on the floor, as though its contents were a symbol of the money she tossed away.
There was no use replying to a man like Pell. Lucia knew that. He was indignant that she had seen through his treachery. Here he was, a guest of Gilbert Jones, eating at his table day after day, pretending to be his friend, and all the while he had been planning this! And she had seemed to be a part of it all. What must Gilbert think of her? What must everybody think of her?
It was Hardy who broke the tension.
"Say," he wanted to know, "who's this woman, and what's she busting into this for? We've had enough of petticoats around here for one day, it seems to me."
Uncle Henry was swift to inform him. "I'll tell you who she is—she's his wife!" And he pointed to Pell. "But she loves him!" And he pointed to Gilbert.
It was as though a bomb had exploded. Terror came into Gilbert's eyes, and fury into Morgan Pell's.
"What's that?" the latter cried, aghast. As a madman might, he stared at Gilbert for an instant; then his gaze shot in the direction of his wife, standing so calm at the other side of the table.
Young Jones almost made up his mind, in that blinding moment, to choke Uncle Henry once for all, and have it done with. This was the last stroke, the final straw. He could stand it no longer. He stalked over to his uncle, and really intended to lay violent hands on him; but of course he could not. That defenseless old man, that pathetic figure seemed to wilt before his piercing eyes, seemed to shrivel and literally fall to pieces. In hot disgust, Gilbert could only cry out:
"How dare you! How dare you, I say! This is the crowning interference!" He had put his hands behind his back and braced his shoulders, fearing that he would not be responsibile for what he did.
Uncle Henry, seeing that he was safe, came back to the fray.
"Well, you couldn't marry her," indicating Lucia, "an' you wouldn't marry her," pointing to Angela. "I guess I got some right to protect myself, ain't I?"
"Protect yourself!" repeated Gilbert, cynicism in his tone. He turned his back on them all and moved to the window. His very shoulders revealed the mental struggle he was going through.
Morgan Pell's eyes, all this time, had never left his wife. He studied her countenance as a pathologist might that of a person thought to be insane, and Lucia almost gave way under his relentless analysis. "Red," seeing the turn affairs had taken, quietly drew his gun, and Angela, frightened, put her hands over her shell-like ears. If there was one thing she dreaded, it was a shot. She was trembling like a leaf. She closed her eyes. She knew that "Red," in his devotion to Gilbert, would not hesitate to kill Pell.
With an inscrutable expression, Morgan Pell murmured, "H'm!" Then he turned swiftly on Uncle Henry and asked, "You have proof, I suppose?"
"Proof?" cried Uncle Henry.
"Yes."
"My Gawd," the invalid fairly shrieked, "all you gotter do is look at 'em! I been watchin' 'em ever since you came."
At this, Gilbert honestly believed that Uncle Henry had lost his reason. Surely this was the insane delusion of a senile old man; and he said as much to Pell.
"Senile yourself!" cried Uncle Henry, mad through and through, feeling he was immune from any attack. "Gol darn you!"
So there was no shutting Uncle Henry up! Gilbert, in despair, turned to Pell. "You don't believe it! You can't believe it!" he said. "This is madness—"
Pell said not a word; he seemed to be in deep thought. Suddenly his whole manner changed, his voice as well, and he faced Gilbert frankly.
"Certainly I don't believe it. My confidence in my wife is implicit."
The metamorphosis was unbelievable. At least Uncle Henry thought so.
"Well, I always heard that husbands was boobs!" he announced, sarcastically.
Angela at that instant opened her eyes and took her fingers from her ears. Enough time had elapsed, she thought, for the worst to have happened.
"Has it gone off yet?" she naïvely asked.
"Has what gone off?" from Pell.
"Why, the gun, of course!" Angela replied.
"Gun?"
She looked at "Red." "He had one, and I thought maybe he'd shoot you, or maybe you'd shoot Gilbert, or maybe—Aren't you going to shoot him?"
"What for?"
"I thought that was what husbands always did!"
Pell smiled. "Not sensible husbands, my dear." Then he faced Gilbert again. "To go back to where we were: I will admit that there is a possibility of oil in this property. But it is only a possibility." The strain was broken. Everyone looked relieved. Lucia moved for the first time—she had been like a frightened bird under the spell of a serpent. "I'm a business man," Pell went on, suavely. "I'm willing to gamble twenty thousand dollars."
"You will?" cried Uncle Henry. There was no quieting him. His life was one long question-mark.
"It's a fair proposition, and, as far as I can see, your only way out, Jones." He had paid no attention to the old man's interruption. But the latter broke in once more:
"Why don't you lend us the ten thousand and let us gamble?"
Pell was in no wise disconcerted by the query. He replied with another question—always the shrewd man's way out of a difficulty, "Would you, in my place?"
"Sure I would!" came from the wheel chair.
"Oh, you would—"
"Yes, sir!"
Pell had nothing further to say to him, but addressed himself to Gilbert again.
"However, if you don't think that offer fair, I'll give you twenty thousand cash and assume the mortgages."
"Twenty thousand?" Uncle Henry's eyes opened wide.
"Well, what do you say?" Pell wanted to know, still addressing Gilbert. He had no taste for Smith's constant interruptions.
But Hardy broke in, confounded by this talk. He saw himself slipping out of the transactions. "If you think you're going to ..."
Pell paid no heed to what he said. "If I were in your place," he remarked to young Jones, "it wouldn't take me long to decide. You see, from me you get twenty thousand dollars clean. Otherwise, the place goes to him." He nodded toward Hardy. "And you get nothing. It's mighty plain—as plain as the nose on your face. I'm a plain man, and I don't quibble. I've made you a direct offer. Nothing could be fairer. Well?"
Gilbert didn't pause or hesitate a second. "All right. Give him the ten thousand," indicating Hardy.
Morgan Pell was visibly relieved. Things seemed to be going his way, just as he had planned. Sturgis had been right, after all. He rubbed his hands in satisfaction, "And now, to facilitate matters," he said, "if you will give us a ten-day option on the place, at a purchase price of thirty thousand ..." He went to the table, and arranged pen and paper, and motioned Gilbert to be seated and write.
The latter was in the chair at once. "Thank you, no. Twenty," he said, and began to write.
"Twenty?" Pell repeated, and stroked his chin. He must be wary; he must go cautiously with this young fellow. He would see through him if he didn't. "Certainly. Your first offer is the one I take," Gilbert said in a firm voice.
Uncle Henry couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You mean you ain't going to take the other ten?" he cried, in surprise. Gilbert never looked up from his writing. The pen was moving swiftly over the paper. Uncle Henry was on the verge of a nervous breakdown then and there. He looked at Pell, eagerly. "Give it to me! I'll take it!"
But Pell only said: "Mr. Jones is the owner of this property," and watched the young man write.
Angela, like a timid bird, watched the proceedings breathlessly, and moved over close to her big father and put her little hand in his arm, "Isn't there anything we can do, dad?" she inquired.
Hardy pressed her fingers, and said, in a whisper: "But I'm not sure there's oil here. I'm not sure at all."
"But he seems to be," said the shrewd Angela, looking at Morgan Pell with his wily countenance.
"Oh, these New York fellers!" Hardy deprecated. "You never can tell!"
Gilbert rose.
"Finished?" asked Pell.
"Quite." And young Jones handed him the option on the property.